Bottom shaming is real and no matter where it occurs, I always seem to get the same feedback from local gays. “This place is full of bottoms,” they’ll say, often pairing the remark with a dramatic eye roll. This response irks me because:
(1) it’s a form of bottom-shaming, a heteronormative influenced form of discrimination in an already oppressed community, and
(2) it assumes that I am also a bottom, without inquiring or getting to know me better. Which assumes that there is something very wrong with being a bottom in the first place.
(3) That is a Top shortage so we are all competing in the same people for tops which means, in theory, that if a top has had a sexual encounter with us he more than likely has with most of our friends who bottom as well.
Research that exists doesn’t even support the community-based assumption. Research published in Archives of Sexual Behavior surveyed over 400 men from Craigslist personal ads and found that half of the men identify as versatile while the other half were equally tops and bottoms. Interestingly, after following up with the versatile men from the survey, they found that only half actually switched positions, with 48 percent being bottoms and 52 percent being tops.
Do bottoms outnumber tops?
A published a poll on positional preference to Twitter, the numbers were the opposite:
with 59 percent identifying as bottoms and 41 percent as tops.
(The researcher intentionally left versatile men out of the poll as a response to the previous study.) With loose research consistently contradicting itself, the gentleman behind the research wanted to know if bottoms actually do outnumber tops, or is there some form of disappointing stigmatization toward bottoms that influences the perception of overabundance. There are many forms of stigmatization that goes thousands of years when it comes to the topic of being the bottom.
The most recent example that comes to mind is that of Declan Blake known on Twitter as @glitterybttm, the tweet reads---
"on my birthday someone got a hold of this very private video of me, and without my permission sent it to my close friends and family, posted it on pornhub with my real name, posted it on their onlyfans, and posted it on Twitter. Since then, it has circulated Twitter on countless different accounts claiming to be me or just cuz its really fucking hot, its been reposted to pornhub, and sent to me by numerous friends and strangers asking if I am aware of the “naughty” video of me on the internet. I still don’t quite understand why I was being harassed, but it lead to issues in my relationships, friendships, and my own mental health. And let’s not forget all the kind words from strangers on male general and other LPSG threads. Since this frustrating incident, I’ve owned and embraced my sexuality and my kink/fetish journey as a part of my identity. And thank god, because no one should ever feel anything less than empowered by their sexuality".
As I quickly found, much of the time a more feminine appearance or even "perceived feminine" demeaner gives many the "false" impression that individuals are bottoms. As if being feminine is:
1. An inherently bad trait, period. Which by the way is ludicrous. Unlike his masculine counterpart, the effeminate gay man doesn’t have the luxury of hiding behind a butch façade until he is comfortable with coming out of the closet. You know the type. Stereotypically speaking, he can learn the choreography to the latest pop song more quickly than you can learn the lyrics. In high school he had to make a beeline for his car the minute the bell rang so that he could avoid the worn-out name calling, bullying or even violence. The Bedazzler was, is, and always will be his best childhood friend.
Yes, "we" queeny gays may have been born with a serious masculinity deficiency, but that is exactly what makes us the epitome of strength. As someone who has always straddled the masculine/feminine divide, I desperately sought to play up my butch qualities and minimize my fairy wings as much as humanly possible — until I opened my mouth, of course. I sounded more like a chipmunk with a lisp than the boy. I have learned to embrace and enjoy my feminine qualities just as much as my masculine ones.
If masculinity is paramount, something that all men must strive for to be considered “real” men, then gay men, by definition, will always be considered lesser than their straight counterparts. We gay men know that there isn’t one definition of what a “real” man is. Hell, we are living proof. So discounting or stifling any feminine characteristics that we may have is a slap in the face of our own culture and an admission to others that there is something to suppress. The gay men who couldn’t help but shoot glitter out of every orifice were the ones who propelled gay rights into the mainstream. As we get closer to becoming fully integrated in the larger society, it is important that we not allow any segment of our own community to suffer in the process.
To the queens who have been beaten up, marginalized and mangled for refusing to cave in to the norm, you are the true heroes of the gay movement. It is these men to whom we owe our freedom to be the exact type of gay man that we were made to be, and nothing else.
