Will be published in HIM Magazine and magazine for sexual developing of women DHIVA
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Fickrichtungen – wer liegt oben und warum?
Visiting the KitKat
It was the time around Christmas 2023. My colleague Ari Denaro invited me for a drink at Berlin’s Psycho-Kitkat. At nearly 50, (sex-)clubbing isn’t really my thing anymore, but if I’m offered an opportunity to announce that „I’m the dominus, I’m on the VIP list“, I simply can’t resist.
Ari isn’t really a BDSM master in the literal sense. He’s more of an exhibitionist who let’s other people watch or join the play. I immediately informed him that his activities at the club, too, were to be fined under the Nordic Model of Prostitution. In other words: after partaking in and paying him for his services, his clients would be punished. Therefore, he’d be pressured to hide his brilliant performances in shady backrooms. Public and grand show stages like for example during the Venus Convention, where we met, would be prohibited. Speaking of this exact convention, the Venus‘ main sector, the porn industry, will be next on the abolitionists‘ agenda. As the supporters of the Nordic Model often claim: „Pornography is prostitution on film“. I agree with this statement, but I don’t think it should be judged negatively.
The so called Nordic Model based on Sweden’s laws regarding sex work can be expected to be included in the CDU’s upcoming program. Meaning, Germany’s biggest conservative party, which prospectively will form the next federal government.
Ari was distressed. Just like many others he didn’t fully realize the threat of losing of one’s sexual empowerment under the Nordic Model. He promised me to support and take part in the pro-sex work demonstration on 4 May 2024 in Berlin. As a side note, thank you Ari, for inviting me to the Psycho-KitKat club, right next to the original. The kinky furniture and the charming interieur perfectly live up to Berlin’s „poor-but-sexy“ reputation.
Masculine-read persons leisurely stroll around in undies, girls are dolled up in kinky wear. And I am dressed age-appropriately in long leather trousers and boots as well as a black shirt, raising the average age by a lot. But I like that a lot. Clad in leather I transform into the perverted „daddy“. Into a man, who’s versed in all kinds of dirty, sexual games and in his confidence will take what he wants. A mature and calm daddy who alone through his presence promises to assuredly lead during sex. I am playing into the fantasy of someone offering themselves up to be used and penetrated well. The looks I get this evening are submissive in nature. I can see people peeking at me through lowered lashes and butts that are specifically positioned and presented in my field of vision.
But why is it this way? Why do we always automatically view big, mature men as tops?
Please be aware, that the following text will be full of stereotypes. And please spare me e-mails loaded with „but I know plenty of people who are different“ or worse „but I‘m not like this!“. The fact that sexuality is diverse and multi-facetted is very clear to me, especially as a sex worker. I’m simply stating my personal observations.
The „Fucking Principles“
I regularly notice that we carry certain stereotypical principles within us and reproduce them, also repeatedly inserting ourselves, our sexual partners and our environment into these thought patterns. Interestingly, gays have this in common with the straight world. And this is what these stereotypes look like:
1. The older one is topping the younger one
2. The bigger one is topping the smaller one
3. The male one is topping the female one
4. The stronger one is topping the weaker one
Heterosexual relatonships
How often do we automatically perceive a young woman as a passive, receiving person or even (sometimes over-hastily) as a victim? Her being small and skinny, increases this perception further. Moreover, if she also acts especially feminine and a little bit helpless, she can be sure that most of the men in her surroundings will actively pursue her. However, hardly any submissive men would approach her.
On the other hand, as women get older, they generally complain about their declining popularity regarding men. Worse in the film business, women are casted and portrayed as young as possible while men seem to age without losing any of their attractiveness. The only way a woman can salvage her sex appeal is, if she combines age with dominant clothing and a confident demeanor. Because she’s then perceived as somewhat of a dominatrix and if she happens to be a little taller, men will be at her feet. As a result, women are also expected to play a leadership role in bed. In the dominatrix studio I usually experience that lots of gentlemen like to be penetrated anally by confident and strong women. As a conclusion, tall ladies, you should definitely get used to the topping position once you get older! (just kidding)
This may sound extreme, but in my life I have heard far too many complaints from larger women as they are always put in the dominatrix role due to their strong and confident appearance.
But oftentimes they themselves don’t want smaller men as a partner. Because they too have internalized the image that a masculine person has to be bigger if they are to penetrate them. The outside perspective plays a significant role as well: a woman with a man who is 20 centimeters shorter? Most people would view this as unusual if not weird. The reason for this is that the roles of penetration are seemingly already clear from the outside (the man fucks the woman). But what if he doesn’t have the corresponding physical superiority? This will evoke a grin on most people’s faces. Because:, “Big” should always fuck “Small”.
Homosexual relationships
In theory, we gays have an advantage. Since when it comes to two men, it ultimately doesn’t matter whether one is smaller, stronger or more feminine. It doesn’t look funny at first glance, because the roles of penetration aren’t always defined just from appearance. And even if at first glance it’s seemingly that way due to one person appearing a little more feminine, in reality it can be completely different. Although we probably have these stereotypical “fucking principles” in our blood, the gays especially have all received their share of discrimination in life. That’s why the gay daddy can happily let his little boy top him when he gets older.
Gay people usually have a higher amount of self-reflection in a sexual context, since we were more or less forced to confront our own sexual orientation in our teenage years.
But still, those stereotypical values persist even in our brains. Even if we gays see a daddy in question on the street with his boy, we automatically assume that he as the older man is going to penetrate the younger one. We collectively, gay or straight, cannot get rid of this reflex. No matter how many times we have experienced the opposite.
