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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   29628 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 16, 2024

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Ideally in [your example], the boy who loses at wrestling is not being forced to pleasure the winner, he is pleasuring the winner because the winner deserves it. I do not want to pleasure a man who would coerce me into having sex, but I would respectfully pleasure him if I felt he deserved it. … In romantic relationships I've had in the past where I've been the top, the bottom usually isn't that pleased … He'll go along with it for a while if he really respects the top enough or disrespects himself too much … Most of my friends I've grown up with who were in long term gay relationships where both partners were in their 20s seem to break up when the bottom gets older and stops wanting to be the bottom. … It takes a lot of confidence to feel like you deserve to top another guy.

Based on what you've said, it sounds like you imagine that even in the ideal situation, a long-term gay relationship with partners in stable sex act roles isn't possible, or couldn't continue to be mutually beneficial?

Why is it that you (and apparently your past sexual partners) think someone has to "deserve" particular sex roles? How much of that is just contingent on you and them happening to physically not enjoy being the passive partner?

Basically I think men who see themselves as bottoms need to see themselves as tops to be happy and have healthy relationships with themselves and the people around them.

That seems like a very bold claim; I'd be interested to see you expand more specifically on why you think that is true.

Based on what you've said, it sounds like you imagine that even in the ideal situation, a long-term gay relationship with partners in stable sex act roles isn't possible, or couldn't continue to be mutually beneficial?

I am sort of agnostic on this point, if I had to tell you exactly what I believe, it is that it is possible to have a long term mutually respectful relationship between two men that is mutually beneficial, but it is very very rare and requires huge amounts of respect and humility from both partners who also understand the true dynamic of the relationship. And that this is not exclusive to homosexuality but really to all long term relationships.

Why is it that you (and apparently your past sexual partners) think someone has to "deserve" particular sex roles?

Because when you are doing sex acts with a partner, as two men, unless you are kissing or 69ing, there is fundamentally an alpha and a beta position. Because you have to, usually subconsciously and even unknowingly between the two of you, work out how the act is going to go, and to violate the order can hurt both of you if you don't understand that it's happening as a violation of the order between you two.

How much of that is just contingent on you and them happening to physically not enjoy being the passive partner?

As I've pointed at before I don't really "not enjoy being the passive partner" (aside from anal sex which I do not enjoy bottoming,) indeed I don't mind being a passive partner orally for either a man who is my top who I respect, or a bottom who I also respect and wants me to blow him.

That seems like a very bold claim; I'd be interested to see you expand more specifically on why you think that is true.

In seventh grade, I went on a trip with other seventh graders. There was this girl, let's call her Brooke. We were all like 13, Brooke was a skinny, hot, popular girl. But she went around all the time complaining about how fat and ugly she was. It drove the rest of us kids all crazy because we all thought she was hot and skinny, and if she was fat and ugly then that made us all obese and hideous. Dating today in the US is like meeting a million men who act like they're Brooke who thinks she's fat and ugly when really they're hot and nice and need to see themselves as hot and nice in order to share their hotness and niceness with the people around them who want to enjoy it as well, and this can't happen when they're stuck feeling badly about themselves. (And before someone accuses me of acting entitled to someone else's hotness or niceness or whatever, I try to practice what I preach and share my good traits with those around me too.) It's so elementary, read The Rainbow Fish if you don't believe me.

Because when you are doing sex acts with a partner, as two men, unless you are kissing or 69ing, there is fundamentally an alpha and a beta position. Because you have to, usually subconsciously and even unknowingly between the two of you, work out how the act is going to go, and to violate the order can hurt both of you if you don't understand that it's happening as a violation of the order between you two.

What “hurt” can come from “violat[ing] the order”?

You opened your original post up claiming that you only meant “alpha” and “beta” as referring to who'd win in a fight, saying that you didn't want to import the “connotations in the meme world”[sic] of those “loaded terms”, but that claim — that “hurt” can come if the “[physical superiority] order” is “violated” (whatever that means) — is not at all self-evident unless you're importing prison rape power dynamics, even if I grant* that there are certain pleasures available from physical and behavioral asymmetries in a same-sex relationship.

