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Bottom shaming

Bottom shaming is the practice of shaming gay men who undertake the passive role in gay sex, a sexual practice often colloquially referred to as the bottom position.^[a] Often in particular, it is directed towards the man who is penetrated in anal sex, though may also commonly target men who fellate other men and generally applies to every form of sexual activity between gay men that includes a passive and an active (top) position. Though sometimes believed to largely be done by heterosexuals, both them and homosexuals, including many bottoms, engage in bottom shaming.

Bottom shaming has been shown to have existed for as long as there have been sexual relations between men, being documented to have existed amongst the ancient Greeks and being a critical component of Roman sexuality and attitudes to homosexuality. Shaming of passive MSMs largely have to due with how with sexual activity amongst heterosexuals almost universally involve the man penetrating the woman while engaging in sexual activity, leading to an association with passive gay men with effeminacy while those who took the usual active, penetrative role being seen as preserving their masculinity. In recent decades, bottoms have also been mocked due to research during the HIV/AIDS epidemic that proved that bottoming made one more susceptible to contracting the disease.

In recent years as homosexuality has become more accepted amongst western populations, there has been greater pushback against the stigma of playing the passive role in gay sex, with many denouncing the perceived feminine nature of bottoming and scientific research on the topic showcasing mixed results. However, the backlash has not been universal amongst the gay community; many bottoms still feel ashamed about their sexual preference. Much of the gay community also still demean the passive role, however today its largely out of concern for the bottoms themselves, with many gay men seeing the passive position as being degrading to the practitioner.

Background

The terms top, bottom, and versatile are terms used to describe sex roles in human sexuality as a whole, though since penetration is almost exclusively done with a man's penis, it results in the roles of top and bottom being almost universally split among gender lines in heterosexual activity. Thus, the terms are typically reserved for gay men, who have more options. The "top" position (formally known as the insertive role) is a role where one of the participants takes on the penetrative role; in MSM sexual activities, this is typically done by having the penis be in the other partner's anus (anal sex) or mouth (fellatio). The partner who is being penetrated is the "bottom" or the receptive partner.^[1] Several variations exist; a power top or power bottom is one who aggressively enjoys one of the positions and a service top is a top who receives direction from an eager bottom. An oral bottom is an individual who is penetrated exclusively at least in regards to oral sex, providing the so-called oral top with unreciprocated fellatio or irrumatio.^[1]

A total top or total bottom is one who exclusively participates in either role and rarely if every participates in the opposite position. This is opposed to a versatile bottom or versatile top, who prefer one position but occasionally dabble in the other. The versatile top and bottom is an offshoot of the tertiary versatile role; partners who generally lack any preferred choice and as such frequently alternate between the two, often times during sex.^[1]

The terms top, bottom, and versatile can also often have connotations of a role in a sexual or romantic relationship. A top can refer to a partner who seeks to exert dominance in a relationship while a bottom can be stipulated as one who relegates himself to the submissive role. A versatile one is said to split responsibility in the relationship. Though they often share similarities with the aforementioned roles, they are not pre-requisites for being a top, bottom, or versatile partner.^[2]

History

Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece was the first major civilization where widespread sexual relationships between men was observed on a large scale. In Greece, homosexuality was largely based upon pederasty, where older men would engage in sexual acts with young boys, who were often their pupils. Ancient Greek sexuality casted the passive role as femininity, lower social status, and youth, as opposed to the dominant role which was viewed in the opposite light.

Penetration was viewed as degrading to the passive partner and was associated with femininity. When a man would penetrate the boy, it was not recognized as a homosexual union as the act of being penetrated meant that the boy definitionally was not a man. To preserve his dignity, the penetrated one would limit the penetration to his thighs; as such sex in ancient Greece was almost exclusively intercrural. Anal sex was seen as extremely disparaging to the passive partner as it was viewed to replicate the look of a woman and was also feared to hamper the ability of the young boy to participate in the active role later in life. Likewise, oral sex is not depicted in ancient Greek art and appears to not be suggested and it and anal sex are generally believed to be reserved for slaves and prostitutes.

