This video, as it is from XTube, is obviously NSFW. But it's pretty friggen hot.
The thread had an accompanying poll asking how people viewed anal sex in terms of their own sexuality. Some of the people on the thread, including SFBayDude (the originator of the discussion, and someone I would consider a friend) drew the conclusion that the majority of gainers and encouragers didn’t feel like anal sex was important to them.
This really riled me, and similarly riled a couple of my pals that I was discussing it with.
Although I have the utmost respect for SFBayDude, and everyone who tried to add constructively to the thread on BellyBuilders, I feel that the conclusions drawn from the the poll and SFBayDude’s subsequent blogpost are both flawed and misleading.
The issue with all of the discussion starts on a flawed premise -the idea that the poll in the message board was either representative of the Gainer/Encourager community or correctly interpreted by the people responding. I don’t believe either of those assertions to be true.
First, the obvious limitations of a poll on the BellyBuilders message board are many and varied (even though they’re pretty unavoidable). The poll only had a relatively small sample size (as of the time of me writing this, 264 people has responded). As of my writing this, over 40,000 thousand accounts have been registered on BeefyFrat. This small sample is compounded by the bias that having it on the BellyBuilders message board exclusively creates. Without trying to put down BellyBuilders, I know plenty of people that simply avoid the BellyBuilders message board completely because they feel like it’s dominated by a handful of unpleasant people (a point highlighted by the unrelated and obnoxious rants that derailed the thoughtful discussion on the thread). Therefore, there might simply be a link between the subtype of gainers/encouragers who frequent BellyBuilders and the results, and not gainers and encouragers on the whole. The fact that you had to be signed up for an account with BellyBuilders to respond to the poll further intensifies this factor.
My biggest issue is with the wording of the poll. Although it’s obvious that SFBayDude put intelligent thought into designing his poll, there are some pretty big issues with the wording.
First, it left a big swath of confusing middle ground data that people then lumped into the anti anal sex category. The middle ground option is as follows:
“I'M INDIFFERENT: Sometimes I like it, sometimes not”
Now, even for people I know who really enjoy anal sex, basically anyone can resonate with the phrase “Sometimes I like it, sometimes not.” I personally really enjoy anal sex under the right circumstances, but have zero desire to engage in it unless it’s within the realm of my own limits. Although I see anal sex as an important part of an intimate relationship, and central part of a fulfilling sex life, under many circumstances, I would really not want to do it.
The second most anal sex positive option of the poll is:
“I LOVE IT: It's usually what gets me off”
The second most anal sex negative option of the poll is:
“I DISLIKE IT: I might do it for the right guy, but it's not my thing at all”
I feel these options confuse the variable of enjoying anal sex under the right circumstances with the idea of only liking anal sex if you want to have it all the time and never do anything else. They’re two very different things. Just cause you only would do it with “the right guy” doesn’t mean that it’s not your thing at all. It might likely mean that you think that anal sex is a personal, intimate practice that you want to share with someone you care about.
I commend SFBayDude for his attempt to not only examine the frequency, but also the feelings of gay men engaging in anal sex. I am very thankful for all of his efforts to better understand the sex lives of gainers and encouragers, but I don’t think saying things such as “almost 2/3 of all gainers are at best apathetic about, if not outright turned off by, anal sex” is helpful. While it was a nice first step into investigating the sex lives of gainers and encouragers, I don’t think we have enough data at all to make such sweeping generalizations. They’ll just serve to further divide an already relatively small group.
One could liken the attempt to prescribe a set of “normal” sexual wants onto gainers & encouragers as analogous to the hypocritical attempts of the gay community to define that “twinks” were what it was “normal” for a gay may to be attracted to... And we all know how well that worked out. lol
I know I sound like an enormous nerd typing all of this, and I know that I’m prolly taking all of this way too seriously but, it’s something I feel passionate about and this is my blog so ha! haha
Where SFBayDude and I do agree on is that you should have whatever kind of sex you want. No one can tell you what’s right for you, and no one should. It’s your life, it’s your body, and if you’re reading this blog, you’re already too in touch with your deepest, most inborn desires to not be having the kind of exactly the kind of sex you want to have.
Thanks for bearing with me and my rant. Gainers, Encouragers and Sex are all topics very close to my heart, and I obviously have strong feelings about this topic.
Coming Soon; Gainers & Encouragers & Sex Part II:The Fun Stuff - Tips & Tricks
