Role Play and Risk Two timely exposés on gay men, sex and dating t’s summertime, and those sultry evenings lend themselves to a little added heat between the sheets. Just Out has received a number of requests for articles on sex and dating, so we thought this would he the perfect season to, ahem, fulfill some of your desires. In the first of a two-part series, we’ve asked two queer male writers to riff on what they see as pertinent, pressing issues for gay and hi men’s sex lives today. Glenn Scofield Williams explores sex roles between men and makes a case for how the old top/bottom dichotomy is being replaced by a limber versatility— bottoms on top and vice versa! Floyd Sklaver reveals the shocking attitudes of a number of sexually active gay men who don’t use condoms regularly. He then offers some hopeful and helpful tips on how to talk honestly about HIV when you’re dating and hooking up. In our Aug. 6 issue, we’ll give women the platform when Gina Daggett tells how to keep the passion alive in the lesbian bedroom, and Helen Silvis talks to some of Portland’s sexiest single queer gals. So read on, and stay tuned! I The Joy of Switch Hitting queer m en in a Gay.com chat room. Though the results are only semi-scientific (as a product of “the milieu o f Gay.com”), they are none­ theless interesting. Yee found that 10.9 percent of the men in the study identified themselves as “only bottom” and that only 11.6 per­ cent were “only top." One-fifth of the men identified themselves as equally “versatile,” while 26.8 percent saw them­ selves as “versatile, prefer bottom” and 22.5 percent identified as “versatile, prefer top.” Still others couldn’t identify them­ selves in any of those ways, either because they didn’t feel experienced enough or they just didn’t know. W ith more than 60 percent of the respon­ dents identifying as some form of versatile, the categories of top and bot­ tom seem less rigid than popular opinion suggests. According to the study, many of the tra­ ditional characteristics of top/bottom struc­ ture hold fast, however. For instance, 60 per­ cent o f those who identify as “only bot tom” pre­ ferred their sexual partner to he their age or older. And what if my answer to Jon is, “Id like to fuck Henry Rollins or get flicked by Alan Cummings ’? Gay male sex roles and how we live now by Glenn Scofield Williams y queer colleague Jo n turns to me during a lull at work and says, “So, if you could have sex with either Batm an or Robin, which one would you chooser* “C atw om an,” I answer. “You know I’m bi.” He smacks my biceps with a paperback. “T h e y ’re cartoons, Jo n ,” 1 say. Just spend a moment with Charles Silverstein and Felice Picano’s The Joy o f Gay Sex and you’ll learn that “the top, for example, would seem to be the protector, the controller, the one who does the bulk of the leading and guiding, the one who takes on the responsibilities.” As well, “You may find you prefer get­ ting fucked” or you “find yourself evaluating the men you meet by.. .the size, shape and hardness of their co ck .... W hen this happens, you have become a bottom." Top/bottom. Masculine/feminine. Fucker/fuckee. Most o f us homos seem satisfied with some form o f this. Even as we begin to settle for strict categories like gay, bi and straight (though most queer theorists and psychologists believe in a more com plex sexual structure), we have accepted the top/bottom roles in our beds and cruising habits with little debate. T his dichotomy mirrors what surrounds us in our heterosexual-dominated culture: the mas­ culine and the feminine, the daddy and the mommy. It would appear that many o f our queer subcultures have not only embraced these traditional sex roles but have exaggerated them for their own purpose and pleasure: domination/submission, daddy/boy, bear/cub. W e are a culture that loves dichotomy: black/white, male/female, straight/gay, top/ bottom. But when we kx>k more closely at our complex communities, these dichotomies break down into finer shades o f gray and, ultimately, prove perhaps more confining than useful. For some, this top/bottom talk smacks o f the old phobia-laden com m ent we’ve all heard: “W h ich one plays the woman?” But hasn’t the women’s m ovement and the rise o f transsexual culture taught us more about the complicated nature o f masculinity and femi­ ninity? Doesn’t queer theory have something more interesting and multifaceted to tell us about the way men fuck? A recent study showed that the traditional top/bottom dichotomy may be far more complex in prac­ tice. Essayist and W eb master Nicholas Yee conducted a survey of sex role preferences by polling 3 % “O K , th en ,” he says, flicking hack his in- need-of-a-trim hangs with a srmxrth toss of the head, “Ernest Hemingway or Oscar W ilde ?” “T h ey’re both dead.” 1 grin. “Henry Rollins or A lan Cumming?” I put down a stack o f books and stare at him . “A re you trying to find out if I’m a top or a bottom ?” “Moi?” Jon says, batting his eyelashes rapidly. O nly then do I realize why Jo n ’s questions have been irri­ tating me, why I’m reluctant to answer. I fiddle a hit with the stack of txxiks and finally mut­ ter, “C a n ’t you tell !" Bottoms up? p H hese days, in our codi­ fied, queer mating ritu­ als— in the bars, on the Internet, at work and espe­ cially in our beds— all gay and bi men seem to fall into one of these easily identifiable cate­ gories, don’t we? Are you a top? Are you a bottom? T h e types are clear and recognizable. Tops are masculine and dom inant and like to be the aggressor. Bottom s are fem i­ nine and submissive and like to be passive.