Bottom Gay Quotes

Those who know that they are profound strive for clarity. Those who would like to seem profound to the crowd strive for obscurity. For the crowd believes that if it cannot see to the bottom of something it must be profound. It is so timid and dislikes going into the water.

I've been taking it easy on you, kid, can tell you're having fun. But it's all sensation to you so far. I haven't pushed you, taken you out of yourself, looked for that place inside where you give yourself to your top. Sometimes pleasure can take a bottom there, but more often it's pain that does.

Whoever knows he is deep tries to be clear, but whoever wants to seem deep to the crowd tries to be obscure. For the crowd supposes that anything it cannot see to the bottom must be deep: it is so timid and goes so unwillingly into the water.

We made a deal. I can top, but not bottom." "Are you secretly a gay man?" Zachary eyed her curiously.

Take this fucking thing off me!" he demanded. "Good morning to you too, Nick," Damian said mildly. He unlocked the door without haste and went to his office, Nick dogging his every footstep. "Did you --?" "I didn't touch it or myself. Take it off right now!" Nick said angrily. Damian sat down and motioned Nick closer. "We're going to have to have a talk about topping from the bottom. I don't allow that, pet.

Umm … well, how do you, like, choose if you’re a top or a bottom?” “There’s a sorting hat. Like in Harry Potter. It wasn’t even placed on my head before it screamed, ‘Top!’ and then all the other tops welcomed me to their house.

Well, I’ve been to London and I’ve been to gay Paris
 I’ve followed the river and I got to the sea
 I’ve been down on the bottom of a world full of lies
 I ain’t looking for nothing in anyone’s eyes
 Sometimes my burden seems more than I can bear
 It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there I was born here and I’ll die here against my will
 I know it looks like I’m moving, but I’m standing still
 Every nerve in my body is so vacant and numb
 I can’t even remember what it was I came here to get away from
 Don’t even hear a murmur of a prayer
 It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there -Bob Dylan, “Not Dark Yet” (1997)

A little girl and her father were walking along in the evening. She was fascinated by the stars, and kept looking up at them, but made no comment until her father asked what she was thinking. She replied, "If the bottom side of heaven is so beautiful, how wonderful the other side must be

We have to emphasize to the gay community that opposition to same-sex marriages is not about hate, but about debate. Opposition to what some of us see as a devastating move that will further weaken the family and harm children--such opposition is not hateful. Morality is not bigotry. In their book The Homosexual Agenda, authors Alan Sears and Craig Osten give this illustration, which I've summarized: Imagine that you are standing at the bottom of a cliff and you are watching as someone on the ledge above you is walking backwards, and in a few steps he will surely fall over the precipice. You shout, warning him to stop, and before you know it, a crowd gathers around you, snapping your picture and accusing you of "hate speech." You are being warned to keep your prejudices to yourself. After all, who are you to tell someone where they can and can't walk? Who are you to say that someone can't walk backwards? You are dumbfounded, but there you are, the object of everyone's wrath.

My son I worry about. I'm pretty sure he's gonna be gay. At this point I'm just hoping he's not a bottom. Sorry to sound closed-minded and uptight, but let's face it, no dad wants his son to be gay. Not only do you get no grandkids, but I'm sure high school is no picnic for a fifteen-year-old gay boy. On the other hand, maybe I'm just viewing this through the bifocals of an old heterosexual dude. The way things are going, my son will probably get his ass kicked for not being gay. 'Carolla thinks he's too good to suck cock. Come on boys, lets get him.

Just when I think you’ve hit bottom you continue to amaze me,” Kyle said. “Or, does this get worse? Nothing would surprise me after this. Are you sleeping with a married man whose wife is dying of cancer?” Elroy didn’t think he’d done anything wrong. “I know nothing about his wife, or his husband for that matter. I don’t ask and I’m not out to break up his home. Lighten up, man. Everybody does it. It’s not like I’m going to freaking marry this dude. I’m only having a little fun with him. You wanna come with me? We’ll have a three-way. You should see the way this guy moves. It will blow your mind.” With that remark Kyle shoved his hands into his pockets and walked faster. “No, thank you. That’s not something I’m interested in doing. Meeting nice, decent people is the only thing that blows my mind. I just hope you’re using condoms, you goddman asshole.

The thing about shame is that there are depths. I have no idea where the bottom of my shame resides.

Are we not continually falling?—backwards, sideways and in all directions? Do top and bottom still remain? Are we not wandering through infinite nothingness? Is not the breath of empty space in our faces? Has it not grown colder?

If you ask me, it's all these skinny models that make girls anorexic," she went on, to Auntie Barbara. "I can't think why they don't use real girls with a few curves." "Stands to reason, Jenny." Auntie B. was as pinkly flushed as Mum. "All the designers are gay—they don't want bosoms in their clothes, or bottoms, either. Not proper, girls' bottoms.

Whoever knows that he is profound strives for clarity; whoever would like the crowd to think he is profound strives for obscurity. The reason for this is that the crowd thinks something is profound whenever it cannot see to the bottom of it; it is afraid of the water and hates to get its feet wet.

Being profound and seeming profound.— Those who know that they are profound strive for clarity. Those who would like to seem profound to the crowd strive for obscurity. For the crowd believes that if it cannot see to the bottom of something it must be profound. It is so timid and dislikes going into the water.

