I stumbled across 50Faggots today through their Facebook group. Their website is stunning, as is the footage they've collected from interviews with 10 femme gay boys in NYC, DC, and Chicago over the past two years that you get a taste of in the trailer below:

Can't wait to see more! They're having a launch party May 13th at Hydrate in Chicago, hosted by the *incredible* Cyon Flare (who I saw perform back in 2008) and Acid Betty. Road trip!

The data we've all been waiting for! The Kinsey Confidential has up data released from Condomania -- the largest condom store on the web -- that ranks cities based on dick sized based on the orders they get for sized condoms. Condomania explains their "methods":

So just how does Condomania know these intimate details? In 2004, the company launched TheyFit Condoms, the world's first line of tailored-fit prophylactics, in 76 sizes. Since then they have sold custom-fit condoms to over 27,000 men in 70 countries, and now have just begun to analyze this incredible cache of data.

"These fitted condoms range in length from 3 to 10 inches and from super slim to extra roomy." says Chris Filkins, Condomania's Directory of Technology. "After gathering detailed information on over 27,000 penises, we now have the most comprehensive database of penis sizes on the planet! Needless to say, these men's privacy is our utmost concern, and we're interested only in the statistics, and not who's who! But the data itself is pretty interesting."

Previously, the largest formal survey of penis sizes was conducted in 1948 by the famous Kinsey researchers, when 2,500 men recorded their erect penis sizes on pre-stamped cards.

Condomania's ten-times larger database is compiled from the unique "FitKit" measuring system for TheyFit condoms, where the user measures the length and girth of his erect penis to the millimeter and then matches those results to one of 76 possible sizes that comprise different length and girth combinations. In this system, the 76 sizes are comprised of non-sequential letters and numbers, so that the smallest is no more obvious than the largest.

They also include data on the top ranked states based on penis size, and in that formulation, New Hampshire of all places wins the prize:

1. New Hampshire
2. Oregon
3. New York
4. Indiana
5. Arizona
6. Hawaii
7. Louisiana
8. Massachusetts
9. Alabama
10. Washington
11. New Mexico
12. California
13. Arkansas
14. Nevada
15. Virginia
16. Tennessee
17. Illinois
18. Oklahoma
19. South Dakota
20. Georgia
21. Pennsylvania
22. Mississippi
23. Michigan
24. Florida
25. Rhode Island
26. Kansas
27. Maryland
28. Minnesota
29. Vermont
30. Connecticut
31. Wisconsin
32. New Jersey
33. North Dakota
34. Idaho
35. Texas
36. Missouri
37. Montana
38. Ohio
39. Nebraska
40. Colorado
41. Maine
42. North Carolina
43. Delaware
44. South Carolina
45. Kentucky
46. West Virginia
47. Alaska
48. Iowa
49. Utah
50. Wyoming

Moral of the story: I'm not moving to Wyoming anytime soon.

Thanks to Eric for the link

I noticed this special while hopping around the web today. When you book travel with Orbitz before March 31st, they'll donate to two LGBT charities that you pick out of a list of a dozen or so. Pretty sweet deal! If you're planning any travel before that time, it's worth thinking about!:

Click here for more info.

[ Image redacted -- see here ]

Manhunt's blog, "Manhunt Daily," was kind enough to post the latest "View From the Bottom" and one of the tips that came out of that episode: Listerine Strips are wonderful accessories to a good rimjob. There's a new marketing strategy, guys! LOL.

And just quickly, to pretend for a moment to be serious, there was an interesting comment in the comments on that entry that I wanted to highlight. Criticizing any attempt to "cover up" the "real" taste of ass, Gary says:

So come on guys pony up...you all say you want to be with and fuck men...then fuck men, not trimmed, shaved, waxed, perfumed, pepperminted versions of a man...

I get the desire to attach value to bodies that aren't conforming to certain standards of mordern hygiene. I think that's A-okay! The problem for me comes in the second half of that statement, in which he DEvalues guys who are shaven, perfurmed, etc. This is precisely the kind of tendency I notice in bear culture and other gay men's subcultures that fantasize about some kind of "naturalized" masculinity. Rather than simply saying, "Hey we have a different version of hot," they have to tack on "And your version of hot is feminine, pathetic, and fake." Basically on their way to creating new forms of hotness they reinscribe stigma against femme guys (and other men who value being clean-shaven, etc). Do what you want, guys -- but c'mon, your version of hot is not somehow better than my version of hot.

