This penetrator/penetratee argument to me seems wrong. I’m not gay but as I understand, anal sex is rare among the gay community. Oral and mutual masturbation is more common as it’s more in line to our basic biology. The same goes with lesbians. Strap-on sex is rare compared to mutual oral/toy.
Gayness is about attraction. Men are sexually attracted to other men. Women are sexually attracted to other women. That’s all there is to it. How they climax is another sorting process all together. Biologically, the orgasm process ist he same. It’s just an issue of arousal. It’s really not even an issue of sex or gender.
I won’t argue with your second paragraph, and I have little experience in the lesbian world. but your understanding of what gay men do is almost certainly statistically incorrect. I have met a few who were not interested in anal sex, but in my experience they are in the minority. There are probably studies that would give a more definitive answer.
Again, this is a side issue to this thread, and your second paragraph is the one that the OP needs to be paying attention to. It’s not what you do, but who you do it with (and why).
Roddy
I was of the understanding that, while most gay men have/enjoy anal sex, it isn’t the most commonly performed sex act. For a heterosexual couple, sex almost always means PIV penetration until climax. But I thought (perhaps wrongly) that gay men more frequently have sex in other ways. I always assumed this was because there’s a certain amount of preparation involved in anal sex, but I don’t know if I read that or just made it up. Anyway, I was definitely under the impression that anal sex for gay men is less common than PIV sex is for heterosexuals. Obviously, this would vary by couple as well though.
My experience is wide, but not wide enough to cover this question. Perhaps there are studies on the subject. Pancake3 said “rare”, though, which is not the same as “less often than hetero couples” or “less often than other methods.” And there could be a whole other thread, with high potential for TMI, on whether or how much advance prep is necessary.
Again, though, I don’t want to derail the thread or shift focus from the main issue. I just wanted to keep the record straight (so to speak).
Roddy
For the record: Most gay men engage in anal sex; oral sex is often part of foreplay. Those of us who prefer oral sex are in a minority. And those of us who NEVER engage in anal sex are in a smaller minority. But don’t forget, there are many other activities that both gay and straight people engage in, e.g. BDSM.
“Engage in” is a somewhat complex term.
Most heterofolk engage in anal sex, if you want to put it that way.
But it’s not something most people do most of the time.
Asexual. People who are not sexually attracted to either sex.
I was once discussing this in the office cafeteria with an asexual young man, and some religious buttinsky stated “But God wants men and women to be together.” He replied “Do you really think God cares whether I get my orgasms by being laid or (small pause, while he thinks of a better term than “jerking off”) masturbating?” Shut her the hell up
Not that this is an important point, but I’d be surprised if this were true. The only numbers I could find suggest something like 20-40% have tried it at least once.
ETA this quote, since my post answers your question:
I don’t have a cite, but what I remember hearing was that a majority of gay men have had anal sex at least once in their lives, but that it’s a minority of gay men who have anal sex more often than they have oral sex.
I did find this 2011 CDC report (PDF) which indicates (Table 10, p. 27) that, of men aged 15-44 who’ve ever had any sort of sex with another man, nearly all have had oral sex with a man. A little more than half have had anal sex with a man. This isn’t that different from the figures for men who’ve ever had any sort of sex with a woman (Table 6, p. 22) – nearly all have had oral sex with a woman, and about 40% have had anal sex with a woman. But of course this doesn’t tell us anything about how frequently these sex acts occur, and “men who’ve ever had sex with a man” and “men who’ve ever had sex with a woman” isn’t quite the same thing as gay men and straight men.