The path I've been led down is one of senseless catastrophe, a classic Hollywood tale of the man who plummets to rock bottom just moments before he would have crested the peak. [...] I'm living out this queer tragedy as they write it for me - just one more tormented, half-in-the closet gay character whose dark descent can serve as a cautionary tale AND move tickets. But that's certainly not the only queer genre convention out there, no by a long shot. And while tragedies are important stories to tell, our appetite can be satiated with more than just suffering. If the story is good, it will find an audience. Whether it's a tragedy or a triumph doesn't matter.

Mister Softee? Sounds like a gay-for-pay bottoming porn scene.

So he slips his head off of Jeff's shoulder and slides out from under Evan's Armand shuffles down to the bottom of the bed. It doesn't have a lot of dignity this part of their sleeping arrangement. He's complained about this before but Jeff just nodded, and Evan had kissed the back of his neck, and they'd both snuggled in a little tighter, pinning him in the middle even more effectively than before.

The Silver Samarsanda stood above the Jardeen, behind a line of tall pencil cypress: an irregular bulk of masonry, plastered and whitewashed, with a wide, many-slanted roof of mossy tiles. Beside the entrance five colored lanterns hung in a vertical line: deep green, a dark, smoky scarlet, a gay light green, violet, and once more dark scarlet; and at the bottom, slightly to the side, a small, steady yellow lamp, the purport of all being: Never neglect the wonder of conscious existence, which too soon comes to an end!

Jared was completely gone now, holding his stomach and laughing so hard that tears were running down his face. Matt turned on him and snapped, "It's not funny," which only made Jared laugh harder. "Any of you guys strict about top or bottom?" Angelo asked, "'Cause if so, you'll screw it all up-" "Literally," Cole said. "And we'll have to start all over." Angelo turned to Matt. "If you got a strong preference you better say so now." "Lay it all out, so to speak," Cole said. "On the table." Angelo said. "For all to see." "Zach does like to watch," Angelo said, winking at me, and I was relieved that with the direction the conversation was going, nobody took him seriously. "Then it's settled!" Cole said. "Who's going where with whom first? Zach, I think you're up." He winked at me. "Or you soon will be." "Oh dear God," Mat moaned, hanging his head. "I knew I shouldn't have come." "Don't worry about it a bit," Cole said. "I'm sure Zach can coax at least one more out of you." Jared laughed so hard, I was amazed he managed to stay in his chair.

Decades after that day in the therapist’s office, Donald Trump was elected president. A friend called me and said, “This is the apocalypse. This is the end of our country as we know it.” I said, “I hope so. Apocalypse means uncovering. Gotta uncover before you can recover.” She said, “Oh, God, not more recovery talk. Not now.” “No, listen—this feels to me like we’ve hit rock bottom! Maybe that means we’re finally ready for the steps. Maybe we’ll admit that our country has become unmanageable. Maybe we’ll take a moral inventory and face our open family secret: that this nation—founded upon ‘liberty and justice for all’—was built while murdering, enslaving, raping, and subjugating millions. Maybe we’ll admit that liberty and justice for all has always meant liberty for white straight wealthy men. Then maybe we’ll gather the entire family at the table—the women and the gay and black and brown folks and those in power—so that we can begin the long, hard work of making amends. I’ve seen this process heal people and families. Maybe our nation can heal this way, too.

To the man standing on the corner holding the sign that said “God hates gays.” I’ve never seen, exactly who it is that you paperclip your knees, meld your hands together and pray to But I think I know what he looks like: I bet your God is about 5’10”. I bet he weighs 185. Probably stands the way a high school diploma does when it’s next to a GED. I bet your god has a mullet. I bet he wears flannel shirts with no sleeves, a fanny pack and says words like “getrdun.” I bet your god—I bet your god—I bet your god watches FOX news, Dog the Bounty Hunter, voted for John McCain, and loves Bill O’Reilly. I bet your god lives in Arizona. I bet his high school served racism in the cafeteria and offered “hate speech” as a second language. I bet he has a swastika inside of his throat, and racial slurs tattooed to his tongue just to make intolerance more comfortable in his mouth. I bet he has a burning cross as a middle finger and Jim Crow underneath his nails. Your god is a confederate flags wet dream conceived on a day when the sky decided to slice her own wrists, I bet your god has a drinking problem. I bet he sees the bottom of the shot glass more often than his own children. I bet he pours whiskey on his dreams until they taste like good ideas, Probably cusses like an electric guitar with Tourette’s plugged into an ocean. I bet he yells like a schizophrenic nail gun, damaging all things that care about him enough to get close. I bet there are angels in Heaven with black eyes and broken halos who claimed they fell down the stairs. I bet your god would’ve made Eve without a mouth and taught her how to spread her legs like a magazine that she will never ever ever be pretty enough to be in. Sooner or later you will realize that you are praying to your own shadow, that you are standing in front of mirrors and are worshipping your own reflection. Your God stole my god’s identity and I bet he’s buying pieces of heaven on eBay. So next time you bend your knees, next time you bow your head I want you to tell your god— that my god is looking for him.

