T H E_.H O T_.S P O T A call to hearts By Susie Bright Being single on Valentine's Day doesn't have to be a downer (02/05/99)   ___________________ Got an urge you need to satisfy? Check out barnesandnoble.com's selection of sex books ___________________   R E C E N T L Y Doctor's orders By Janelle Brown In the wake of a new Alabama law declaring vibrators illegal, a provocative new book, "The Technology of Orgasm," sheds light on the perversely puritanical evolution of the feminine joystick (02/25/99) Dr. Block's little house of sexual horrors By Carol Lloyd A grotesque L.A. event proves that when it comes to being unsexy, it's really hard to beat sex (02/18/99) Decade of the dick By Deanne Stillman Bobbing from one scandal to the next, the male member has seized center stage at the close of the millennium (02/11/99) Boogie bites By Jenn Shreve Porn star activists want to pave the way for a new era of enlightened porn ... but isn't this an oxymoron? (02/04/99) Strap-on epiphany By Virginia Vitzthum In becoming the penetrator, a woman learns to see sex -- and the world -- through male eyes (01/28/99) - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Urge archives - - - - - - - - - -		A REFORMED FROTTEURIST EXPLORES THE ROOTS OF HIS LONG-LOST FETISH. BY JON BOWEN Back when I was a teenage sex pervert, my best friend and I would go out on Friday nights to rub up against college women. Our venue of choice was the Fish Market in Washington, D.C., a rowdy watering hole for the trust-funded collegiate set. On weekends the bar was a fire marshal's nightmare, jammed wall to wall with sweaty Georgetown frat boys and their perky female counterparts. My pal Tom and I were your average 17-year-old high school horndogs -- suburban dweebs in skinny leather ties, armed with fake I.D.s and a raging appetite for illicit contact. We would order a couple of Singapore Slings, settle into a corner and try not to look conspicuously underage. The Fish Market, a long, narrow place with a U-shaped bar, had high-top tables and stools running along the perimeter, by the windows. Between the bar and the tables, dozens of women stood trapped in a mass of clammy bodies. The Fish Market served cheap beer in tureen-sized glasses, so by the time Tom and I rolled in, the lightweights were already teetering. From our shadowy corner we lovingly eyeballed the semi-adult womankind, our juvenile loins tingling with expectation. Then we would begin: We circled the bar, arms raised over our heads like soldiers wading a creek. There was no room to pass through the crowd, really, so you had to squeeze in-between and around the women, getting sandwiched by their breasts and butts. By pretending we had to get through to go to the bathroom, or the bar, we could usually make three or four circuits before anyone started getting suspicious. Sure, I'm ashamed to admit that I wallowed in such wanton sexploitation, but back then it seemed more like schoolboy mischief than hardcore perversion. Eventually I quit rubbing up against women and moved on to more socially acceptable courtships -- conversation, dating, marriage, etc. Not everyone gives up the habit so easily. Frotteurism, as clinicians call it, is the practice of rubbing up against an unconsenting -- and usually unsuspecting -- person, for the purpose of sexual gratification. The term comes from the French verb frotter, to rub. The rubbing act itself is called "frottage" (the word we also use for the decidedly un-arousing act of rubbing a pencil over an object under paper, to create a snazzy design). In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV), the psychiatrist's Bible of mental ills, frotteurism is installed in the category of Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders. Unlike other deviancies in that category -- exhibitionism, voyeurism, transvestic fetishism, et al. -- frotteurism is a strictly male pursuit. According to the DSM-IV Case Book, the companion piece to DSM-IV, no cases of the disorder have ever been reported in females. DSM-IV's frotteurism case study features "Charles," a 45-year-old schmoe who was referred for psychiatric consultation after his second arrest for rubbing up against strangers in the subway. Charles would choose a woman in the train station, follow her onto a train and begin pressing against her from behind -- wearing plastic wrap around his penis so as not to blow his cover with unsightly stains. Charles estimated that he had "frotted" more than 1,000 women over the course of 10 years. Like Charles, most frotteurists do their sneaky deed in overcrowded venues -- subways, theaters, sports arenas and shopping malls. The average frotteurist, according to DSM-IV, often fantasizes that he has an exclusive, caring relationship with his victim. And he's seldom caught or prosecuted because, where human bodies get mashed together helter-skelter, it's difficult to prove that anyone has acted licentiously. DSM-IV classifies frotteurism as a paraphilia, or sexual perversion. But in the world of Marv Albert's lace panties, Monica Lewinsky's cigar and Dick Morris' sweet tooth for toes -- the boundary between ordinary sexual behavior and deviation has been blurred beyond distinction. In the millennium's twilight, you can get away with almost anything under the aegis of sexual liberty. (Witness, for example, "Amputee Love," a Web site dedicated to those discriminating connoisseurs who enjoy ogling naked amputees.) Yet it's naive -- and short-sighted -- to think that the times we're living in are extraordinarily perverted. Human nature doesn't change, and the parameters of deviance have always been dictated by cultural context. (Until 1974, the American Psychiatric Association classified homosexuality as a paraphilia.) This isn't to suggest that someday soon frotteurism advocates will march on the Capitol, upholding non-consensual rubbing as the alternative lifestyle du jour. But if frotteurism victims are so seldom aware of what is happening to them, are there any real victims? Is frotteurism a malevolent act -- "the erotic form of hatred," to use sex author Robert Stoller's name for perversions -- or is it a lecherous but basically harmless way for sex-deprived nerds to get laid standing up? N E X T+P A G E | Low-grade molestation for chicken-hearted perverts - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Become a Salon member. Click here.