Talk:Men who have sex with men

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Contents 1 Definitions 2 Down low 3 Maybe we should merge this with Bisexual. 4 Other Aspects 5 Rewritten article 6 Transgender/Transsexuals 7 Academic/Clinical Usage 8 WOW 9 MSM as contruct 10 M2M instead of MSM? 11 references 12 Why this article is {{disputed}} 12.1 Reasoning for this category's existence 12.2 Applicability Internationally 13 As suggested 14 Merge? 15 Down-low 16 MSM and HIV/AIDS 17 Ridiculous Article 18 Promiscuity of MSMs 19 Merge MSM and WSW? 20 Non-commercial sexworkers? 21 Male rape of males 22 The Inclusion of Rape and the Creation of the Terminology 23 Unsourced definition lists 24 STOP THE HATE 25 Any person can be HIV positive or have AIDS 26 What is the point of this article?? 27 Homosexual Semantics

[edit] Definitions

The material on identity and relationship with 'homosexuality' is needlessly confusing. Surely what we're talking about here is simply a category of people defined by their behaviour. We needn't wade directly into the mud of 'identity', except perhaps if we want to handle the relationship between identity and behaviour in a separate section. --Nmcmurdo 01:08, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

The problem with defining these people by their behavior is that you're not simply defining people by behavior, or this would simply be called "people who have sex with men." The moment you attempt to restrict this group to "men", the clarity of the issue as only a behavior goes out the door. Given a limited knowledge of the biological, and social aspects that seperate men from women, it is typically assumed by societies that the definition of "man" is clear, but as you can read below, I have already addressed that issue.

Give me any non-self-identitifying definition of "man", and I can show that it is logically invalid, biologically invalid, or simply bigotted. Thus the Ñ"mud" of identity is actually the only real way to define "man" at all. The only reason why someone would advance the assertion that identity has nothing to do with this article, are those that would have this article define "all transsexuals" as MSM, despite the information given below, that there are MTF transsexuals who never have sex with men, and there are FTM transsexuals who are clearly not even adequately addressed by such a definition. --Puellanivis 01:48, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

With respect, I find that to be largely tendentious nonsense. The subject itself is intrinsically behavioural: it describes action. That is logically prior to the question of how a 'man' or any other word within the subject is defined. To be encyclopaedic, we should not leap immediately to one way of defining a man (self-reported identity), and dismiss other legitimate views.

The contention that any other definition but self-identification is logically invalid is absurd and clearly not one that anyone who has studied philosophy would arrive at! I would contend that strict self-identification is tantamount to solipsism, hardly a mainstream philosophical perspective! The unique logical validity of self-defined identity may suppose the possibility of private language, so your claim to logical demonstration would stand in opposition to one of the twentieth century's foremost logicians, namely Ludwig Wittgenstein! (An absoulutist view of self-identification is a form of the 'beetle in the box' argument presented by Wittgenstein. --Nmcmurdo 20:22, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Have you read the details that we covered in the lower secton? I present to you the case where a transsexual is married to a man, and is in "deep stealth", meaning that she has not told him at all that she was formerly a male, and he would have no idea that she had been (don't scoff, it is a documented real occurance!). There are many who would attempt to classify the man, with whom she is married as a MSM, even though he has no idea that she had ever been a male, and would thoroughly agrue with you that he has ever slept with a man! Thus, the existence of perception is absolutely vital to this definition. As the husband would certainly never account that any such "behavior" as you would define it would qualify to him. The "behavior" as you define it, itself requires the perception of the "man" to be that the person with whom he is having sex is a man.

The original assertion of this article and that you are trying to make is that the quality of "man" is definitive, binary, and absolute. The existence of intersexuality demonstrates that this definition is not definitive, nor binary, nor absolute. You can attempt to assert all of the philisophical jargon that you want, but you cannot deny physical evidence, which is exactly what I am asserting. Study of intersexuality, and human sexual development, human sexual dimorphism all demonstrate that the conception of "male" and "female" is a social, and perceptual construct. I invite you to actually study the evidence over which you are attempting to argue, because even the most philsophically enlightened person can not argue against physical evidence. --Puellanivis 21:21, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

You're assuming far more about my views than I've actually said. I have two related points. First, that the topic in question is not necessarily bound to an adherence to the concept of self-reported identity, and that to do so is unencyclopaedic. Second, that it is absurd to assert the logical invalidity of all other definitions of the word "man" but that based on self-reported identity.

I agree that the example is conceptually difficult. My view is that a range of interally consistent interpretations of that situation are possible, such that the choice betweeen these arguments cannot be made on a strictly logical basis. The arguments must admit of some strictly non-deductive premises (adductive, inductive etc.) It should be clear then that I'm certainly not advocating a "definitive, binary and absolute" definition of "man". And my reference to Wittgenstein is based upon his fundamental recognition that any word is a "social construct"; indeed it is precisely because of this that Wittgenstein argues that nothing that is exclusively self-defined (such as his example of the 'beetle' in the box) can have meaning.

To conclude, whilst there legitimate arguments for doing so, we don't have to "wade into the mud" of self-identity, and basic encylopaedic principles demand that.--Nmcmurdo 22:31, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

From the view of a sexologist, there are at least eight factors, that determine sex. The five biological ones are chromosomes, hormones, gonads, internal sexual and reproductive organs, and external sex organs. The social ones are gender of rearing, gender role, and gender identity. If all of these are in allignment (as they most often are) then there is no question of gender, and in fact, because the most significant number of people have all eight of these factors in allignment, we are prone to believing that that is the only way that things occur.

But, let us take a look at all eight of these features. And remember, that taking a logical stand-point, the existance of a single counter example is sufficient to show that something is not certain. I will not argue that by far these are all relatively accurate indicators. My position is that none of them work for all cases. Chromosomes? There are 46,XY females, and 46,XX males. Chromosomes do not overide hormones, they just give a strong propensity. By far, hormone levels are the most accurate biological indicator, although CAIS shows that hormones are not necessary accurate in defining sexuality. Gonads? CAIS again. Internal sexual organs? CAIS. External sex organs? Intersexuality shows that external sex organs are not always sufficient to indicate gender. As for social ones? Gender of rearing, we already have documented cases of botched circumcisions where the parents decide to feminize the child, although the child rejects this assigned gender, despite being raised ni that gender. Social ones? It's already immediately apparent that social gender cues are not accurately indicative. Gender Identity is the only thing that no one can argue about.

I would honestly like to hear why you feel that you can argue with the presentation of physical evidence? Consulting the article Man, they list sexually dimorphic traits of males. Deeper voice (androgens), taller height (later exposure to estrogen, and not guarenteed), faical hair (androgens), diamond shaped public hair pattern (I've not heard of this described as a sexually dimorphic trait before, it would be attributed to higher androgen levels, as women with CAIS have almost no pubic hair), increased body size overall (androgens, and muscular development), less subcutaneous fat (less estrogen), increase ni overall body hair (this is called androgenic hair, because it's cause by androgens!), male pattern baldness (caused by a recessive genetic condition in the X gene, which is triggered by DHT, an androgen), coarser skin (androgens, I can only guess), darker skin tone (never heard of this, androgens likely), and *gasp* a higher level of androgenic hormones such as testosterone, allowing for muscle development.

So, by the encyclopedia entry for males, which God, I would think would be more encyclopedic than this article, since it has more examination, and review, admits that really the only differences are developed from hormone levels, at least externally. The moment you try to begin saying that there is a psychological element to being a male, I can easily counter with the issue that self-identification is the only reliable psychological indicator that you could use.

I continue to assert that any attempt to classify a MTF transsexual, if they truely identify as a female, as an MSM in any way, signals a person's desire to assert a world view upon transsexuals that classifies them as the gender that YOU want to assign to them, regardless of what gender should be assigned to them. --Puellanivis 00:24, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Interesting material, but the argument is a non-sequitur. That a group of people (sexologists) choose to define a concept (maleness) according to eight criteria, the validity of seven of which can be questioned, does not verify the unique definitional quality of the remaining eighth criterion. Reductio ad absurdum is very easy: after your objections to the original seven, let's add in my 'beetle in a box' objection to the eighth. Perhaps you would then argue that we have proven that it is strictly impossible to define maleness, QED? No, because once again the argument does not logically follow from its premises.--Nmcmurdo 00:42, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Wait, my affirmaton is that you cannot define "maleness" such that you can apply it universally to seperate all males from all females, and I present a definition of maleness which is accepted by the very people who study that which defines that property (sex, and gender), and then show how each of those properties carries with it flaws, such that none of them, even in combination can accurately seperate all males from females, and you tell me that my conclusion does not follow from my premise? Wait wait wait. P_{1 ... 8} = { the seven properties addressed above }; ∀i(∃x(x satisfies P_i and is not considered male)) This all does not imply ∄i(∀x(x satisfies P_i, and is considered male))? Because I'm pretty certain that I can mathematically prove that the two statements are in fact equivalent. Honestly, you're going to find it hard to find me assert anything that isn't really just at heart a tautology.

I will not deny that you present yourself as literate and intelligent, but you're attempting to assert a subjective opinion, and subjective criteria of what defines "male" against that which is presented by those who actually study this particular field, and have better reason to validate their findings of who is a male, and who is a female. You seem to me, to be attempting to assert a philisophical argument that denies physical evidence, but no philosopher could ever truly suceeded in arguing against given physical evidence. Even a cynic, who denies the actual existence of the physical world, must account for why we percieve the physical world that we do.

Your proposition that "self-identity" should not be included in this article requires an alternative. What biological factor can you present that would distinguish a transsexual MTF from all other females, and yet not distinguish them from being a male? I have already shown that no such biological criterion exists, as all given physical, biological distinctions between men and women are not actually affirmative distinctions between males and females. If you attempt to suggest that there are psychological conditions that define males from females, then how can you deny the assertion that self-identity as male or female is absolutely critical in evaluating a psychological condition of an individual? Do you assert that there is some permanent psychological trait that defines men from women, that cannot have misformed during development in order to produce a female personality and identity despite all other criteria? Considering that biologically, conditions exist that if any one of them fail to express themselves sufficiently the biological development of the person is female. What criteria do you propose for this? Or would you seek to introduce some entity inside of us that defines us as male or female, that cannot be changed, cannot be malformed, cannot be in conflict with your subjective opinion of male and female? All this simply to assert your personal subjective opinion that is already contrary to experts of the study of that field? --Puellanivis 02:45, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid you're once again reading far more into my views than I've actually said. My point is not that self-identity should not be discusssed (although I personally think it's flawed), but that we should not regard it as a necessary part of the subject. In other words, there are other valid approaches to the topic, other than that based on self-identity. I disagree with the usefulness of strict self-identity, but I agree it should be covered in an encyclopaedia article; it should be presented alongside the other legitimate approaches to the topic (which at present are not well covered). --Nmcmurdo 18:21, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

What other legitimate approaches are there to the topic of defining "man"? The IOC (olympic commitee) has already dealt with this problem. They attempted to impose genetic testing on athletes, only to find that they were excluding all the 46,XY females, even though particularly in the case of CAIS females, they were at a disadvantage to the average 46,XX females, because at least the 46,XX females could react to testosterone, and build up more muscle than a woman with CAIS could. They had to relent, and redefine their cut off of what a "man" is. Now, for a transsexual, or woman with male gonads, they require at least surgerical removal of gonads (as most countries do, in order to change one's legal gender, by essentially international concensus, namely, if a MTF wants to have a passport say that they are female, they must be anatomically female), and that their hormone levels be in an equivalent range expected for the average 46,XX female. Thus ensuring that the transsexual would not be naturally producing testosterone, which would grant them an unfair advantage against other women.

Should we base this article off legal gender? Considering that effectively, legal gender is just an official stamp by the government approving your gender transition? I know a particular transsexual who is not changing her birth certificate until she decides she would like to marry a male, as having the legally male gender allows her the ability to marry a female, even though she could at any time request a change of legal gender, and thus no longer be able to marry a female, and only be permitted to marry a male. Obviously, legal gender is just as useless as any other subjective definition of gender, and even more so, because the legal definition of female and male changes from one jurisdiction to another. (Within the state of California, one can legally change their state-defined gender at will, and without hassle. Within the state of Washington, a letter must be provided by a therapist who is currently seeing the transsexual, who vouches for the transsexual that such a change is appropriate for them.)

In truth, no matter what system one chooses for dividing male from female, it will necessarily be subjective as already indicated above, no objective criteria exists to positively seperate male from female with absolute accuracy. (The only remaining criterion which does 100% seperate male from female in the opinion of the person themselves is self-identification, which duh, is literally defined as seperating male from famel based on the opinion of the person themselves.)

If you have a suggestion for an alternative method for dividing male from female, I ask you please to start a new section in the discussion, and list such systems that you feel should be covered in the article, and we can examine them for their validity. In any case, few MTF transsexuals will allow any offensive definition of "male" which would classify them as male to enter this article, I being among them.

It should be noted that any attempt to define a difference between "biological females" and transsexual MTFs will fail, and attempting to declare a similarity between "anatomic males" and transsexual MTFs may fail. Although, such a definition would be logically valid, if you define "anatomic male" as those who have male external genitalia, thus including post-op FTMs and excluding post-op MTFs, but you have to consider that there are transsexuals, who have no choice but to have unsatisfactory external genitalia for the time being, because they are either too young to concent to such surgery, or they have yet to fufill the 1 year RTL requirement stipulated in the Standards of Care. Thus, should one consider an MTF who has yet to have surgery as being an MSM if she absolutely does not permit sexual contact with her masculine genitalia? Should we not count those MTF transsexuals who are intending to get surgery as soon as they are able to, despite the fact that they classify as "anatomically male"? Should we only exclude androphilic transsexuals if they are practicing abstinence, or is mere desire sufficient to include them?

Lay any of those differentiation systems out, and I will show that each one will be so seriously complicated and require so much tedious clarrification that the subjective self-evaluation of the individual is the only thing that makes sense to spend anytime explaining in this article. Not to mention the men (and women) that exist, who are engaged in a sexual relationship with a MTF, who only see a female in that person, and basically ignore the fact that she still has male genitalia. If a man had a girlfriend, and only ever had oral sex, and anal sexual penetration of her, would you declare him a MSM? Because that's essentially the only difference between such a male and their MTF girlfriend. Considering that if they ever broke up, he would not be looking for a man to have in a sexual relationship, nor another MTF, they're simply looking for a female for an intimate relationship. Yes, those men who target MTFs for sex as a form of fetish, are definitely engaging in MSM behavior, because they are targetting the MTFs particularly for the history that they were at one point male, and in fact, many of them lose interest in a MTF once she has had surgery.