Poem for My Father You closed the door. I was on the other side, screaming. It was black in your mind. Blacker than burned-out fire. Blacker than poison. Outside everything looked the same. You looked the same. You walked in your body like a living man. But you were not. would you not speak to me for weeks would you hang your coat in the closet without saying hello would you find a shoe out of place and beat me would you come home late would i lose the key would you find my glasses in the garbage would you put me on your knee would you read the bible to me in your smoking jacket after your mother died would you come home drunk and snore would you beat me on the legs would you carry me up the stairs by my hair so that my feet never touch the bottom would you make everything worse to make everything better i believe in god, the father almighty, the maker of heaven, the maker of my heaven and my hell. would you beat my mother would you beat her till she cries like a rabbit would you beat her in a corner of the kitchen while i am in the bathroom trying to bury my head underwater would you carry her to the bed would you put cotton and alcohol on her swollen head would you make love to her hair would you caress her hair would you rub her breasts with ben gay until she stinks would you sleep in the other room in the bed next to me while she sleeps on the pull-out cot would you come on the sheet while i am sleeping. later i look for the spot would you go to embalming school with the last of my mother's money would i see your picture in the book with all the other black boys you were the handsomest would you make the dead look beautiful would the men at the elks club would the rich ladies at funerals would the ugly drunk winos on the street know ben pretty ben regular ben would your father leave you when you were three with a mother who threw butcher knives at you would he leave you with her screaming red hair would he leave you to be smothered by a pillow she put over your head would he send for you during the summer like a rich uncle would you come in pretty corduroys until you were nine and never heard from him again would you hate him would you hate him every time you dragged hundred pound cartons of soap down the stairs into white ladies' basements would you hate him for fucking the woman who gave birth to you hate him flying by her house in the red truck so that other father threw down his hat in the street and stomped on it angry like we never saw him (bye bye to the will of grandpa bye bye to the family fortune bye bye when he stompled that hat, to the gold watch, embalmer's palace, grandbaby's college) mother crying silently, making floating island sending it up to the old man's ulcer would grandmother's diamonds close their heartsparks in the corner of the closet yellow like the eyes of cockroaches? Old man whose sperm swims in my veins, come back in love, come back in pain.

I'm going to get lecture-y for a second and add that I think the entire idea of tops and bottems, especially when coming from straight people who fetishize gay people, is an attempt to place some sort of hetero world over gay people. "Oh your're a bottom, so you're the woman." Gay guys who are strictly tops or bottoms tend to embrace this idea, too. Being a top only means you're "manly" or whatever because not being manly is considered bad by like adults and TV and stuff. Gay guys can buy into that crap just as easy as straight people. Whenever you see masc for masc on Grindr or whatever, what you're seeing is someone saying," I don't want people to think I'm like a woman, and I don;t want people to think that you're like a woman because people will think less of us." Sure people have preference but these ideas of masculine and feminine are kind of meaningless. I wear make-up. I think I'm pretty manly! We're all told this crap all the time, but you can reject it. Instead you're enforcing the idea that there is masculine and there is feminine, and that masculine is, for some unexplained reason, better. Finally, and this should probably be clear after the last bit, but you cant tell a top or a bottom or what a person's preferences are just by looking at him! Big, harry, muscled men love taking it up the ass. Trust me, I know. And slim, make-up wearing types, we love to f@$%. And in my case, get f@$%ed, too. Like I said, versatility is the best. So, in summary, it's wrong to assume all gay guys are having anal sex all the time. And it's ridiculous and offensive and stereotyping and hurtful to think that those who are penetrated are girly and those who penetrate are manly, something you've been doing. ... You're email is more like a mean joke you tell your friends, and I think that is because secretly you hate the way you're always being told what a girl should be like. And when you see a gay guy blurring the gender lines a little, like me, you're jealous of him. You want to put him in his place. You want to say, "he's not a man." Because if you can't blur those gender lines without being told you're gross or wrong, then you want to make sure that anyone who does cross those gender lines gets punished the way you would. But you shouldn't be punishing gay guys. You should be braking down the barriers that keep you from being who YOU want to be!

the bigotry and meanness of the world get parceled out, based on how you might, or might not, look or act like everybody else. The way there’s a particular kind of anti-Semitism that gets leveled at people who “look Jewish,” whatever that means. African Americans with darker skin sometimes are on the receiving end of more bigotry than people whose skin is lighter. Gay men who “act gay” get treated one way, those who pass as straight get treated another. It’s a whole pyramid of bigotry, with people who most resemble the dominant culture at the top, and people whose difference makes them stand out at the bottom. It’s inconceivable, if you think about it, the complex ways people have come up with for being horrible to one another.

