I really viscerally hate using labels like top and bottom to describe human beings. Those labels reduce us to sexual functions even as they limit us.

I’m not a top. I am a gay man. I like to kiss and stroke and suck dick and give and receive dazzling electrical stimulation with fingertips and tongue.

Sometimes, if I want to have anal sex, I like to penetrate my partner. I rarely enjoy being penetrated although there are exceptions.

But I don’t get into bed with a guy with the idea that anal sex is supposed to happen or has to happen. How limiting that is!

And I never identify as a sexual act I occasionally like participating in.

If a potential partner really wants to know, what I will say is, “Yes I like topping if you’re into that. But I like all kinds of other sex too.”

That statement has gotten me fewer odd looks than you might suppose.