Top or Bottom: How do we desire?

August 18, 2017 9:31 AM

Three great minds consider what queer memes of a top shortage reveal about the racialized orders of desire and new directions for gay critique.
posted by Blasdelb (31 comments total)

This is a parody of self-important academobabble, right?
posted by 256 at 9:42 AM on August 18, 2017 [5 favorites]

No?
posted by wreckingball at 9:48 AM on August 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

The top image may be NSFW for some.
posted by The Notorious SRD at 9:58 AM on August 18, 2017

Parody or not, they keep name-checking Chip Delaney, so I'm good with it.

Also, I've heard gay men complaining about whatever location being a "city of bottoms" for, like, decades.
posted by rmd1023 at 10:00 AM on August 18, 2017 [6 favorites]

Yeah, it's not a parody. Technobabble exists in a weird cultural place for me and, I suspect, others. Most of the meta thoughts I have about culture, I work hard to distill into plain English, so that people who haven't read half of Foucault can get it. But it's a lot of work. I imagine that academics, like anyone else, enjoy an opportunity to state deep thoughts in the register in which they first encountered similar thoughts. Have you ever heard two logistics, transportation, and supply chain management professionals talking shop? It's no different.

I really hate how they abuse "subtend" in this piece, though.
posted by radicalawyer at 10:04 AM on August 18, 2017 [8 favorites]

What I find problematic is how obsessive the msm community are about anal sex. It's incredibly obnoxious to have to answer neither to that question, and the article sort of reifies that binary.
posted by PinkMoose at 10:11 AM on August 18, 2017 [5 favorites]

What I find problematic is how obsessive the msm community are about anal sex. It's incredibly obnoxious to have to answer neither to that question, and the article sort of reifies that binary.

You know it's not just queer men who use that term, right? And that the specificity of meaning you assume is um...limiting in a way the rest of us might find unnecessary and strange?

I'm not trying to call you out specifically, but I saw the thread title and was like "oh hey a thing relevant to my life" and then...nope. Not super surprising, but still maybe something to note.
posted by schadenfrau at 10:21 AM on August 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

Leave it to my fellow gay men to disappear up their own asses.
posted by Automocar at 10:30 AM on August 18, 2017 [3 favorites]

Schaden:

Absolutely, you are completely correct. I apologise.
posted by PinkMoose at 10:32 AM on August 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

You know it's not just queer men who use that term, right? And that the specificity of meaning you assume is um...limiting in a way the rest of us might find unnecessary and strange?

You know that this article is specifically about queer men, right?
posted by Automocar at 10:33 AM on August 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

I think what is going on is that people have illusions and uncalibrated expectations about the frequency and ease of casual sex for other queers, how much negotiation and take-it-as-it-comes there really is. I frequently hear this language from people who are very inexperienced, who use this language to establish distinction for themselves: as worldly, as passive and innocent, as having conquered hang-ups, as having a disciplined body, as having a longer sweep of historical consciousness, etc. As long as it’s all talk, bottoming is positioned as a virtuous sexuality, though things of course get messier when it gets real. But commonly this is a way for people with no cruising culture and no cruising skills to assert a conditionally virtuous sexuality in public. As for *where* this sexuality is positioned as virtuous, things get interesting.

For what it's worth, this paragraph is the place where I perked up and suddenly became really interested--because the concept of bottoming as 'virtuous' because it's (theoretically if not in fact) giving up agency is pretty fascinating to me. The way people frame their sexualities is pretty context-dependent and so Seraphim's contention that this is primarily a framing that relatively inexperienced and insecure people use also fascinates me, as I'm reading and thinking.
posted by sciatrix at 10:35 AM on August 18, 2017 [10 favorites]

These boys sure are conflicted about wanting to get fucked. You want a good, hard, animalistic fucking? Start growling and snarling at your partner. It doesn't matter if you're the penetrator or the penetrated. Be a horny animal who just wants sex, and be open about this to your partner.

- signed, a trans lady who is often the one who initiates sex in her relationship.
posted by egypturnash at 10:38 AM on August 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

....*sighs* That being said, I do wish that these three particular minds would focus on one topic at a time for a minute before immediately haring off to cite indigenous genocide and what so-and-so said about such-and-such.