-(...) juro, do fundo do meu coração, que quero ser curado. Quero ser como os outros homens, e não este pária que ninguém quer... (...) -E a mim, o que é que me vai acontecer? - disse Maurice, com uma súbita mudança de voz. O seu tom era de desespero, mas Mr Lasker Jones [o hipnotizador] tinha uma resposta para tudo. - Infelizmente só posso sugerir-lhe que vá viver para um país que tenha adoptado o Código Napoleão -, disse. - Não comprrendo. - A França ou a Itália, por exemplo. Aí a homossexualidade já não é mais crime. - O quê, um francês pode partilhar com um amigo e não ir parar à prisão? - Partilhar? Quer com isso dizer unir-se? Se forem ambos maiores e evitarem indecências em púbici, certamente que sim. - A Inglaterra terá alguma vez uma lei assim? - Duvido. A Inglaterra nunca foi propensa a aceitar a natureza humana. Maurice compreendeu. Ele próprio era inglês, e eram apenas as suas preocupações que o mantinham acordado. Sorriu sem alegria. - A questão então é esta: sempre houve e sempre haverá pessoas como eu, e elas geralmente têm sido perseguidas. -É isso, Mr Hall; ou, na opinião da psiquiatria, sempre houve, há e haverá toda a espécie concebível de pessoas, E não se esqueça que a sua espécie foi em tempos condenada à morte em Inglaterra. (...) Apesar de tudo, não será um Inferno verdadeiro melhor do que um Paraíso artificial? p.249 ---------------------------------------------- I swear from the bottom of my heart I want to be healed. I want to be like other men, not this outcast whom nobody wants. (...) England has always been disinclined to accept human nature. (...) After all, is not a real Hell better than a manufactured Heaven?

There’s a thing called passing, which is not only about transgender people but about everybody. It has to do with the way the bigotry and meanness of the world get parceled out, based on how you might, or might not, look or act like everybody else. The way there’s a particular kind of anti-Semitism that gets leveled at people who “look Jewish,” whatever that means. African Americans with darker skin sometimes are on the receiving end of more bigotry than people whose skin is lighter. Gay men who “act gay” get treated one way, those who pass as straight get treated another. It’s a whole pyramid of bigotry, with people who most resemble the dominant culture at the top, and people whose difference makes them stand out at the bottom. It’s inconceivable, if you think about it, the complex ways people have come up with for being horrible to one another. Inconceivable. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. As a trans girl, I pass without much effort, thanks in part to the random luck of genetics, and also thanks to my mother getting me on puberty-blocking hormones when I was twelve.

I'll tell you this,though, Frankie makes me happy. So does Sadie. I don't want to canoodle with either of them, but I love them to death." "Must you use those words in my presence?" "Sorry.But.Truth:You are dead as the spat." Edward sighed. "You're right.You're absolutely right. So I suppose you'd best go to sleep, darling Ella. It's late. And,as was famously said, 'tomorrow-'" "-is another day? Thank you, Scarlett O'Hara." "Actually-" -he scowled at me- "I was going to say, 'Tomorrow comes. Tomorrow brings, tomorrow brings love, in the shape of things.'" "Shakespeare?" I asked. "Queen," he shot back. "Not nearly as good as 'Bohemian Rhapsody' or 'Fat Bottomed Girls,' but certainly poetic." "Good night, Edward." "Good night, lovely girl." I turned off the light and climbed into bed. "Oh.By the way." "Yes?" "I think I figured out why you called Diana all those nicknames. 'Spring,' 'Cab,' 'Post'..." "Yes?" "They're all things you wait for. I think Diana was making you wait, and it was making you crazy. Am I right?" "Oh,Ella. You know I can't tell you that. I will,however, leave you with one more lovely old chestnut-" "'All good things are worth waiting for?'" "I really wish you would let me finish a thought tonight. I was going to say, 'Ain't nothing like the real thing, baby.'" "Marvin Gaye," I said. "The one and only.

I was dumbfounded to witness this specimen of male beauty in such a compromising position. I had never imagined finding the famous Rick Samuels in a dungeon, let alone in such a vulnerable and decubitus posture. He was my visiting lecturer, who had advised me to be selective in posing pornographically and for high art. He specifically told me that he was careful not to associate himself in the porn industry. Here he was, lying bare among men whom he did not know or have the vision to see. They were using him as a sex object, gratifying themselves regardless of how he felt. The men took turns pumping their swollen instruments into both his orifices until they could stave off their cravings no longer before they released their loads into Rick’s welcoming openings. He was the ‘power bottom,’ otherwise known to the gay underground community as a ‘cum pig’ or a ‘pig bottom.’ That evening was an eye-opener and a reformation. It reaffirmed men’s double standards in their words and actions for me. They were just like seasoned politicians, who promise a world of positive reforms before election. When elected to office, their promises are thrown to the wind. A set of new rules for personal gains then take effect. Thus is the nature of mankind. That evening, Andy, I learned an important lesson that humankind has its strengths and foibles. It is therefore worth the effort to take a closer look at a person’s character instead of embracing the superficiality that could often cloud a sound judgment. My beloved ex-’big brother,’ I am positive in my heart of hearts that you are an honorable gentleman of your word. From the first time I met you to our recent reconnection, you will always be the man I respect, honor, cherish, and, most importantly, LOVE. Young.

People who hate gays aren't prejudiced because of some obscure passage in the BOok of Leviticus. This prejudice, like every other prejudice, is based on the fact that we are different from them. They don't care that mankind was made in God's image; they want the world to be mad in their image. Bottom line, they get uptight because I'm not just like them. And that scares them. And scared bunnies do crazy things. - Tony Barovick

So, let’s have some fun! You’re about to get some fascinating, behind-the-scenes, no-holds-barred insights into an industry that we’ve all helped make rich, and on the way you are going to learn how to bottom without pain so you can screw like a porn star.

