Friday, September 18, 2009

Top, Bottom, Both? Scientists tries to explain our Sexual Labels


This is quite interesting.

Several years ago, Trevor Hart and other scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta studied 205 gay men to find out why some them consider themselves catchers or pitchers.

From the results, this is what they found out:
Tops were more likely than both bottoms and versatiles to reject a gay self-identity and to have had sex with a woman in the past three months. They also manifested higher internalized homophobia—essentially the degree of self-loathing linked to their homosexual desires.

Versatiles seem to enjoy better psychological health. Hart and his coauthors speculate that this may be due to their greater sexual sensation seeking, lower erotophobia (fear of sex), and greater comfort with a variety of roles and activities.


Self-labels are meaningfully correlated with actual sexual behaviors. That is to say, based on self-reports of their recent sexual histories, those who identify as tops are indeed more likely to act as the insertive partner, bottoms are more likely be the receptive partner, and versatiles occupy an intermediate status in sex behavior.

It's a fun read. It gave me some insight in my self-label.

What's yours?

source

here's a direct link to the research

11 comments:

Daddy Squeeze Me! said...

YA SEE! I ALWAYS SAID A LOT OF THOSE TOPS GOT ISSUES....ESP THESE BLACK MEN...CALL THEM GAY AND HALF OF THEM WANNA FIGHT AND HAVE MAKE UP SEX AFTERWARD.

Larry Ohio said...

Can you post a link to this report? I'd like to read more.

I consider myself versatile even though I'm a bottom virgin. Is that even possible? It better be, cuz I'm it. I think you can figure out my husband's position.

I guess this means in my case at least, our actual sex behavior does not define our sexual identity as much as our desired sex behavior.

Actual vs. desired. Does the report discuss that?

Anonymous said...

Interesting. I'd like to read more too (a study with only 205 people isn't very scientific).

I'm a top. I don't loathe my homosexual desires. I rather enjoy them! LOL.

Also--Tops were "more likely" to have had sex with a woman in the past 3 months? I find that a bit hard to believe.

Prince Todd said...

hmm, I am going to discuss this on my blog too!

What does it say about men that are strictly bottoms?

Personally, I don't like the idea of assuming a position and just sticking with it. I'm like Catherine Trammell in Basic Instinct, "I don't play by the rules Nick...I just go with the flow."

Joy said...

Hope you don't mind a straight woman weighing in on this, but as I said earlier, I like discussing sex.

It seems to me that as far as oral sex goes, being mutual indicates a balance. I didn't keep men around who want me to do them but don't reciprocate. I like doing it but also like having it done.

Since men can have orgasms with anal sex, that seems to be a preference as long as it's equally pleasurable for both partners. I'm glad I have two other orifices for it because I didn't like my experiences with it.

I do think people who are selfish in bed are selfish out of it.

Do you think it's more a preference to be a top or bottom or if it influences the dynamic of the relationship or both?

Joy said...

Did I go too far? Sorry, if I did!

Wonder Man said...

Oh no, Joy. I think it's a little bit of both

lelocolon said...

Oh this is so cool that we are having this conversation. And Joy please feel free to share. I like fucking, and eating ass. I love to penetrate men, to have my dick inside them. And I have never, ever been with a woman. However when I relate this to my queer friends they used to laugh, because of my voice pitch, and my swift hands motion that was supposed to make me a bottom. And I have bottomed for men, but I do not like being penetrated it does very little for me. I am now also enjoying the daddy top foreplay, masculine aggressive going to whip your ass silly kind of role. Having said that I also agree with Michael with the 205 sample that the study reported. I also think that because of the nature of the subject, culturally people tend to be a little bit dishonest in terms of their sexual practices. Therefore I am with Larry on the fact that their should be a distinction between the desired versus the actual sex.

kayman said...

I'm not surprised. People who are hung up on sexual positions seem to be the bizarre fools of the world.

Wonder Man said...

Well,lelocolon you don't hold back.

Allan is a very lucky guy.

lelocolon said...

I responded strongly to the statement "Tops were more likely than both bottoms and versatiles to reject a gay self-identity and to have had sex with a woman in the past three months. They also manifested higher internalized homophobia—essentially the degree of self-loathing linked to their homosexual desires."

I guess my point is that for centuries sex talk, is considered private talk, bedroom talk, or special interest talk. I disagree. I believe that if people were to express themselves more freely and openly, there will be less need for studies like the one that we are discussing here. I also think that given the nature of the homophobia out there we need to start self identifying ourself to deconstruct any intended malice from the offensive front.

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Viktor is a small town southern boy living in Los Angeles. You can find him on Twitter, writing about pop culture, politics, and comics. He’s the creator of the graphic novel StrangeLore and currently getting back into screenwriting.