We need a pluralism of hotness!

A few days ago, I published a piece that managed to re-posted on numerous blogs (here, here, here, to name a few) that critiqued the use of "serosorting" as a rationale for refusing to have sex with Poz men when condoms are used. A flurry of interesting and highly productive conversations came out of this piece that center around a number of problematics: Rationality vs. Emotionality (as noted in Daniel's response piece); Responsibility vs. Recklessness; and Individual Rights vs. Collective Ethics, to name a few.

But alongside these productive conversations came what I see as a highly vitriolic and slanderous response that emerged in the responses on Qweerty -- a kind of mainstream gay blog that gets quite a bit of traffic. I see a big part of the issue here as resulting from the title the folks at Qweerty assigned the repost:

As you can see, they've suggested here that I called people who refused to sleep with Poz men "assholes." I didn't, and I don't think that -- just to be totally clear. I don't know much about Qweerty, but in the past I've certainly seen comments there that suggest a pretty conservative readership when it comes to sex. But I had no way of anticipating the anger and vitriol that has spilled out in the comments against me and my arguments. I certainly understand that these issues are highly emotional, but most readers did not engage the arguments -- they opted instead to call me names. Ouch.

But I'm a big boy. I can take a bit of name-calling. You work long enough in HIV prevention, and you realize that someone's going to smear your name if you say anything that differs from the party-line prevention soundbites. So in the interest of making something productive happen out of this violence, I wanted to take a moment to see if there were underlying logics in the nearly 100 comments that were enabling the anger -- logics that anyone interested in unpacking the politics of prevention should be interested in. Here we go.

1) "I take it this was written by someone Pos." & "hell no. he sounds like som sort of con man": A number of readers suspected that I must be HIV-positive for writing this. I think this is INCREDIBLY telling about the kind of divisive and polarizing kinds of conversations that are all too common in our communities. I'm not HIV-positive, but why does this matter so much? The subtle underhanded suggestion here is that I must be HIV-positive because I seem to be trying to coerce negative men into having sex with me.

2) "Trevor, you have no idea about the breadth of the stigma associated with HIV+ status; and only the few of us very long-term poz, and their friends and boyfriends, who witnessed and were subject to it do.": Let me try to translate: I've got the misery, keep your hands off. This is clear boundary-drawing, attempting to say that I have no right to discuss this issue because of my negative status. All too common when discussing issues of stigmatized minorities.

3) "What a nut. He seemed to also want to outright say -- but didn't -- that it was the duty of negative guys show their commitment to positive guys by fucking them.": Like the comments in #1, these readers presumed that I believed there was some kind of charitable commitment necessary for neg guys to be coerced into fucking poz guys. Again this is really not the point. The point is that there are prevention discourses circulating that making refusing sex with poz men seem entirely logical, and I'm challenging the logical bases by which that refusal becomes obvious or rational. Fuck whoever you want, but don't pretend like it's obviously just about self-preservation

4) "Hoppe is using the same tired rationalizations the community used in the eighties. I'm glan [sic] folks are seeing through this bulls-t. We have to stop aids in our community now. We've known the transmission method for years. And the available strategies have been obvious for years: positives only with positives, negatives only with negatives, honesty and caring for everyone, peer group pressure on thoughtless barebackers, condoms always for negatives except in a monogamous relationship when trust is rock solid. If anyone's feelings are hurt by this, tough s-it.": I think this comment speaks for itself. Here the claim is made that the only strategies for prevention transmission are 100% serosorting, shaming people who don't use condoms, and only allowing for unprotected sex within relationships. And I say: Tell that to the 68% of new infections that are estimated to be the result of condomless sex with people's primary partners. And obviously the pathologization of "thoughtless barebackers" is the kind of shaming that does nobody an ounce of good.

