AskFannie: Bottoming Blues!

Dear Fannie,

I'm 24, gay, male, white... so the top of the gay pecking order. I've been with my boyfriend for a good 3 months. Like any normal gay couple, we fuck like bunnies, which is great... if only I liked it. My boyfriend is an out and out top, and I'm... I guess a bottom by default in that I don't like to top. The only problem is that I don't like bottoming either. It's not that I dislike bottoming. It's not excessively painful or anything... It just does nothing for me. And it's not just my boyfriend, I've taken it from plenty of guys, and it's the same with all of them. I'm afraid of telling my boyfriend that I don't like him topping me, since we've been having sex for 3 months, and I still haven't told him.

Not a Top, but Not Yet a Bottom


NATBNYAB,

First, Thanks for acknowledging your privileged space in the gay hierarchy! There's nothing better than a self-reflexive question to start the day! So your boyfriend is pitching to his heart's delight, but you're an unenthusiastic receiver (I think I'm mixing my sports metaphors). I think your question is really speaks to how gay sexuality is not only scripted, but constructed with traditional notions of masculinity. Also, kudos on the Britney reference, SO much better than the last person to use that same song as a pseudonym.

Not to beat the gender studies gong again (and I do believe it to be a gong), but the more I see of western gayness, the more I see it playing into patriarchy. This includes the way that we think about sex as exclusively penetrative. I find it strange how in gay male sexuality, your sexual identity isn't only constrained by object choice (i.e. men) but also our coital position (top or bottom). Being a top or bottom in many ways defines us in the same way that being gay defines us. And with those labels come a host of associations. Tops are butch and masculine, and bottoms are femme and fabulous. Obviously, plenty of people resist or refute these stereotypes, but chances are that if one see a flame burning bright, one also assumes that he assumes the position.

There's another lovely category that in some ways attempts to resist that binary, being the versatile. But, even that category presumes the preeminence of anal sex as the pinnacle of the homosex acts. To not be a top, but not like bottoming shatters the schema of gay sex.

The fact of the matter, NATBNYAB, anal sex is far from the end all be all of gay sex. It may be hard to believe, especially if you're ever seen gay porn, or listen to Pat Robertson (I swear, I learned more about gay sex from frantic anti-gay Christians than from anywhere else)... but there's a lot less butt sex that happens than most people would believe. I know many gay male couples who seldom perform anal sex, if at all. Don't let the categorization of certain sex acts as "foreplay" deceive you. Those "foreplay" acts can be far more satisfying than taking it up the chute could ever be.

As for telling your boyfriend that you don't like playing hide the sausage, believe it or not... he may already know. Unfortunately for gay men, it's much more difficult to fake an orgasm, than it is for women. So, unless your boyfriend is a complete idiot, or profoundly selfish (both possibilities), it won't be a complete shocker if you reveal your secret. Basically be clear that if he enjoys fucking you, he should know that you're doing him a favor. You don't gain any pleasure from it, so his pleasure debt to you mounts with each fuck. It's only fair that if he gets to fuck you, you should be able to request a pleasurable service from him as well. And if can't pleasure you at all... well you've got bigger problems.

++
fiercely,
fannie

send your questions to askfannie@belowthebelt.org

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What’s the Matter with Bottoms? Getting to the Bottom of the Matter

I went to get my quarterly STD exam the other day, and the nurse who was giving me the questionnaire asked me whether I was a top or a bottom. Even though I knew the question was coming, it annoyed me. Somehow it hadn’t bothered me when they asked how many sex partners I’d had in the last 6 months, or whether I’d ever had an STD before, or whether I used condoms or not. But I stalled when they asked whether I was a fucker or a fuckee, a pitcher or a catcher, Batman or Robin. I’m not uncomfortable talking about my sexual activities with health professionals; it was that they used the word or.

I understand that from a medical perspective, they needed to know whether a urethral or a rectal gonorrhea culture was appropriate. I understand that there are differences in risk factors for one behavior over the other. I understand that there are people who only engage in or prefer one activity or the other. There’s really nothing wrong with the nurse asking if I do top or bottom (as a verb); my distaste was with the fact that she asked if I was a top or bottom. As if that was the defining characteristic of my sexuality! I have nothing against “tops” or “bottoms” insofar as that preference is purely based on sexual desire, and doesn’t become a constrictive sexual identity.

The top/bottom dichotomy has always been one of my pet peeves: it is, at its core, an espousal of the very gender dichotomy that this blog tries to deconstruct. The notion that there is always one dominant (top) and one submissive (bottom) partner in a gay male pair is just a modulation of the masculine/feminine or male/female dyad that has been the root of the mistreatment of women for millennia. Not only is the notion false (yay for versatility!), it’s detrimental to the queer identity and community.

Even if we acknowledge – as we must – that there is no strict correlation between being a bottom and being “femme” (because I know plenty of burly butch bottoms!), there is a stigma associated with being a bottom, even in the gay community. There is a social hierarchy within the gay male world, and bottoms are quite literally at the bottom. The association between femininity and bottoming has served to marginalize a group of people (specifically, guys who take it up the butt) that aren’t even women. Cultural misogyny truly is pervasive; it has spread even to a realm that is almost as womanless as the Freemasons or the Orthodox rabbinate: gay men’s bedrooms.

Not only does the top/bottom dichotomy cause the marginalization of men who like to get fucked, it reinforces the notion of gender inequality in the gay community: wherever the “feminine” is disrespected or devalued, the idea that “women – and anything like them – are inferior” is reinforced. Among a group of people who are by their very nature pushing the traditional boundaries of gender, who are so frequently associated with feminism and women’s rights, and who are the victims of discrimination, it appalls me that such a blatant espousal of misogyny is so commonplace.

I’m not advocating a change in anybody’s sexual behavior; we should all be free to do whatever we want in the bedroom, whether that’s bottoming, topping, or anything else. I AM advocating, though, a disavowal of the identity labels “top” and “bottom” – they’re artifacts of an unequal binary gender system, and their adoption only serves to reinforce that unhealthy cultural construct.

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