It has probably been asked a million times before...

[Rooster]

But how do guys know if they are a top, bottom, or versatile?

Does the concept really exist? Is it just purely preference? If it is a preference, then what creates the preference? Are there ways to tell what other people might be?

It's weird because I was living clear across the country and my gay friends tended to speculate about whether guys were tops, bottoms, or verses. For me, no matter who it was, when that question came up they would suggest that I must be a bottom. This is something I would vehemently deny, because I thought the whole idea of categorizing people in this manner is stupid. However, I found it weird that I could meet new people, and when this topic would come up, they would assume the same thing about me, sometimes without even really knowing me.

Then I moved to this part of the country. I figured I was leaving all this silliness behind me. I made some new friends, and of course, this topic came up. And of course, these people suggested I must be a bottom. What? Why? What about me leads people to draw this conclusion?

While I was down here, I met a guy. Wonderful guy. Attractive, fun, similar interests, very stable, etc. We spent some time together, and eventually we ended up hooking up. It was a very passionate night, but it was weird because he seemed to want me to take control and wanted me to fuck him but didn't want to return the favor. When we talked about it later, he was pretty adamant that he didn't want to fuck me, and for his reasoning, he explained that fucking a guy would be just like fucking a chick. I found this disheartening because I like being fucked, and I couldn't imagine being in a relationship and never getting to. If nothing else, it is easier to get off and the feeling is way more intense. In the end, we mutually broke off the relationship, but I have been a bit ashamed of myself because that seems like an awfully superficial thing to end a good potential relationship over.

Now it's driving me nuts because I wonder if that situation confirms I'm a bottom or if it only became important to me because people have mentioned it so often that I have somehow subconsciously accepted it. I'm not effeminate in the least, I'm tall, I'm stalkly, and I'm even hairy. I can't figure out what would lead people to throw me in that seemingly arbitrary category of "bottom". Some of my friends have said it is my mannerisms. It isn't something that they can really define, but that I come across as "passive".

Perhaps I'm missing something. Are there really these distinctions and are they really that important to sexual compatibility? This almost feels to me like gays are just trying to recreate the "man" and "woman" roles in sexual relationships, which makes me resistant to accepting this "bottom" label.

Am I just crazy?

 

[KaraBulut]

But how do guys know if they are a top, bottom, or versatile?

It's really about two different things: the pieces/parts and the roles in bed.

There are guys who prefer to fuck. And there are guys who prefer to get fucked. This is the pieces/parts thing- the round peg into the round hole stuff that everyone calls "top/bottom" or "pitcher/catcher". But honestly, most guys will take what they can get when they can get it.

But underlying all this is a very dated way of viewing things. Your friends are assuming that a top is more dominant and masculine. And that a bottom is more submissive and less masculine. It's an old view of, "I wonder which one is the man in the relationship?".

It's fun to speculate about such things. Kind of like speculating whether someone has a hairy ass or a cock the size of a baseball bat.

If you're asking how do you know if another guy is a top, bottom or versatile? The only way to know the answer is to get naked with them. There's plenty of guys who fall into the "Bitch in the streets, butch in the sheets" category. Finding out the answer is part of the fun of it all.

If you're asking how do you know if YOU are a bottom, top or versatile? Well, you're assuming that you will always be one or the other. It's very possible that you may be the top in one relationship and the bottom in another. And quite often in long-term relationships, the roles change around periodically... at least in the good ones.

 

[Rooster]

I hadn't thought of it that way before. Maybe it really can change and it really is all an adventure just figuring it out.

I dunno though. The more that I think about this the more I'm starting to wonder if I should look for a more "dominant" partner. I think I've always been in the more "dominant" role, and I've never really felt comfortable in it. A lot of times I feel like it is pushed on me. I would like to try giving up control and be in a more passive position for a change.

 

[HornyHenry]

I knew I'd be a Top from the start. I grew up in an era when a bottom was considered less than a man but Tops were just as manly as any straight dude.
I never cared for or about effeminacy and knew that the purpose of the Top was to fuck and otherwise use bottoms and the bottom's purpose is to please and accomodate the Top's sexual needs and pleasure. I was right because I thoroughly enjoyed, and still enjoy, being a Top all my adult life

 

[altlover85]

I hadn't thought of it that way before. Maybe it really can change and it really is all an adventure just figuring it out.

I dunno though. The more that I think about this the more I'm starting to wonder if I should look for a more "dominant" partner. I think I've always been in the more "dominant" role, and I've never really felt comfortable in it. A lot of times I feel like it is pushed on me. I would like to try giving up control and be in a more passive position for a change.