In movies, we regularly witness the big, strong man saving a small, delicate and, above all, helpless woman from a burning house – and as a reward, of course, he is allowed to slip into her. Even if a smaller man could technically do all of this as well as his bigger counterpart, our mind’s eye prefers this cliché. Of course, the reality is very much different everywhere, not only in the fire department.
But why does this schema seem so reliable?
Why do we reflexively put a taller person in the top role? Are there maybe evolutionary reasons for this? Is it about someone big being more successful at protect the little offspring? That maturity suggests that someone can pass on wide range of reliable life experience to his inexperienced successors? That in the best case, he’s wealthy and can provide better, which is more common at old age? As a conclusion, would this mean that as soon as we gays get into bottom-mode, we resemble women who want to protect their “imaginary offspring”?
My answer is: yes. We’re living in a patriarchal world and have unconsciously internalized such values as silly as they may be in today’s world and especially between two men.
However, gays are more often aware of their roles and can enjoy them, for example, by being in a victim role or conforming to a hypermasculine image (e.g. leather men). The largest German gay portal “Romeo” has also provided options to differentiate between “role in penetration” and “role in the bedroom”. There, you can choose between “top – bottom” and “active – passive”. Unfortunately, it is rarely used since most people don’t want to admit that as tops they like to be penetrated or as a bottoms they’d like to be active. Therefore, a few glances are enough to see that even though the technology offers it, the tops are always active and bottoms are always passive. In the gay world we place sexual value on “behavior”, the so-called “straight acting”. By the way, I prefer to use the word “masculine” rather than “hetero-like”.
But what does “masculine behavior” mean for gays?
In the hetero world, between a couple where the woman is somewhat masculine and the man appears more feminine, our mind’s eye still assigns the man the active role and the woman the passive part. Just according to the “fucking principle”: man penetrating woman. The exact opposite is the case in gay relationships. If one partner of a couple seems to be a bit more feminine, then he must be the real bottom – because the female has to be penetrated by the male. It’s even more obvious with gay switchers. If we scroll through the gay quick sex app “Grindr” we read about guys who only top others when the respective guy is smaller and below a certain age. But their own search for a top then has the prerequisites that the top must be larger or older.
The role of age and physical attraction
So, why exactly is it that we naturally put smaller people in the bottom role? Well, a smaller body can be more easily controlled and dominated by a larger one. In the German language dominating someone means “beherrschen” and interestingly enough, the word for “Sir” called “Herr” can be found in there and there we have our roles again. So, the sir should fulfill his role of leadership – so to speak through his physical superiority. Why a bottom seemingly has to be as young as possible can be explained by evolution. Because we again can see aspects of reproduction there, even if they’re not consciously applied. It may seem paradoxical for gays, but apparently we ourselves adopted the male reproductive drives of our heterosexual colleagues:
Young bodies are more promising in reproductive terms than older ones. I hereby allow a collective laugh at our subconscious.
Well, I can already hear people who center their sexual motivation mainly on looks, like “I only like firm butts”. We have to keep in mind that exactly that tight and smooth character of body parts sends out these “signals of youth” that our subconscious appreciates. Our subconscious mind has much more control over us than we realize. It explains to us why we instinctively put every “feminine” gay man in the bottom role, and when they feel the opposite, we are amused by it or, worse, start to discriminate against them. On that note, if you insult someone: shame on you.
Where do these stereotypes come from?
And so, it’s time to ask ourselves: What was there sooner? Do the bottom and the top fit into these roles because they were born like that? Or did they first learn and adapt their roles through social interaction? We don’t have clear or simple answers to this question, yet. Maybe we’ll find out when we someday know how sexuality fundamentally develops. So far, it is assumed to be a mixture of genetic and learned factors.
I also don’t want to criticize or demonize our subconscious the resulting internalized “fucking principles”. I believe that when we’re aware of them we can incorporate role models like this into many games.
We can also use them positively and to our advantage, for example in playing with shame and embarrassment. It is not necessary that we fundamentally change just because these instincts do not correspond to the circumstances and values today. After all, we aren’t always in need of a big man to protect us. And biologically speaking, gays rarely have children the natural way, so there’s that. Unfortunately, the stereotypic roles also create imbalances that make living out sexuality more difficult. For example, if the older, muscular, strong man craves to fulfill a passive role, but is stereotypically in no way desirable for the bottom part. This applies again to male homosexuality as well as to heterosexuality.
So, what do we do with these schemas?
I also want to emphasize that such realizations about our subconscious should not be a gateway to shaming others (keyword: bottom shaming). Political correctness is a useful tool when it comes to dealing with each other and making people feel safe and accepted. Let us all enjoy the harmless aspects of those stereotypes in peace and develop a positive attitude to life. Still, it doesn’t hurt if we gain awareness of the unconscious influences.
If we understand these role models as an element of our own and other’s sexuality, we can mindfully engage with them in order to use them to our advantage when choosing a partner, going clubbing, on the dating platform or simply for the next sexual encounter.
I heard from corpulent women kneeling in front of boys half their size and getting soaking wet by doing so, about petite transvestites who pounded muscle studs, and about shy nerds who in spite of their stuttering and fearful apperance changed into brilliant dominants in the bedroom.
And if that still doesn’t suffice, it underlines the importance of sex work for a free society more than ever. I’ll elaborate on that topic in my next column.
Next issue:
Straight world – more tops than bottoms
Gay world – more bottoms than tops