Side gays
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 depart on the Grindr app to glance 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 queer men – the possibilities have prolonged been simply superior and bottom. The only other selection available toggles between those roles: verse (for versatile).
“Not fitting those roles has made it really tough to detect 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 false 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 discover 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 possess 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 famous to get me into bed.
But neither of these – top or bottom – accurately describe what I prefer to acquire 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 explain those, like me, for whom penetrative sex – in either position – does very little.
Getting the peach involved 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 diet 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 confess that I indulged in a lot of sex in my 20s – penetrative sex.
It oddly took yo
After a solid five-year run 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 back into the dating game. Initially, I avoided dating apps, drowning my sorrows in Long Island iced teas, surviving emotional meltdowns at untamed 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 guess what? Not much has changed since my last dating venture. There’s still an abundance of headless torsos and greetings that march in favor 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 lgbtq+ men take very seriously – the choices have always been the traditional “top,” “bottom,” or “verse.”
Then, like a beacon of curiosity, the term “side” kept popping up, catching my eye. At first, I imagined
Last year, I raged about the resurgence of the “Bury Your Gays” trope. This year, a diverse representation issue has evoked my frustration: networks or shows introduce queer women but don’t actually commit to that representation. It’s as if television is a married man, and sapphics are his side chicks—occasionally dazzled with attention and promises, but forever shadowed by his concrete partner, heterosexuals (or, in a few cases, lgbtq+ men).
This “side gays” treatment manifests as limited promotion and swift cancellations of sapphic-centric shows, compared to shows that feature vertical or gay leads; and as sapphic love stories/characters appearing less often or less meaningfully in hetero-centric shows than straight or gay male romances/characters.
Examples of the former include Netflix giving gay-centric show Heartstopper more promotion than the sapphic show First Kill, then giving Heartstopper a prompt two-season renewal, but canceling First Kill, despite First Kill’s superior initial-stage viewership. Likewise, Prime Video has long hyped its coming gay romance Red, White & Royal Blue, but did little lead-up promotion for the sapphic A League of Their Own, a