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An issue that Damien Ridge's quotation does not raise is the question of the power of the penis during homosex. Theorists such as Gary Dowsett have argued that because sodomy can happen both ways, that is, it is reciprocal, that a different reading of penetration in male2male sex should take place. This may be true in the fluidity of certain sexual contexts but the opposite may also be true; that the infatuation of some gay men with dick size ('size queens') may be a form of power that gay men who have such an appendage possess over other gay men who desire to be penetrated by such a member. I also suggest that the image of the hard muscular body as phallus, a simulated penis, is a semiotic that signals the power that the phallic body as penetrating penis has over others. This is not an ironic subverting of 'normal' masculinity but its reaffirmation in homosex.

The ability to sit on it [the penis] and the sometimes compulsive sexual activity centred around anal sex - these are still issues of power through penetration and the need/want/desire for this act of consumption by gay men can lead to an abuse of that power by other gay men. Conversely, it can also lead to blissful pleasure where the penis is enfolded in the anal cavity, two people joined in sexual harmony and union! One abuse of power that rarely gets a mention is the issue of male rape. As a victim of male rape I know only to well the feelings of helplessness and vulnerability that can occur in a gay man who lacks the communication skills to say no to the advances of a stronger, more aggressive partner, one who will stop at nothing to fulfil his carnal desires.