What does side mean for gay men
I’m gay and I’m not a top or a bottom – I’m a ‘side’
As a same-sex attracted man, prying strangers and potential hook-ups alike acquire asked me one doubt more times than I’ve had hot dinners.
‘Top or bottom?’
Words get me out of bed in the morning, and when uttered by the right people at the right day, they’ve also been established to get me into bed.
But neither of these – superior or bottom – accurately describe what I select to get up to in the boudoir, so my response has always been a guarded mix of shrug and mumble.
Here’s the tea: I’m actually a ‘side’, a phrase coined by American psychotherapist and sexologist Joe Kort to describe those, love me, for whom penetrative sex – in either position – does very little.
Getting the peach involved is, quite literally, a pain in the ass, but as for the aubergine, let’s just say that hands and mouths always grasp the assignment way better.
To continue the food metaphor: if man-on-man action were a dinner party, I’d have zero interest in sitting down to a bland meal when the amuse-bouches are so good.
I confess that I indulged in a lot of sex in my 20s – penetrative sex.
It oddly took yo
After a solid five-year run in a somewhat monogam-ish affair , I find myself emerging on the other side as a 30-year-old solo guy, clueless about how to vault back into the dating game. Initially, I avoided digital dating apps, drowning my sorrows in Prolonged Island iced teas, surviving emotional meltdowns at wild dwelling parties, and adv, tending to my own business solo. But with period, my heart healed, and I decided to dip my toes (and thumbs) into the online dating world.
Though I haven’t had any dates yet, I’ve explored these apps, and guess what? Not much has changed since my last dating initiative. There’s still an abundance of headless torsos and greetings that march in like they have the place. Once you log in, you’ll scroll, swipe, or heart your way through an endless parade of twinks, twunks, bears, daddies, and more! However, when it comes to selecting your preferred positions for sex – something gay men take very seriously – the choices have always been the traditional “top,” “bottom,” or “verse.”
Then, like a beacon of curiosity, the term “side” kept popping up, catching my eye. At first, I imagined
Rise of the sides: how Grindr finally recognized gay men who aren’t tops or bottoms
Every month, nearly 11 million gay men around the world go on the Grindr app to gaze for sex with other men. Once there, they can scroll through an endless stream of guys, from handsome to homely, bear to twink. Yet when it comes to choosing positions for sex – a decisive criterion for most gay men – the possibilities have elongated been simply top and bottom. The only other choice present toggles between those roles: verse (for versatile).
“Not fitting those roles has made it really tough to find someone,” said Jeremiah Hein, 38, of Long Beach, California. “There’s no category to choose from.”
“Whenever I’d look at those choices I’d think, ‘I’m none of those things,’” said Shai Davidi, 51, of Tel Aviv, Israel. “I felt there must be something wrong with me.”
Last month, however, that finally changed. In mid-May, Grindr added a position called side, a designation that upends the binary that has historically dominated lgbtq+ male culture. Sides are men who find fulfillment in every kind of sexual act except anal penetration. Instead, a broad range of oral, manual and frictional body techniques provide
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 get 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 discharge of a novel 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 study revealed that judgments made about whether an individual is a uppermost or a bottom are based on perceived masculine and feminine traits.
There's so much communicate 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 undertake, but most don't. But what if a guy isn't a top, a bottom or even versatile? What about gay men who have never engaged in anal sex and never will, ever?
I ponder they deserve a name of their own. I contact them "sides."
Defining a Side
Sides prefer to k