In a bid to become the Eve Ensler of receiving ends, Michigan health activist Trevor Hoppe is putting together The Bottom Monologues, which is exactly what you think it is — and needs your help. Trevor is asking people to submit their own stories about being a bottom, doing a bottom or what ‘being a bottom’ means to you, which he will take collate together and use to create a show that will undoubtedly pack the theatre’s full of gay guys. You may want to snicker, but if you think about it for a second, it’s a ballsy and brilliant idea.
You can submit your story between now and March. [via GMSC]
Hoppe explains the process a little more on his site:
“Basically, what we’re trying to do is collect stories. After we’ve gotten the submissions, we’ll pour over them to look for: 1) similarities across your narratives; 2) any major differences that emerge; and 3) particularly exciting or provocative stories. From there, we’ll do our best to build “composite characters” — basically distillations of dozens of men’s stories all wrapped up into one package.”
seitan-on-a-stick
What did one bottom say to the other bottom in bed?
Hey bitch, quit hogging the double-ended dildo!
ggreen
Maybe this will open the eyes of many that think its only “real†sex if it involves anal penetration and everything else is disposable foreplay. Which IMHO is why so many gay men are so woefully ignorant about sex.
seitan-on-a-stick
But not as hung-up as you GGreen….
Versatile
Once you go bottom you never go back?
rick
wow. i hope this thing plays at notre dame which i live near. they have a yearly poduction of the vagina monologues that pisses all the catholics off. this would be the icing on the cake.
rick
@ggreen: is that like str8 men thinking oral sex isn’t sex?
.topher
@Versatile: Amen.
Michael
You’re bar for “ballsy and brilliant” is woefully low, isn’t it?
Michael
Sorry, that should be YOUR (ah, the sweet bliss of cold medicines….)
Cole
ugh! this is really going to help gays be seen positively.
Versatile
It would be a mistake to keep this a strictly gay thing. After all, I really love the columns in Savage Love where the straight guys are writing in about getting their girlfriends to peg them. I guess I am kind of a perv that way.
If you are reading this Dan Savage – MORE PEGGING!
Kid A
Pegging is great, and women actually like it more than they would expect.
Versatile
Someone should pass this along to Rick Warren:
“God must have loved gay men, or He wouldn’t have put the prostate where He did.”
Or is that She?
sparkle obama
i don’t care for that term, “bottom” and i wish it could be changed before this play cements its use in the larger vernacular.
i hate the way gay guys reduce themselves to bottom &top.
it grosses me out actually.
f*ck all you want, but please use more empowering language if you are going to blab about it and name yourselves so loadedly after your preferred (over-determined?) sex positions.
yes i’m proud to like guys almost exclusively and i want equal civil rights for myself and others, but honey —
— how you gonna win the use of “marriage” when you cling to “bottom”?
that kind of language is ghetto, in my opinion.
i mean, my potential future husband can get it if he earns it, but i’m nobody’s bottom and if you try to call me that i will hit you with my pocketbook…
sparkle obama
…that’s gonna be the name of my eartha kitt-style
autobiography/one-“woman” show”:
sparkle obama stars in “nobody’s bottom!”
i kid because i love, but gays can do better and language matters.
The Divine Grace
I know I’m going to piss off all kinds of people by what I am about to say, but hell…why stop now?
Girl, get over yourself. You don’t care for the word “bottom†(probably because you’ve attached a feminine notion to it– and it’s even more likely that you are unhappy that you identify with said feminine notion) Well, for the record: I’m not a big fan of the word “sparkle†either and for precisely all of the same reasons. And where the hell are you living that “bottom†hasn’t already proliferated the larger vernacular in such a manner that a THEATRICAL PLAY about GAY BUTT-FUCKING could be used as a tool to suppress it? The instrument itself is so gay that it Richard Simmons would top it!!!