I'm vaguely irritated as someone who is often a strong supporter of specialist discussions' use of jargon, but this isn't actually an issue with use of jargon. It's a problem with the use of focus and supporting evidence, or even supporting experience, and it's also a problem with unnecessary wordiness and an overreliance on subordinate clauses. Jargon is specialist terminology, and it's generally intended to make discussion more concise by referencing a complex concept within a single word so that experts or in-group conversationalists can have a conversation without having to explain and cite the originator of every concept used.

I mean, I come from ace culture, okay, I can do jargon like a champ--I've literally written about the use of the word "zucchini" as a specialist slang term and whether it's worth constructing a term for that meaning at all. I cut my teeth on discussions between (non-academic) people who think of sexuality and gender in modular terms and rapidly evaluate and move between models to try and understand the diversity of human sexual responses and desires.

This is not that. This is a desire to cite one's work carried to the exclusion of having a focused conversation about a single issue, and it's really quite frustrating because the desire to cite everything remotely relevant naturally brings up the desire to cite more topics that might be relevant, and so the conversation becomes utterly derailed. I want to know more about the observations that underlie that paragraph, and whether or not they align with the observations of other conversational participants. That kind of frustrates me when it goes missing.

So okay, since they dangled that concept in front of me and didn't expand on the damn thing: does that sound like something folks with relevant experience have seen?
posted by sciatrix at 10:48 AM on August 18, 2017 [8 favorites]

I mean, really. Own your desire, don't wallow in some weird world where you are a perfect straight angel who just happens to hang out with all these absolute brutes of men who regularly push you down and take your pretty little bottom. Be a greedy slut who can say "my holes are not being filled right now and this is a problem that needs to be remedied immediately" to your partner.

If what actually you mean by "there are no tops here" is "there is nobody who is interested in filling my hungry holes", then go on the prowl, you hungry slut. Find contexts where it is appropriate to perform "eager recipient of dick" in front of people you like and wouldn't mind hanging out with.

I dunno, I'm gonna shut up now, I'm not a gay man, I don't have to worry about how to properly perform "masculinity" while still enjoying getting fucked.
posted by egypturnash at 10:49 AM on August 18, 2017 [8 favorites]

I mean, really. Own your desire, don't wallow in some weird world where you are a perfect straight angel who just happens to hang out with all these absolute brutes of men who regularly push you down and take your pretty little bottom.

What if your own desire is to be a perfect straight angel who happens to hang out with absolute brutes and get fucked up the ass?
posted by layceepee at 10:57 AM on August 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

You negotiate that scene with people you like and you have tons of fun while it's going on, and then you deal with the reality that it's a scene and not real life afterwards?
posted by sciatrix at 10:58 AM on August 18, 2017 [3 favorites]

You know that this article is specifically about queer men, right?

After I clicked through yes, it became clear that this FPP referencing queer people is in fact only talking about men. As though that is the natural default and the rest of us either don't exist or aren't important. Which is the shitty thing I was pointing out.
posted by schadenfrau at 11:04 AM on August 18, 2017 [9 favorites]

It's a particularly weird focus given that at least one author is female, incidentally.
posted by sciatrix at 11:23 AM on August 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

It is possible that not everybody whom this article pertains to identifies as male.

(But, yes – articles like this also should not be written by people who are not a part of the population being discussed, because it is none of their goddamn business. Also, the academic tone was weird, condescending, and pretentious)
posted by schmod at 11:47 AM on August 18, 2017

the concept of bottoming as 'virtuous' because it's (theoretically if not in fact) giving up agency is pretty fascinating to me. The way people frame their sexualities is pretty context-dependent and so Seraphim's contention that this is primarily a framing that relatively inexperienced and insecure people use also fascinates me, as I'm reading and thinkin

This is absolutely a thing in the BDSM community as well. And, hell, in the straight vanilla woman community.
posted by showbiz_liz at 12:02 PM on August 18, 2017 [6 favorites]

I'm not at all familiar with queer theory these days and am confused by this: "In a homonormative semiotics of sex, topping is an enactment of gender; it is a performance of masculinity, which is bound up in the erotic life of whiteness."