5) "I'm fed up with having to dance around the constantly shifting, ever increasing sexual minefield that horny, unconcerned poz men represent.": In this readers's mind -- and in many others -- the responsibility for transmission rests squarely on the backs of poz men. As if neg guys share none of that responsibility. As if the men leaving the backroom are akin to murderers. This is worse that stigmatization, it's criminal slandering -- and its the kind of hateful logic that Public Health scholars and institutions have too often served to promote and help disseminate in their efforts. I'm not saying poz guys are totally without any responsibility here, but c'mon.

and finally, my absolute favorite:

6) "Is it wrong to refuse to take a ride on a train you know has no brakes? Jesus, how can anyone write such a self serving, irresponsible idiotic article?": Wowzer! There's a lot going on here. First, it obviously equates having sex with Poz guys to getting on a train headed for certain death. I don't think I need to explain why that's the most disingenuous comparison I've heard in months.

Phew. I think I need to take a few days off from blogging. This was quite an intense ride. In the end, I'm reminded of something my mentor Eric Rofes wrote before he died (see pp. 6-7 of THRIVING, PDF found here):

I recently published on a gay news website an editorial viewpoint that attempted to open up new ways of thinking about HIV prevention, crystal use, and gay men who occasionally have sex without condoms. I was attempting to offer new vision. I understood the risk of attempting to offer new thinking and introduce complex concepts in a brief article on a popular website, but I did my best to inject some fresh thinking about risk-taking and the hazards of social marketing into a discussion which has become predictable and, at times, trite. At the same time, despite my awareness of the challenge I was taking on, I had not expected the rage reflected in some of the letters of response from readers. A sampling follows:

Patrick Syring from Arlington, Virgina, wrote:

"Your advocacy for barebacking and party drugs is abhorrent and disgusting. Gaymen like you tarnish the rest of us who play safe and cherish life more than you do. I hope you die painlessly but quickly."

Anthony Altieri wrote:

"Your article is one of the stupidest things I have ever seen in print. You are obviously a fucking idiot...You cannot blame people's self-destructive behaviors on prevention campaigns. Have you ever heard of a little thing called "personal responsibility"? Probably not. There are plenty of reasons people make unwise decisions: addictive behavior, loneliness, desperation, isolation, lack of purpose in their lives, lack of education, but I am confident you will NEVER find a case of 'I have uprotected sex and use drugs because I saw a poster telling me to use a condom.' The aids [sic] epidemic has been ongoing since the early '80s. DEAL WITH IT. USE A CONDOM YOU FREAKING MORON. Please do us all a favor, unplug your computer and refrain from subjecting the world to any more of your bullshit. Go sit quietly in your bedroom with the lights off, avoiding the realities of life. You seem to be pretty good at that anyway."

Why do conversations among gay men about HIV, barebacking, crystal use, and bathhouses get so ugly and divisive? Why are they argued in such a vehement manner? Are they simply another example of internecine warfare driven by personality conflicts, ego battles, and bad manners? How can we make sense out of distinct visions that seem to underlie these debates: one which argues that the crisis moment of AIDS has passed for gay men and one which berates gay men for taking a single step beyond the bomb shelter we've inhabited since the early 1980s? Why is gay men's sex so frequently the target of such contentious debate and demonization? How did we reach a point where there are such deep divisions among gay men about sexual health and safety? And in what ways do vehement responses to new vision effectively serve to keep out of our movement fresh, innovative thinkers offering fresh analyses?

Amen.

This slightly manipulated educational video teaching kids to use the Internet brings the LOLs:

Via Andrew Sullivan

Via the wonderful, fantastic FAILBlog:

Thanks for keeping me updated, CNN. Jesus H. Christ.

There are numerous sites out there to document, but this one had me falling off my chair:

Go here to see a few more! Thanks to Gabe for the link.

Oh the many ways gay men have devised to say "no fats!" The latest phrase to rise to prominence is "height / weight proportionate" (or "hwp" as its abbreviated -- see above) -- which is a curious expression indeed. What exactly does it mean to be height / weight proportionate? And why has it quickly become the preferred alternative to "in shape"; "fit"; "active"; etc? A few thoughts.