So, anyways, if you have another system of differention that you would like to see discussed in this article, present it here in the talk page, and we can discuss that particular system specifically, instead of debating on philisophical terms the generals of a definition behind a man or a woman. Especially as I have already explained above, that there is no objective criterion to seperate male from female, thus no matter how we choose our system, we must choose a subjective judge either universally, or on an individual basis. --Puellanivis 22:02, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

The problem lies with the section 'MSM as a construct'. My suggestions would be, the following order:

• The section should begin with etymology. This would, I hope, clarify or at least organise some of the discussions that follow.
• To what extent is the phrase used as an analytical tool by psychologists, anthropologists etc.? And to what extent is it tag of 'social identity'?
• Reference other wikipedia articles on the defintions of sex, gender and sexual behaviour (which should be the primary repositories of this information).
• Discuss the relationship with other related concepts (such as 'homosexuality')
• Discuss some paradoxical or conceptually testing cases (such as the transexual case).

The article should avoid apparently contradictory statements such as "It is possible for only one member of a sexual encounter [presumably an encounter involving a man having sex with a man] to be having sex with another man." This appears to assert the irreflexivity of the MSM concept - a highly unusual linguistic form, which if meant needs to be explained and qualified.

The article should avoid casual hypothetical examples such as "she most certainly would not" or "[she] may even become quite upset." This is not encylopeadic material.

The article should avoid tendentious statements that presume prior unstated assumptions, such as "There is no homogeneity among the MSM population other than them being males." --Nmcmurdo 00:41, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Begin with etymology? The etymology of which word? Because etymology relies on only a single word. As such, and phrase's etymology can easily be broken down into the words involved in the phrase, in a similar manner to saying that "111" is composed of three ones. Personally, I'm one to believe that the term "Men who have Sex with Men" does not need to be examined etymologically, unless you're thinking of a TOTALLY different topic than etymology. I mean, what good would it do to show the etymology of "man" in this article: "Etymology: Middle English, from Old English man, mon human being, male human; akin to Old High German man human being, Sanskrit manu" How exactly would this be useful?

I can't argue with showing how the phrase is used as an analytical tool by such people, but I have no idea who actually uses it, but the problem will come about that it could only really be used for a biased purpose. Your later point about "here is no homogeneity among the MSM population other than them being males." is a good example of why it's a useless classification. While you state that it's an unstated prior assumption, perhaps better would be to clarrify it that "people studying MSM have found that there is no consistent defining feature about MSM, except that they are males." This is because many heterosexual males have had a sexual encounter with another man, and never repeated it, or that there are men in prison who rape another man, but since it's all about power, and not sex, they do not see it as threatening their heterosexuality, and once removed from the prison environment, will not have sex with another man. Literally, the classificaton as a MSM can tell no one anything about another person, except that they are a male, and have at one time had sex with another man. Wow, so incredibly useful...</sarcasm>

Consulting Irreflexive_relation, your statement of "This appears to assert the irreflexivity of the MSM concept" No, it's asserting that the binary relation is not reflexive, not that it is irreflexive. I said it's possible that only one person in the sexual encounter could be a man having sex with another man. And the difficulty in this still lies in the deep stealth transsexual female, who is married to someone. Even if you classified all MTFs as transsexuals, he would never know that she was a man, how can he possibly count as a MSM, if he has absolutely no way to tell that she is a transsexual. There are gynecologists who even after a thorough examination cannot tell that a transsexual was not born with a vagina. You cannot account for all cases while demanding reflexivity.

To point out a particular note in the Reflexive Relation page: A common misconception is that a relationship is always either reflexive or irreflexive. Irreflexivity is a stronger condition than failure of reflexivity, so a binary relation may be reflexive, irreflexive, or neither. To which, I am absolutely dumbfounded... I find that your entire argument lacks an signifcant value, and that you attempt to make yourself sound knowlegable by using uncommon words, such as "irreflexive" and "etymology" and you state that the claim that this binary relationship is neither reflexive nor irreflexive as if it should be "contradictory." To which you call it a "highly unusual linguistic form", which it most certainly is not, as it is a perfectly grammatical sentence, and does not use any unusual grammatical features of English, such as topicative phrasing, and by no native-speaker standards would they label it as ungrammatical, or even questionably grammatical. Linguistically, nothing is neither wrong nor unusual about something merely because it is a contradictory statement (this is a lie) or makes no sense (colorless green ideas sleep furiously).

You assert continuously that this article is full of fallacy, or that I make falicious arguments, but you fail to even use terms correctly. Do you think that your biligerent forcefulness would convince me to stop my argument? You use terms that I have a very strong background in, and have immediate reason to doubt your correct usage of these terms. Linguistics and Math are immediately my fields of study and interest.

It is clear to me now why I seem to so entirely misunderstand you constantly, and that is because you are not actually saying what you intend to say, because you're too busy pulling out big words, and obscure references that only hinder the understanding of your argument. And by far, when you do use big terms you are using them incorrectly, thus setting the stage where I am expected to divine the meaning of what you intended to say, because what you actually said is not what you truely intend to say. I must say that I am through with this discussion. I am certain that I will not ever be convinced that your position is correct on merit and value of the argument itself, or upon the logos of the argument, as you consistently intend on asserting against the reality of evidence. Your inability to say accurately what you want to say, and neither to use words correctly as they are actually socially defined, and your attempt to use vague and obscure references and jargon in what I can only imagine is an attempt to baffle me, has not helped your credbility, and I will never be convinced that the merit of your argument needs to be addressed simply because you are convincing. Neither is your constant assertion that transsexuals born as males are unequivicably male, and that self-identification as female is insufficient to declare one's self as female is not winning any votes over here either from an emotional stand-point, pathos. You literally have failed on all three primary points of argument to assert any influence that you are, or ever will be correct.

As this is a wiki, it's time for you to either put up or shut up. (Or continue to whine to the walls, your choice.) When I took issue to this article, it was a horrible logical mess, and bigotted and biased. After polishing it up, so that it would not be offensive anymore, and it actually takes proper account of transsexuals, I supplied that edit to the page. I don't recommend that you apply your edit directly to the page, as it would likely provoke a firestorm of reverts. Instead, you are freely able to post here in the discussion, what you think this article should say, and look like. People will either collaborate with you to make it better, or they will refuse it. If it is deemed better than the existant version, we would supplant it. Asking me or anyone else to do this work for you, is entirely against the spirit of a wiki. It should be obviously clear to you, that I

would be unable to produce a version that you would be happy with, as *duh* the version that I'm happy with is the one that you are specifically taking argument against!

As such, I will not enact your changes, and I highly doubt that I even could... etymology of "men who have sex wth men"? I don't even understand what you're trying to say there, because it does not make any actual sense. It's like asking for the chemical formula for cake. Anyways, since no one else can produce an article fitting your specifications, supply us with an alternative proposal, and we will evaluate it, or improve upon it, or refuse it. That's how a wiki works. Not by having a pointless philosophical argument about "blah blah blah you would argue with a major philosopher." You know what? I'm arrogant enough that I will argue with any major philosopher, Socrates, Plato, who ever. They're all wrong if their arguments deny physical evidence! So, I leave you with this: "I will not write your article for you, please do so yourself." --Puellanivis 04:58, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I see this debate has generated a couple of helpful clarifications to the article, although I wonder if it’s worth the cost in terms of ever-more shrill, one might say desperate, rambling responses such as the one above! Two quick clarifications. It should be perfectly clear that the ‘etymology’ I meant applied to the term as a whole, not the individual words. The correction on the use of ‘irreflexivity’ is right – apologies, it should be non-reflexive - but the further interpretation is not. The phrase in question is either contradictory or using a highly unusual type of language that should be explained (If I said “two ducks were swimming together in a pond, but it is possible that at least one of the ducks was not swimming in a pond with a duck.” – this is either based on very unusual definitions or it is a straight contradiction.)--Nmcmurdo 16:04, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

There exists no such thing as an etymology of a phrase, unless that phrase has become a lexicalized unit, which "men who have sex with men" certainly has not. Please actually look at a definition for a word before you try and use it in an argument.

The phrase in question is not contradictory and does not use a highly unusualy type of language. Your example is using something where there is a reflexive relationship, and you are attempting to show my analogy that the other statement doesn't make sense. Recall though, that this article is currently defining a man as one who self-identifies as a man. If one person in a sexual encounter self-identifies as a man, and percieves his partner to be a man, then he is having sex with a man. If the other person self-identifies as a woman, then by mere definition she is not a man, and thus cannot be a man having sex with another man. All of these definitions are laid out earlier, and later in the article.

As I said before, you do not seem to understand what you are talking about. If you want your considerations taken, write your suggested replacement to this article, or sections and they can be evaluated on an individual basis. Please don't continue to go on about how I'm making "contradictory statements", which I am clearly not. For your further clarification, I will team up two people from the lists. One who is an MSM, and one who is not an MSM, and hopefully you can work out how they end up in sexual relationships: "Males who engage in sex with MTF transsexuals under the belief that they are males" with "Any woman, including MTF transsexuals, regardless of any other factors." (Nota Bella: for future reference, you should at least attempt to actually read, and understand a person's or article's definitions before you make any proclamations about it, and for heaven's sake, don't just assume your own definition, or else you're commiting Equivocation.) --Puellanivis 16:26, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

In my view, MSM is either a lexicalised compound, or it does not merit an entry. I would not expect, for example, to see Wikipedia entries on 'boys who kick balls', 'postmen who wear large shoes' or 'ducks who swim together in ponds', unless these phrases begin to act as independently meaningful units. As soon as that happens, it's instructive to explore the origin of the phrase itself. In fact, I'll put my initial objections on the line there. If it can be shown that its usage as a distinct phrase has always carried with it the assumption of self-reported identity, then, whatever objections I or anyone else may have to the underlying thinking, it's not worth exploring other perspectives directly, except perhaps in a 'criticism of...' section. That assumption should be explicitly stated at the outset, however, as it would be far from obvious.--Nmcmurdo 19:15, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

A lexicalized compound exhibits certain grammatical features that fortunately mean that you don't have to be subjective, and it's not "in my view, ___ is a lexicalized compound". For instance, given that "peanut butter and jelly" is a lexicallized compound, if you are talking about two of them, would you talk about "peanut butters and jellies"? Or would you talk about "peanut butter and jellies"? Linguistics indicates that the later case is the one that happens, because PB&J is lexicalized. Now, is the plural of "a man who has sex with men" a) "men who have sex with men" or b) "man who has sex with mens"? If the term MSM were a lexical compound, the later would be the case. The plural of MSM being "men who have sex with men" can only be performed if the component is not a lexicalized compound, as the lexicalization of the compound will prevent you from entering into the compound in order to pluralize any part of it irregularly. Feel free to put the article up for VfD, I certainly won't object. --Puellanivis 03:50, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

What biological factor of humans can you present that seperates a transsexual female from all other females? I have already shown that no such biological critera exist.

Removed the sentence But in reality this phrase is meaningless, because if you have sex with men, you're gay. from the end of the article. Whoever wrote it is a moron who (A) didn't even read the article, (B) for some reason thinks women who have sex with men are gay, and (C) apparently disbelieves in the existence of bisexuals. --Ketsy 01:17, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

I saw this article title scroll by on CDVF and was sure it was garbage. Imagine my shock to discover that it was a reasonable and useful article. Congrats! --William Pietri 16:35, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Down low

I recall hearing on SVU or something that a number of men who have sex with men but don't regard themselves as gay, especially African-American men on the lowdown do not use condoms because they feel doing so would make them gay. Can anyone confirm the veracity of this claim? If true, it's well worthy of inclusion in the article, especially for the implications of this to the spread of HIV between these inviduals and to their partners Nil Einne 17:13, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes. The term is actually "down low". Here's a tSan Francisco Chronicle article that I happened to see about it, and it turns out there are plenty more media articles about it. Go to it! --William Pietri 16:35, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Maybe we should merge this with Bisexual.

It seems a bit odd to have a whole article for it.

Please sign your posts on talk pages per Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages. Thanks!

How so? What about gay men, they aren't bisexual yet they are men who have sex with men? Hyacinth 17:43, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

This page does seem to repeat material that would other wise be in bisexual and gay, though. EVOCATIVEINTRIGUE TALKTOME | EMAILME | IMPROVEME 21:33, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

By definition, this article is talking about men who aren't bi or gay. It's talking about same-sex male behavior by guys who don't identify themselves as gay or bi, so merging it with those articles would be silly. This is talking about behaviors and the way some people see themselves, ie: not as gay despite same-sex contact. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 63.27.198.172 (talk) 09:00, 11 March 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Other Aspects

I think the phenomenon of prison rape should probably be discussed, if it can be done so sensitively and in an encyclopedic manner, since this seems to be a main area where "men who have sex with men" is quite distinct from homosexuality in general.

Some mention should probably be made of the Red Cross's use of this term with regards to who can give blood since this is another example of the activity of man-to-man sex is held as distinct from the homosexual orientation. --Chesaguy 00:05, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

This articel is not very good at all. There is a huge amount of resources available about MSM. It also ignores Asia where same sex relations are common. A lot of work is needed to improve it. Roger jg 05:47, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rewritten article

I have entirely rewritten this article as it was not reflecting the complexity and breadth of the topic. I have kept some of the info from the first article but have removed the long discussion on the low down as it is only one category of MSM and should be discussed in the relevant article. Also it was narrowing the MSM sexual behaviour to one limited category. I will endeavour to add more references and more on this subject.Roger jg 11:17, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

It would be useful to add a section on MSM and the society where the suggestion about the Red Cross using MSM could be added. However, it should be more about how societies perceive MSM and how MSM "fit" into society. That's were facts about MSM being often married could be mentioned.

Another section about sexual role and its perception in sexual relationship is needed. I could write something but it would be based on my knowledge of the SE Asian example. Though I believe it would be more or less the same everywhere some may perceive it as being to narrow.

A section about MSM and HIV/AIDS would be useful too. If someone wants to help?Roger jg 11:56, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Transgender/Transsexuals

Ok I get your point that transsexuals m2f are men in the purely biological sense. Even if that this the definition we adopt for discussing this topic there are still questions about including transgender or transsexuals in this article.