Many historians have characterized homosexual activity between mentors and their pupils to have revolved around power and that these sexual experiences had a lasting detrimental impact upon the pupils. Enid Bloch argues that many Greek boys in these relationships may have been traumatized by knowing that they were violating social customs, since the "most shameful thing that could happen to any Greek male was penetration by another male". She further argues that vases showing "a boy standing perfectly still as a man reaches out for his genitals" indicate the boy may have been "psychologically immobilized, unable to move or run away".

Amongst adult men, given the immense importance ascribed to masculinity in Greek culture and the perceived feminizing effect of being the passive partner, sexual relationships were highly condemned. This stigma was however reserved to the passive partner. Greek men upon entering adulthood were to take on the active role in sexual activities, and so by being penetrated, he was believed to be feminizing' himself. Being active was also associated with citizenship, and so by being penetrated, a citizen was considered to be forfeiting his rights as a citizen.^[3]

Ancient Rome

Roman attitudes towards sexuality shared similarities with Greek attitudes. The Romans lacked modern western conceptions of sexual orientation and placed a greater emphasis on the power dynamic within sex. Roman society was patriarchal (see paterfamilias), and masculinity was premised on a capacity for governing oneself and others of lower status. Virtus, "valor" as that which made a man most fully a man, was among the active virtues. Sexual conquest was a common metaphor for imperialism in Roman discourse, and the "conquest mentality" was part of a "cult of virility" that particularly shaped Roman homosexual practices.

These factors led the Romans viewing sex as a binary between the active/dominant/masculine role and the passive/submissive/feminine role, with Roman ideals of masculinity being precepted on being the penetrative partner in sex. It was considered acceptable for freeborn male citizens of Rome to engage in sexual activities with other males, so long as they took the active role and the receptive partner undertook the passive role. Beginning in the late 20th century, scholars began to view Roman sexuality between a penetrating-penetrated binary, stating that the proper manner for a Roman male to seek sexual gratification.

Those who were penetrated in Roman society were the subject of mockery by others, being labeled as weak and effeminate. Citizens especially were mocked for being receptive in sex for it was viewed as violating their rights as a citizen. Latin had a wealth of words to label those who undertook the passive role in gay sex, many of them disparaging, such as mollis ("soft", used more generally as an aesthetic quality counter to aggressive masculinity), debilis ("weak" or "disabled"), effeminatus, morbosus ("sick"). The shame directed towards the receptive partner were greatly intensified if said partner was an adult, as similarly to ancient Greece, the Romans employed pederastic practices, and adult men were expected to penetrate younger boys. This is exemplified in the aforementioned term, morbosus, which was explicitly applied to adult men; adults who took the active role were seen as normal.

The puer delicatus was an "exquisite" or "dainty" child-slave chosen by his master for his beauty as a "boy toy", also referred to as deliciae ("sweets" or "delights"). Unlike the freeborn Greek eromenos ("beloved"), who was protected by social custom, the Roman delicatus was in a physically and morally vulnerable position. The "coercive and exploitative" relationship between the Roman master and the delicatus, who might be prepubescent, can be characterized as pedophilic, in contrast to Greek paiderasteia. The boy was sometimes castrated in an effort to preserve his youthful qualities and make him more docile; the emperor Nero's eunuch Sporus, whom he castrated and married, may have been a puer delicatus. In the early centuries of the empire, there existed a burgeoning eunuch slave trade, however, this was gradually clamped down upon by the Roman government.

Os impurum, "filthy mouth" or "impure mouth", was a term of abuse especially for those who provided oral sex. An accusation of having an os impurum is an "extreme obscenity", so vile that Cicero reserved it for men of lower standing than himself, only implying that their debasement tainted their more powerful patrons who were his real targets. The bad breath and rotten teeth that are attributed to performing oral sex represent moral decay and a general corruption of the mouth's positive functions as the organ of a citizen's persuasive speech. Accusing a man of fellating another man was one of the worst insults in all Roman invective. Those who were irrumated in particular were particularly shamed; to irrumate another man was seen as proof of masculinity and was generally the ultimate form of humiliation a Roman man could inflict upon another person. To be accused of taking pleasure in being irrumated was possibly the greatest insult of Roman incentive; it was once utilized by Octavian in his famous obscene epigram directed at Antony.