Sure, most gay porn videos go from eye glance to anal penetration in less than ninety seconds, but porn stars never show up to a shoot and start banging instantaneously. It takes a lot of work to make it look effortless.

The point to bottoming isn’t to fill your orifice. It’s to experience the presence of another man inside your body.

Bottoming does not make you a woman. It does not strip you of your masculinity.

If you follow the instructions in this book you will be able to inhale living room furniture through your anus like it were a line of coke. Or a porn star.

If you watch porn (and who doesn’t?) you know there is no such thing as a top wondering what to do. The performer gets hard and sticks it in. No ifs, ands or buts. Actually, there are a lot of butts, but I digress.

We label men “tops” or “bottoms” in part because we’re living out antiquity’s fear of the feminine.

The idea that only hung macho pricks should top is about as valid as saying that only effeminate men should bottom.

For example, this idea that you can only top if your dick is so big you need Dropbox to send dic pics? Call it out. It simply isn’t true. Condom companies say that only 6% of the population needs an extra-large condom.

And size queens aside, most guys who bottom would MUCH rather do it for an average-sized guy than a guy whose dick is so big it’s in the next room mixing drinks.

Everyone who has sex plays with some degree of power whether they acknowledge it or not.

Even the Dom-est top is going to think about giving it up for a Chris Hemsworth

Masculinity, femininity, dominance and submissiveness are rarely mutually exclusive. Be in touch with both as both will serve you well.

I hate a guy who just pounds. Look if I wanted to fuck a jackhammer or a hamster on crack, I would.

My ideal top isn’t just physical. It’s about emotional, and passionate love making. Give and take, making love furiously, intensely. No matter how you cut it, a man opening himself up for another man to enter him is the ultimate in submission.

A good top for me fucks with his entire body not just his cock … I hate the word dominance … I want to be enveloped and surrounded by his body …

Let’s be clear and not dance around the subject: You are sticking your penis into a cavity whose primary function is to eliminate feces from the body. This is not a comforting thought for most of us.

Keep Your Eye On The Doughnut And Not On The Hole.

The more you understand about the anus the less scary it becomes

Your partner loves male bodies (hello! He’s about to bottom for you!) so play that up. He also loves male energy so this isn’t the time to girl out and tell him how fabulous he would look on your chenille pillow if only he had the right haircut.

The top is never in charge.

My mom always said, “You’ve got to preheat the oven before you stick in the turkey.

Pain is something to avoid; discomfort is something to accept. Why? Because once you get used to discomfort it goes away and gets replaced with pleasure.

You’d be surprised how hard of a pounding an ass can take.

Better a raging gladiator than a panting Pomeranian.

Versatile guys tend to make better tops. If you know what you like done, you’ll know what needs doing.

Being good in bed isn’t just about technique. It isn’t about what you can do to him; it’s about where you can take him. Technique isn’t unimportant; it’s just insufficient. Getting good at the mechanics makes you a skilled worker. Understanding how to shape passion into a give-and-receive union makes you a sublime lover.

Your goal is to get so good at sex that the laziest guy on earth would take one look at you and say, “You make me want to get a job.

Men typically view sex as goal-oriented, performance-driven, orgasm-centric and erection focused. It’s great to get hard and ejaculate but when that’s seen as the only acceptable form of intimacy it works against the nature of sex as pleasure shared between two people.

All day long we try to rein Willie in. It’s time to let him run the show.

In porn, everyone has a big dick, stays hard for hours and comes like the Trevi Fountain. It’s pure fantasy and not anything you should compare yourself to.

I’m not going to sugar coat this: Condoms are awful. Only vaginas have the power to elicit more gay impotence. We hate them (condoms, not vaginas, although you could make a case for them too) for good reason—their awful texture, their medical smell and that wonderful power they have to reduce sensations.

Some respected scientists put the chances of catching HIV at 1 in 50 if you’re bottoming and 1 in 500 if you’re topping (without a condom).

The truth is, if you’re not in relatively good shape you’re not going to be a very good top. That’s because you’re basically doing all the work and that includes some heavy lifting, holding, grabbing, setting up, scooping, buoying, elevating, raising, moving, and of course, humping.

One of the biggest drawbacks to drinking is that after a while it makes you think safe sex is a padded headboard

One condom manufacturer said they only need to test their product for 50 thrusts. Doesn’t say much for male stamina, does it?

Gay men are far more obsessed with penis size than straight women are, even though both are sexually turned on by male genitalia.

Men always lie about size.

What do you think of women who fake their orgasms?” “Not much,” I said. “Men can fake whole relationships.

When it comes to your ass, an inch can feel like a foot.

link together the other two Ps—prevention and protection—because they almost always occur at the same time. Here’s the bottom line on prevention and protection:

There’s gay shame, then there’s bottom shame, and then there’s femme shame. And if we’ve got all three, and we don’t watch it, they’ll work together to destroy our happiness.

