"I started comforting him, telling him that I was OK," recalled Letellier. "And the pattern was set. He would hit me, and I would say we should try to work it out."

The violence gradually escalated, said Letellier, from a few times a year to monthly to weekly. During the last six months of their four-year relationship, Steven threatened to kill Letellier, pounded his head against the pavement in their San Francisco neighborhood, and beat him for chopping up carrots in a manner Steven didn't like.

Letellier became increasingly desperate, but he was reluctant to seek help. He had only recently come out to his family and was ashamed to tell them about the abuse. Some of his friends didn't believe him. He felt he couldn't go to the police because he was sure they wouldn't take the situation seriously. And he thought he should be able to defend himself.

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Although a series of reports reached conflicting conclusions about the causes of the illnesses, the government eventually acknowledged that troops had been exposed to toxic agents. Now, as the U.S. stands once more on the brink of battle with Iraq, fears of possible exposure to chemical and biological agents loom far larger in the public consciousness than a decade ago.

Men undergoing vasectomies or treatment for testicular or other cancers frequently freeze some of their sperm to maintain their reproductive potential. In the same spirit, California Cryobank, a leading sperm bank with offices in Los Angeles and Palo Alto as well as Cambridge, Mass., is offering free sperm storage to any male member of the armed forces heading for the Mideast who is worried about his future fatherhood potential.

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It's not a merely theoretical question. In at least one American court case involving divorced parents -- one in Israel, the other in the United States -- who are fighting over custody of their children, a federal judge has determined that Israel is at war, and therefore not a safe place for children. The ruling was issued in a case being adjudicated under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, a 1980 treaty accepted by more than 70 countries as the legitimate basis for resolving incidents in which a parent engaged in a custody battle with an estranged or former spouse abducts a child to another country.

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At the time, the movie was praised for what it was: a touching coming-of-age tale that explored, with sensitivity and taste, the issue of teenage sexuality and the eternal horny-boy fantasy of being initiated by an older and experienced beauty. I cried while I watched, but mainly because I so yearned for the tender moments that Hermie found -- although I craved a seducer with, unlike Jennifer, a penis I could touch, kiss and hold onto.

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The same-sex adoption situation has never been entirely clear in California because the law does not explicitly outline a procedure that allows both partners in a lesbian or gay couple to be legal parents. But for the past 15 years, gays and lesbians whose partners already have children -- either through a biological relationship or an official adoption -- have become "second parents" thanks to a modified version of the state's standard adoption process.

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Live and learn. No one bats an eye when a woman says she has had a Pap smear to check for signs of cellular changes that can lead to cervical cancer. But ask the average gay man if he's ever had the rear-end version and he's likely to stare at you in confusion or horror or, in some cases, a barely suppressed titillation. Yet a small but growing number of gay health experts now argue that, for men who have sex with men, an anal Pap smear is an important preventative step for anal cancer.

Here's the reason: Human papillomavirus, or HPV, is an umbrella name for dozens of viral strains that can cause warts on different parts of the body, as well as some forms of cancer. About 20 types of HPV can lead to genital and anal infections in both women and men. Because the glands in the anus are similar to those in a woman's cervix, HPV infection in either area can result in cancerous cell changes.

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It was a brilliant device. After all, why shouldn't someone let women in on the secret of how to give a great blow job? Why shouldn't straight men get to enjoy all the delights that gay men have shown each other for centuries? (Of course, I hated Anderson for thinking of it first. Why the hell wasn't I the one to rake in the bucks by sharing my vast experience in this field of endeavor?)

Now Anderson has returned with his second volume of whoopee advice: "Sex Tips for Gay Guys." Like its predecessor, this is a slight but sassy volume, silly but often entertaining. Still, it does raise the question: Who needs it? Is it worth $22.95? (That's $35.99 in Canadian change, according to the book jacket, but they're more desperate up there.) And wouldn't it make more sense just to wait for the inevitable paperback?

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One night, shortly after Gary fell asleep, love squeezed Bill's insides so hard that his hands sprang forward like claws. They stroked Gary's shoulder blades, the moon-shaped scar on his forearm, even the excess folds of flesh around his waist. Gary stirred a little and released a loud snore. Bill snatched his hands back and calmed them down by jacking off in the bathroom. He imagined himself rubbing his body up and down Gary's.