*And even this, I don't understand your position on so I'm not even sure if I'm granting exactly what you meant to communicate. If you think somehow acting in accord with the “order” of a same-sex relationship — which you define in relation to physical power / force — is so desirable, then why does your highest-ranked relationship prototype involving any serious power asymmetry between the partners have one leg ranked as not even “positive”?

I appreciate your bold desire to express your perspective from a clean slate, but that means that you need to specify your axioms. I see that you clarified in a later post that you think any kind of physical penetration is “essentially a degrading act that you must accept or reject”[sic], but why do you claim this? Do you claim it by analogy from the assumption that heterosexual penetration is “degrading”, or from some other line?

What exactly is wrong with a “beta” contributing a shy, smouldering consent & an “alpha” contributing a bright, doting energy into a bridal chamber of ecstasy, affection, non-judgement, and mutual trust that happens to include sex acts that violate your prescribed “order”?

If it's just not your cup of tea, and you would simply prefer to homoerotically wrestle out your unresolved parental conflicts with a self-confident middle-easterner who's approximately the same strength as you despite a sizeable age gap, then I'm glad you found something you like, but that doesn't seem to be any kind of “motte”.

It’s easy to imagine that these frightening males caused a fawning response in my adolescent brain that developed into homosexuality as I aged. Indeed I see a lot of fawning from gay men, especially younger gay men toward older gay men. I even catch myself fawning at stronger more dominant men though I feel some shade of disgust toward myself when I do this as it triggers memories of earlier years when I felt stuck as only a beta and primarily tried fawning at older men for affection/sex. That said it’s an effective strategy when a beta man fawns to you it’s very attractive but when an alpha fawns at you it’s rather irritating and awkward.

physical power is essential to understanding relationships between people. As I’ve grown older, my parents have naturally waned in their power over me and among the entire family. Of course when I was a child they were able to make all my decisions, … in my early 30s, my father had a health problem, he became quite weak and frail, and I was his caretaker … He continued to treat me like I was a child, not respecting my adulthood and the power I held in the situation. … at some point it became so degrading that I had to assert my power over him. He didn’t like it but after I stood up for myself he had more of a respect for me that I hadn’t been given previously. I had a similar experience with my mother a few years later. … men need to assert their power and strength, see themselves for who they are, respect themselves in their position in the world and respect those around them for who they are too.

very few people today have any experience in the exercise of power … My father failed to do that, my bosses all failed to do that, my friends fail to do that (and it has a very obvious negative effect on their kids). Nobody over the age of 40 gets it.

when I think of my own relationships and those of friends, as well as non-romantic relationships, they all seem to fit the power dynamic I've outlined. Even relationships with friends, parents, other family members, and so on. I suspect if you don't see it you're shielding yourself from seeing it, … once the pattern emerged I can't unsee it now.

Dating today in the US is like meeting a million men who act like they're Brooke who thinks she's fat and ugly when really they're hot and nice and need to see themselves as hot and nice in order to share their hotness and niceness with the people around them who want to enjoy it as well, and this can't happen when they're stuck feeling badly about themselves. (And before someone accuses me of acting entitled to someone else's hotness or niceness or whatever, I try to practice what I preach and share my good traits with those around me too.)

This complaint is completely comprehensible and I have no objections to it, but it seems almost totally orthogonal to your power dynamics model.

I could grant that the U.S. is full of neurotic bottoms who are refusing to accept themselves as sexually worthwhile, and grant that that's hamstringing them in their ability to “be happy and have healthy relationships with themselves and the people around them”[sic], without granting your much more specific claim that the cure for this is for them to “see themselves as tops”[sic].

The fact that other gay men don't like to hear anything I have to say and "clap back" at me further illustrates the frustration I feel with gay men, I am not here to sugar coat the experience or present the mainstream homosexual view of love and relationships and sex but rather point out the difficult aspects that underlie the entire situation. … my post isn't really about gay sex at all but rather I am using something I think about all the time … to make broader points about power and relationships.

If you're struggling with finding enjoyment and fulfillment while viewing gay relationships through this weird power dynamics lens and seeing recurrent “clap back” at your ideas whenever you verbalize them, the obvious implication (which might or might not be correct) is that the “difficult aspects” are actually with your perspective.

For what it's worth, I don't know that I “like” the limited preview of your model you've shared so far, but I do “wish” to see it explained in enough detail to be able to actually evaluate it.

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