As Christianity gradually gained hold within the empire, attitudes towards same-sex activities began to take a remarkable shift. By the end of the 4th century, anally passive men under the Christian Empire were punished by burning. "Death by sword" was the punishment for a "man coupling like a woman" under the Theodosian Code. It is in the 6th century, under Justinian, that legal and moral discourse on male–male sex becomes distinctly Abrahamic: all male–male sex, passive or active, no matter who the partners, was declared contrary to nature and punishable by death. Male–male sex was pointed to as cause for God's wrath following a series of disasters around 542 and 559.

Elsewhere

In 18th century London, a man could penetrate another man and it would only be the passive partner that would be labeled as effeminate.^[4]

Modern history

Aids epidemic

Russia

Prevalence

Despite being the foundational position in gay sex (in that one always ought to take the receptive role in gay sex), across the gay community, bottoming is generally held in a sour regard and is generally held to be emasculating. Bottoms are attached to a wide array of negative stereotypes, often times being derivative of stereotypes of women, such as the stereotype that bottoms fight amongst each other over tops, similar to the heteronormative stereotype of women fighting over men. In many cases, bottoms are explicitly labeled as "the woman" or "the female."^[5]

Versatility

Versatility serves as a vital midpoint between the supposedly effeminate receptive partner and the masculine penetrator. By virtue of being in between both extremes, they are able to bottom while evading the negative stigmas associated with bottoms via maintaining a right to be a top occasionally.^[6] Despite this, they are often still subject to scrutiny; versatile are often mocked as closeted bottoms who do not identify as such to evade stigma and ostracization.

Oral bottoms

An oral bottom generally refers to the receptive partner in oral sex, typically fellatio. Oral bottom shamming is a much less prevalent force than bottom shaming in anal sex, with men who prefer oral-genital sex having been shown to care much less about who undertakes the insertee or insertor role. This can be attributed to how often times fellatio and other forms of oral sex are seen as foreplay in gay sex.^[7]

Pushback and controversy

Notes

^ Verb: bottoming and bottomed
Plural noun: bottoms

Bibliography

Berkowitz, Dana; Windsor, Elroi J.; Han, C.; Winder, Terrell (2023). Male Femininities. NYU Press. ISBN 9781479839612.

References

^ ^a ^b ^c Underwood, Steven Gregory (2003). Gay Men and Anal Eroticism: Tops, Bottoms, and Versatiles. Psychology Press. ISBN 978-1-56023-375-6.
^ Levine, Martin P.; Kimmel, Michael (1998). Gay Macho: The Life and Death of the Homosexual Clone. NYU Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-4695-0.
^ Kemp, Jonathan (2013). The Penetrated Male. Punctum Books. ISBN 978-0-615-87086-1.
^ "A Brief History of Bottoming". www.vice.com. Retrieved 2023-02-19.
^ Berkowitz, Dana; Windsor, Elroi J.; Han, C. Winter (2023-02-14). Male Femininities. NYU Press. p. 263. ISBN 978-1-4798-3961-2.
^ Winder 2023, p. 262.
^ Bullough, Vern L.; Bullough, Bonnie (2014-01-14). Human Sexuality: An Encyclopedia. Routledge. p. 72. ISBN 978-1-135-82509-6.

[1] Verb: bottoming and bottomed
Plural noun: bottoms

[:0-2] Underwood, Steven Gregory (2003). Gay Men and Anal Eroticism: Tops, Bottoms, and Versatiles. Psychology Press. ISBN 978-1-56023-375-6.

[3] Levine, Martin P.; Kimmel, Michael (1998). Gay Macho: The Life and Death of the Homosexual Clone. NYU Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-4695-0.

[4] Kemp, Jonathan (2013). The Penetrated Male. Punctum Books. ISBN 978-0-615-87086-1.

[5] "A Brief History of Bottoming". www.vice.com. Retrieved 2023-02-19.

[6] Berkowitz, Dana; Windsor, Elroi J.; Han, C. Winter (2023-02-14). Male Femininities. NYU Press. p. 263. ISBN 978-1-4798-3961-2.

[FOOTNOTEWinder2023262-7] Winder 2023, p. 262.

[8] Bullough, Vern L.; Bullough, Bonnie (2014-01-14). Human Sexuality: An Encyclopedia. Routledge. p. 72. ISBN 978-1-135-82509-6.

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