I ventured into the dimly lit darkness towards the blaring disco music and crowded dance floor. The enclosure reeked of poppers (alkyl nitrites), a recreational drug often used by gay men to heighten their sexual arousal. The club was hopping with the latest disco hits from the popular disco queen of 70s, Donna Summer. Half-naked and almost naked men were crowding the dance floor, grinding their perspiring bodies against each other in a sensual and sexual trancelike state. Men in various stages of foreplay were gyrating their muscular and sinewy bodies against each other in preparation for impulsive back-room romps. After taking to the dance floor for a couple of songs, I embarked on an exploration journey towards the back of the house. It was difficult to make out the abundance of naked bodies loathering in the dark in various stages of copulation. When I ventured into a large room with a sling in the middle, I heard a familiar, high-pitched groaning voice. It was a voice I had heard several years ago in class at the Bahriji School. It was a soprano voice that I could never get out of my head. Surrounding the voice was a queue of mesomorphically built men, waiting their turn to satisfy their sexual desires on an equally muscular hunk lying on the suspended, swinging sling. The man’s legs were spread above his torso. They were strapped to either sides of the hanging chains and so were his wrists, tied securely above his head. Although the ‘bottom’ was blindfolded with a black kerchief, I instantly recognized him as none other than the famous supermodel, Rick Samuels.

. . . and so we arrived at a ford that of course we couldn’t cross. To crown it all, it was raining. Captains Denegre and Tucker went off in the gathering darkness through mud ankle-deep, reappearing with news of a house somewhere into which we might be taken. Whatever failed us in those days, it was not Virginian hospitality! The good people whose home we invaded seemed more than pleased to receive us, and next morning betimes started us again “On to Richmond.” By that time all Christmas cheer had gone out of us. To reach a ferry, where there was only a tiny makeshift of a skiff, we and the mules wearily took up the burden of life again, plodding five miles through sloughs and hopeless mud, up perpendicular hills and down again, till every bone ached and philosophy ceased to be a virtue. Once more on the shores of classic Pamunkey, liquid mud flowing everywhere, in prospect a crossing, two by two, in a miserable egg-shell made of slimy planks, the bottom quite under water! The crowning feat of our expedition was, on reaching the other shore, all vehicles failing, to take heart of grace and walk six miles, in a downpour, to the nearest station of the railway. If it is asked what were our notions of perfection, I would answer that in those days we were sustained by what Cervantes styled “the bounding of the soul, the bursting of laughter, and the quicksilver of the five senses.” From Recollections Grave and Gay by Mrs. Burton Harrison. Scribners, New York, 1911.

o resume: 2 It is often said—and even more often screamed at anti–gay marriage rallies outside the statehouse in Lansing—that I created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. 3 Wrong. 4 Now will I tell the story of the first man, Adam; and of the companion I fashioned for him, Steve; and of the great closeting that befell their relationship. 5 For after I created the earth, and sea, and every plant and seed and beast of the field and fowl of the air, and had the place pretty much set up, I saw that it was good; 6 But I also saw, that by way of oversight it made administrative sense to establish a new middle-managerial position. 7 So as my final act of Day Six, I formed a man from the dust of the ground, and breathed life into his nostrils; and I called him Adam, to give him a leg up alphabetically. 8 And lo, I made him for my image; not in my image, but for my image; because with Creations thou never gettest a second chance to make a first impression; 9 And so in fashioning him I sought to make not only a responsible planetary caretaker, but also an attractive, likeable spokesman who in the event of environmental catastrophe could project a certain warmth. 10 To immediately assess his ability to function in my absence, I decided to change my plans; for I had intended to use Day Seven to infuse the universe with an innate sense of compassion and moral justice; but instead I left him in charge and snoozed. 11 And Adam passed my test; yea, he was by far my greatest achievement; he befriended all my creatures, and named them, and cared for them; and tended the Garden most skillfully; for he had a great eye for landscape design. 12 But I soon noticed he felt bereft in his solitude; for oft he sighed, and pined for a helpmeet; and furthermore he masturbated incessantly, until he had well-nigh besplattered paradise. 13 So one night I caused him to fall into a deep sleep; fulsomely did I roofie his nectar; and as he slept, I removed a rib, though not a load-bearing one. 14 And from this rib I fashioned a companion for him; a hunk, unburdened by excess wisdom; ripped, and cut, and hung like unto a fig tree before the harvest; 15 Yea, and a power bottom. 16 And Adam arose, and saw him, and wept for joy; and he called the man Steve; I had suggested Steven, but Adam liked to keep things informal. 17 And Adam and Steve were naked, and felt no shame; they knew each other, as often as possible; truly their loins were a wonderland. 18 And they were happy, having not yet eaten of the Tree of the Knowledge That Your Lifestyle Is Sinful.

As if anyone in Paris would believe for a second that I was a top. Not only was I made for being manhandled, I was far too lazy to be anything but a bottom.

To be the receptive partner in anal sex was regarded as being kinaidos, or effeminate: there’s no escaping it, bottom-shaming is as old as European civilization itself, baked into the deep misogyny of patriarchal societies.

She won’t care,” Bobby finished. “Don’t you see? That’s the thing about mamas like Dixie. Same with the evangelical Republicans and their ‘family values.’ Or their positions on the deficit or communism. It’s all a lie. A cover. At bottom, it’s about money and power. The end always justifies the means. Dixie’s daughter’s the same, I’ll bet. She’d marry a gay man to be First Lady, then divorce him four or five years down the road.

