How to Be a Side: Beyond Tops, Bottoms, and Verses

When it comes to being queer, few binaries are more strictly enforced than the top/bottom dichotomy, which separates gay sex into those who penetrate, those who are penetrated, and in some cases, the vers queens who do it all. But what about those who aren’t interested in anal sex at all?In a 2013 op-ed for HuffPost, sex and relationship therapist Joe Kort felt shut out of the sex position discourse and noted that he was coming across other “men [who] enjoy practically every sexual practice aside from anal penetration of any kind.” These peculiar groups of men weren’t tops, bottoms, or verses, Kort wrote, but a secret fourth thing: “Sides.”Suddenly, a side was no longer just a small dish that paired well with a main course; it became a new way for many queer people to relate to their sexualities. The term immediately sparked existential questions about what even counts as gay intercourse. If anal isn’t involved, some wondered, is it sex at all? But the term caught on. In 2022, Grindr added “side” as an option in its repertoire of possible sex positions, reflecting the growing number of people embracing the identity. Yet stigma and misunderstanding persistThirteen years since the term was first coined, being a side still comes with many challenges. That’s why we’ve put together a guide to being a side: How to talk about it with dates and hookups, navigating the emotions and stigma surrounding the identity, and how to maximize pleasure without anal penetration.Know that there is nothing wrong with being a “side — and it’s actually more common than you might thinkOne of the biggest misconceptions about “sides” is that they’re somehow having “incomplete” sex.“We need to bin this idea that there’s acts of foreplay that then lead to ‘real’ sex. It’s all sex,” Ruby Rare, an intimacy expert for Feeld, tells Them. “Focus on the pleasure, joy, and connection you get from your intimate experiences, because that’s far more i