Bill, a 36-year-old journalist, spent time in Amsterdam, where he found that most gay men were versatile, then moved to New York, where everyone was obsessed with top/bottom. “It’s very American to have to decide, like ‘McDonald’s or Burger King?’ Why should you limit yourself that way?” Versatility benefits everyone, he says. “The best tops are also bottoms because they know what it feels like.”
— “Who’s on Top?”, New York Magazine
I agree with Bill in theory, but in practice…well…it’s really uncomfortable and hurts a lot to bottom.
Excellent, Tin Man. Sounds a lot like the argument that gay men give better blowjobs because they know what it feels like.
Apparently I’ve never experienced this whole issue, but it seems ridiculous to me that one should meet someone who’s a great guy and then ditch him because of some arcane classification.
“It’s really uncomfortable and hurts a lot to bottom.”
That depends upon the person, really. If some guys didn’t enjoy it, they wouldn’t do it. My partner sure seems to get a lot of pleasure out of it. :-)
Some guys only like girls who can fit 10 or more hoops around their elongated necks. It’s a culturally learned and re-enforced value.
Talking as if it were some innate, instinctive value isn’t true-talk. We all know biologic preferences exist, but for something so higher brain, like mode of operation when having sex? a default set of, what 2, maybe 4 or 6 sexual “modes” to humans ? You enjoy physical touch, even a backrub, all biologic pref’s, but your preference to eat warm food, or top/bottom:passive/aggressive partners, just ain’t innate to our organism. It’s culture.
.rob
I’m so glad you started writing again! I heard from some friends, and lo, a topic on tops/bottoms is flip/flopping across the page. How titillating.
No one is a top. No one. Even if you think someone’s a top, if you hint that you might be, they turn bottom.
Here’s what I think about top/bottom: Bottom is unbelievable when it’s good, but it’s rarely good. Top is reliably going to be pretty good almost all the time, but it’s rarely spectacular.