What To Do When You're In Love — And Both Bottoms

There is no way to predict who you are going to fall for. One day that guy you’ve casually hooked up with twice will be too tired for sex and will ask if you’d rather cuddle instead — then boom, you're in.

But believe it or not, sometimes gay relationships don’t start with sex. Sometimes you meet a guy at a bar and talk to him all night. Sometimes you’re out with friends and there's a handsome stranger among them who keeps looking at you. Sometimes you don’t know what his sexual role is before your first conversation or your first date.

If you do things this way, you run the risk of landing in a classic predicament: being interested in someone with the same sex role as you. After an amazing evening together, you discover you’re both tops or both bottoms.

I've heard it said that two tops have an easier time making a relationship work — and my experience seems to support this — but I would hardly deem it a rule. Spending a night with two tops is pretty alluring to a bottom (if I say so myself), but two bottoms can be pretty alluring to a top too. My boyfriend is a top and has spent some great nights with couples that both bottomed for him. All this is to say that you can have a great sex life together when you’re both tops or bottoms, so long as one vital rule is firmly in place: you must play well with others.

This may mean that you play together or separately. Either way, you’re both going to have sex with other people. Talk about this early in the relationship. Be open and honest. Tell each other what you want out of your sex lives, and what you’re comfortable with the other person doing. This degree of communication can be a foundation for a very solid relationship.

But any relationship, no matter how well you two communicate, will wither into an awkward friendship (or worse) without some degree of physical, or sexual intimacy. Sex is a powerful bonding tool that develops you both as people and allows you to explore each other in rich, powerful ways. Relationships without sex die. Period.

Which brings me to my second rule: you need to be open to the possibility of indulging the other person’s needs. If you’re both bottoms, one of you may have to top sometimes, and with 100 percent effort. No half-hearted topping: nail the sucker like he’s never been nailed before because you care about him and you want to take care of one another (within reason, if there are trauma reasons why topping is not something you can or will enjoy, then ignore rule two). And at some point, he’s going presumably return the favor (though communication, boundaries, and consent remain the top priorities).

It’s important to remember that sexual intimacy can be found in more ways than just penetrative sex. Role-play, kink, and BDSM are incredibly sexy ways to explore each other, and many kink scenes do not necessitate penetration. Kink has led to the richest and deepest forms of intimacy of my life — it can take you to places that plain ol’ anal cannot.

So if you’re both bottoms or tops, I encourage you to get creative, get kinky, and explore the vast field of sex play where “top” and “bottom” are irrelevant. Non-penetrative, dominant-submissive role-play can be a million times more exhilarating than penetrative sex. If you’re interested in toys or fisting, being two bottoms would actually come in handy (no pun intended), because you both respect and understand anal stimulation. If you’re both bottoms, knowing what you know about your own pleasure from getting fucked can be very romantic when you apply your knowledge to pleasing your guy.

If you’re both tops, the occasion that one of you manages to bend over for the other will teach you both how to be better at topping (again, we can't say this enough with plenty of communication, boundaries, and consent — no one owes you penetration or to be penetrated!). The best, most skilled tops are occasional bottoms — they’re great at what they do because they know how it feels on the receptive side. Also, kink and role-play are highly encouraged: pushing each other’s limits with dominance and submission takes on a whole new, sexy element when you’re both accustomed to the active role.

What you’ll probably discover as your relationship develops is that few people are 100% bottom or top, all the time, no exceptions. With enough care and enough effort, you can stomach doing something you’re not used to. The process might bring you to explore new parts of yourself, and you might find that the relationship makes you a more adventurous and exciting person.

The most important thing to remember is that having the same sexual role is not a terrible hurdle or automatic deal-breaker. It’s only a deal-breaker if you let it be one. It will simply require you to do things that a good relationship will require you to do anyway: work, communicate, explore, and occasionally work together to meet one another's needs.

If you’ve met someone who is perfect in every way except for the fact that he also enjoys get drilled or power-topping all night, don’t see it as an imperfection. We are more than what we do in bed. See him as a complete person, someone worth getting to know, and lube up.