Could you explain why "transsexuals" and "transgendered" people are included as men who have sex with men. Do you realize that many many transsexual and transgendered, biologically male people do not have sex with males. A majority of transsexuals (at least in the USA) would be considered bisexual asexual or heterosexual with respect to their birth sex. Then there are the transgendered and transsexual biological females. What of them? Perhaps you shoudl reword this part.

I will admit that people who fit the description you are looking for exist. They are called various things in various sources. Perhaps you should be more specific. Mentioning the Katoey and the Hijira of south Asia is a good start. You could also mention the "Travesti's" of Brazil... But that would be too nitpicky. Perhaps you could simply cover all of those groups by saying "male to female transsexuals who prefer men." As a matter of fact I will put that in the article and see how it fits. --Hfarmer 20:55, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Let's also cover what it means to be "biologically" or "anatomically" male. Women with Androgen insensitivity syndrome have female external genitalia, but have testicles, and lack Müllerian Ducts (the upper vagina, uterus, etc), there are men who have Müllerian Ducts, there are women who do not have Müllerian Ducts, there are women who don't have either form of gonads, but rather just a small gonadal ridge. This article is entirely almost useless, as it presumes a definition of "male" that does not necessarily exist. Is someone with a 46,XY karyotype automatically male? What about those with 47,XXY, I don't suppose that they really count as males, since they are not genetically male.

Anatomical? What about post-operative MTFs? They are anatomically female now, NOT male. (The law gives them the legal protection to use any female restroom they want to, considering that they now have female genitalia.) If you want to assert that a post-op MTF is still a male because she cannot produce, there are women again, who do not have Müllerian Ducts and have essentially the same anatomy as a post-op MTF, and if such a woman were to get ovarian cancer and have an oopherectomy, then they would have EXACTLY the same anatomy as a post-of MTF.

Biologically? I've already pointed out that "biological male" and "biological female" don't actually exist in any sort of concrete binary system that this article is attempting to assert. Genetic? I've already covered AIS, natal? Ok, so only if you were born and assigned a male identiy are you a MSM. So, if we take an FTM, who then sleeps with a gay man, who has no interest in sleeping with women at all, does that make "her" an MSM, and him not an MSM? What about the male partner of a MTF? He sees her as a female, and in some cases, despite being married to her, may not even know that she was ever at one point a man. Is he suddenly an MSM, because he slept with her? And then to cover the topic raised by HFarmer, what about the MTF who is a lesbian, and never has sex with a man ever. Is this transsexual simply not an MSM?

This whole grouping is logically flawed in so many ways it's useless, and is just an attempt by some person to advance an agenda that somehow any sexual contact between who ever they regard as male with another person who they regard as male (regardless of any information provided to those participants) that they are now labelled as "different", and is just homophobia with a pretty PC bow on it. Or, it's an explanation for others to label themselves or identify themselves as something other than bisexual, or as having homoerotic encounters, as they view some denigrating social stigma upon such terms, thus they must try and seek out some other term which does not have such a stigma upon it�. Then, lump in other people, who may or may not fit any true definition of "man" in with them, so that they can attempt justify the label.

I can't even think of how to clean up this article so that it's not a travesty upon logical, realistic, and non-contradictory categorization. But starting with a definition of what you consider a "man" to be would be a darn good start. Then we can discuss how valuable, or accurate such a definition would be, and seek one that doesn't fly in the face of real evidence. --Puellanivis 22:21, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I see your points. The trouble is they all deal with intersexed individuals. Transsexual/transgender =/= intersexed. AIS and all that are intersex conditions. XXY is a condition that many many transsexuals have. It is not a intersex condition (it is not anatomical in relation to ones external genitalia at birth).

I personally define a biological/anatomical male thusly: A Male is one who was born with a Y chromosome and the external genetalia of a male with no intersex condition present. A M2F transsexual is a male who lives as a female. Transsexuals appear female, act female, and are refered to verbally with female pronouns.

Therefore in a sense a M2F transsexual is a male who has sex with men if she is homosexual/androphillic (choose which word you prefer). Men who have sex with them do not consider themselves gay and in general are not considered gay.

Personally I would stricken any mention of transsexualism from this article but I can see the point of the people who put it here. I personally have come to accept that to some people I will be male no matter what I may do. Cest le vie. --66.92.130.180 00:01, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

These sections of the article were bigoted and unsourced nonsense, seemingly based on personal opinion alone. The claims as they were contradict legal definitions in most Western states, legal precedents in numerous countries, and much modern medical and gender theory. If claims are going to be made in this article based solely on the work of Bailey, then this really does need to be placed into context, since the previous version suggested some sort of widespread agreement with his lunacy. Rebecca 04:00, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree 75% of that emotion. Especially as far as transsexuals are concerned. A transsexual goes as far as technology will allow to become anatomically female. However the broader term "transgender" includes CD's, DQ's, gender queers, and a range of other males who do not self identify as females. As well as transexuals who do. Puellanivis was correct in saying that a working definition of a male for the sake of this article is in order. In other words "yes it does".

I expect in the morning someone of the other maintainers of this article. The one who rewrote it will come back and have reverted the total removal of transsexuals from this article. Like I said as far as I am concerned I could do without it.

Who the heck said anything about Bailey? The idea that transsexuals m2f "once a man always a man" is not his idea, not new, and will probably never go away. :-( That's life,s__t happens. --Hfarmer 10:39, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I have no objection to including the transgendered here, but it should probably mention the specific elements of the transgendered community who identify as men, because it isn't all of them. I still don't see the point of trying to come to a definition of man for this article, since a male as it applies to this article also applies to every other article on Wikipedia. As for the subject of Bailey, I mentioned it because you added a primary link to one of the core elements of his theories. The "once a man, always a man" idea may never go away, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with this article, seeing as no one has provided a reliable source for including them in any discussion of "men who have sex with men". Rebecca 12:25, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

The issue I have with this article's defnition of male is that it is *not* in concensus with what "also applies to ever other article on Wikipedia." Your responses to so much of this stuff shows just as much bigotted hate as I want to see removed against us. Jesus Christ lady. I accept that to some people I will always be always be viewed as a male, I don't have to look hard, because ONE OF THEM IS MY SISTER. As far as "intersexed" there are males who have AIS but only the the point that they are infertile, while they are intersexed, no one would claim that they are not "men", the same with the other end of the spectrum. As for a biological/anatomical male requiring a Y chromosome: Sexual differentiation points out that there are XX males. Biologicial/anatomical/genetic all fall short of defining someone as a male, and I have never seen any sufficiently accurate definition of "male" that would include all natal males and absolutely no FTMs, and the same for women seperating MTFs from natal women. The only definition that has any sort of "accuracy" at it is "natal female" and "natal male", which runs into the problem that you assign people to an unchanging group based on how their genitalia looks when they were born, and this "natal female" means that all MTFs are more passable as female than some subgroup of "natal females" (as FTMs would still be "natal females".)

Logically, and scientifically, there exists no real bases to establish any sort of "male" vs. "female" except when describing actual conception. From a scientific view point, males and females are so similar, that the only true groups that you can make are fertile females, fertile males, and EVERYONE ELSE. If you're not exchanging genetic material to make a baby then "gender" as it applies is entirely a socially created construct, that is wavy, subjective, and often times only used only to futher discrimination. The fact that this article previously failed to provide any sort of consistent view of males other than a subjective "if I say so", is why I demanded a definition of male. The article on pornography doesn't say that it includes all nude art, even though some people would classify even some non-nude art as pornographic! When it comes down to it "pornography" is a subjective definition, as is the term "male" in the previous article. "These people are males, just because I say so/the author says so", that doesn't work. If you're going to dictate to me that some woman is a male, you better have a darn good reason why, and be able to defended it. Not just push your fingers in your ear and shout "nanananana!!! I can't hear you!"

This classification is at least somewhat useful, in that it is a non-self-identifying group of people, because you can ask a guy "are you homosexual or bisexual at all" and he could honestly say "no", even if he has had sex with another man. But it should not, and cannot be consistently used against those who would never identify themselves as males. This is the clarrification I was looking for, not some bland assumption that the authors actually knew what they were talking about, and using the same "male" that all other articles on wikipedia was. To assume that they're talking about the same "males" that we are, is a blatant fallacy, and leads us no where, as we're arguing with different definitions of "male" in the first place! The complete exclusion of "transsexuals" is just as poor a choice as the first position that it includes all transsexuals, because clearly transsexual men who are homosexual would clearly fit in this group! --Puellanivis 21:55, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

You say transsexual men who are homosexual. The problem is, as was pointed out repeatedly by the BBl controversey is that to most people outside the Transgender/transsexual community that means male to female transsexuals who prefer men. That is the cold reality I have come to accept. Just as you have come to accept that some people will never see you (or me or any other TS) as our target gender I have had to accept that to some I will just be a really really gay guy. I have also come to accept that for some reason the fact that I live as a woman will make that more tolerable to some people. Now that's not my reason for being transsexual. That's nobody's reason for being transsexual. There seems to be no reason (or even emotion) behind bening transsexual. However that is the way the world will see us.  :-(

I do agree with the latest edition as of this writing that lables a man who has sex with a TS and sees them as men as a man having sex with a man. I mean. If a guy is having sex with a post op stealth TS then is he a MSM? If he is then how so? Afterall he thinks he is having sex with a natural born woman.

All of these odd issues are why there should be nomention of transsexualism in this article. It is just a special topic that it derserves it's own articles and has articles aplenty already. --Hfarmer 22:32, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

The reason why "transsexual man" is ambiguous, is why in the article I avoided using anything but MTF and FTM. I just do not accept that transsexallity should not, and cannot be worked into this article. People who primarily will be editing this article arbitrarily will attempt to include transsexuals to include MTF transsexuals. If it is explicitly defined in the article that you are talking about self-identifying males, and only self-identifying males, then any such edits can be reverted as being against the purpose of the article. If you leave the definition of "men" out of this article and just leave it assumed, then anyone can come along and add to the text "a butch woman who likes men". At this point they need argue that the definition of "self-identified man" is invalid, incorrect, or not useful before they can just label someone a MSM.

I'm wondering why this issue is even murky. Is it that other editors are not understanding the importance of establishing a common basis of definitions, etc before you can have a reasonable argument? Perhaps, we may need editors to review Socrates and Plato, and fundamental rules of philosophy in order to understand how arguments are best to be handled? I've had discussions with one particlar person, where he fundamentally refused to recognize the existence of "true" and "false", and allowed for the existence of "contradiction", and you would be entirely surprised at how much we can discuss once we laid out those ground rules, and came to an agreement. Everyone else gets stuck in a big shouting match with him that he won't accept their evidence as true. The lunacy here is that they are trying to get him to assert something about what they are asserting that he doesn't even believe! This is why I said the article needed to define "men", because the blanket assumption that "man" is self-explanitory is the most ridiculous assertion I've ever seen. How can anyone even attempt to make such an assertion as a transsexual, because of the ready and available number of people who would assert to their death that self-identity does not define your gender. "Men" had to be defined this article simply to come to a discussion of the very basis of this article: MEN who have sex with MEN. If you come across this article and it disagrees with your definition of "man", then why the hell would you sit there and say that "men" doesn't need to be defined?

I do think this article is misleading about mainstream usage of the term. Yes, transsexuality is covered under the umbrella of the definition, but the common usage of the term is to refer to the simpler case of non-transsexual men who have sex with non-transsexual men but may or may not consider themselves gay. The term was basically invented to cover that case, because of a discovery in the medical profession that using the word "gay" in surveys and questionnaires was missing a large number of people who engaged in same-sex sexual behavior but didn't self-identify as "gay". --Delirium 22:00, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I will agree that the intro that I wrote was confusing. Trying to account for all cases that would be undeniably MSM, but exclude those that should not be considered MSM is pretty hard to do. Your description of transsexuals that self-identify as male works fairly well. It's clear that any such complete explanation will be overly complex, in as much as gender identity itself is incredibly complex. Your simplified version though is sufficiently accurate so as to cover the greater number of examples, and yet remain very simple.  :) Good job :) --Puellanivis 22:19, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Academic/Clinical Usage

Have now included some material on the academic origins of the term. A full discussion of these concepts took place in a number of different editions of the American Jounral of Public Health last year. It began with the article by Young and Meyer (which criticised the use of the concept, although I've only used the part of the article that describes the usage of MSM / WSW as behavioural categories - the rest may merit inclusion in a "Criticism of ... " section); a variety of responses from other authors followed (some of which may also merit inclusion in the article). --Nmcmurdo 20:38, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Good add.  :) This looks much better, and actually helps the article out a bunch. I like to see how constructive input can be done, when people stop bickering about things ;) From a clinical view in this manner, then there are certainly distinctions to be made against self-identification. Namely, pre-operative transssexuals that engage in anal sex, are certainly at the same health risks as a man receiving anal sex (as is a woman receiving anal sex). A post-operative transsexual that engages in purely vaginal sex stands about the same level, if not less susceptable to HIV and sexually transmitted diseases as a natal female. (Natal females have a delicate balance of internal bacteria that they need to be careful not to upset, a post-op female needs to clean her vagina regularly in a way that is typically determined to be unhealthy for a natal female. Although, no studies have been done on this to my knowlege, so at this point, it would be OR)

So, now that there's a base and a reason for the definition of the term, a more enlightened discussion can be had about it. And as I noted, for risk of sexual diseases, the correct term would probably be to seperate out those who receive anal sex, those who receive vaginal/neo-vaginal sex, and the actual sexual behavior that causes the actual risk... considering that women can engage in just as risky sexual behavior as a man who has sex with a man, and in fact, the only reason why more women are infected with HIV in America, is that straight men generally don't have the disease, because at this time a straight man is highly unlikely to contract HIV. But a woman engaging in vaginal intercourse with someone who is HIV positive is at a very high change of contracting disease, and engaging in anal intercourse? Well, there's nothing about being a man that makes it particularly likely to spread HIV, the very act itself puts you at high risk.

