One blogger has weighed in on my piece and also clarifies some of what had me confused about Farmboyz’s post.

Update: Meanwhile, a few other people have commented at Farmboyz’s post and are reacting as if I’m telling people how to live their lives. Where the hell in my piece are they getting this from? Have some gay men become so overly sensitive and defensive that they see offense when there isn’t any?

Someone named Gordon describes me in a comment on this post: “Not as bright as he imagines himself to be.” What are you, Gordon, my fifth-grade teacher? What a smarmy, smug thing to say. Way to psychoanalyze me based on one 800-word opinion piece. You have no idea how bright I don’t imagine myself to be sometimes.

As for the actual post itself, Farmboyz has it all wrong.

1) Once again: I love sex. And anonymous sex can be lots of fun. Guess what? I’ve had lots of it. It can be quite a rush. But at least three different people so far have come to exactly the opposite conclusion after reading my piece, which means either that I should have thought harder about how my words would be read and revised the piece accordingly, or that some people equate criticism of repeated unprotected sex with prudery. All I can guess is that some people are so bitter about the outrageous criticism of the religious right and Anita Bryant clones – at least 30 years’ worth of criticism – that they lump any questioning of the 1970s way of life into that same category. This, despite the fact that I specifically wrote in the piece that my original feeling of scorn was wrong.

As I also wrote in my piece, sex in itself is not inherently dangerous, and there’s a difference between anonymous sex and unprotected sex. As far as physical health is concerned, whom you have sex with is less important than the precautions you take with that person. That’s more or less a direct quote.

2) As for meeting Farmboyz: I do remember meeting him at Pieces during a Christopher Street blogger bar crawl, and he’s right: whatever dissing or judging he imagines is completely in his head. I’ve only read his blog once before, actually, and it was because Joe (I think it was Joe) linked to a multi-part piece he wrote about something that happened a long time ago. I thought it was amazingly well-written. No idea where he came up with the feeling that I was judging him.

It’s true that I was uncomfortable that night. I was flattered that Joe invited me, but I get shy when I’m in a large, unfamiliar group of people who all know each other. Makes me feel like the odd one out. All I can guess is that my discomfort must have been visible on my face and he misinterpreted it.

I don’t get where the hostility toward me is coming from, but then again I don’t know Farmboyz or his blog very well.

“The expulsion of Pluto would make for a fine new bit of mythological lore. Schoolchildren might feel sorry for Pluto at first, but as they reached adolescence, they’d appreciate his outlaw cachet. He’d be the leader of a disaffected rebel gang — Pluto and the Planetinos, or the Plutonoids, or whatever the coolest rocks from the Sun were called. As new ones were discovered out on the fringes, they could get appropriate names like Hendrix or Cobain.”