What is a gay side
After a solid five-year operate in a somewhat monogam-ish relationship, I find myself emerging on the other side as a 30-year-old single guy, clueless about how to jump support into the dating game. Initially, I avoided dating website apps, drowning my sorrows in Long Island iced teas, surviving emotional meltdowns at wild house parties, and well, tending to my own business solo. But with time, 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 estimate what? Not much has changed since my last dating venture. There’s still an abundance of headless torsos and greetings that march in like they own 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, fancy 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 travel on the Grindr app to stare 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 crucial criterion for most homosexual men – the possibilities have drawn-out been simply foremost and bottom. The only other decision available toggles between those roles: verse (for versatile).
“Not fitting those roles has made it really tough to come across 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 untrue 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 gay male culture. Sides are men who locate fulfillment in every kind of sexual act except anal penetration. Instead, a broad range of oral, manual and frictional body techniques provide
I’m gay and I’m not a top or a bottom – I’m a ‘side’
As a gay man, prying strangers and potential hook-ups alike have asked me one question 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 time, they’ve also been established to get me into bed.
But neither of these – top or bottom – accurately describe what I prefer 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 term coined by American psychotherapist and sexologist Joe Kort to describe those, like me, for whom penetrative sex – in either position – does very little.
Getting the peach emotionally attached is, quite literally, a pain in the ass, but as for the aubergine, let’s just say that hands and mouths always understand 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 disclose that I indulged in a lot of sex in my 20s – penetrative sex.
It oddly took yo
A few years ago when I was looking into nose piercings (it wasn’t until last year that I finally worked up the nerve and got it done) I discovered multiple websites debating which was the ideal side to get it done on.
I learned that in India the left side is preferred because it supposedly makes giving birth easier. I also learned that some people think about a particular side to represent sexuality.
Granted, there were no legitimate websites that provided me with this information. My past English teachers would frown if they saw me consuming information from such unreliable sources. Still, I found many of these websites where one would ask “which side should I acquire my nose piercing on?” and people would battle it out in the comments claiming “Get it on the right side! If you get it on the left side, it means you’re gay!” or “No, it’s the right side that means you’re gay!”
I wasn’t too conflicted. Does the average person actuallyknow these so-called “facts” about the connection between nose piercing and sexuality? I assumed then, and still believe now, that they don’t.
A bigger issue that I had