So, as we mentioned before, the poor decision of "behavior" is what's causing this. They want to identify a group of people who are in a high likelihood of contracting an STD, which in America is definitely any man who engages in sex with other men. But if HIV were originally distributed randomly among the population, "women who have sex with men" would be the highest risk category... As it stands, a transsexual MTF who has sex with a male partner who would otherwise be dating a girl, would be at no significantly higher risk of contracting a disease than any other woman that he were dating. Pre-op, or post-op. Of course, this sort of classification becomes VERY sticky. --Puellanivis 03:33, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. As I said, there is more in that particular journal that may also merit inclusion. Young & Meyer actually address the point you make above about behaviour and go a little further. Indeed, they suggest that the widespread clinical adoption of the 'MSM' concept has tended to obscure analysis of actual behavioural risks (e.g. anal sex as opposed to sex with men), whilst neglecting the socio-cultural dimension that can also be clinically important (e.g. in explaining why 'lesbian' intra-venous drug users have higher HIV prevalence than other intra-venous drug users).--Nmcmurdo 18:11, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WOW

When I initially rewrote this page I could not foresee that it would generate so much debate! As someone who is in regular contact with MSM and sometimes work with them, I'd just like to point out that the philosophical/ethymologycal/foot massage (no offence there) meaning of MSM does not weight much in our everyday life ! My perpsective is that of people who actually know and work with /for MSM and my intent was to give a simple and honnest representation of Men who have sex with men in different society, context, occasion. MSM is just an "in"convenent term for a group of people at higher risk of contracting HIV. Keep your energy for fighting HIV/AIDS! Thanks for the improvement Roger jg 05:51, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

The issue at hand, is that you attempt to place transsexuals in this group, while not all transsexuals are at the same higher risk of contracting HIV. Post-operative transsexuals, who have sex with men, are certainly not at any higher risk of contracting HIV than heterosexual females. And also, there are numerous transsexuals (even pre-operative) who never have sex with any men, because they are attracted to females. There is easily also a group of pre-operative transsexuals, who engage in no more risky sexual behavior than a woman who engages in anal sex with a heterosexual man. While I understand that MSM is an inconvenient term to group people at hgher risk of contracting HIV, the determination of "who is a man" is sticky, and there exist people, whom you would classify as male, who have sex with men, but their activities put them in no way at any greater risk for contracting HIV. --Puellanivis 07:15, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] MSM as contruct

I disagree with the statememnt that to be part of the MSM group, one needs "fundamemntaly to perceive himself as a man." How people perceived themselves is irrelevant since the concept describes a sexual practice (within a context etc...). MSM is sex between men (as genetically defined). That they don't look like men (Thai Ladyboys) or don't feel like men (Hijras) is irrelevant.

Then the following sentences "It is possible for only one member of a sexual encounter to be having sex with another man..." is completely unclear to me. I don't understand this sentence or what it tries to illustrate. Clarification welcome Roger jg 06:04, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Your genetic definition fails, as women with Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome are still genetically male, but they should not qualify in any definition of MSM that is well formed. There are also post-op transsexual women who have sex with men, but do not engage in any riskier behavior than the average woman. This is why it is necessary to qualify and define the definition of "who is a man".

That sentence is perfectly clear. Let me give you an example. Take a pre-op transsexual woman who does not engage in any risky sexual behavior, and she begins dating a man, who does not engage in risky sexual behavior. They become attracted to each other and begin to engage in sex. Although, at a later point, the woman realizes that he fundamentally percieves her as a male, due to some inaccurate definition of masculinity (such as the misguided notion that genetics determines sex conclusively), and she breaks up with him as a result of this perception of her. He liked the sex that he had with what he felt was a him, and immediately goes out seeking pre-operative (or non-operative) transsexuals in a form of a fetish, who (I will grant they do exist) engage in risky sexual behavior. The pre-operative transsexual however, goes on to have her surgery, and begins dating another man, and then marries him, and engages in typical female sexual behavior for the rest of her life. To claim that she qualifies as an MSM, simply because her genes say she is a male, is ridiculous, while to label her former partner's behavior as anything but MSM would be important.

Likewise, take for example a virilized person with a karyotype of 46,XX (genetically female), who has a male self-identity, but no male gonads, and people just thought that he had cryptochidism, until his condition was accurately determined, but he's also attracted to men. To suggest that he would be unable to be classified as an MSM on the account that his genetics say that he is genetically female, denies the situation that he is in, and the actual behavior that he engages in, and the HIV risk group that he is associated with.

In any case, in order to have any significant impact upon the HIV susceptability that a person has, it has to be a more or less regular behavior. Let us say that HIV contraction rates of MSM is 90%, and HIV contraction of MSW (for the male) is 10%. If he has 100 partners, only one of them male, and only one time, and all other partners he has sex with at least 10 times, that gives us an occurance bias for those percentages closer to 10% than 90%, and thus not a significant risk group to qualify for any reason as an MSM, even though he has engaged in homosexual behavior at least once.

The entire basis of this grouping is entirely flawed in the first place, as much as saying that homosexuals have HIV/AIDS, and homosexuals do not. In Africa, HIV is an everybody disease, even men who only have ever had sex with females. Remember the 3 H's of who gets HIV/AIDS? Homosexuals, Herion addicts and Hatians? We know why they were at a higher risk now, and not that HIV/AIDS is restricted solely to those people. The perception that a classification of MSM as useful for anything, is ridiculous. Especially, assigning this grouping to people outside of the US, where HIV risk rates are entirely different.

And all of this entirely ignores that women who engage primarily in anal sex are just as likely to contract HIV/AIDs as MSMs anyways. And then, women are simply more likely to contract HIV/AIDs than a man in the first place, should we make a classification of "women who have sex with more than one man"? Just to have a category to group women who are at a higher risk of contracting STDs, and/or HIV/AIDs?

This is entirely just a logical category that people are picking up to discriminate against homosexual behavior, the same as they were able to discriminate aganst homosexuals in the first place, just now they need a politically correct reason to their classification, not just "oh, well, he's gay." It's like people racist against blacks changing from "blacks are poorer because they're black" to "blacks are poorer because they don't try as hard"... only the truely non-racist say "blacks are poorer because they are in a socially disadvantaged situation".

If this category is intended to be used to classify people based on HIV risk, then let's dump ALL non-American groups from it, explicitly state that it is an American/Western Culture-only standard, and that the risks of HIV will vary from culture to culture, such that the classification of MSM is entirely useless in Africa, where all sexual behavior is risky, regardless of who is engaging in it with whom. --Puellanivis 07:39, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I think the idea that this sentence is "perfectly clear" is a little silly. I discussed its usefulness earlier - which I think is dubious. But whatever we think about the underlying meaning here, I think it's difficult to argue that it's clear, never mind perfectly so. --Nmcmurdo 19:10, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, the use of "perfectly clear" there was rhetorical and hyperbole. I don't think that it's perfectly clear, but many of the simple assumptions that people make typically make the sentence appear to be wrong, even if it is perfectly valid, or even true. Physics is full of things that if you hear them, you think "Pff, that has got to be totally wrong." But low and behold, it turns out to be correct, it just turns out that your basic assumptions about how the world works were wrong. Not your fault, it's typical observation... we're used to things getting hotter because they're closer to heat sources, not because they're recieving more direct light rays (not to mention that the scale is a significant factor with seasons, also) Someone above asked how two ducks could be in a pond but only one of them be a duck in a pond with another duck. The problem with that, is that there is an implicit assumption that there is an objective criteria for labeling things a duck. Turns out, that one of the ducks could have imprinted with a goose, and would argue (were it able to) that it were certainly not a duck in a pond with another duck, because it weren't a duck!

I'm sorry that the logical statement that I made violates typical assumptions about human gender, and thus tends to appear to be a contradiction. I have accepted that it need be reworded, but at this time, I cannot think of a better way to reword it to make it better, and thus is the reason why I have not returned it to the page yet.

But the entire sentence is truly moot my argument anyways though. The assertion for MSM as a model is that it allows for a convenient construct that allows one to group people of similar HIV risk together. My point is that the actual behavior that is typical of MSM (anal intercourse) is risky itself, not simply being a man who has sex with a man. In fact, some would say that if you are a man, and you engage in oral sex with another man, you would fit the criteria of MSM, but if MSM serves to cluster HIV risk values, then a man who only gives oral sex to another man is not at the same risk level as a typical MSM. Risk factors also vary depending on culture, climate, and location, as I mentioned, in Africa, if you are having sex, then you are at high risk for getting HIV, regardless of how careful you are, or any other factor of your sexual partner. Should researchers in Africa make a construct of "People who have sex" as a risk category for HIV? Would MSM have even a single valid criterium in Africa?

If you want MSM as an HIV risk category, then you cannot immediately just dump every person who is male and has sex with another man in this category, especially if they are not part of the United States, or other western culture where HIV is primarily only risky for those who engage primarily in receptive anal and/or vaginal sex. In order to establish a group of people outside of the western culture as valid for this category, you would need to show how this risk category applies to them.

But if I'm wrong and this is not just an HIV risk category, then there are aspects that intrude and make this issue cloudy murky, and beyond simply "behavior", as there are a hojillion edge cases, and grey areas that make this category a nightmare to attempt to apply for anyone who is anything but cisgender. --Puellanivis 02:26, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Remember when I spoke of just accepting that to most people Transsexuals like us will just be really really gay men and that we should just accept it. This is one of those times. Accept it and move on to more productive things. I don't think a well crafted arguement by Johny Cochrane could convince this guy we are not strictly MSM. Telling the person that transsexuals exist, lots of them who were always attracted to women... if that undisputable fact is lost on him then nothing will change his mind. Well I'll take one more crack at it.

Roger. "Men who have sex with men" Seems to be refereing to specifically "male bodied people who engage in anal sex with other male bodied people". Looking at this that way. Then we can make the defintion that sexually active pre/non operative "Homosexual transsexuals" are MSM. That seems to be the TS's you are thinking about and work with being at increased risk for HIV infection. I mean I realize that the transsexuals you have worked with have probably all fit that description to some extent. Plus are economically disadvantaged on some level. So your attitude is no surprise. I suggest that you open your eyes to the larger transsexual community. Realizee that not every TS would meet even the loosest definition of MSM. (For the record I personally object to TS women being called men but what can we do about it? Such is the way of the world. ) --Hfarmer 04:42, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Hfarmer I did not comment on TS.Roger jg 06:14, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Maybe I misread but what the fact that someone engage or not in risky sexual behaviour has to do with MSM??? I don't really see the point in nitpicking about highly theoretical rhetoric on this subject, such as as women with Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome which certainly not represent the vast majority of MSM. We all agree that MSM is a loose concept and that is what the article should say and not enter into a long and rather useless definition of what a man is. Beside I don't think that most "men" (for the sake of simplification) go into a lenghty debate about their feeling and perception of their masculinity when they are having sex.Roger jg 06:14, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

The point is that women with Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome should *not* classify as an MSM, despite your intentions, as it appears, that you seem determined to place them as an MSM: "such as as women with Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome which certainly not represent the vast majority of MSM". A woman with AIS has a vagina, and is likely to engage in sexual variations no different than any other woman. So, why would there be any justification for placing them into a grouping that refers specifically to men? They are neither more likely to contract HIV than any other woman, nor are they by any reasonable defintion a "man", so why would you attempt to group them as an MSM? --Puellanivis 21:13, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] M2M instead of MSM?

Male to male or M2M is also usually used to rever to men having sex with men. Is MSM more commonly used in the states? Berserkerz Crit 16:39, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

This is frankly OR, and anecdotal (as it must be -- I cannot find any research on this subject), but my experience is that I have never seen "M2M" used in research literature, but only in personals ads, chat rooms, and social-networking Websites. The pattern is reversed for "MSM". Since this article is chiefly concerned with a concept in medical, sociological, and psychological research, it makes sense to use the abbreviation that is used in that context. --7Kim (talk) 22:32, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] references

There are a few references to this article, they only need to be inserted properly in the text. I am not sure why there is a factual challenge here. But there is space for improvements. Roger jg 06:17, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why this article is {{disputed}}

I will lay out the grounds why I entered that part of the text.

[edit] Reasoning for this category's existence

There are only two possible reasons for the existence of this construct:

1. We are creating a construct that describes an at-risk group outside of self-definition (this view is presented by proponents for this article)
2. We are creating a group in order to describe people who engage in what we percieve as homosexual activities as "homosexuals", with a term that's been gerry-mandered specifically to include them. (this view is presented by opponents of this article)

I think we can all agree that the second reason for this article is patently discriminatory, and if this is the actual basis for this construct, then we should treat this article no different than any article dealing with a derogatory construct. I however do not feel that we should even promote this article, if this is the reason for this construct in the first place, as it is an entirely subjective view point constructed to promote discrimination.

If the first reasons is the most valid of the two alternatives, and becomes no longer a subjective standpoint, but rather an objective standpoint. Thus, we can validly discuss it outside of the realm of "this is just a person's attempt to discriminate against others."

The problem with this first reason though, is that defining a man for the context of this article becomes immediately convoluted, because the at-risk behavior that you're refering to is not males have sex with males, but rather having anal penetration. This at-risk group would include females, active homosexuals, pre/non op transsexuals that engage in sex with men, and transsexual that would engage in anal sex.

This at-risk grouping seems to provide a more direct correlation to actual behavior, which can be directly linked to risky behavior for the spread of HIV and other STDs, while the blanket term "Men who have sex with men" runs into a difficult situation that the proposed "simple" behaviour being described is actually tied intrinsically to the identity of the two participants, such that it becomes a classification of dubious reasons, namely a strict classification of an at-risk behavior (anal sex) where the identity of the participants is explicitly stated (male and male), thus automatically restricting a valid at-risk behavioral construct to such a narrow area that by its name seems to be intended to draw an immediate association to homosexual men.

It is a known fact that HIV has a lower chance of spreading through oral intercourse than through vaginal intercourse through which HIV has a lower chance of spreading through anal intercourse. Presume if you would, a man who has sex with other men, who only performed blowjobs, or recieved blowjobs. Should he be labeled in the same group as MSM due to at-risk behaviour? Certainly not, as he does not perform the central at-risk behavior central to this whole issue: anal penetration.

Thus, is my position on why this article is disputed. There appears to be no valid reason to make this criteria, as the particular at-risk grouping that covers the intended group of this category, and others who are equally in the same at-risk level, would be "People who receive anal penetration". Otherwise this category serves simply as a method to discriminate against any person perceived to be a homosexual, but only under the auspice of being a medical category.

[edit] Applicability Internationally

The second reason that this article is disputed, is working under the premise that this article is about a particular at-risk group, which is valid, and free of any claims of discrimination, or unjustified application.

