Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Editor's Note June 14, 2016


M3 Bear Essentials: We’re Both Men
Video: http://bit.ly/1PK7e8b 

I really enjoyed the conversation we had last week and I realized that there are many more depths to the conversations we have about tops and bottoms. It makes sense that people who are uninitiated to gay culture would find the concept of one of the men in a gay relationship being "the woman", but why do some gay men adopt this view as well? To some gay men, the moment a man has bottomed they have revealed their true colors and immediately lose interest. Why? That to me is a much better question there where have all the full tops gone?


I almost rolled my eyes when Lonnie posted the meme int he Undercover groups sparked this topic. It was a running gag of ours about how many more episodes could we do before our discussion reverted to some discussion about tops and bottoms or masculinity. Are full tops going extinct in our community? I guess so. I'm not one to discount anyone's experience, but just because we’ve talked about it so many times before doesn't mean there isn't new ground to cover. Posts like the one Lonnie shared are often done by young gays who can't seem to find the type of many that will satisfy him. Instead of examining his concept of full top and what that says about their sexuality, they blame the community at large.  The way Lonnie put it in his post is that they eliminate more than half the tops they meet cause they’re too feminine or they don't have the right body or a host of other superficial reasons then wonder why there are no tops around for them to date.  But that isn't what this conversation ended up being about. I wanted to get into why bottoms were automatically considered to be more feminine or somehow more like women and why, even if that assumption were true, why would that need to be a negative trait?

I think it’s perfectly acceptable to be offended if if someone calls me a woman, but not because women are less than me. It’s because you’re discounting my manhood, something I have every right to be proud of. But just because I’m proud to be a man doesn't mean I can't be a feminist. Gay men can be some of the most sexist men you'll ever met and they have no idea they're doing it. It's not just gay men who insult other men, but you would think that we'd catch on a little quicker since that sexism comes back to bite us in the ass. By calling other men women as some sort of insult we unwittingly reinforce the sexism that is the source of most homophobia. A lot of time it the idea of a man being the receiving sexual partner that sparks the anger and disgust from homophobes. Why would any man want to be woman? It's disturbing to them because being a man is so much better than being a woman. It's disgusting to them because women on some level disgust them. We feed into that hate every time belittle a friend for being a bottom and calling him a girl.

I'm not trying to police the behavior of my friends. Far from it I'm just trying to understand our choices and perspectives. I bought into our sexist beliefs for a while. It seems logical after all women are the ones who take dick. But once you see a guy taking dick like a guy, when you see a feminine man be as much top as the next guy would, you have to either ignore what you saw or change your perception of what makes a woman a woman and makes a man a man Taking dick isn't the primary purpose of being a woman, no is having babies or raising families or what ever other narrow bullshit you think makes her a woman. Many a woman is a stud that fucks harder than some men and might even blow your mind to imagine that she might identify as straight. People aren;t as narrowly defined as we once assumed. It's time we grow up and realize this before we cause any more damage.


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