A specter is haunting the 5Cs … the specter of undervalued bottom labor.
That’s right, folks, you heard it here first: When Daddy Marx conceptualized a disenfranchised working class, he intended for our dear neighbors of the South to fall into that category. Talk about unpaid labor, I mean, come on. There’s no way you can legitimately believe tops and bottoms are making an equal investment — physically, emotionally and socioculturally — in any given sexual encounter.
For our readers who may not be familiar with this terminology, allow me to break it down. If you consider East Coast geography, we might regard Canada as the “top” and the U.S. as the “bottom.”
Now that we’re well-acquainted with our target demographic, let’s unpack this.
Picture this: It’s 5 p.m. and you’re at the mall with your friends. They’re adamant about eating at Chipotle, an establishment to which you are considerably partial, but you, a bottom, had sort-of “hmu” plans with a DL hunk on Grindr set for 9 p.m., and you know Newton’s First Law of Bottoming: What goes in must come out. So you pass on the Chipotle. A sacrifice that stings at the time, but one you know will ultimately be for the greater good.
Do you really think a top is going to make these kinds of sacrifices? The closest comparison I can think of for a top would be not jerking off before an encounter, but good luck finding a guy who can wait a whole four hours.
Then, we come to prepping. Forgoing Chipotle is a first step, but what comes next? A very invasive cleaning session, filled with regret, suds and maybe a little poop. ’Tis but the price a bottom pays to carry out his craft. The top? I don’t know, maybe make sure he rinses his dick off (if you know men, you know this is a scant maybe).
Now we come to the heart of it: the consummation. Don’t let LGBT rom-coms (or most gay porn) fool you: anal is painful — at least, for the bottom. The top is on cloud nine, because his biggest concern is “whole thing or just the tip?” while the bottom’s biggest concern is “OH GOD AM I ABOUT TO SHIT ON THIS DICK?”
We could get into the technicalities of anal coitus, but let’s just leave it at this: For tops, it doesn’t take much to … erupt. For bottoms, meeting that same fate entails either assiduously assisting one’s member with another hand (a.k.a. increased uncompensated labor output) or getting pegged in the prostate, which requires a certain degree of coordination most tops do not possess.
Here’s the real kicker: Tops can cum in as little as 45 seconds. You go through all of this preparation, pain and self-doubt only to endure a microwave-reheat-esque action window before the — regret — spurts all over you? And then they have the audacity to ask if you came!
Yeah, I came to the wrong house.
In conclusion, tops need to do more. Slipping the tip in does not constitute compensation in any capacity (unless it’s good, but we all know it usually isn’t).
My suggestion to bottoms would be to get their Venmo usernames tattooed above their buttocks, so that the superordinate specimen might make a charitable donation while in what is arguably his happiest emotional state.
I’m sure the refreshing — albeit long overdue — compensation of bottoms might even spice things up and give the top an additional incentive to not cum in less time than it takes to sing the National Anthem.
Cecil the Sagehoe is a scorned bottom.