Assuming that this category is perfectly valid as an at-risk group, it's important to note that at-risk groups change based on where you are in the world. While homosexuals here in the United States are more at-risk than heterosexuals, the same is simply not true in Africa, and other places around the world. At this point, defining MSM against a culture where HIV is not only prevalent among homosexuals, but also among heterosexuals, such that women are more likely to have HIV than a homosexual man, then this categorization fails to improve anything.

Looking at the CIA world fact book: the United States has an HIV prevalence rate of 0.6%, while Germany has a HIV prevalence rate of 0.1%. Should we start up an article "People who have sex with Americans", as this is a statistically higher at-risk group for HIV than "People who have sex with Germans"? I don't think that's necessary.

So, even assuming with all Good Faith that this article is not simply just veiled discrimination, we should not include any specific groups of people without cited research and evidence that they are in the same at-risk group as MSM in America/the UK/the Western World, and document specifically what geopolitical areas this term is applied to specifically, and note that anyone outside of that boundary has no cited evidence justifying their inclusion with this group. Otherwise, you're just blanket applying an at-risk category to people who are not in the same at-risk category, and thus breaking the only good reason for even including this category in the first place. --Puellanivis 21:48, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Men having sex with men? That sounds really gay to me. Zomghax 18:04, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Puellanivis, I'm impressed by your discussion of the article. I think the article should much more directly discuss MSM as a "risk category," and should include a lot of the text you've written here. This article is a great opportunity to deal with some of the thornier questions of MSM as Western shorthand for "non-standard gay." As you point out, if this article really were "just about behavior," it's not just the category "men" that's problematic, but "sex" as well. The article should discuss the mismatch between "MSM," anal penetration, and contracting HIV. Good job. I've added the "worldwide view" box. Citynoise 19:53, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] As suggested

As suggested much of the material hashed out in this talk page is now included on the article itself. Stated explicitly, the article is a risk-factor category primarily for describing virus and bacteria propogation. Also detailed is that risk-factors vary between cultures, and that application of this term may not work outside of western-culture (as supported by a particur given paragraph placed by a proponent of the term). Wording has been changed to make it more clear where the division is in cases of ambiguous gender.

The article specifically states that the term is best applied where gender and sex are clearly unambiguous as is the case in close to 99% of cases. (It's presumed that the prevalence rates for transsexuality, and intersexuality is near-to or less than one percent.) It makes specific note that the term should be avoided where the sex of the individual is ambiguous, as classifying anything as anything against their behavior is inappropriate for any category defined as a behavioral category.

Proponents may still argue that MSM is entirely a strictly behavioral grouping, and may attempt to apply a specific determinator upon ambiguous individuals in order to classify them as male, or as female for the purposes of this category, but that goes beyond the scope of this classification. This classifcation is based on a specific set of behaviors that may not be shared by people that one might otherwise choose to label as a man. Genetics is not sufficient, genital appearance is not sufficient, existence of gonads is not sufficient, and hormone levels of the individual are not sufficient. Whether the proponents of MSM as a valid term like it or not, but because the term is tied by definition to a secondary condition (male), they depend entirely upon the definition of male, and inherit all of the sticky issues that exist regarding ambiguity of genders and sexes.

I must admit however that from a medical and epidemiological view, that any individual who participates in behaviors that are essentially equivalent to MSM behaviors, should be classified as an MSM. So long as you can apply the definition "man" to the person. --Puellanivis 22:46, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure I have followed your dissertion fully or in which group I could or should be put, but i like the new introduction. Roger jg 05:03, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge?

Shouldn't this page be merged with homosexuality? As a man having sex with another man would make both men homosexual, or at the very least bisexual. (Animedude 02:55, 14 March 2007 (UTC))

No it should not. There is a difference between homosexuality, and bisexuality, and having sex with other men. It's known to occur that men when removed from females, will look for substitutes to simply get over their urges. Conflating this particular issue with homosexuality, is just as bad as the MSM article that was here before, where it simply was a facade article saying that it was classifying people based on behavior, but in truth was just subjectively assigning people into a group with homosexuals. --Puellanivis 07:38, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

No. 'Homosexuality' and 'bisexuality' etc. are peculiar concepts emanating for 19th century Western psychiatry. They are thus not suitable generic headings for many other aspects of human sexuality. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Nmcmurdo (talk • contribs) 21:40, 30 March 2007 (UTC).

Yes. 'Having sex with same sex' ones is 'homosexuality' (yes, even under ausence of females, Puenllanivis). Homo => Equal (from the Ancient Greek).

A man having sex with another man is, yes, a "homoerotic" or "homosexual experience". However, "homosexuality" implies that the person oft engages in that activity. A Christian is not a Christian simply because they have had perhaps one and only one Christian experience. A Christian is a Christian, because they have an ongoing engagement with Christian beliefs and experiences.

Now, to address your statement of "yes, even under ausence of females", first, "ausence" is not a word, but in good faith, I would imaging you were attempting the word to be "auspice", and I will precede in my argument as such.

Now, recall, that the purpose of MSM is to classify a high-risk group of people, who engage in activities that are high-risk. Males by the nature of having significantly more testosterone, and a constant gonadotropine pulse are more likely to engage in sexual activities, in addition to that, males that engage in sex with other men, are more likely than any other group to engage in anal sex. As anal sex is an extremely risky activity for any person to engage in, regardless of who that person is. The anus was not designed for regular sexual activity, and as a result anal sex regularly results in anal fissures, which are open sores, which immediately presents the increased risk in anal sex.

Recall that the article addresses specifically that if a transgender individual engages in such risky behaviors that are equivalent to regular MSM activities, that they should be considered MSM. Even if the transgender person is "under the auspice" of being female. Regardless of your personal biases and beliefs, a transgender person is not guaranteed to engage in such risky behavior as MSM. First, they may typically be taking anti-androgens, which reduces their libido, and they are not necessarily likely to engage in anal sex. Blowjobs and handjobs are not even as risky behavior as vaginal sex.

I would like you to know, that when this article first came out it was targeted towards your biased opinion and I insisted that such an article is pointless, as a strict euphemism for "gay, or bisexual" should be merged with their respective articles. I have heavily edited the article to ensure that it deals strictly with the research term, and not the biased opinion that it is simply a euphemism of "gay or bisexual". --Puellanivis 06:55, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Down-low

An editor has removed the link between this expression and the African-American community. From the article on down-low this appears to be mainly based on a political stance promoted conspicuously by the author Keith Boykin in his book Beyond The Down Low: Sex, Lies and Denial in Black America. If most US editors, I'm not one, feel that American culture empirically connotes this term to said ethnic/cultural community, I think the link should be reinstated. __meco 20:35, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

The link is unnecessary. Down-low is MSM regardless of the ethnic or racial history of the individual. There being no need for the link to be explicit, I do not see a purpose in it being mentioned with a phrase such as "especially in African-Americans." African-Americans practicing down-low are no more or less MSM than a Caucasian practicing down-low. --Puellanivis 02:41, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

You seem not to address the focus of my posting, this being whether the term, not the practice, is predominantly linked to African-American males. __meco 06:25, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Good question, the term itself is slang for "closeted homosexuality". The term evolved in inner-city black neighborhoods first as a word for "secret", and later used to describe closeted homosexual sex. It got picked up by the media and developed a kind of life of its own, but I don't think it should suggest that DL is some kind of unique phenomenon, just a slang term for something that that is as old as sexuality itself. Since closeted homosexuality is definitely a form of MSM, "downlow" should absolutely be linked. User:EyePhoenix|EyePhoenix]] (talk) 06:42, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] MSM and HIV/AIDS

I've removed or rewritten some of the material added by User:Chicken Wing. This is because the references were unreliable (mostly newspaper opinion pieces) and/or did not fully support the statements made. Trezatium 07:25, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

• "In many developed countries AIDS is more prevalent among MSM than among the general population.[4]" the link to the pdf comes up as a 404 error. This also seems like a wingnut claim. I feel like this should be removed, edited, or proven to be a correct statement.

[edit] Ridiculous Article

This is the most pointless article I have ever seen. When the title of an article provides enough information to render reading the main body useless then said article serves little purpose. It is self evident that a man who has sex with men is gay, bisexual or straight and coerced or curious. This is not a topic which deserves consideration in an encyclopaedia further than perhaps brief mention in an article on homosexual sex. I also note that the expression 'on the down low', unless quoted, has no place in any serious text as it is quite clearly slang and requires further investigation to find out what it means. In conclusion I would suggest that this article be deleted and any useful information moved.

MSM is a behavioural category; gay, bisexual and straight are forms of self-identification. Lfh 16:24, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Agree. "MSM" is just an euphemism for gay, and it's usually used by "MSM" who doesn't want to accept they're gay. There are gay & bisexual men, no "MSM", regardless that sex is "occassional" or rather frequent. Or there is also an article about "MSW" (Men who have sex with women)?. Pathetic... :( and maybe useful for the selfdeceivers.

No, MSM is not used by people who identify as heterosexual, yet have sex with other mens, as a euphemism for gay. The term is used by medical researchers to refer to individuals who would not otherwise identify themselves as gay. MSM has a greater risk of contracting HIV, regardless of the self-identification of that individual. Having a research questionnaire that asks only if someone is "gay or bisexual", but rather specifically asks, "do you engage in sex with men" will get more respondents, and better statistics. Yes, it may be used as a euphemism by some, however the intentions of the term are to ensure that a proper statistical group is not overlooked, due to an individual's personal biases. Thus, the reports address MSM, not gays and bisexuals, because there are MSM who do not identify as gay, or bisexual. You may say that they're "unwilling to accept that they're gay", but the term "gay" has a number of social constructions built up around it, and if they do not identify with that social construction, then they would refuse to identify as such in a medical context, even if the term "gay" is being used strictly as "a man who has sex with men".

Regardless, the term is a term applied in medical research, and for that reason it deserves notability. Regardless of your personal objections to the article, and your personal biases regarding this article, it does not change the fact that this article is about a notable research term. --Puellanivis 06:32, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

__________

I think the problem here is that nobody really has a firm grip on what 'gay' means, or rather that it means too many different things to too many different people, which is why it's a very foolish term to use if you don't know anything about someone's sexual self-concept. This is precisely the reason why researchers have adopted it; "gay" is unacceptably vague and ill-defined, and rests on unverifiable, unobservable criteria. If having sex with men were all it takes to make a man "gay", then you would be correct. But, unfortunately, the matter is not so beautifully black-and-white or so satisfyingly simple. There are considerations of sexual identity, self-labelling, cultural identification, romantic inclination, racial tension (some African American MSMs are alienated by a gay culture that they perceive as a "white men's club"), enactment of social role, and so forth. A male sex worker (or porn actor) who treats male-male encounters as 'all in a day's work' but only enjoys male-female encounters and only loves women is emphatically not gay -- but is most definitely an MSM. Some men enjoy sex with men as an occasional thing but have no emotional investment in it; it's just a passing physical pleasure. Others may love men exclusively but reject the "gay" label because they want no part of the cultural identification. This issue is simply far more complex than you or I or most of us would like, but we can't wish away the complexity of sexuality. --7Kim (talk) 21:48, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Promiscuity of MSMs

The necessity to indicate their promiscuity is pretty irrelevant for establishing their risk. Receptive anal intercourse is the most dangerous form of sex that you can have, whether you do it a lot or even just a little. Even a single receptive anal experience with another man bumps up your risk category immensely. In Africa AIDS and HIV is an everyone disease, the only reason it's relatively isolated here amoung MSMs? Because they engage in higher risk sex. --Puellanivis (talk) 03:41, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I take your point but "the most dangerous form of sex that you can have" is overstating the case more than a bit; erotic asphyxia comes to mind. Incidentally, HIV is not isolated to MSMs in Euro-American culture; in terms of community prevalence IV drug abusers are far, far more likely to be HIV+ than MSMs (and less likely to be on antiretrovirals, and more likely to be prostituting themselves). Speaking personally, if I had to have unprotected receptive anal sex and the choice was between an MSM and an IV drug user, I'd take the MSM in a heartbeat. I'd also have a lot of qualms about a man (whatever his professed sexual orientation) who had done time in prison.

MSMs, precisely because the category is so broadly inclusive, are no more promiscuous than the rest of the population. For every MSM who has 200+ sexual encounters with men a year (there are some, but not many) there are hundreds who might have one in a good week. It would be more accurate to say this: that because the odds of HIV transmission from the active partner to the passive partner in anal sex are higher than in vaginal sex or oral sex, promiscuous anal sex increases the risk of spreading the virus more than promiscuous vaginal or oral sex does (at least when the passive partner moves on to be the active partner in other encounters). --7Kim (talk) 22:23, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

I take your point I clarify: "receptive sex is the most likely form of sex period to contract HIV" --Puellanivis (talk) 05:50, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Oral sex is even less likely to be a risk factor than other forms. The odds of contracting HIV from giving oral sex requires an open sore in the mouth... someone with such a sore would likely not be interested in giving oral sex as it would need to be either an ulcerous sore, or bloody sore. As well, saliva is known to not carry HIV, and has some enzymes that actively works against the virus to reduce the risk of contracting. As such receiving oral sex is even less likely, because the fluid contributed from the person who has HIV is saliva. So, again unless they have a mouth with a bleeding sore, or a postulant ulcerous sore, then the HIV positive partner in the exchange is exchanging no more than saliva. I think most people would notice that someone is bleeding in their mouth (their red teeth give it away), or postulant in their mouth (pus-colored teeth give that away.) So, thus receiving oral sex is a near zero rate. As such, this keeps consistent with WSW statistics, where there has never been a documented, reported case of a woman contracting HIV when their only risk category is WSW. All reported cases of HIV contraction in WSW have at least one other risk group. The riskiest behavior that WSW can engage in is oral sex. So, oral sex likely has a statistically insignificant chance of transmitting HIV. I think the better phrasing would be that receptive sex no matter the promiscuity contains a greater chance of contracting HIV than any other form of sex to some non-specific point of promiscuity. --Puellanivis (talk) 06:10, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I think it's better to put it that way (or even more mathematically). The increased rate of HIV transmission among MSMs is due more to the increased per-contact probability of transmission (at least for those who do anal sex) than to the promiscuity of the population as a whole. It's important to avoid perpetuating the false stereotype that MSMs are generally promiscuous, though not to ignore either the fact that some MSMs are promiscuous or the fact that MSMs, like everyone else, are in control of their sexual behaviour (unless they're being raped) and therefore responsible for it, and the increased rate of transmission raises grave consequences for promiscuity. --7Kim (talk) 15:47, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Merge MSM and WSW?

