Written by Christin Grice
In gay dating and hookup culture, there is a question that often appears almost immediately: Are you a top, bottom, or vers?
It is usually asked casually, as if it simply helps people understand each other. And in many ways, it does. Those labels have become a shorthand, an efficient way to communicate preferences, set expectations, and avoid confusion. For a lot of people, they work just fine. But they also quietly shape how we imagine sex in the first place. Because underneath that question is an assumption: that sex is primarily about roles, about positioning, and about who does what to whom.
And that assumption does not describe everyone’s experience.
The usefulness and limits of the framework
Top, bottom, and vers did not appear out of nowhere. They evolved as a way to give language to gay male sexuality in a culture that historically had very little of it. For many people, these terms are affirming. They provide clarity where there once was none, and they allow people to express desire without ambiguity.
But over time, the framework can start to feel like it defines the entire map of intimacy. Not everyone experiences sex as role-based. Not everyone organizes desire around penetration. And for some people, the question itself feels slightly misaligned with how they experience connection.
Expanding what we mean by sex
Sex does not always begin or end with roles. For many people, it exists in a wider field of intimacy, touch, closeness, erotic attention, and mutual exploration. It can be kissing. It can be hands learning a body without a script. It can be oral sex, mutual touch, or simply being physically close in a way that builds pleasure without needing a defined position in the usual sense.
This is not about replacing anything. It is about recognizing that erotic experience is broader than the categories we have built to describe it.
The “side” as another way of being.
In recent years, the term “side” has started to appear more often in queer spaces. It describes people whose sexual expression does not center on anal penetration or role-based dynamics, but instead focuses on other forms of intimacy and pleasure.
Dr. Joe Kort, a psychotherapist and board-certified clinical sexologist has played a significant role in bringing attention to this framework in both clinical conversations and media discussions on gay male sexuality. His work has helped popularize the concept of “side” as a meaningful way some men describe their sexual experiences outside of top/bottom dynamics, including erotic connection that is not centered on penetration.
This framing has contributed to broader visibility for men whose sexual preferences and experiences do not align neatly with traditional role-based categories.
Clinical practice reflection
In my own private practice, I have worked with clients who previously identified primarily as “bottoms” and later began exploring what they described as “side” experiences as part of their sexual exploration. For two of these clients in particular, this shift allowed them to better understand their own sources of pleasure while also becoming more attentive and responsive to their partners’ pleasure. Over time, this exploration supported a more flexible, integrated, and relational experience of sexuality that felt less constrained by rigid role categories.
In my own private practice, I also hear versions of this in conversation with gay, bisexual, and pansexual men who are trying to make sense of desire outside of role-based language. Often it shows up not as a fixed identity at first, but as curiosity. A sense that pleasure and eroticism might not need to be organized around a specific position, but instead around exploration, sensation, and connection.
What usually comes up is not confusion, but relief when there is permission to talk about sex in a broader way. Not as performance or category, but as experience. Not as an absence of something, but as a different organization of desire. The important part is not turning this into another rigid label. “Side” does not need to replace top, bottom, or vers. It does not need to become the next category in a hierarchy. It simply names something that was already there for some people but did not always have language. And it will not resonate with everyone, and that is okay.
Why this expansion matters
When sex is only understood through roles, it can quietly narrow how people understand themselves. It can create pressure to fit into a category early, or to perform desire in a way that matches a label rather than how it actually feels.
Expanding the language does not take anything away from existing identities. It just makes space for more honest ones. It allows intimacy to be described not only in terms of what people do, but how it feels, how it unfolds, and how people connect.
The other side
Maybe the point is not to choose between frameworks, but to recognize that no single one captures everything. Some people will always be team top, bottom, or vers, and that language will continue to matter. But there are also other ways of being intimate that do not fit neatly into those roles. Ways that are still sexual, still erotic, still deeply connected, but structured differently. And maybe that is what “the other side” really points to not a replacement, but an expansion of what we already know sex can be.
References
Kort, J. (2026). Gay sides: When foreplay is the real sex [Video]. YouTube. YouTube video
About the Author
Christin Grice, LMFT, is a Black queer sex therapist with over 15 years of clinical experience in private practice. He works primarily with straight, gay, bisexual, and pansexual men, focusing on sexual wellness, intimacy, desire, and erotic exploration beyond rigid role-based frameworks. He is a freelance writer, with work published in Black Enterprise Magazine, and his clinical work often integrates sex-positive psychoeducation with contemporary understandings of queer sexuality and relational intimacy.
