What is a top and bottom in gay
What Does “Top” Mean?
In the context of gay relationships and sexual dynamics, terms such as “top”, “bottom”, “verse” and “side” are often used to explain a person’s sexual preferences and roles. It is important to knowing these terms not only for members of the Gay community, but also for increasing understanding and acceptance of queer relationships in society.
What Does “Top” Mean?Physical AspectsEmotional and Psychological AspectsCommunication and ConsentWhat Does “Bottom” Mean?Physical AspectsEmotional and Psychological AspectsThe Stigma Around Creature a BottomWhat Does “Verse” Mean?Accepting DiversityCommunication and CompatibilityWhat Does “Side” Mean?Non-Penetrative IntimacyOpposing NormsAccepting One’s IdentityRoles and MythsHealth and Safety During Gay Sex
As a command, in gay sexual relationships, the “top” is the partner who has a penetrative role during anal sex. However, the notion of top includes much more than just physical actions: it includes a whole set of attitudes, preferences, and sometimes heartfelt roles.
Physical Aspects
In physical terms, the top in a gay sexual relationship is the partner performing the penetration. This may comprise the use
Gaymenare constantly referring to and defining themselves as "tops" or "bottoms." When they consider dating or simply hooking up, gay men typically ask the other guy whether he's a top, a bottom or "versatile." It's important to find this out as soon as possible, because if you are planning to date or obtain into a relationship, it's vitally important that you and he be sexually compatible with each other.
The whole issue of tops and bottoms came up recently with the release of a modern study that looked at whether or not people can determine whether a gay man is a top or a bottom just by looking at facial cues. The learn revealed that judgments made about whether an individual is a top or a bottom are based on perceived masculine and feminine traits.
There's so much talk and discussion about who gives and who receives. I've had straight people tell me that they assumed that most gay guys simply take turns. Yes, some do, but most don't. But what if a guy isn't a highest, a bottom or even versatile? What about same-sex attracted men who have never engaged in anal sex and never will, ever?
I think they justify a name of their own. I call them "sides."
Defining a Side
Sides select to k
Top/Bottom
The terms top and bottom emerged as descriptors of a sexual binary in the same-sex attracted leather culture of the 1950s and the bondage and sadomasochism (BDSM) society of the 1960s. Originally, the top-bottom binary signified both sexual positions and power relationships in which a superior was a sexual aggressor and penetrator who often acted as the more forceful and dominant partner; the bottom represented the more submissive, typically penetrated, and often "punished" partner.
DEFINITION AND Employ OF THE TERMS
In the BDSM people the term top indicates the dominant partner who inflicts pain on, enacts control over, or otherwise subjects his or her companion to acts connected with bondage, discipline, and sadomasochism. The term bottom indicates the receiver of such treatment. In these cases the terms are not gender-specific: A male or a female may act as a top or a bottom. Although the top is the dominant boyfriend, the bottom often still has rule. For example, a top who takes direction from the bottom's explicitly expressed wishes often is called a service top.
These terms evolved in the 1970s and 1980s as they were adapted by the queer community. In that community they
Gay Men's Preferences for "Top" Vs. "Bottom" Can Be Judged By Their Face
It’s been known for a while that it takes less than a second for people to use their internal “gaydar” to decide if they think a guy is homosexual or heterosexual, and such snap judgements tend to be right. But can facial differences be used to distinguish between different types of gay men — specifically, those who define themselves as “tops” versus “bottoms”?
To find out, the authors of this analyze recruited 23 participants from Amazon’s mTurk (including 7 females). The participants were asked to look at 200 photographs of lgbtq+ men found on an online dating site (100 tops, 100 bottoms) and categorize them as tops or bottoms. Interestingly, they chose the correct roles at a rate greater than chance, although they were biased towards choosing the male-stereotypical “top” role.
As you might acquire guessed, the participants were using cues related to masculinity (e.g., thick eyebrows, large noses) to generate their choices. The authors conclude with this tantalizing suggestion: “it is feasible that similar effects may be found in opposite-sex relationships: women may be able to identify s
Straight people tend to get a small hung up on titles and roles in queer relationships. When it comes to gay sex, many people look after to think rigidly and a minute too heteronormatively for their own good: one person is the top (aka the giver or the more dominant partner during sex), and one is the bottom (the receiver or the submissive partner).
It’s sort of a more prying version of the other severely reductive and incredibly problematic question lgbtq+ people hear all the time: “Who’s the man in the relationship? Who’s the woman?”
Of course, as with anything related to sex, the binary affair between tops and bottoms is a lot more complicated than that. Sure, there are plenty of queer folks who almost exclusively bottom or uppermost during sex, but there’s just as many who contemplate themselves versatile or switch (And hey, sometimes, just favor with straight sex, there’s no penetration at all. Sex is fluid!)
To dig a brief deeper, we asked queer men about topping and bottoming, the stereotypes linked with both and how they opt to use (or not!) the terms in their retain lives.