Would it be possible to merge this article with Women who have sex with women somehow? Not sure what the merged article would be called, but it does seem kind of unnecessary to have two articles that basically cover the same thing, but with different genders. (not to mention that the WSW article is only a stub). - Koweja (talk) 04:08, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

The two are fundamentally distinct and disjoint categories of humans. According to the CDC female same-sex sexual acts have yet to produce a single case of HIV infection in the USA. They're quick to state that it is possible. But WSW acts do not result in any realistic increase of risk factors. In fact, it appears that if females, who don't use drugs, who don't have any other risk factors, and who only sleep with other women,are the statistically unlikeliest group of people to contract HIV. WSW acts are apparently literally the HIV-safest sex possible. --Puellanivis (talk) 06:58, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I would also add the it's MSM that are seen as more taboo are more controversial thus this article gets more attention. Benjiboi 19:06, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

While it is true that typically in America MSM are "more taboo" than WSW, however the point still remains... there has never been a documented transmission of AIDS due exclusively to WSW, while simply-MSM is a large part of the HIV population. WSW don't get as much attention because their HIV transmission rates are negligible to non-existent, that they're "less taboo" has nothing to do with it. Regardless of being taboo or not, if WSW was a significant HIV vector, the CDC would consider it, and people would use it as a statistical category. Certainly, while "People who eat waffles" is technically a statistical group of the HIV population, it is a non-sequitur to really even discuss them as an HIV risk group... just because WSW parallels to MSM does not make it in any way any more or less relevant than it already was as a non-risk-factor grouping of the HIV-population. --Puellanivis (talk) 15:49, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Non-commercial sexworkers?

The initial bullet list in the article includes the item "Male sex workers (commercial or not) with male clients". What exactly is meant by a "sex worker who is not commercial"? My understanding is that the term sex worker includes hustlers, phone sex operators, strippers, porn actors, professional BDSM players, etc, all of whom engage in eroticized acts for money.

So there are two problems. One "sex work" is inherently commercial, becuase otherwise it would simply be sexual behavior. Second, "sex worker" is more than a sex-positive euphemism for "prostitute"; many kinds of erotic labor don't involve actual sex (stripping, phonesexing, posing for non-hardcore pictures) and these workers can't classify as MSM.

I propose re-writing it to say something like "men who perform sex acts for money, including escorts, hustlers, and porn actors".Ajasen (talk) 15:53, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm only somewhat familiar with all the issues but I believe there is some nuancing of language that has to do with someone who technically is a sex-worker but didn't intent to be, gets compensated for sex and possibly sex-slaves who technicaly are treated as such whether they would have chosen to do so or not. Also escorts, hustlers and porn actors don't necessarily perform sex acts for money although many do. Benjiboi 19:11, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I do believe that there exist sex-workers who work solely for the sex itself. The term "or not" is simply there as a catch all so that the argument cannot be made that we're limited in imagination. Likewise, your suggested phrasing does not guarantee that the man would be MSM... any heterosexual man who does sex acts for money classifies under your presented change. --Puellanivis (talk) 15:51, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Male rape of males

Unfortunately, while reviewing the article, a man being raped (sexually penetrated anally) by another man is a significant risk factor. I'd love to keep them on the list of exclusions, however, they are much more likely to have contracted HIV than a man who has never engaged in any sexual acts with another man. I think it seems, at least to me, harsh to classify them as MSM as they never had any intentions to become MSM, however, they are in that risk group, and if they were to contract HIV without any other risk factors, then they would still be classified as MSM. --Puellanivis (talk) 16:04, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand your position. No one says that the sex has to be voluntary. Many instances of prostitution aren't necessarily fully voluntary. This term seems to be intended to cover every male who has sex with other males, regardless of the circumstances. I think we should rely on what our osurces say about it. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 17:01, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

• The cultural understanding of rape involves the act of penetration. The law on rape in India and Bangladesh as it stands in their penal codes also reinforces this belief. It also pertains specifically penile-vaginal rape, with anal or oral rape relegated to Section 377 of both codes, which deals with “acts against the order of nature”. There is neither a concept of, nor any law to deal with male on male rape. However, in popular understanding amongst MSM, rape means anal penetration without consent. Other sexual assault might not involve anal penetration, but might still cause psychological and/or physical harm.
• http://www.nfi.net/NFI%20Publications/Pukaar/2006/January_2006_Pukaar.pdf

I think that's sufficient to include raped males as "MSM". ·:· Will Beback ·:· 17:05, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Whether they intended to or not they had sex with a man. Benjiboi 00:41, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Rape is an act of violence, it is not the same as sex, and should not be confused with MSM. I move to adjust the definition. MSM should state "men who make a choice to engage in sex with other men". Rape is not the equivilant of sex. EyePhoenix (talk) 21:24, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. Rape is a form of sexual assault. Without the sex it would be simple assault. We generally think of rape as being a single act, but the term "prison rape" apears to cover the phenomenon of long term sexual relationships in which one of the partners is an unwilling participant. Of course, if you have a source saying that sexual assault does not involve sex then that help. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 21:55, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Of course there are no sources that would indicate sexual assault doesn't involve sex, because it does. But you've mischaracterized what I said, so let me clarify: Sexual assault is not the equivalent of sex. To suggest that someone who was raped had "sex" with another man is totally misleading. While sexual assault includes a sexual component, it is a violent act in which a victim is forced into sexual contact. The idea and spirit of 'Men Who Have Sex With Men' is about men who choose to engage in homosexual sex regardless of self-identification. Rape victims make no choice to be assaulted sexually, and more importantly; rape is not sex. I think you might make argument the men who choose to rape other men could fall under the category, but calling rape victims "Men who have sex with men" is misleading. MSM should not include victims of rape. EyePhoenix (talk) 22:52, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't know how you define "sex". Let's take a slightly different example. So a virginal woman is raped and becomes pregnant. Would we say that she's never had sex with a man? Do rapes result in virgin births? Obviously not. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 23:31, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

To answer your question; absolutely not, she did not have sex, she was raped. Her getting pregnant doesnt really have anything to do with it. I mean, "virgin births", what are you talking about? Again you've mischaracterized what I wrote. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be having a hard time separating the concept of sex from rape. They are not the same thing. EyePhoenix (talk) 23:44, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Please define "sex". ·:· Will Beback ·:· 23:47, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

See what I mean? You're already engaged in an all out debate about the issue, but you don't appear to understand the distinction between sex and rape. Now your asking me to do research for you and define sex? I'm sorry but I dont' have the time to go down that road with you. But if you can get it together enough to learn the difference, we can talk some more another time. Good luck! EyePhoenix (talk) 00:02, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

The point of my statement was to say, that even if the man does not make a choice, he still enters a risk category equivalent to MSM. While the first assumption, and the most sympathetic thing to do would be to say "they didn't consent, so it doesn't count against them", unfortunately, that's not how nature works. They have involuntarily been placed into a risk group higher than they would have of their own choice, but many of us do this all the time, coming into contact with someone who has the flu. Infections are non-biased, and they don't care if you consented to the sex or not... they will infect you if they can. --Puellanivis (talk) 22:51, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

If that is the case, then it should be clarified further that the only purpose of this term derives from HIV politics. A man who contracts HIV through a rape does not fall under the definition of a "Man Who Has Sex With Men". On it's basic and fundamental meaning the term "Men Who Have Sex With Men" suggests "Men Who CHOOSE To Have Sex With Men" regardless of identification. If the politics of HIV are such that researchers etc. need a term to describe men who contract HIV through rape, then it should be distinguishable, there is no need to lump rape victims in with men who choose to engage in sexual activity. If the term MSM is designed to include rape victims, (and I haven't seen any evidence so far that it is) it should be clarified that this term is specifically for use with HIV social politics. Otherwise it is very misleading, and potentially damaging to those men who have been raped and/or contracted HIV through rape. Who has decided that MSM needs to include victims of rape, what reason is there that a distinction can't be made? EyePhoenix (talk) 23:27, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

This term is about "behavior" not about social classification or whatever. If a man contracts HIV through rape, he has contracted HIV by having sex with a man, consensual or not. This term is not "euphemism" for gay/homosexual/whatever. It is an HIV risk group that includes unwilling participants. It's cruel, it's heartless, I agree, and I sympathize, read my initial comment that says that I would love to find a loophole. But if someone contracts HIV through male-male sexual contact, regardless of it being voluntary or not, has contracted it as an MSM. The term should not be meant to be derogatory, it is not a social classification, it's not saying that someone is gay, or straight. What it is describing is precisely that. As you said, the only purpose of this term is in HIV research... and it's been made abundantly clear in the article, however if you disagree, please, I invite you to add further explanation for peer review. --Puellanivis (talk) 01:02, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Labelling rape as "having (unconsensual) sex", regardless of the genders of the parties involved, is certainly both semantically and morally wrong, not to mention professionally irresponsible. So, I take it the previous contributor to this topic has made a serious unconscious linguistic error unless, that is, there is some language abuse through the convenience of laxity. "Sexual assault" is the real notion and term. As for "risk groups", given that the statistical notion has no bearing on a particular individual's behaviour, the notion in itself is discriminatory toward LGBT people and straight people alike. For example, an HIV-negative gay man who only ever kisses and has mutal masturbation with another man (gay-identified or not, HIV-positive, negative, status unknown) has a ZERO percent chance of contracting HIV, regardless of what many "specialists" say about the "risk group" he "belongs to". The same would hold true for a truly monogamous gay male couple, both members being HIV negative, who have condomless anal sex. What's more, the "risk group" of "gay males" is based on the fallacy that all gay (-identified?) men will have penetrative sex and can and do take risks. Equating being a gay male and having penetrative sex and thereby forming a "gay male risk group" has to do with heterosexism, not research. The prime example of this discrimination on the basis of "risk groups" is the Canadian Blood Services's ban on gay men donors for being gay, or more precisely, for having or having had ANY type of sex with another man, not for actually having practiced unsafe penetrative sex or having been raped or committed rape with another male, or for being unaware of one's own HIV status [1], [2]. By the way, the focus only on "risk behaviours", i.e. penetrative sex, instead of also finding out one's HIV status has been a major contributor to the failure of safer-sex campaigns in the gay "community" particularly among gay male youth.--CJ Withers (talk) 01:03, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately for you, legal definition of rape in the state of Washington is:^[1]

(1) "Sexual intercourse" (a) has its ordinary meaning and occurs upon any penetration, however slight, and
    (b) Also means any penetration of the vagina or anus however slight, by an object, when committed on one person by another, whether such persons are of the same or opposite sex, except when such penetration is accomplished for medically recognized treatment or diagnostic purposes, and
    (c) Also means any act of sexual contact between persons involving the sex organs of one person and the mouth or anus of another whether such persons are of the same or opposite sex."

Rape is any penetrative sex of any form, without concent, no matter how slight the penetration in the state of Washington.

If you feel that this MSM risk category is flawed, then find citable criticism and add it to the mainspace article. Until then, the CDC uses the term "MSM" to refer to a man who has contracted HIV/AIDS by male-male sexual contract. Using it as a "statistic" against "gay prevelance" is stupid, because not all MSM are gay. The entire purpose of the MSM risk category is to provide a label for a group of Americans that are at a higher level of risk, regardless of their identitification. If you have contracted AIDS by male-male sexual contact, then the CDC will report it in their statistics as "MSM", not as "high-risk heterosexual intercourse" or "intraveneous drug use". The fact, the fact is that in the microcosm of the United States of America, MSM are more likely to contract HIV/AIDS. It is not guarenteed that someone who is MSM is going to be exposed to HIV/AIDS, one-off examples of committed monogamous relationships between gay men alter the statistical prevalence but what you end up with, with all that statistical prevalence added together, is that MSM is a significant risk category. MSM expands beyond gay/bisexual/homosexual issues, and deals with individuals, who by nature of not considering themselves gay are not ideal targets for safe male-male sexual contact education. Each group of MSM need find the best way to reach their own people to increase awareness about prevalence. When a man "on the down low" is confronted with literature from a doctor or anyone else, about how to have safe gay sex, they will immediately toss it out as "it does not apply to me, because I am not gay."

I have had to contend with people coming onto this page claiming that it's just another euphemism for "gay", which it is not. Now I have to deal with people within the gay community who object to what MSM as an HIV/AIDS statistical category says about them, making the same exact assumption, that all MSM are gay, and all gays are MSM, thus equating the two to be equal. Let me attempt to make this as clear as possible for the gay community: "MSM is a group that comprises more than simply 'gay' individuals. As such, it contains prevalence and statistical data which is not 1:1 mappable to gay culture alone. The gay culture is getting a lot better at spreading information about how to avoid the risks of HIV/AIDS, but the other cultures included in the MSM category are not doing as well. Thus, MSM remains a high-risk category, while 'gay' itself is no longer a statistically significant risk category." --Puellanivis (talk) 22:56, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

It seems you've missed the point a few times. I did not, even once, mention the term MSM (the term -- not notion behind it). I wrote about rape and about discrimination against gay men based on the whole notion of so-called risk groups. Please read my text. As for rape, one irrelevant state government law does not support your case the more so in that it mentions nothing about consent. It was you who added the word "concent" [sic]. Plus, that portion of legal text is a red herring in your specious argumentation. Now, back to the orignal matter, using "having (unconsensual) sex" to refer to rape in your orignal comment remains semantically incorrect and professionally irresponsible, and I take it that it was a simple, albeit egregious, slip. Lastly, please modify your tone, for everyone's sake since phrases such as "Unfortunately for you" are not a part of the Wikipedia spirit, as we can all agree. From what I've seen so far here, this discussion page spun out of control a while back due to someone's or some people's over-zealous fascination with penetrative (anal?) sex and statistics conjecture. I suggest a new discussion page be launched with point by point examples minus the reification of "risk groups". And remember, HIV negative gay men who never engage in sexual risk behaviours or never have sex at all have a ZERO percent chance of contracting HIV. Being a gay male does not in itself mean a person "has a chance" of contracting HIV. Let's stop the heterosexism, AIDS stigma, and anti-gay group labelling. --CJ Withers (talk) 01:36, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

If you could marshal some sources to support your position it would help. The opinions of editors don't count for much around here. FYI, here's an interesting study about the topic: "Many Straight Men Have Gay Sex: Nearly 10% of Self-Proclaimed 'Straight' Men Only Have Sex With Men". ·:· Will Beback ·:· 02:49, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Also this explanation:

• Human sexual practice is diverse. In response to the need to better understand that diversity in the face of the HIV epidemic, a fact became widely known that had previously been understood by few: a significant population of men who do not self-identify as “gay” or “bisexual” sometimes have sexual contact with other men. It was recognised that a descriptor for behaviour, rather than an assertion of social identity, was needed, and the term “men who have sex with men”, and its acronym MSM, came into being.[3]

Whether the sex is consensual or not is beside the point. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 02:51, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

(reseting quote level, please do not "reindent" this text) Ok, fine, I'll reference something else, like Rape: "Rape is a form of assault where a person has sexual intercourse with another person without their consent."

