all right, people, let's start again from the beginning
I know I've ranted this rant before. But some stuff I've seen recently makes me need (need, I say) to rant yet again. Also, the air conditioning in my apartment is not working right and I'm grumpy.
So . . . let's talk about gay male sex, shall we?
Specifically, let's talk about topping and bottoming in anal sex.
Topping, my darlings, means being the penetrative partner. Bottoming means being the receptive partner.
And that's all it means, damn it!
Fucking someone does not mean dominating him.
Being fucked does not mean submitting.
Think about it. We of the female persuasion (and most of us in fandom are bio women) are usually the receptive partner in intercourse. We cannot fuck our partners (male or female) without mechanical assistance.
Does this mean that all straight women are submissive to their male partners? Or, for that matter, that any lesbian who enjoys being fucked by her female partner and a handy strap-on is submissive?
NO. NO NO NO NO NO NO NO.
We know this, right? We know this in our own lives. So why the freaking hell do so many fanfic writers seem to forget this when they're writing two guys?
There's this weird equation that seems to happen in writers' heads, where bottoming = being a bottom = being sexually submissive = being submissive in the rest of the relationship. And the opposite for topping.
But as I see it, whether a person enjoys fucking or being fucked (even if that person strongly prefers that sexual act over the other, or even chooses it exclusively) has nothing to do with his/her preferences in other areas of life. A person can love to be fucked without having a submissive personality, and a person can love to fuck without being aggressive or domineering.
Because FUCKING IS NOT DOMINANCE and BEING FUCKED IS NOT SUBMISSION.
Now, bear in mind that I'm only talking here about being the receptive or penetrative partner. I'm not talking about "topping" and "bottoming" in the BDSM sense. That's something else entirely, which does have to do with dominance and submission. But BDSM is its own thing. I really don't understand why writers conflate topping/bottoming in the penetrative sense with topping/bottoming in the BDSM sense, but they do it all the time. And I really wish they'd stop.
In fairness, I don't think boyslash fandom is entirely to blame for the prevalence of these weird top/bottom stereotypes within it. They seem to exist among gay men as well. But that's no excuse for our perpetuating them in our stories.
*****
So . . . let's talk about gay male sex, shall we?
Specifically, let's talk about topping and bottoming in anal sex.
Topping, my darlings, means being the penetrative partner. Bottoming means being the receptive partner.
And that's all it means, damn it!
Fucking someone does not mean dominating him.
Being fucked does not mean submitting.
Think about it. We of the female persuasion (and most of us in fandom are bio women) are usually the receptive partner in intercourse. We cannot fuck our partners (male or female) without mechanical assistance.
Does this mean that all straight women are submissive to their male partners? Or, for that matter, that any lesbian who enjoys being fucked by her female partner and a handy strap-on is submissive?
NO. NO NO NO NO NO NO NO.
We know this, right? We know this in our own lives. So why the freaking hell do so many fanfic writers seem to forget this when they're writing two guys?
There's this weird equation that seems to happen in writers' heads, where bottoming = being a bottom = being sexually submissive = being submissive in the rest of the relationship. And the opposite for topping.
But as I see it, whether a person enjoys fucking or being fucked (even if that person strongly prefers that sexual act over the other, or even chooses it exclusively) has nothing to do with his/her preferences in other areas of life. A person can love to be fucked without having a submissive personality, and a person can love to fuck without being aggressive or domineering.
Because FUCKING IS NOT DOMINANCE and BEING FUCKED IS NOT SUBMISSION.
Now, bear in mind that I'm only talking here about being the receptive or penetrative partner. I'm not talking about "topping" and "bottoming" in the BDSM sense. That's something else entirely, which does have to do with dominance and submission. But BDSM is its own thing. I really don't understand why writers conflate topping/bottoming in the penetrative sense with topping/bottoming in the BDSM sense, but they do it all the time. And I really wish they'd stop.
In fairness, I don't think boyslash fandom is entirely to blame for the prevalence of these weird top/bottom stereotypes within it. They seem to exist among gay men as well. But that's no excuse for our perpetuating them in our stories.
*****