That queer performative masculinity is bound up in the erotic life of whiteness doesn't seem obvious to me. Can anyone more familiar with the material help unpack that for me?
posted by treepour at 12:06 PM on August 18, 2017

*sigh*
Oh, okay then...
*unzips*

(Am totally going to use the phrase "conceptual trapdoor of homonormative semiotics" next time I want to wank academically.)
posted by happyinmotion at 12:19 PM on August 18, 2017 [7 favorites]

As baffled as I am by the top/bottom dichotomy (like, do people not compromise and switch off with their partners to alternate between things they like and things their partner likes?), I still appreciate that because of that culture we have the term "Tupperware syndrome" which just completely cracks me up every time I think about it.

Anyway. Maybe I missed this because of all that jargon, but it seems like they're not really acknowledging the difference between top/bottom as physical sex positions and top/bottom as BDSM roles. The two terms are used very differently. When used in reference to the sex position, I am skeptical. I mean, yeah, there are definitely some cultural scripts about position, but since there's no supporting evidence here it's hard to say if that really lines up with how people actually fuck.

When referring to top/bottom as BDSM roles... like, yeah, the top is supposed to be aggressive and the bottom is supposed to be submissive, because top/dom and bottom/sub are (from my understanding, gleaned from discussions of the phrase "topping from the bottom") literally interchangeable words that have nothing to do with your actual physical sex position. You would think if what the authors are saying is true, we would be hearing about a dom shortage as well. I don't think I've heard anything like that, but maybe other people have different experiences.
posted by brook horse at 12:53 PM on August 18, 2017

My partner, who is much more up to date on the Queer Memes than I am, also commented, "I was under the impression that the majority of top shortage memes were abstract humor and nobody actually thinks that no one's topping anymore."
posted by brook horse at 1:21 PM on August 18, 2017

You would think if what the authors are saying is true, we would be hearing about a dom shortage as well. I don't think I've heard anything like that, but maybe other people have different experiences.

It's certainly something I've seen reference to online (most often but not exclusively in the context of men looking to be dominated by women), though I don't know of any actual data either way.

I enjoyed the article though I kind of hit my theory limit partway through. I've always found those kinds of theory conversations kind of like free jazz -- fun and exciting, but it takes a lot of energy to listen to and follow.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:23 PM on August 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

You would think if what the authors are saying is true, we would be hearing about a dom shortage as well.

And maybe this is an explanation for why some communities are all PCs and no GMs. ok maybe that's a stretch
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 8:15 PM on August 18, 2017

the article sort of reifies that binary.

but what is the implication for the paradigm
posted by Sebmojo at 9:48 PM on August 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

We had a meta less than six months ago about non-gay men who for some reason feel they gotta weigh in with their own experience on a topic that isn't about them. So far in this thread we have at least seven people who explicitly do not identify as gay men (or even male). One of you is a repeat offender on this issue.
posted by AFABulous at 2:25 PM on August 19, 2017

"repeat offenders"? really?

it's not clear to me that this article is meant to center male experiences. i don't even think all the authors are men
posted by yaymukund at 5:24 PM on August 19, 2017

Women aren't mentioned at all, whereas the words "men" or "male" or "masculinity" appear 8 times. "Gay" is mentioned 20 times. "Cruising," as it is used in the essay, is an entirely gay male experience. This is 100% about gay men. It seems like every gay or trans thread ends up like this - mostly people not from the target audience. The gender of the authors is irrelevant to my point; I'm also annoyed when cis people write about trans people.
posted by AFABulous at 6:57 PM on August 19, 2017

Top/bottom and top shortage isn't an exclusively gay male experience, though. It's true that the article only talks about gay men, but I'm not sure that's really justifiable if they're trying to talk about the concept of top/bottom and top shortage as a whole, rather than explicitly how it functions in gay male culture. Considering a good portion of the "top shortage" memes come from queer women/nonbinary people, it seems odd to look at this phenomenon and then specifically focus on gay men to explain why it's happening, when... queer women/nonbinary people are absolutely involved as well.

I mean, if they want to focus just on gay men, that's fine. But then it can't really be used as a way to explain the concept of top shortage, because gay men are not the only ones participating in that phenomenon. But, since I'm not one of the queer women who is participating in that phenomenon (though I have many friends who do... I tend to see top shortage complaints more often from queer women than anyone else, tbh, but my friend circle also skews more towards women), maybe I shouldn't weigh in anyway.
posted by brook horse at 7:17 PM on August 19, 2017