And honey…how do we plan to win the “use†of marriage when we cling to the word “bottomâ€? Hell, I guess the same way that straight people use the terms “doggie-styleâ€, “face-boinkâ€, “pile-driver†or “cooter crunch†and still manage to “use†marriage. You act as if we are marching into the State Assembly saying, “Give my faggotty husband and I Marriage Equality because he’s a bottom and I’ve always wanted to bareback a Ted Haggart in a wedding gownâ€.
You are so “grossed out†by the word “bottomâ€, but casually toss around the word “fuckâ€. Interesting. Hypocritical, but interesting. Is “fuck†a word that you would suggest us using during legislative proceedings? Apparently “bottom’s†out. (Ha-ha! I said Bottoms out!)
Also, I would suggest that your use of the word “ghetto†is more damaging than “bottomâ€. That kind of language is classist and racist in MY opinion.
Listen, Miss Sparkle, from one drag queen to another: It’s my guess that your future husband isn’t going to have all that much trouble earning change for a nickel, if you catch my drift. (“grossed-outâ€, “honeyâ€, “how you gonnaâ€â€¦Who do you think you are kidding, Mary? Bitch, please.)
I’d suggest packing some poppers in that pleather pocketbook of yours. If it makes you more comfortable, everybody else can refer to you as “Anally Compromisedâ€, but in my opinion, you are that squeaky wheel begging to be greased.
This play will be genius.
P.S. Eartha Kitt was a bottom.
Tom
Shouldn’t this headline read “Bottoms to Share Their Tails”?
sparkle obama
@The Divine Grace:
golleee, don’t be mad!
i think “bottom” is “gay ghetto”, all right?
nothing to do with “race”, except when b*tches ask me for two forms of i.d. at the door.
part of “vagina monologue”‘s cachet was the normalizing of “vagina” in english use.
what i am saying is, gays: please think twice about enshrining “top/bottom” in the popular lexicon extending beyond gay ghetto lingo.
what about “the insertee monologues”?
kidding, don’t be mad, boo.
listen, we all have our own style.
i don’t like that word “bottom”; it grosses me out.
like “top”, it’s fraught with politically uncomfortble (for me) implications.
i think that “gay” guys label theselves so often by their perhaps over-determined sexual preferences that maybe we could come up with a more dignified default term.
innocent gay kids coming up don’t need to hear about no “top/bottom” mess.
“bottom”?
really?
is that the best We can do as a group?
Trevor Hoppe
Thanks for sharing the link! I’m excited to see the submissions pour in – some very fabulous stories indeed. I think we’ll cover many of the debates already happening here in these comments. Can’t wait! And I think a straight guy character is totally within the realm of possibility 🙂
The Divine Grace
@sparkle obama:
I’m not mad, Sparky. Insane, perhaps. Verbose, definitely. But not mad.
What I am suggesting is that everybody stops nit-picking and dissecting a word until it’s pointless to even speak it. Pardon the digression, but “LGBTQ†yanks my knickers into a bit of a twist. I understand that all communities want to be sufficiently recognized, but if we are all going to sit around harping that everybody’s are “one in the same†and that “people are peopleâ€, why then do we keep dividing ourselves in such a calculated manner? You worry about you and I’ll worry about me. What I am labeled as has little effect on me in any arena that matters…and nobody with any brains is using any of those words in that arena. Who specifically refers to bottoms by name in legislative politics?
I oftentimes bottom out. I’m not sure how to put that more delicately, but I’m even more perplexed as to WHY I should have to do so. Why? Because it makes somebody else uncomfortable to use a word that specifically means “belowâ€? Well, oftentimes, that’s what I am: BELOW the guy who’s fucking me in my ass. I find it easier to say “bottom†than to say “parallelâ€, “at a ninety-degree angle to an LGBTQ penis†or “anally wrapped around some homosexual’s phallusâ€. I have no issue with “bottom†or “faggotâ€, or “sissy†or “queer†or any other host of random words that have been used to belittle me. Why? Because I OWN those words. I LIVE them. Well…and because I AM those words. I have no problem with being a bottom or a faggot. You shouldn’t have any issue with my being comfortable with being called those words as they really don’t affect anybody else in the end.