The bottom of the bathtub was grimy and sticky because the water took forever to drain. The hot water made me feel cold and then warm. Soaped up my chest and stomach and face. Got soap in my eye. Stung. Imagined the rabbits the Johnson & Johnson people tortured Clockwork Orange-style with soap just so they knew you couldn’t go blind that way. Soaped up my pussy, legs, and ass. Wished I had a cock. I had to rub myself on stuff. Bet it would be fun to jerk off in the shower. Took the razor and put my leg up on the side of the tub, shaved, and then shaved the other one. My sinuses started to clear. I blew snot out of my nose. Shaved the outside of my pussy, covered my clit with a finger and shaved inside at the top where there was always hair and inside the lips and then all the way through the middle and then all inside the ass. Kept feeling with my fingers for those stubborn hairs I had to keep going over. The water felt like someone spitting at me. The bikini area was a bitch. Ingrown hairs or razor burn. Those lucky bitches back in the seventies could let it all grow out into a giant bush. Sometimes the present seemed just as dumb as the past if you imagined what it would sound like in the future: In ancient times, the female would rub a bladed tool over her genitalia to slice the hair growing from the body even with the surface of the skin, from where it would grow again. I plugged in the laptop and brought it from the coffee table to the couch to watch porn. The way they characterized the women like different breeds. Black bitch. White cunt. Asian slut. The line of spit from the cock to the woman’s mouth. A woman blew two guys. When she took them both in her mouth at the same time, the cocks touched. I wondered if that made the men feel a little gay. A gangbang scene. The men looked pathetic, jerking off as they waited their turn, and then this one dude rubbed his cock in the woman’s hair and then wrapped some of her hair around his cock and jerked off with it. Men are so weird. A girl swallowed and then opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue so you could see she really did swallow it all. An asshole, a wrinkled, gaping hole spitting back the come like an awful little volcano, and you thought to yourself, Why would anyone on Earth want to see that? And yet there it was. Someone on Earth wanted to see just that. The men were bullies. Pulling, slapping, ordering the women around. I put the throw pillow underneath me and started to fuck it. I liked watching the scenes where the women really didn’t look like they wanted it. Like they were just doing it for the money or drugs or whatever. When I came, I came wanting it all. In one way or another, I wanted to be the men, and I wanted to hurt the woman. I wanted to hurt like the woman, and I wanted to hate the men for hurting me. I wanted to be the man at home jerking off wanting to be the man wanting to hurt the woman. And then I wanted to hurt more. Isn’t it a little sad we can’t do a little of everything there is to do? I’ll never know what it feels like to jam my cock into a tight little asshole.

I might look fairly built and fairly masculine, but I was a bottom who absorbed alcohol like a teenage girl getting drunk on wine coolers for the first time

Bottom line is that I’ve seen some progress in my time. Not long ago millions of gay folks were hiding in the closet and living in fear. Now they’re free to come out, create their own path, and even marry. That’s a beautiful thing. I’m not saying things are perfect, but I am saying they’re better than when I was coming up. I still see the need to protest, especially on behalf of the small farmer and especially on behalf of our environment. If we fuck up this planet any more, we fuck up the future of our kids and grandkids. Global warming is serious as sin. I’ll play just about any damn benefit where the money goes to protecting our earth, water, and sky. I still believe in taking strong stands.

At the Baron’s elbow walked Feyd-Rautha. His dark hair was dressed in close ringlets that seemed incongruously gay above sullen eyes. He wore a tight-fitting black tunic and snug trousers with a suggestion of bell at the bottom. Soft-soled slippers covered his small feet.

Practice gives you skills. Skills give you competence. Competence gives you confidence.

Later, I sat down drunk on the corner of Carondelet and Canal Streets, listening for the rumble of the streetcar that would take me back uptown to my apartment, watching the evening sun bleed from the streets, the city shifting into night, when it truly became New Orleans: the music, the constant festival, the smell of late evening dinners pouring out, layering the beer-soaked streets, prostitutes, clubs with DJs, rowdy gay bars, dirty strip clubs, the insane out for a walk, college students vomiting in trash cans, daiquiri bars lit up like supermarkets, washing-machine-sized mixers built into the wall spinning every color of daiquiri, lone trumpet players, grown women crying, clawing at men in suits, portrait painters, spangers (spare change beggars), gutter punks with dogs, kids tap-dancing with spinning bike wheels on their heads, the golden cowboy frozen on a milk crate, his golden gun pointed at a child in the crowd, fortune-tellers, psycho preachers, mumblers, fighters, rock-faced college boys out for a date rape, club chicks wearing silver miniskirts, horse-drawn carriages, plastic cups piling against the high curbs of Bourbon Street, jazz music pressing up against rock-and-roll cover bands, murderers, scam artists, hippies selling anything, magic shows and people on unicycles, flying cockroaches the size of pocket rockets, rats without fear, men in drag, business execs wandering drunk in packs, deciding not to tell their wives, sluts sucking dick on open balconies, cops on horseback looking down blouses, cars wading across the river of drunks on Bourbon Street, the people screaming at them, pouring drinks on the hood, putting their asses to the window, whole bars of people laughing, shot girls with test tubes of neon-colored booze, bouncers dragging skinny white boys out by their necks, college girls rubbing each other’s backs after vomiting tequila, T-shirts, drinks sold in a green two-foot tube with a small souvenir grenade in the bottom, people stumbling, tripping, falling, laughing on the sidewalk in the filth, laughing too hard to stand back up, thin rivers of piss leaking out from corners, brides with dirty dresses, men in G-strings, mangy dogs, balloon animals, camcorders, twenty-four-hour 3-4-1, free admission, amateur night, black-eyed strippers, drunk bicyclers, clouds of termites like brown mist surrounding streetlamps, ventriloquists, bikers, people sitting on mailboxes, coffee with chicory, soul singers, the shoeless, the drunks, the blissful, the ignorant, the beaten, the assholes, the cheaters, the douche bags, the comedians, the holy, the broken, the affluent, the beggars, the forgotten, and the soft spring air pregnant with every scent created by such a town.

