There are few sexual questions on a gay dating app more likely to get answered before “What do you do for fun?” than the classic: Top, Bottom, or Versatile? But new research suggests that the answer may depend on more than what someone likes in bed. Age, geography, social expectations and even the decision to leave the box blank can all shape how men describe themselves.
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A new study by Dr. Morten Thomsen of the University of Oxford, Dr. Francesco Rampazzo of The University of Manchester and associate member of the University of Oxford, and Milan Kovačič finds that sexual role identities among men who have sex with men vary systematically by age and geographic region. Published in The Journal of Sex Research, the research argues that these labels are shaped by social and cultural contexts rather than being fixed or universal.
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Sexual roles: Top, Bottom, Versatile—and sometimes “none of the above”
The familiar categories are fairly straightforward. Top generally refers to someone who prefers a penetrative role, Bottom to someone who prefers a receptive role, and Versatile to someone who may take either role without a strong preference.
But the researchers say these labels can mean much more than bedroom logistics. They can also operate as social identities, carrying assumptions about gender, group membership and sexuality.
That can make choosing a label surprisingly complicated. Someone might avoid a label that accurately describes their sexual behavior because of stigma or social expectations. Someone else might select a label that doesn’t perfectly capture what they actually do. In other words, the little dropdown menu on a dating profile can become its own exercise in identity management.
Younger users aren’t simply rejecting the labels
To examine how these identities are used, the researchers analyzed cross-sectional data from 141,156 active users of Surge, a gay dating app and chat platform with more than 8.5 million users. The biggest finding? Most users didn’t specify a sexual role at all.
Among those who did, however, age appeared to matter. Younger men were more likely than older users to disclose a sexual role, and they were also more likely to identify as Bottom or Versatile. Older users were more likely to identify as Top. That’s particularly interesting because it complicates the idea that younger generations are simply abandoning traditional sexual role labels.
Instead, the research suggests that labeling and not labeling can exist side by side as different ways of presenting yourself. For some users, choosing a role may communicate something useful. For others, leaving the field blank may say just as much.
“Sexual role identification remains an important dimension of sexual and romantic culture among many men who have sex with men,” said Thomsen. “Our findings suggest that sexual role categories are being used in increasingly flexible and context-dependent ways within contemporary digital environments, especially among younger users.”
Where you live can change the answer
Age isn’t the only variable. Geography has entered the chat, too.
The researchers found that Versatile was the most common identity in Europe and Oceania, while Bottom was most common in the Americas and Africa.
Users in Europe and Asia were also substantially more likely to specify a sexual role than users in the Americas or Africa.
The researchers suggest that differences in social stigma, local sexual cultures and platform-specific norms may help explain why the same profile question can produce very different patterns depending on where someone is logging in.
So, apparently, even “What are you into?” has a geography.
Dating apps offer a surprisingly big window into identity
The study also highlights the unusual research opportunities created by dating platforms. Rather than relying only on traditional surveys, researchers can examine patterns in how enormous numbers of people actually present themselves in digital spaces.
That doesn’t mean an app profile can reveal everything about someone’s sexuality. The researchers emphasize that their data cannot explain exactly why an individual chooses one label over another.
But the scale makes it possible to see patterns across generations and regions that would be difficult to capture otherwise.
“Dating apps provide a unique window into how people choose to present themselves. While our data can’t tell us exactly why people adopt particular labels, it allows us to observe patterns across generations and countries on a scale that has not been possible before,” said Rampazzo.
And perhaps that’s the most useful takeaway: a Top, Bottom or Versatile label isn’t necessarily a complete autobiography.
Sometimes it’s a preference. Sometimes it’s an identity. Sometimes it’s a strategic choice. And sometimes, apparently, the most accurate answer is to leave the whole thing delightfully blank.
Source: Phys.org