You want something that’s more “politically comfortable†or “dignified†to describe taking it up the poop chute? Good luck with that. So far, all I’m given is “bottomâ€, “butt-pirate†and “cum-dumpsterâ€. At present, I most closely identify with “bottomâ€. Who knows what tomorrow might bring?
Any takers?
And Mr. Hoppe, I hope that you don’t mind my being a bit silly in my blog about all of this. I think that this is a great idea and I am excited to see what becomes of it. Best of luck and keep us all abreast of what the hell is going on in the development.
To the rest of the readers, pardon my long-windedness, but this is a topic that I find both amusing and insightful. I don’t mean to monopolize, but once I get going…well, I’m like a hungry ass at an all-you-can-bottom buffet.
~Gracie
greybat
@sparkle obama: That’s sound like a musical romp, indeed Sparkle! If I’m invited to the opening, I’ll toast you with a heart-felt “Bottoms Up”!
Seriously, the term “Bottom” seems so cheery and rather innocent: it puts one in mind of Valentine cherubs and Elizabethan comedies, and “Top” seems to imply one is about to be garlanded with caramel topping and crowned with whipped cream and cherries.
On a more somber note, why doesn’t Trevor Hoppe answer mt E-mails?
seitan-on-a-stick
There used to be “Dominant” and “Submissive” but that is now co-opted by the BDSM community (including straights) and is probably scarier in use than tops’n’bottoms.
Divine Grace is very funny about our lil Twinkle Obama.
Sparkle Obama is a total black bottom! There, feel better now?
BTW – A Bottom once told me that there is no such thing as a Versatile Gay man and I replied “That’s what the Tops might tell YOU honey!”
John
I tried being a bottom once. I enjoyed it so much, I haven’t stopped since! 😉
DavidW
Where’s the prostate? Guess I gotta wait for the show.
CondeNasty
I remember in the dark ages as a scared teen reading the singles ads whith all this “French Passive” and “Greek Active” jargon. I am not one for labels I just tell you plainly what I want and where I want it.
sparkle obama
@seitan-on-a-stick:
why are you labeling me and trying to talk about my color?
look in the mirror & be honest.
it’s cute to be a gadfly and talk sh*t, but if you stand for nothing you will fall for anything.
Tony
A bottom means nothing to me. My partner and I are not tops, not bottoms, and not versatile. We’re anal free and equal. No one is playing the man and no one playing the woman with his anus a pretend vagina. After losing millions in our community to anal sex this is in really bad taste. Enough of this top and bottom crap, literally.
Anthony in Nashville
Uh oh, here come the g0ys!
M Shane
No. 11 · Versatile or anyone: I may sound stupid, but WTF is “pegging”.
my humble peice is something I took from the gay writer Roles: Being a bottom or top has to do with the personalities of the people involved. Tops are more physically control oriented while bottoms are more nuturant . It’s not really just a step different than submissive/Dominant in S/M.
From the School of San Fransisco’s hayday Some people are just Identified as being tops; it’s just something that you recognise in each other without speaking.
People post HIV are usually much more naive about their sexuality and the potentials. Although I ran into someone who I was immediately talking to who told me that peolpe where I live now almost didn’t know how to do it. Do I ever know.
InExile
Boring day on Queerty, you guys are reading a story from January 2009.
M Shane
No. 30 · InExile: Wow! We don’t have to worry about the March deadline? They’ve got a bunch of old shit! apparently went on vacation. Got tired thinking(???)
Tony
@Anthony in Nashville:
Not a goy, just not into fudgepacking either way you look at it.
Tony
@M Shane:
Something you recognize without speaking? lol Yes, the feminine acting guy 99% of the time is the bottom. That’s a given, except for porn which for laughs often will show bottoms as being super masculine. They do get quite a bit of money for their acting.