THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED

(c) Breeze Vincinz

As a man of size, and a certain amount of body hair, after the initial shock of divulging my homosexual tendencies, the usual follow-up query is whether I'm a Top or a Bottom. I have skirted the answer for so long that many people just assume I'm a Bottom because no self respecting Top would ever shy away from the title. The truth lies somewhere in between. 

As forward thinking as I try to be, I was brought up in the ghetto of 1980's Chicago. The most famous gay men in my generation were RuPaul and Jeffery Dahmer. If the 70's were about "free" love, the 80's were about it's "resale"; either by putting it on glittery display for profit, or feeding it to guilt ridden notions for psychotic satisfaction. In either case, fame was at the end of either fork of that road and I for one did not want to be anywhere near it at the time. In my teenage mind with my Housing Project home life and my Catholic school rearing I was under the strict belief that as far as sex is concerned that anyone who gets penetrated is the submissive one and anyone who penetrates is the dominate one. So in my mind as far as "gay" sex was concerned, I envisioned Jeffery Dahmer fucking RuPaul… and eating him afterwards.

Yeah, the 80's were a glorious time to be a questioning gay man. By the time AIDS fully hit the scene I was starting to question if maybe Rev. Fred Phelps had a point.

But as with most things, my nature won out over my warped nurturing and I could no longer deny my insatiable lust for "Man-gina" no more than Ronald Reagan could deny that there was a "arms for hostages" deal during the Iran-Contra Affair. No, we both had to come terms with our dirty deeds and somehow reconcile the aftermath.

For me, it was finding my own paradigms and understanding my own truths. Finding out at the core, with all of my past experiences, good and bad, without a cool soundtrack, dramatic lighting or special effects, without collegiate phrasings and clever quips, in front of my mom, in front of God, by myself… what exactly did I want. It always funneled down to a vague image… of a guy… with pretty decent abs… a hard cock… who could kiss… and an awesome Man-gina.

But even still, after fully coming to terms with the fact that I dig dudes, I ashamedly still have remnants of those antiquated notions rolling in the plasma in my brain that someone who is being penetrated is submissive and someone who penetrates is dominant.

But I do wonder exactly how archaic those notions are. How important is it truly when it comes to relationships between two men? It's a conundrum that doesn't really exist in heterosexual relationships. For the most part, these politics don't exist with them. With a man and a woman, there's a plug… and there's a socket. Now either partner can either be dominant or submissive but as for the actual act itself, there's a plug… and there's a socket… and the plug… goes into the socket… there's no getting around that. With two dudes, there is a bit of game play involved, a bit of ego negotiation, a bit of machismo compromise. The plug doesn't necessarily go into the socket that easily. Unlike our female counterparts… we've got options in that department. We don't have to solely get penetrated and recoup some semblance of power over our partners in other areas of the relationship… we can flip them over and fuck them right back, right then and there. And when you think of it in terms of power, as most ego driven men do, that's when you run into problems. Because most men don't want to give up that power. Most men only see power in penetrating. And as forward thinking as I would like to believe I am, I do have to admit that I feel a little unnerved by the thought of someone more feminine, in voice, appearance and/or demeanor… fucking me up the ass. I would honestly think of it as a relinquishment of some part of my manhood. I imagine that if I were in a an actual relationship with someone like that, that I could make that compromise but there would be no denying… it would be a compromise, I would indeed be giving up just a little part of myself, but I have always figured that true relationships were all about compromise; you give a little, you get a little. I let Clay Aiken fuck me up the ass, he gives me love and mortgage payments. That's a relationship to me.

To answer the question of whether a man's sexual preference of being strictly a top or strictly a bottom would be a deal breaker for me I would have to answer… yes, it would. Not necessarily out of a physical need to experience both, but for me I would interpret it as… that guy is not willing to compromise. He hasn't had the life experiences enough to redefine manhood on his own terms. He hasn't sat down with himself and thought of his life without a cool soundtrack, dramatic lighting or special effects, without collegiate phrasings and clever quips, in front of his mom, in front of God, by himself and thought... what exactly do I want. Because regardless if you fucked or been fucked… you know how good it feels. And to deny that experience to your partner that you supposedly care about just reads selfish to me… and a little cowardly… because I actually did walk down that road, that gay road that I thought only had drag queens and cannibals at the end. Because I knew in my heart of hearts that there had to be something more, that there was goodness and truth in that journey. I walked though that valley of the shadow of death, and I feared no evil. And accepted the Dahmers on the way to be the absolute scourges of the community as I accepted the RuPauls to be the absolute epitomes of charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent… and I made it to the other end, and I'm still here… 38 years and counting. 

I'm not sure if I would be willing to compromise for someone who was too chicken shit to go down that road also. I'm not sure if I would be willing to compromise for someone not willing to compromise for me.

And as for the irritating question that keeps coming up of whether I'm a top or a bottom I guess I can put it like this, plug or socket… it's all electricity baby… it's all love.

Author/Poet/Kindness-Giver Breeze Vincinz doesn't nearly get fucked enough and would totally think it's cool if you pick up his poetry book, "Life As A Boy" and short story anthology "Dog and Pony Show."