His self-esteem was a mass of smarting pin- pricks. Whenever he assured himself, as he tried to do, that he was the heroic victim of a grand and melancholy passion, the memory of some new and petty indignity stabbed him awake. “I’m darned if I’m going to put up with it,” he told Matilda that evening. “What I want to know is this: Am I the master of my own house?” Matilda only smiled. And so it went on. You might, Jimmy thought, have supposed that treatment of this kind would arouse the fair one’s pity, poor substitute as that might be for the warmer emotion which, by all romantic canons, she owed to her rescuer. In protest he adopted an air of injured tenderness and nobility. But Matilda soon knocked the bottom out of that. “Don’t take any notice,” she told their guest, “if he happens to touch your hand when he’s passing the butter. He’s quite harmless, is Jimmy, and even if he does like to dream he’s a Don Juan, that doesn’t take me in! I know him! We haven’t been married six years for nothing.” “Oh, haven’t we?” said Jimmy, darkly. ‘That’s where you’re mistaken! ” “Just listen to him!” laughed Matilda. “He hates you to think he’s been faithful. Isn’t he just a lamb?” And the object of Jimmy’s frustrated passion merely smiled. She was always smiling. The tragic figure of the Boulogne boat, the distressed beauty of the Customs House, the vision of pathetic loveliness whom he, James Marler, had swept off her feet with such manly magnificence, no longer existed. Those grave, impassioned dialogues which he had imagined taking place under the romantic towers of the Crystal Palace had never materialized. She was gay, she was childish, perhaps she was even more beautiful; but her gaiety, her childishness, her beauty were not for him.

1) “How did I end up down this rabbit hole of being obsessed with men on the DL (down-low)? Why did I prefer playing more in the straight arena with the closet cases (as they were called in my day) and the bisexual men over the gay ones?” 2) “We didn’t identify in my day; you were either gay, bisexual, or straight. People will always label others or pigeonhole them without even knowing for sure who they really are. They presumably stereotype and judge just by your outward appearance.” 3) “It wasn't until the seventh grade that Sister Gloria would be my social studies teacher, and I began leaning more towards being an extrovert than the anxious introvert that I was. All the accolades go to her. She lit the flame under my ass that would be the catalyst for my advocacy. Her podium, located front and center of the classroom, became ground zero for me and where I found my voice.” 4) “Their taunting was my kryptonite. My peers hated me for no other reason than the fact that they thought I was gay. I was only thirteen and often wondered how they knew who I was before I did.” 5) “Evangelical Christian Anita Bryant (First Lady of Religious Bigotry), along with her minions, led a crusade against the LGBTQ community back in 1977 and said we were trying to recruit children and that ‘Homosexuals are human garbage.’ My first thoughts were, how unchristian and deplorable of her to even say something like that, not to mention, to make it her life’s mission promoting hate.” 6) “Are there any more Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. kind of Christians in this country today? Dr. King knew about his friend’s homosexuality and arrest. Being a religious man and a pastor, Dr. King could have cast judgment and shunned Bayard Rustin like so many other religious leaders did at the time. But he didn’t. That, to me, is the true meaning of being a Christian. He loved Bayard unconditionally and was unbiased towards his sexual orientation. Dr. King was not a counterfeit Christian and practiced what he preached—and that, along with remembering what Jesus had said, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself,’ is the bottom line to Christianity and all faiths.” 7) “We are all God’s children! That is what I was taught in Catholic school. God doesn’t make mistakes—it’s as simple as that. Love is love—period! I don’t need anyone’s validation or approval, I define myself.” 8) “You will bake our cakes, you will provide us our due healthcare, you will do our joint tax returns, and yes, you will bless our unions, too. Otherwise, you cannot call yourselves Christians or even Americans, for that matter.” 9) “The torch has been passed. But we must never forget the LGBT pioneers that have come before and how they fought in the streets for our lives. Never forget the Stonewall riots of 1969 nor the social stigma put upon us during the HIV/AIDS epidemic from its onset in the early 1980s. Remember how many died alone because nobody cared. Finally, keep in mind how we were all pathologized and labeled in the medical books until 1973.

Then what had been at the bottom of his mind all along surfaced, like a rotten log in a swamp brought up by its own putrescent gases. A headline from last summer’s newspaper: LOCAL MAN INDICTED FOR MURDER. A measure of peace returned to him. A feeling of self-confidence, of being in good hands. Granville Sutter, he thought.