Describing the kind of bodies that turn you on is not always such an easy task. Our language is somewhat imprecise. Anyone who's ever queried the meaning of a "swimmers build" is bound to see the vagaries that riddle online profiles. Indeed, we are tasked as gay men to choose a simple phrase to describe our body type from a list of options. For instance, Manhunt's options:

This list of options clearly does not come with a codebook. Deciding which to pick is in part about defining the way you identify and want others to identify you -- and not necessarily about attempting to accurately portray your body's shape / size / etc. Indeed, we see here that identity categories have woven their way into this set of options: Bear, Twink, and Cub are all suspicious here. They refer more to a cultural identity than they do to a particular body type (albeit, the two are closely related). For instance, Twink implies Slim -- yet the two are offered as separate categories. But perhaps it also implies hairless or smooth -- adding yet another layer of description implied here. It also implies young, which seems to be further off the mark in terms of what this drop-down menu is allegedly intended to describe. In any case, you can see the complexities and problems that arise here.

Since the advent of gay personals, gay men have come up with all sorts of ways to describe their own selves -- and the kind of men that they find hot. "No fats, no fems" was and still is a relatively common phrase found in profiles and ads looking for sex. But recently there has been a turn towards this curious phrase that is the subject of this blog post: Height / weight proportionate.

Let's presume that this means -- at least -- that there is a range of proportions between a person's height and weight, and that there is a subset of these ranges that is desirable. That seems clear. But isn't this a peculiar way to phrase this? I mean, anyone can be said to have a proportion between their height and weight. Are some of those proportions wrong?

Let's try this out. I am 69 inches tall, and weight 180 pounds. In other words, my height-to-weight ratio is about 0.38. I would consider myself in the "Average" body type range, whatever that means. Let's take another case -- a self-described "Body Builder" who looks damn stacked in his Manhunt pictures. Muscles on top of muscles. Presuming his reporting is accurate, he is 68 inches tall and weighs 185 pounds. His height-to-weight ratio is about 0.37. Does that somehow make his proportion worse? Better? You can see how silly this all becomes.

In the end, I think hwp rose to fame because of a combination of the exponentially escalating use of statistics when it comes to describe our bodies and our health (BMIs, etc). It connotes a kind of numerical preciseness that "Physically Fit" seems to lack. But as I hope I've made clear, it is no more precise. It's just as vague and nebulous a term as those that preceded it.

What's a more precise way to say what turns you on? If you're into lean guys, just say lean. It's very clear. If you're into guys with a lot of muscle, just say that. It may always be helpful to give examples, too. "Looking for guys built like David Beckham." Okay, so maybe that's a bit outrageous. But it's worth giving it a try. Because the problem with vague terms is not just that it makes it hard to read what you're into, but it makes the person considering responding to your ad double-guess whether or not he meets your requirements. Using more clear language helps entice those who fit your guidelines, and weed out those who don't. And -- for better or worse -- that's what profile-based hookup sites are all about.

So I was doing my monthly Google search of myself (you know, for scientific purposes of course), when I stumbled upon this answer to a user's question on ChaCha (you text them questions, they text answers back -- its totally amazing when you're sans-iPhone):

Before you chuckle, do remember that there are precisely two Trevor Hoppe's out there. Myself, of course -- but also a basketball coach in California!!!!! I pray that the person seeking that answer was referring to him, and not me. Amazing!

Note, also, the categorization under "Celebrities." Hahahahaha. Oh ChaCha! How you bring me such narcissistic joy.

I'm selling mine on Ebay! 30 GB, Black, 5th generation, in great working condition! :)

Here's the link!

Hey everyone! So I've been thinking a lot lately about compiling a kind of handbook for hooking up online, with tips and strategies for success and a bit of wisdom from my rather robust experience in the matter. Obviously this would include much more than just tips about safer sex practices, but a whole range of issues from whether or not to respond to someone you're not interested in, to how to create a profile that sizzles.

I've dreamed up a few key sections for this mini-handbook:

I. What to Expect
II. Choosing Your Site(s)
III. Creating Your Profile / Ad
IV. Making Contact
V. The Hook Up
VI. Following Up

Sound useful? What kinds of things would you like to see included here?

xoxo

T

The Sword has conducted a quasi-scientific study of Craigslist ads to determine the perecentage of "top/bottom" (problematic language -- see comments later) advertisements in various cities' M4M sections. Obviously of interest is the variation from city to city, with Houston home to the highest perecentage of ads from guys looking to get fucked; and NYC home to the highest % of guys looking to fuck.