Over time, their cuddling shifted up a gear. They rolled around and grazed their lips together. But whenever they brushed against the prickly border between tenderness and lust, Gary pulled back. Bill was always a bit relieved. He knew and feared his own capacity for sexual disgust. But he was disappointed too, and angry, each time Gary robbed them of the chance to consummate their togetherness.

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He couldn't stop thinking about Gary.

On the surface, nothing had changed. They still spoke almost every day, but now, after Bill hung up, he often had a little trouble breathing. He started to tell Gary all his little secrets, his petty grudges. He told Gary about wanting to run over little old ladies in the crosswalks. He told Gary about wanting to stab people sometimes when he held a knife in his hand. He knew that behind every confession lurked something even worse clamoring for exposure. But he couldn't stop himself.

Bill kept wondering when Gary would decide that something he revealed was beyond the pale. But no matter what he said, Gary nodded sagely. Sometimes he told Bill he'd had the same feeling. Sometimes he said he understood. Sometimes he just smiled sweetly.

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"He's so surly and mean," said Gary.

Bill grinned. "Exactly."

Bill liked his men the way he liked his Chinese soup: hot and sour. He wanted the guys tough and the sex a bit rough. Maybe that's why most of his boyfriends had been assholes.

Gary was one of Bill's best buddies. He had recently announced his retirement from sex and love. He couldn't take the stress, he said. The guy he'd been dating for the past few months had dumped him, his T cells were dropping and his panic attacks had returned. Now he longed for placid days, not the monsoons of desire. He distracted himself by studying men's noses. He loved the specimen on Gerard Depardieu.

"He's got a fantastic nose," said Gary. "Smart and doughy. A real person's nose."

Bill had definitely not retired from sex. He updated Gary on all his dates -- if they could even be called that. Gary kept track of them with nicknames and experienced echoes of pleasure from Bill's escapades.

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The cause of the delay was a tumor of the pituitary gland, the brain organ that controls the body's hormone levels. The mass itself was benign, but it caused his pituitary to flood his body with prolactin, the substance that sparks the production of breast milk in women. At the peak of his illness, says Baker, his prolactin levels were 150 times that of a normal man and eight times that of a nursing mother. And his testosterone levels were drastically suppressed.

As a result, through most of his adolescence and young adulthood, he could get an erection, if at all, only under the most intense manual stimulation, and he avoided virtually all sexual contact. He didn't have to shave more than once a month. He was a star hockey player in high school and college -- but no matter how much he lifted weights and exercised, his body would not retain muscle mass. He developed modest-size, lactating breasts. He also began suffering severe sinus headaches as a result of the tumor, which eventually grew to be the size of a chestnut.

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And Mary Cheney, Vice President Dick Cheney's daughter, is not just any lesbian. Until last spring she was essentially a professional dyke, employed by the Coors Brewing Co. as its liaison to the gay community -- a high-profile position in queer-and-beer circles. She has lived openly in Colorado with her girlfriend and is, by all accounts, extremely close to her family.

Now, it's true that Mary Cheney has not uttered a public word about her sexual orientation since her father's selection; she was zipped up and hermetically sealed by the campaign, presumably with her own consent. In that sense, she's a perfect metaphor for how society still deals with gay and lesbian issues -- "don't ask, don't tell" writ large on the public stage. "We'll grant you the courtesy of acknowledging that you exist because we have no choice anymore," says America. "But please -- just don't talk about it!"

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But something interesting can happen when you hook up with an unfamiliar guy. You can be anyone to him, and he to you, and when the setting's right the sweat and spunk and twisting limbs forge a brief but tender bond between you. That's why my acts of nonlove sex have, at their best, been far more affectionate and just plain fun than the joyless, mechanical groping and grinding depicted in cable's new gay fuck-fest, "Queer as Folk," which debuted Dec. 3 and will run for several more months.

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Given the collapse in recent months of his majority coalition in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, Barak had assented to the legislature's plans to dissolve itself and hold new elections, which were originally scheduled for May. But his sudden resignation was seen as a high-stakes gamble which may well cost the prime minister his job.

