Alex, I think I know this one . . . What is frottage or frotteurism?

From Sleep Positions, by Dr. Samuel Dunkell:

"A more complicated case involves a man who was referred to me for treatment after being arrested. He practiced frottage, or frotteurism, from the French word, frotteur, meaning to rub. Frotteurism is a fairly common sexual activity in large cities, where people are often crowded impersonally together in small spaces. Men who practice frottage seek out women on the subways during rush hour, or at large public events like parades, and rub their genitals against them. From my patient I learned that such men refer to themselves and one another as "customers," a term of obscure derivation. Many of these frotteurs know one another, and will occasionally get together to discuss their exploits and techniques.

"Because of special circumstances in his life history, my patient preferred to approach women from the rear, rubbing his organ against a woman's buttock or the backs of her thighs. He particularly enjoyed placing his penis in the gluteal fold, the cleft between the convexities of the buttocks. Wearing a raincoat or long jacket with the pockets cut, he would reach through from inside the pockets to unzip his trousers and withdraw his penis. (Some of the "customers," he told me, would use a penknife or a razor blade to slit the women's pantyhose.) He himself had developed the skill of surreptitiously raising a woman's skirt and pressing himself against her. During the entire procedure, as he rubbed himself against a woman, he would stare off into space as though lost in thought.

"The patient claimed to feel an intense love for the women he used in this way, exemplifying Freud's statement, 'Perhaps nowhere does the omnipotence of love show itself more strongly than it does in the aberrations of love.' Yet there was an ambivalence to his feelings about these women; his hostility was obvious in his need to 'dirty' them by ejaculating on them. Because of his personality problems, he was completely unable to understand why the women themselves could have negative feelings about his practices."

Don't you think you'd feel it if someone were to stick a penis in your gluteal fold? I mean, I hope to never have to prove this in real life, but I would bet an enormous sum of money that, even if my acoster were astute enough to pretend to be lost in thought, I would catch him at his ruse long before he had time enough to dirty me. Before writing this paragraph, I tried to convince myself that there wouldn't be any such thing as a gay frotteur anyway, but I couldn't find any argument that was convincing enough to believe. I've always hated the subway. Which reminds me, there is a passage in an Alan Watts book where he freely admits to a frottage episode on a train in Tokyo. He was fresh off of a stint in a Buddhist monestary, and was feeling immodestly sexually frustrated. Of course, he didn't go as far as lifting the woman's skirt or anything, but there was veritable rubbing involved. Amazingly enough, I didn't find the Watts passage at all disturbing the first time I read it. It is only bothering me now that I am recalling it in this light. If I can find the passage, I'll append it to the bottom of this entry. Goddamnit. I can't even remember which book it's in. Where is the library angel when I need her? Ah, thank you, angel. I now remember which book it's in, but because I don't own the book, there will be no appending. Also, I realize now that it wasn't Watts who initiated the contact. He somehow subliminally persuaded her to rub up against him. Imagine that. If anyone had been arrested, it would have been the woman. I'll tell you what I'd like to do. I'd like to catch the library angel down in the bookstacks and hump her leg for awhile. God, she must be spectacular.