Next, this article deals with MSM, if you are only here to get riled up about gays, and gay bias, this page is not the ideal place to do so, because MSM is not gay. If you are not discussing this article (and thereforce MSM) then your arguments are irrelevant. As well, there is not a ZERO percent chance of HIV/AIDS contraction from mutual masterbation. Should one's ejaculate into an open wound of the other, either intentionally, accidently, or even unknowingly, it increases their risk above zero. Granted, the chance of contracting HIV/AIDS is extremely low in such a case, but it is not zero (just like WSW isn't a zero percent chance, as it's hypothetically possible, even though there has never been one documented case where WSW is the only risk factor EVER). --Puellanivis (talk) 21:26, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad you agree as no one can say that a person who has been drugged and raped or a person who has fallen unconscious due to their own intake of drugs and then raped can be said to "have had sex". Yet the same must be said about the blatant shortcut "had sexual intercourse". No one should be surprised as you use much further above the moral-related and biased term "promiscuity" instead of the well-established academic and outreach work term "multiple partners". As for HIV transmission, open sores or wounds are an exception, i.e. a separate factor, and do not count as a given activity itself. As for being on-topic, please reread my contribution. I did not refer to the term whereas I did refer to the notion behind it, which is what I clearly stated. In fact, the bone of contention concerning this article and the talk page is the notion behind the term. So, you clearly see I am right on the mark and not off-topic. Also, just because someone whose sexual orientation is homosexual yet does not identify as gay does not mean that that individual is not gay. That is the whole problem with this discussion page and the term MSM: linguistic laziness and fuzzy terms with flip-flop notions behind them. "Gays", as you put it, includes the subset of those who are not out of the closet and those who do not identify possibly even to themselves that their sexual orientation is homosexual. Therefore, among MSMs there certainly are "gays". Hence the major misunderstandings on this page, once again. To help you grasp the difference between "term" and "concept"/"notion", I suggest you consult the Wikipedia article on terminology. --CJ Withers (talk) 22:51, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

You're playing games with semantics here. Like someone insisting that they "make love" not "have sex". There are a number of biological conditions that constitute sexual behavior and thus "sex" as a whole, and none of those conditions depend upon consent. (Actually, sex among felines is extremely unpleasant for the female, as the male has sharp barbs that cut the sensitive skin of the females as they implant their semen. The female's response to this is to ovulate. No matter how you look at it, female cats do not willingly EVER have sex, because the male's actions always take the form of forced sex upon the female, or rape.) I'm more than happy to change the text of the main article from "promiscuity" to "multiple partners", yet I was simply unaware of the availablity of such a term, because I am not involved in gay outreach, or the gay culture. The discussion of potential infection from open sources while masturbating another person is pretty much moot, as it is contained in no statistical parts of the CDC's groupings. However, were a man to be infected from an open-sore from seminal fluid of another, then that would would be considered transmission through a sexual act, and thus MSM.

And while you continue to argue that MSM is equivalent to gays, "gay" carries numerous sociological meanings in addition to simply "participates in homosexual activities". While the term "gay" does include the group of people that you say in part, it does not include people who actively reject that term despite all knowledge of what "gay" is, and what "gay" constitutes. Christian fundamentalist society would put transwomen in the term "gay" even after her surgery, so who are we to trust to define "gay" for us to use as a statistical model? Hm? I cannot trust you, because you would include people who vehemently insist that they are not gay, and I cannot take the Christian fundamentalist view because they would declare some women to be gay. No less, they would define certain men as not gay, even though those men may participate in receptive anal sex with multiple partners, simply because they were born female. We cannot rely upon anyone to define "gay", and that's why the CDC uses "men who have sex with men", because it is applicable to non-gays, people who refuse to identify as gay despite participating in homosexual activity, and effectively removes all the ambiguous grey areas of transgendered, transsexual and intersexual, unless the activity can pretty confidently be stated to be between "men". --Puellanivis (talk) 21:05, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Yet another non-sequitur, but this time with animals. What you call semantics is extremely important as it has major repercussions as to how humans react and behave, particularly with such obviously sex-negative, if not anti-gay, terms as "promiscuous". Also, in some of the literature that you cite, another term "casual partners" is used. I have also seen it commonly used in both English and French. Btw, you're off track. I stated that a _portion_ of MSMs are gay, i.e. have a homosexual orientation, yet do not identify as gay. This portion is gay, which is what I have always maintained and stated. Let's face it: statistics conjecture via reification of risk groups leads to discrimination, to more so in that such reification is often in itself discrimination, positive or negative. --CJ Withers (talk) 08:14, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Pardon me gentlemen but I feel this discussion has strayed far from where it was when I brought up this issue. And though it is a fascinating discussion with many good points, I hope that we can do our best to simplify and focus. My point was simple: Rape is not Sex. While some rape may include a kind of sexual intercourse, it is not sex and does not involve choice. "Men Who Have Sex With Men" suggests "Men Who Choose To Have Sex With Men". As I said before, if the term MSM was created for use in HIV politics for funding and research purposes, and it was designed to include male rape, then that definition, in the very first paragraph, should clarify its nature: As a political term invented to be used for funding and political purposes, and includes 'male rape' only for that reason. This is not at all clear in the current definition, in fact the way it's written now doesn't make a lot of sense. I believe it is an egregious error to include rape as being part of the same phenomenon as men who have sex with men. EyePhoenix (talk) 06:53, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I couldn't agree with you more, on all of your points. I think the issue you bring up is caused by certain parties' linguistic laxity, i.e. the type of irresponsible laxity I mention in my first comment under this rubric, and resistance to acknowledging your serious contribution. --CJ Withers (talk) 10:13, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The Inclusion of Rape and the Creation of the Terminology

I'm going to restart this thread of discussion by explaining this clearly. The term "MSM" was created for use in HIV statistics by the CDC and other health agencies, because "gay" does not encompass all of the MSM community, and the MSM community as a whole has the larger prevalence not just simply "gay". It is not a political term at all, and thus the reason why "choice" doesn't come into play here. It is purely a health-industry statistical group that says nothing about the members of that group. (Beyond, that they are men, and have had sex (in any form, consensual or not) with men.) --Puellanivis (talk) 19:50, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

oK Puellanivis, I used the word "political" specifically in terms of the "health industry", and there are most definitely politics involved in that world, especially in regards to funding. You have skipped right over the thrust of my post, which I will now re-iterate: If the term MSM was created for use in HIV politics for funding and research purposes, and it was designed to include male rape, then that definition, in the very first paragraph, should clarify its nature: As a political term invented to be used for funding and political purposes, and includes 'male rape' only for that reason. This is not at all clear in the current definition, in fact the way it's written now doesn't make a lot of sense. Now please lets move past the word "political", and respond to my point first. EyePhoenix (talk) 22:26, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I restate this again, very clearly, because you're missing the point. The term was created exclusively for statistical purposes only. Not funding, not politics, not anything but statistical purposes. If people have politicized it, whatever, but the term's origins in statistical incidences of HIV/AIDS refers to an entirely non-political origin of HIV/AIDS transmission. --Puellanivis (talk) 01:23, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Dear God, this is madness. Please stop dancing around what I am telling you, this is NOT about the word "politics". Read what I am saying: The article does not explain what MSM is. EyePhoenix (talk) 21:24, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Unsourced definition lists

At the moment, the article contains a laundry list of completely unsourced definitions as to who is, and isn't, a MSM.

These include self-contradictory statements and circular definitions -- for example:

• "MSM groups include:" [...] "Female-to-male transsexuals sexually active with men;"
• "Non-exhaustive list of people who are not MSM" [...] "Any transgender or transsexual individual, who does not engage in risk behaviors similar or equivalent to sex between MSM, regardless of self-identity, genital appearance, or social assignment."

Where do these definitions come from? The term "men who have sex with men" is a simple, useful, self-explanatory concept, independent of any considerations of risky or non-risky behavior, consent, or intention, and subject only to the definitions you choose for "men" and "have sex with". Even if we restrict the concept of MSM to the common case of non-transsexual non-intersexed biological males having sex, safe or unsafe, with other non-transsexual non-intersexed biological males, it is still a useful concept for epidemiologists, regardless of any arguments about whether some TS/TG/intersex people belong to this category.

If there is an "official" finer-grained definition of MSM, it should be sourced to the authority that provides it. Otherwise, these lists are original research, and fail Wikipedia's verifiability and attribution requrements.

Since all of these lists of who is, and isn't, an MSM are currently completely unsourced, I've removed them. If you can provide a finer-grained definition of MSM, and can attribute and source this to an authoritative source, please do so. -- The Anome (talk) 11:58, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd have to agree with The Anome on the contradictions and outright messiness of everyone being unable to pinpoint just exactly what the notion behind the term MSM is. I think the main reason for the mish-mosh is that many consider a man to be gay only if he self-identifies or comes out. Unfortunately, this is actually an example of heterosexism: the assumption that someone is not gay because they have not come out or do not identify as gay despite their homosexual orientation. --CJ Withers (talk) 23:09, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

No, you're practicing homophobic, and inconsiderate language here. I have not, nor desire to make the assumption that everyone is heterosexual unless they come out as gay. Rather, the position is that "gay" is a specific subset of homosexual behavior, and community, and some people do not associate, and outright reject such a classification. An MSM is for example, gays, gays in the closet, gays in the closet to themselves, but it's also heterosexual men who try it out because they're curious, but find that it's not for them. MSM also involves people who have had unwilling sexual intercourse (this is being debated elsewhere). I have long noticed that there is a part of the LGBT culture out there that deems if you're not part of the LGBT community, then you're lying to yourself, or something like that. There are people out there who know exactly what they are, what they're doing, and the meaning of "gay" and yet reject that term, because it carries sociological ___ outside of their experience. There's nothing to say that even someone who would otherwise identify as "gay" need identify as "gay" because in our society "gay" means more than just "engages in homosexual behavior". Homosexual activities do not necessarily make someone "gay", but just because someone doesn't identify as "gay" doesn't mean that they are not actually "gay". --Puellanivis (talk) 20:50, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Your false accusation is a failed attempt at an ad hominem red herring, which seems to be the trend in your efforts to fill up this page. Were you to realize that I am the main contributor to the heterosexism article and that my professional research is specifically on homophobic language (read my User page), you might have realized that using such a blatently defensive, irresposible, and completely inaccurate epithet is logically impossible. As for being gay, you are absolutely wrong in saying that someone must come out or associate with a "community" in order to consider themselves gay. There are plenty of gay men and lesbians who are proud and out without participating in gay political or social organisations, in other words, in what you slapdashedly call "the community". With your faulty logic, then, gays must not have existed before bars or organisations. What nonsense! Also, what is this nonsense about a part of LGBT culture that "deems...your lying"? Can you cite that? But you agree with me as to what MSM should mean, despite how it has been used to EXclude self-identifying gay men. What you state as a position is in fact of your own invention and I think all of us here would appreciate it if you stopped fabricating things to support your presumptions. Why do you perpetually feel attacked regardless of whether someone is citing your faulty logic or simply stating facts that don't mention you and that don't please you or that you simply do not understand? I personally enjoy other contributors' insight and feel it certainly improves article quality, why don't you? --CJ Withers (talk) 08:05, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Your declared professional research is meaningless on Wikipedia, as anyone can invent any form of credentials. I believe there was a big hoopla about one of the major editors on Wikipedia claiming to have a doctorate, which they didn't have. Congratulations though, you're the main editor for heterosexism, guess what? I'm the main editor of men who have sex with men... WOW! No, my logic isn't that there were no gays without a "community", what I'm saying is that at this moment in time, "gay" means a lot of different things to different people. That's why this article covers a term that was created to avoid the loaded word "gay". I'll invite you to define gay for me, so that we can work from the same starting point in this discussion. As for "citing" that some in the community insist on saying that people are "gay" even when they don't self-identify as gay... you're doing it yourself with every post. I honestly don't see how you can claim that the term "MSM" is excluding self-identifying gay men. Let's look at the intro, and first list of some MSM groups: "Sexually active gay males". Wow, it's first on the list. I love other contributors contributing... however you are bickering with me on the talk page, not contributing. If you have an issue with any of the language in the article, then please correct it, or lay it out. The talk page and my personal views, or previous statements are irrelevant for the content of this article, as long as that article is accurate, and correct. If you wonder why I take issue with a few people's posts? Because it either is unhelpful, misguidedly assumes MSM contains only gay/bisexual men, that if you're MSM then you're gay, or any other such nonsense. The first thing that brought this article to my attention was that it was declaring transwomen as MSM... regardless of surgical status. This article has been finely honed to ensure that MSM is known to include the obvious groups "sexually active gay men" and specifically note that transgender, transsexual and intersexed individuals don't fit nicely into this category as a whole group... only some of them are MSM, even though someone else might consider them all to be men, and since they have sex with men, obviously they would be MSM. This is simply not true. --Puellanivis (talk) 17:49, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

The work of bonified researchers like myself is certainly meaningful on Wikipedia; I don't know why you would think the opposite. In fact, that's why we use real references on Wikipedia in the first place. I'm sorry that you've gone off on other tangents and used non-sequiturs. Maybe you should bone up on logic and fallacies. Also, have you ever directly worked with health outreach organisations whose clientele is gay males and non-gay MSMs? I have been for some 20 years now and on an international level (US, Canada, Spain, Russia, etc.). This professional experience is clearly pertinent to this article, esp. when it comes to linguistic issues. That's why I'm here. Remember, a person whose sexual orientation is homosexual is gay man or lesbian regardless of whether he or she comes out or ever has sex. People do not suddenly "become" gay from the performative utterance of coming-out be it to themselves or to others, unless we're talking about Judith Butler's analysis of the Don't ask don't tell U.S. military policy. Please read the article on sexual orientation. --CJ Withers (talk) 20:49, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Nonsense. Plenty of material is not sourced because it's generally considered as common sense, even if you don't happen to agree. I see this as a retaliatory strike for me reverting your inclusion of Blanchard material. (see Blanchard, Bailey, and Lawrence theory controversy) Benjiboi 01:13, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm actually quite content with the Blanchard material's removal as part of normal editing processes, and have no desire to reinstate it, nor to retaliate in any way at anyone for its removal. The rest of the article, with the exception of the two lists I removed, seems fine to me; it's actually a rather good article. However, the list of who are/are not MSM does not seem to me to be in any way commonsensical; the two detailed lists, one specifying who is, and a second specifying who isn't, do not seem to me to make any coherent sense, and are, as I said before, completely unsourced.