Now, this study is all sorts of FAIL. For one, the methodology is wholly unclear. Were they picking ads from guys who identified as bottoms? Or ads from guys who were just looking to get fucked? Or did that all get lumped into the same category? Obviously, versatile ads and ads not seeking anal sex are totally thrown out of the picture. But most importantly for me is that Craigslist advertisements are not the same as, say, Manhunt profiles. Sampling Craigslist ads tells you something about the sexual culture of those cities, but its problematic for a number of reasons: 1) Repeated posters (and you know if you use Craigslist that there are a few dozen people in each city who post multiple times a day, seven days a week); 2) The relationship between people who post and people who do NOT post is wholly unclear. For every ad you seen on Craigslist, there are at least a dozen people looking (and maaaaybe replying) but never posting themselves. So the lurkers will never get sampled in this kind of analysis.

Let's compare this data to the data I collected last year from Adam4Adam and Manhunt in San Francisco and New York City. In a sample of ALL Manhunt and Adam4Adam profiles in both cities, I found that NYC had slightly more tops than bottoms (on both sites, about 35% tops and 28% bottoms) while San Francisco's numbers were comparable but skewed a bit more towards bottoms (33% tops and 28% bottoms -- with many more vers guys). Compare here the charts for just Manhunt for both cities:

Sure, my data from MH and A4A has its own set of problems (see original posts linked above for more on that), but I think it's MUCH less susceptible to the kinds of gross errors / data biases that come with sampling Craigslist. In short, don't get your puds in a wad over this info. Take with a big, fat grain of salt!

Thanks to a new plug-in, you can now sign-in via your Twitter account to post comments. Hurrah!

It's outrageous how far this has gone. A few weeks ago, I commented that referring to the murder of Julissa Brisman as the "Craiglist murder" was nothing short of a moral panic. I said it back then, and I'll say it again: Craigslist is the scapegoat here, not the cause. It's clear that the murder of an escort by a client he/she met on the street would receive exactly zero press coverage (which also says something about the value pop culture attaches to their life and the newsworthiness of that alternative narrative).

But we get so scared at the big, bad boogeyman called the Internet. It's destroying our children! It's singlehandedly adulterating our precious, pure culture! As if! It's a convenient sideshow to let legislators do what they do best: Stir up a sex panic that distracts from the real news. It's pure technological moral panic backed by exactly zero empirical evidence. It's ridiculous that this kind of ignorant mob mentality has forced Craigslist's hand on this matter, moving them to shutter their "Erotic Services" bulletin board.

From the Boston Globe:

Craigslist, after weeks of mounting pressure from law enforcement officers nationwide, said yesterday it eliminated its erotic services section and promised to manually review every ad posted to a new adult services section it has created.

The manual screening - the first in the website's history - comes after Boston University medical student Philip Markoff was charged with the April killing of masseuse Julissa Brisman. Police said Markoff met Brisman through the erotic services section on Craigslist. Markoff has pleaded not guilty to charges that include armed robbery and murder.

As of Tuesday night, Craigslist stopped accepting erotic services listings for US cities, and all remaining ads will expire within seven days. The new adult section bans ads suggesting or implying an exchange of sexual favors for money, and nude pornographic images or images suggestive of an offer of sexual favors are also prohibited.

If anything, the move to online organizing for escorts has made the business SAFER - not more dangerous. The murder of one escort linked to Craigslist is not sufficient evidence to warrant its closure.

So how long before the new free bulletin board service for escorts arrives? Oh right. There are already dozens of alternatives. All we have to do is wait to see which one takes over in Craigslist's absence.

This is CNN's lead article tonight -- concerning the potential link between Craigslist and the murder of Julissa Brisman of Boston. Brisman met her clients as a massage therapist on the popular website. Of course this is a tragic incident, but I want to point out the ways in which the media spins a certain fear and panic into our hearts by attempting to link the murder to Craigslist. After all, this isn't the lead article on CNN for any old reason -- it's the lead article because it successfully links a popular sense of moral decay vis-a-vis the Internet to a brutal murder.