Perhaps somehow your friends are picking up on this desire of your subliminally? I wouldn't worry about it though. You should just be you. Assuming you have done both, I think you can go with versatile for now.

 

[Just_Believe18]

I think a lot of guys stereotype themselves to fit certain roles. "I'm cute and petite so I want a large, muscular, dominating guy to top me." *yawn*

I'm cute and slim, but I'm no bottom boy. I like it both ways and will give and take equally. Ideally, I want a normal looking guy who feels the same way.

 

[Lube]

How do you masturbate and what do you think about?

Do you rub your cock and pump your hips and think about fucking a beautiful ass?

Or do you slip toys up your ass and hope some big-dicked hunky policeman is going to fuck you when he stops to give you a ticket?

I'm half joking and half serious. You probably have a pretty good idea already.

 

[conrad]

Simple answer: I do it very quietly for a long time. I hate to be hurried or interrupted.

My mind is my most powerful organ of sex when I am alone. In my mind I can bring wonderful people, including former sex partners in for a grand time.

The Creator gave us cocks and also handswith which to grasp our cocks. Surely the Creator of this happy arrangement is not the killjoy that some would have the Creator to be. Surely, the Creator who endowed us with those persistent urges meant for us to learn how to relieve those urges with out hand joined to our cocks for relief when we are without a suitable partner.

All my life I have used my solo sessions to work on my ejaculation control. I am good but still not as good as I would like to be.

And, no, I do not need or want any plastic toys around. MY body is all I need.

When I have finished I feel relaxed; I am renewed and no one has been cheated.

And, to think that some would have the Creator barring us from such satisfactions. I do what I can to contribute to their re-education.

 

[conrad]

Please note, I was replying to the question posed by Lube.

How does one know whether one is a top, bottom, or versatile?

Let me tell you how it happened for me: one day we had both showered and were both bare-assed naked on his bed. My partner was spending a lot of time down where my balls end and my shithole begins. On an impulse I told him to "go for it" and he understood that I was giving him permission to enter where no cock had ever been. He was gentle and though there was discomfort it passed quickly and I had to hold him still for a moment so that I could savor the moment with him. I was not "being fucked" rather "we were fucking" and I was an active bottom. In the afterglow when he had deposited his offering inside my recturm, I was so glowing in my review that he wanted me to "do" him also. This I did a day or two later.

My second and third partners turned out to be equally versatile. That's the democracy of anal sex.

 

[bankside]

It is hard to get people to agree on what these words even mean, never mind whether it is a good idea to categorize yourself.

I am "versatile." To some people that means "I'll take whichever role you don't want to," or "either/or" or "It doesn't matter to me" but that makes no sense to me. I need both. I crave both. I enjoy both, and if I do say so myself, I'm good at both.

And when I first came out (to myself), even when I first saw images of two guys having sex, my thought was "Wow, all of that looks good." It seems self-evident to me. Obvious, and inescapable. With a man, you have the freedom to enjoy both sides! Homosexuality is so much better than heterosexuality in that respect.

I remember after I had come out to myself but before acknowledging it to the world, one of the first things I did was check out anything "gay" I could find at the University library. I came across back-issues of The Body Politic, an old gay newspaper from Toronto. I must have looked at every printed word in those old papers a dozen times, and one thing I didn't even understand at first was the classifieds... Many of the ads I understood, but probably half of them contained requirements I had never even imagined: "Looking for Greek active" or "Total French passive seeks tall dark and handsome."

This was the slang back in the day for "top" and "bottom," and also "oral" vs. "anal," and when I finally figured out more or less what this meant, I couldn't believe it, and I didn't understand it at all. How could people only be interested in just one half of their sex lives?

Actually, I didn't believe it. I was reading an out-of-print newspaper. I assumed that this kind of mentality must have been common back then, among older people whose lives were twisted by being forced to live in the closet, twisted by stupid heterosexual prejudice that had filled their heads in a time before freedom, about gay people role playing male or female roles. "Who is the man and who is the woman?"

I couldn't believe that the previous generation had actually fallen for any of that crap, and I pitied them! I pitied all these out-of-print classified ad writers as much for this charade of "active" and "passive" as I pitied them for falling before the ravages of AIDS. How could they fall for something so unnatural? How could they prune away half their sexuality? How could they deny the versatility innate in being a man and a gay man?

That was almost 18 years ago, believe it or not. A lot has happened since then. But to be honest I still haven't quite figured it out. I accept that others don't see things the same way, but it really feels like we are different creatures. If they are gay, then I am not: it is some other kind of orientation. Versasexual, or something.

Anyway, there's my thoughts.