2. Some of the most feminine appearing men I've met are big ole tops, who know how to do what they do and very well at that.
“I always think twinks are naturally bottoms.” Uh, ok have they not seen Helix or some of the scorching Bel Ami? But the amount I’ve heard ‘Yeah, and that twink ended up being a top,’ has, over time, shifted views of what a bottom looks like. This theme of “femininity equals bottom” consistently presented itself online and was arguably one of the strongest influences to this baseless perception.
3. This idea that we as bottoms take on the penetrated role makes us "less" manly in many gay/bi/DL mens eyes. This is also beyond ridiculous because with out bottoms there is NO need for tops, but keep in mind if there were no tops there would be NO need for bottoms either. We need each other to get the job done, unless you want decades of solo one handed or dildo pleasure---nothing wrong with that either but I wouldn't it to be my ONLY option.
“Oftentimes, the use of the word ‘bottom’ is less about someone’s preferred sexual position and, instead, becomes coded language for any type of ‘undesirable’ qualities among gay men,”
Top privilege & misogyny
“Gay men are not exempt from misogyny which is the root of labelling men as bottoms,” Twitter user @TheLePereira adds. “If a man is vers or femme he is automatically labeled a bottom and not seen as desirable by most gay men.” He continues, “The notion a vers or femme man can top or top well is seen as practically laughable by the greater community. But even that misogyny can be linked to our communities need of hyper masculine behavior due to shared generational trauma of the HIV epidemic and social constructs.” However I feel this trauma even predates the advent of HIV/AIDS be centuries
Psychotherapist Daniel Olavarria narrows this perception down to internalized homophobia, ”which places a premium on heteronormative concepts of masculinity.” He does have a point. In a study published by Psychology & Sexuality, researchers wrote that gay men use the word “bottom” to criticize men with feminine traits—in so doing, bullying them into conforming with heteronormative gender expectations.
“Oftentimes, the use of the word ‘bottom’ is less about someone’s preferred sexual position and, instead, becomes coded language for any type of ‘undesirable’ qualities among gay men,” Olavarria shares. “Suddenly someone who is considered feminine, shallow, or ‘messy’ becomes indicative of this overabundance of ‘bottoms.’ It also highlights the demand for a certain type of top – one who fulfills a range of hyper-masculine qualities. Tops that don’t fit the bill are labeled undesirable and dismissed as ‘bottoms.’”
Others have a more positive approach to the presumption, insisting bottoms have taken the power back and are more loud and proud than tops. “I think bottoms are just louder and hungrier about wanting sex, the squeaky wheel gets the grease as they say so people ‘see’ more bottoms.”
Too many bottoms, not enough tops?
Jason Orne, queer sociologist and author of Boystown, insists “the world is not full of bottoms” citing “network segregation” as a possible explanation. He resolves bottoms are often friends with other bottoms because gay men tend to befriend online users who are not compatible. So in a group full of bottoms, conversations around a lack of tops is inevitable. He argues, in his experience, tops also complain they don’t know any bottoms and many men also shared the same sentiment with me. “There’s never enough of what you’re looking for.”
Orne says, “However, we also have to think about search pool probability: say if a top only cums once, then he’s out of the hook up pool,” Orne adds. “But a bottom might try to keep hooking up, thereby keeping more bottoms in the pool of hookup partners.”
Busting the myths, top to bottom
Obviously, there are a number of – mostly social and non-factual – factors that influence the belief that bottoms far outnumber tops. Scruff has factual information (far more accurate than any research has found) regarding the positional preference of their user base. Considering the app hosts over 15 million users around the world, it’s a fairly significant sample. In their most recent data dive, Scruff found the figures were evenly distributed among users that identified as top, bottom and vers – about 33 percent for each. So there you have it. That’s the answer: there are no more bottoms than tops, at least not enough to warrant a community-wide complaint. It’s all lies. Falsities. Fabrications.
The next time you want to complain about the overabundance of bottoms, consider the above and perhaps re-assess why you feel that way.
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