It would be hard to imagine this story gaining similar ground, say, if the victim met her attacker via a newspaper ad for massage services. Or at a bar. Or anywhere where there isn't the same fodder for moral panic. But she met him online, and that proves to work especially well in tandem with a moral panic about the Internet's power to bring society to new levels of depravity. The murder's lurid details (she's a "massage therapist", after all) just add to the story's message of moral decay, depravity, and social demise. It's a tragic murder -- and my heart goes out to Brisman and her family and friends -- but we need to be critical on how stories like this get used to posture a social message in the media that ultimately buttress a conservative anti-sex, anti-technology panic.

If you read any gay blog, you're bound to have heard that Amazon.com has stripped the vast majority of LGBT-related books of their sales rankings. Here's the story from author Craig Seymour, who has been complaining since February about this issue. (Incidentally, I'll have a review of his book up soon -- I just finished reading it. In the meantime, buy it -- it's wonderful -- but not from Amazon!!!):

In the last couple of days, people have been blogging about how Amazon has been labeling gay and lesbian books as "adult" and removing the books from their search engine. I'm glad the issue is FINALLY getting attention (see links below), because I have been complaining about it since February.

Here's my story: I'm the author of a memoir, All I Could Bare: My Life in the Strip Clubs of Gay Washington, D.C. (Atria/Simon & Schuster), which is about my journey from grad student to stripper to entertainment journalist to college professor. (I'm currently Associate Professor of Journalism at Northern Illinois University.) Like many authors, I frequently check my sales status on Amazon, so imagine my shock, back in early February when the "Amazon.com Sales Rank" completely disappeared from the Product Details of my book. The book also disappeared from the search listings, so that if a customer looked up "All I Could Bare by Craig Seymour" on the Amazon home page, nothing came up.

Of course, I immediately sent emails to Amazon asking about this situation. I also placed several phone calls. But I could never get a straight answer, until February 25, when I received an email stating that "the sales rank was not displayed for the following reasons: The ISBN #1416542051 was classified as an Adult product."

The LA Times has picked it up. For instance, of the 20 or so Queer Studies books sitting on my coffee table, here are some of the texts that have been stripped of their rankings:

Michael Warner's, "The Trouble with Normal"
Michael Warner's edited collection, "Fear of a Queer Planet"
Michel Foucault's "History of Sexuality: Volume One" (Curiously, not volumes two or three)
Steven Seidman's edited collection, "Queer Theory / Sociology"
David Halperin's "What Do Gay Men Want?"
Heather Love's "Feeling Backward: Loss and the Politics of Queer Politics"
D'Emilio and Freedman's "Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America"
Allan Berube's "Coming Out Under Fire"
Kennedy and Davis' "Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold."

As Craig also notes:

Memoirs by gay porn stars Blue Blake (Out of the Blue: Confessions of an Unlikely Porn Star) and Bobby Blake (My Life in Porn: The Bobby Blake Story) didn't have a sales ranking, but memoirs by straight porn stars Ron Jeremy (Ron Jeremy: The Hardest (Working) Man in Showbiz) and Jenna Jameson (How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale) did. Clearly, there seemed to be a double-standard.

Just a few examples. Based on this evidence. I advise three things:

1. Sign the petition opposing this policy.
2. Contact Amazon and demand they repeal the policy.
3. Boycott Amazon.com until they repeal this blatantly homophobic censorship policy.

In case you live under a rock and are unaware, some guy sued Eharmony for discrimination against gay folks and the hetero website settled out of court. As part of the agreement, they agreed to launch a gay website similar to Eharmony. You can read the gist here.

I love the disclaimer on the front page:

It just REALLY makes you want to give them your hard-earned gay money, doesn't it????

Or so says the slogan of AshleyMadison.com, a hookup website designed for married straight people who want to have an affair. Amazing. They offer would-be users to "Join AshleyMadison.com for FREE and Have An Affair...Guaranteed!" 100% Guaranteed! That's quite a claim.

The website tried to run a spot during the Super Bowl, but was rejected by national carriers. However, it did manage to get a slot in for Texas viewers, who saw this 30 second clip:

Clearly, marriage as an institution is in fine form!