Sarah posts that the finding that most surprised her in the ESRI/RCSI research on sexuality was the sexual behaviour of gay men.

 Here I found a fact which totally stunned me:

70% of gay men reported never having anal sex and 27% of gay men reported never having oral sex.

What are they doing? Not a whole lot! I was amazed. This totally goes against the prevailing stereotype of the promiscous gay man – they are not even doing it with their own partners.

Given my involvement in the lesbian and gay community over the last 15 years I was not at all surprised at the result. Sarah’s reaction is not unique – if you’ve been listening to sodom and gomorrah types going on for years about anal sex – in a very weird obsessional manner – you too might think that all gay men do is ‘bugger’ each other.  But I would contend (even in my unqaulified status as a lesbian woman!) that gay men are actually doing a lot.  Sexuality and sexual expression which is not focussed on procreation/penetration exists, the impact of HIV/AIDS and also just the freedom to get down and do what you want to do or want to have done to you means that sex between men is a lot more that the sodomy focussed nutters would have you believe.

My quick trawl through the report told me stuff I already knew

….over five times as many women report some level of same-sex attraction as identify themselves as bisexual or lesbian.

Ask many lesbian women about the flirts they have had with ‘straight’ women and they’ll have many a tale to tell!