What is a top or bottom in a gay relationship
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 outline a person’s sexual preferences and roles. It is important to knowing these terms not only for members of the Queer 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 Organism 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 framework of top includes much more than just physical actions: it includes a whole set of attitudes, preferences, and sometimes sentimental roles.
Physical Aspects
In physical terms, the top in a gay sexual relationship is the partner performing the penetration. This may comprise the use
Top/Bottom
The terms top and bottom emerged as descriptors of a sexual binary in the gay leather culture of the 1950s and the bondage and sadomasochism (BDSM) culture of the 1960s. Originally, the top-bottom binary signified both sexual positions and dominance relationships in which a top 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 USE OF THE TERMS
In the BDSM community the term top indicates the dominant boyfriend who inflicts pain on, enacts control over, or otherwise subjects his or her partner to acts associated with bondage, discipline, and sadomasochism. The word 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 partner, the bottom often still has control. For example, a top who takes advice 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 gay community. In that community they
Troye Sivan said he's a 'verse' during sex, not a 'top' or 'bottom.' Here's what the terms mean.
Troye Sivan, a singer acknowledged for his road "Bloom," recently establish straight rumors that he only enjoys receiving penetration during sex.
"I think in the sort of consciousness of lgbtq+ people I'm some crazy power bottom or something, which is just not the case, and I just wanted to put that out there," Sivan, a gay male, said on Emily Ratajkowski's podcast "High Low."
Sivan said that he's a "verse," meaning he enjoys both penetrating a partner and organism penetrated during sex.
"Verse," as well as the terms "top" and "bottom" are popular ways to describe sexual preferences in the lgbtq+ community.
While the terms were originally used to describe the sexual preferences of queer men in the 1970s, more LGBTQ+ people own adopted the terms to talk about what they prefer in sex.
Lately, top/bottom/verse discourse has grown more visible on TikTok, where gay people have been making videos explaining the unique struggles of each preference.
It's crucial to note that each of these categories means something a little other to each person, s
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 male 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 male lover 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 superior than chance, although they were biased towards choosing the male-stereotypical “top” role.
As you might possess guessed, the participants were using cues related to masculinity (e.g., thick eyebrows, large noses) to form their choices. The authors conclude with this tantalizing suggestion: “it is workable that similar effects may be found in opposite-sex relationships: women may be able to identify s
Straight people tend to get a brief hung up on titles and roles in queer relationships. When it comes to gay sex, many people manage to think rigidly and a petty 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 gay 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 think about themselves versatile or switch (And hey, sometimes, just love with straight sex, there’s no penetration at all. Sex is fluid!)
To dig a petty deeper, we asked queer men about topping and bottoming, the stereotypes linked with both and how they pick to use (or not!) the terms in their have lives.