Under the special election law, a vote will be held only for the post of prime minister rather than for the entire Knesset. It is widely believed in Israel that Barak stepped down to drastically reduce the possibility that his chief opponent would be Likudnik and former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been riding high in the polls in recent weeks, rather than current Likud leader and Netanyahu rival Ariel Sharon. The continuing wave of Palestinian protest began when Sharon, a highly controversial figure and a hard-liner on security issues, made a widely publicized visit to the area of Jerusalem's holiest Muslim site -- a location also revered by Jews.

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Because I'd like an answer to my question: Am I the only one who finds this entire Florida spectacle not just riveting but a glorious display of much that is right with our system, not just what's wrong? Yes, it's nasty. Yes, some rather peculiar electoral activities have come to light. Sure, it would have been better if this whole mess had not occurred, if presidential ballots were uniform throughout the country, if ... if ... if a lot of things.

But it did happen. And maybe I'm naive in the extreme, but I feel a peculiar thrill to be a witness to this extraordinary process -- even if both candidates (but especially Bush) are clearly limited.

The basic point is this: Despite the hostilities of the past few weeks, we're not talking Bosnia here. This is not the French Revolution. No one is storming the Bastille. If we were in Soviet-era Moscow -- or maybe even the Moscow of today -- the radio would be playing "Swan Lake" around the clock and we'd have engrossing five-hour documentaries about mushroom picking on TV while the Kremlin bulldogs huddled in secret to determine the country's fate.

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I grab my PlanetOutGay.comStarbucks coffee mug and take a few sips to mull over the offer. The coffee tastes bitter and stale, so I toss it and brew a little more in my fabulous new PlanetOutGay.comBraun coffee maker. Then I sit down with my PlanetOutGay.comNewYorkTimes and catch the latest news in the Bush-Gore battle for the electoral votes from PlanetOutGay.comFlorida.

I head outside and draw the sparkling air deep into my lungs. I look around. I've forgotten where I parked my PlanetOutGay.comHondaAccord, so I pull out my PlanetOutGay.comPalmPilot and punch in a few figures. I always record where I've parked in my PlanetOutGay.comPalmPilot because I'm pretty absent-minded about these things. It turns out the car's right in front of the PlanetOutGay.comBen&Jerry's outlet on Castro Street, so I decide to get a cone of PlanetOutGay.comCherryGarcia.

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When I woke up this morning my bladder was killing me and that heartburn from the vinegar in the three-bean salad flared up again, and then Esther came over for a chat and brought some of the stale rugelach she always bakes. I can't figure out what she does to make it so inedible, but Florence Glickstein told me she once nearly broke her dentures on it. Oh, and that reminds me, I've got to call Florence's son the doctor and make that appointment for Bernie to get his Viagra prescription next week.

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This was the good Bill, the smiling, sunny-tempered one, and he exhorted the faithful not only to vote for Al Gore but to convince everyone they know, and even those they don't know, to vote for the vice president. And he had the crowd crowing with pure pleasure in his presence from the moment he started his spiel. But just as important as what the big guy did in his speech at the city's George Moscone Convention Center, however, was what he didn't do.

He didn't whine that the Republicans owed him an apology, as he did in a profile in the December issue of Esquire. He didn't make like Sharon Stone under interrogation and spread his legs sporting a "come-eat-me" look in his eyes, as he did in the cover photo accompanying the magazine article. He didn't subtly insult the man who doesn't want to be seen with him by referring to Gore as "the next best thing" -- after Clinton himself -- as he did in a radio interview earlier this week.

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To date, the evidence has been largely anecdotal. Researchers have identified 30 or so cases in which oral sex was the only reported risk factor but in the gay community, at least, many men have assumed that the risk is infinitesimal. Because doctors and scientists all agree that the risk is pretty low, many AIDS educators have also recently reduced their efforts to convince people not to have oral sex so they can focus all their attention on discouraging them from having unprotected anal sex.

Now researchers at the University of California at San Francisco have launched the first study designed to isolate the risk factors involved in oral transmission by comparing men who have been infected orally with those who have engaged in oral sex but have not been infected. "It's very important, so I'm really glad they're doing it," says Tim Teeter, associate director of treatment support at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. "It's been such a gray area, and at a time when sero conversions are on the increase, this could help people to further assess their risk."

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