Now, "Common sense" material can be, and often is, used unsourced, providing there is no controversy about it. When there is controversy on material within an article, Wikipedia policy like WP:ATT, WP:V and WP:OR necessarily come into play. "Generally considered as common sense" is none of those, and is original research which does not satisfy those conditions. I've now removed those lists for a second time, with the same rationale as before.

I would, however, be perfectly happy to have this material restored to the article providing that it can first be attributed to verifiable, citable, reliable sources, as per Wikipedia policies. Given your level of confidence that these classifications are commonsensical, you should -- presumably -- have no difficulty in finding the necessary references. Please do not restore that material without providing the necessary source citations.

-- The Anome (talk) 01:39, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

The lists were based on mathematical formal logic to create them. Both of them were listed as "non-exhaustive". There's an infinite (or at least one per person in the world) gray points to use. Ideally, this risk category should simply be "people who engage in receptive anal sex", however that's not what the research community uses. I will insert the lists into the talk page and we can discuss each point if you wish. As well, "common sense" is anything but common. FTMs who have sex with men typically engage in the same risky behavior as any other man... the lists were not self-contradictory. "Any transsexual despite being FTM or MTF engaging in sex with the same risk level as unambiguous men with unambiguous men." includes the vast majority of "FTMs who have sex with men" (likely in the same percentile of men who have sex with men are in the same risk category as any other MSM) You left that statement in the body text... I don't see why you have difficulty understanding the lists given. --Puellanivis (talk) 23:00, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I have reinserted into the article the lists keeping only those entries that are by definition MSM, or by definition not MSM. The two previously listed as "MSM" are as follows:

• Female-to-male transsexuals sexually active with men;
• People engaging in sexual behaviors equivalent in risk to MSM regardless of either partner being transsexual, transgendered or intersexed partners.

Feel free to discuss any issues you have with these two... without contest, I will reinsert them as-is in no less than a week. --Puellanivis (talk) 23:13, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] STOP THE HATE

That is absolute rubbish that 1 in 10 gay men are HIV positive that is rubbish you gay haters you really hate us STOP THE BIAS AND HATE NOW!!!!) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.183.74.110 (talk) 07:44, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

I dont believe thats hateful at all, in fact its grossly underestimated. I personally don't know the statistics about gay men and HIV nationally, but I can tell you that in most major cities like NYC and San Francisco, almost half of the gay-identified male population are HIV positive. Citing those statistics is not "homophobic" at all. Those numbers have been that way for many years now. EyePhoenix (talk) 21:22, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I can't seem to find a reference for that statement. Also, it refers to 'gay men,' not MSM, which is the topic of the article. While I'm not disputing the accuracy of the statement, it is a very specific, unsourced statement that refers to a different group than that talked about. I have heard (and unfortunately, I don't have a reference for this either, as the research is not finished and so unpublished) that rates of safer sex compliance are higher (and new HIV infection lower) among gay-identified MSM than non-gay-identified MSM, which calls the implication of the statement into question. Forsakendaemon (talk) 09:56, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I have found (at http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/185_08_161006/pit10524_fm.html) a reference to a study that showed that in Australia, more than half of MSM identified as heterosexual (6.0% MSM, 1.6% gay, 0.9% bisexual). This calls into question whether we should refer to 'gay male' statistics in the MSM article, as gay men are not necessarily representative of MSM. Forsakendaemon (talk) 10:16, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I think you have the best point of all here. MSM != gay, so mentioning how prevalent HIV/AIDS is in "gay men" is irrelevant for this article. No less, it should be sourced. All of this is entirely neglecting the point of if the statement is gay-bashing or not... it simply isn't appropriate for discussion on this page. --Puellanivis (talk) 23:03, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Gay men who contract HIV before they come out to others or even to themselves are counted as MSMs. So, because of these men, mentioning HIV prevalence rates for gay men, is therefore relevant since any such figures termed as "gay" are mis- or under-representative and defeat the purpose of the MSM label/category. Also, the vast majority of gay men in non-Western countries, i.e., the world's population majority, such as all of those in Russia, China, India, in African countries, etc. do not identify as gay, particularly if their is no visible community. So, both the term and concept of MSM in such countries would clearly involve more gay men than actual bisexual and heterosexual men combined, not to mention those gay MSMs who immigrate to the West. --CJ Withers (talk) 23:00, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

This article specifically deals only with Western countries. MSM is a useless statistical group in Africa, because HIV/AIDS is so prevalent there. You speak to me about being insensitive to gays, yet, you're the one force-feeding the term "gay" and "homosexual" onto all MSM. Please respect the wishes of people who do not identify as "gay" and please, stop pushing the homophobic position that all MSM are gay. --Puellanivis (talk) 20:40, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

What source states that MSM is a useless statistical group? And who says gay men or gay men counted as MSMs aren't "more likely" to contract HIV "statistically speaking" in Africa, for example in South Africa? --CJ Withers (talk) 07:44, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I simply responded to the "Stop The Hate" comment in order to clarify that in fact the numbers he mentioned were largely under-estimated, and that they were not motivated by "hate" at all. The statistics about HIV infection in gay men may not be relevant for this article, but they certainly can be discussed on this page in order to help us all come to a better understanding. EyePhoenix (talk) 06:59, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Again, your comments are very insightful and I have to agree about under-estimated stats. There's nothing hateful or anti-gay in revealing the truth about how prevalent HIV is among gay men, no matter how unpleasant or misinterpreted that truth may be. This is especially the case if the research has been conducted with the purpose to raise gay men's awareness. In fact, the reality is that a startling number of gay men, particularly young gay men, do not know their serological status (what it is, how they can get tested, what the results mean, etc.). This number includes a signficant portion of young HIV-positive gay men, regardless of how they identify themselves. --CJ Withers (talk) 10:26, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I totally agree, talk about HIV/AIDS prevalence in gay men... however you should avoid doing an article that covers more than just gay people, because such prevalence rates are at an unknown statistical interaction with the greater MSM population. Specifically as an example, talking about the E. Coli contamination rate of strawberry jelly interacts at an unknown level with the E. Coli contamination rates of jelly as a whole. So, even if E. Coli had a 100% contamination rate of strawberry jelly, we would not know what kind of impact that had on the total E. Coli contamination rate of all jelly without first knowing what the ratio of strawberry jelly to all jelly is. --Puellanivis (talk) 19:45, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

"He mentioned" who? If you're talking about me, I am female. --Puellanivis (talk) 19:46, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Any person can be HIV positive or have AIDS

HIV/AIDS is found in all countries. HIV/AIDS can affect anyone of any; age, gender, race, sexual orientation, etc. In fact 80 percent of the world's cases of HIV/AIDS is from heterosexual vaginal sex (or penis in vagina sexual conduct) - Get your facts right please!—Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.183.74.110 (talk) 07:44, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

That is why this term is defined as useless outside of the US. In the US the term is in common use by the CDC no less. Facts are facts, world wide, receptive vaginal sex produces the most risk as a sexual behavior, within the United States however, both receptive vaginal AND ANAL sex are high-risk categories that deserve attention. --Puellanivis (talk) 23:06, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

The term is widely used in Canada both in English and French, plus it's used in France, and the francophone regions of Belgium and Switzerland. In French it's abbreviated to HARASAH, HSH or HARSAH depending on the health or outreach group using it. Here's just one French language example. The rest can be googled quite easily. Accordingly, I am deleting the bizarre US-only comment at the beginning of the article. --CJ Withers (talk) 23:32, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

The comment wasn't "US-only" but included Canada. Despite what you may think, because MSM is a completely non-statistically significant group in Africa, the term is not used there, and thus we should continue to have a restricting phrase in the intro paragraph defining where this term is even useful at all. --Puellanivis (talk) 20:36, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

"...because MSM is a completely non-statistically significant group in Africa..." Source? ·:· Will Beback ·:· 20:42, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

_I_ added Canada, so the orignal, superfluous, unresearched comment was US-only. Although that's not a reason to add a never-ending list of world nations. That's why I'm removing the odd and ridiculous list of countries. Let's think concision and focus by sticking to the topic. --CJ Withers (talk) 23:25, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] What is the point of this article??

Firstly, I don't understand what the intent of this article is. The whole article title makes no sense unless it is clarified right at the beginning what is meant by a man. The first paragraph specifically excludes transgendered people. The article then goes onto say that there is a correlation between HIV risk and MSM, but cites no sources. This does not even make sense. There is a correlation between HIV and anal sex perhaps, but to imply a correlation based on sexuality? It seems like some kind of agenda is perhaps present here. --Rebroad (talk) 08:32, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

MSM is a statistical cluster used by the CDC for HIV/AIDS statistics. That is the purpose of the article. The first paragraph specifically excludes transgendered people because they cannot be unambiguously termed "male" or "female", not also that it specifically excludes "intersexed" with the further exclusions to those exclusions that when it can be confidently said that the transgender/transsexual/intersexed person is unambiguously engaging in acts equivalent to MSM, that they're MSM. Examples: a MTF pre-op not engaging in anal-penetrative intercourse with men should be treated as otherwise a woman, an MTF pre-op who is engaging in anal-penetrative intercourse is however unambiguously equivalent to MSM, and is treated as an MSM. This is sticking to a logical construction of what the CDC would declare the route of HIV infection as being a result of. --Puellanivis (talk) 19:39, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Homosexual Semantics

I wanted to respond to the above discussion about using the word "gay" with a new thread, since I didn't really see a resolution to the idea. MSM was designed to include men who have sex with men but dont identify as "gay". I just wanted to make my views on the subject known also, which is that a persons unwillingness or inability, for whatever reason, to identify as "gay", makes them no less "gay". That is using the Webster's definition of "gay" as "homosexual". In other words, one may call themselves SGL, and they may reject the use of the word "gay", but if they meet the definition of "gay" then their still "gay", regardless of how they identify. That's not always easy to know however, because orientation really pivots on a persons personal sexual attraction. If we define sexual orientation in terms of sexual attraction, and not behavior, obviously all men who have sex with men are not "gay". Some are bisexual, and some are heterosexual. I do think its fair however, if someone meets the definition of "gay", to refer to them as "gay", regardless of whether they do or not. All MSM's are certainly not gay, but homosexual people are. I understand it is a complex issue, and some will have problems with that. After all we do live in a homophobic/hetero-sexist culture which many gay people internalize. But it's not fair to say that calling someone who is homosexual "gay" is not politically correct, as long as they truly are by definition. A horse is still a horse. EyePhoenix (talk) 22:48, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd go beyond dictionary-citing to say that using "gay" to designate a person whose sexual orientation is homosexual is not only linguistically accurate but also common sense. Homosexual orientation = gay, i.e. homosexual, regardless of identity issues. --CJ Withers (talk) 23:16, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Define homosexuality. (Ok, sex with a person of the same sex.) Now, define a person's sex. How do we classify XXY males? How do we classify other intersexed people, how do we define the transgendered, and transsexuals. How do we define the transsexuals who are attracted to the same gender that they identify as. A horse may always be a horse, but, for example, in cats, a cat that looks like a Russian Blue, is not always a Russian Blue. Like it or not, the term "gay" is far to socially charged with meanings and intent, and connotations. Many fundamentalist Christians wouldn't stop for a heart beat before calling a transwoman "gay", regardless of who she is attracted to. From a genetic viewpoint, anyone who is XXY (typically they look like men) wouldn't be "gay" unless he was with another XXY male (or an XXY transwoman). Not less, the amazing unlikelihood that an XXXY male would have finding someone to pair up with that would make them considered "gay". You both are treading in an area of absolutism, that you can label someone as a diametric pole, without consideration that there is variation in between. It's not always obvious what a "man" is, nor what a "female" is. Defining "homosexuality" is far more complicated than either of you are assuming it to be. Just because you're "enlightened" about gay issues, doesn't mean you understand bisexual and transgender issues at all. You're pushing a politically insensitive issue by stating that someone can be called "gay" even if they do not self-identify as gay. This is as absurd as claiming anyone's "true" inner gender without their self-identification. You are conflating too many issues and turning this term (MSM) into a politically charged arena, where the intention was specifically to get away from such politically charged terms. Stop with your false dichotomies, please. --Puellanivis (talk) 01:37, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

That's simply not true. "Gay" still means homosexual, and someone can be most definitely be homosexual without self-identifying as such. Seems like it's you who isn't getting it. But this thread was simply a conversation for clarity. As far as the article goes, you have still not spoken to my concerns. Let me simplify: The definition of in this article of MSM is inadequate and incorrect. It does not explain what it is. It is confusing to anyone who doesn't use the term and already understand its context. EyePhoenix (talk) 21:15, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm totally confused. The whole point of the term "Men who have sex with men" is that it is simply a behavior group, like "people who drink Dr Pepper." There isn't really a definition because the name is the definition. The article deals with how "men" is used, much like dealing with whether Diet Dr Pepper counts as Dr Pepper. I've never seen the term used outside of population-level public health research (though I'm biased since my job is in public health), so is there another use for the term "Men who have sex with men" that has a different definition? What definition would you use?Somedumbyankee (talk) 22:39, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

The very concept of people being 'gay' or 'homosexual' in the sense of having a fixed sexual orientation is peculiar to Western socities from about 1850 onwards (for example all but one Roman emperors had male lovers; and almost all senior soldiers in Ancient Greece did - asking whether they were all "gay" doesn't make much sense). These words are totally bound up with notions of culture, politics and identity, and do not make a good basis for scientific work e.g. on disease. From a scientific perspective, I can see why MSM is a much more straightforward and empirically useful category; 'gay' is clumsy, subjective and unclear.--82.22.10.232 (talk) 17:44, 14 June 2008 (UTC)