InsaneJournal

40. Meta: Sissy Bottoms?
Title: Sissy Bottoms?
Author: fansee
Theme: Opposites
Notes: My first meta. Be kind. Be very, very kind. And thank you to my beta who went with me to where this fic writer has never gone before.


To the straight world, the distinction of ‘tops and bottoms’ in a gay male relationship invariably carries with it stereotypical attitudes of male and female roles. All of us fic whores have read fics where Justin is Brian's little woman, where he cooks for Brian and does the dishes and even may be the chief caretaker of their children. If we write, we may have contributed to this stereotype, whether unthinkingly or purposefully.

How much of this is sloppy thinking on our part and to what extent are we set up by CowLip? I would like to posit that, while sloppy thinking can never be ruled out in any situation, CowLip has feminized Justin, Michael, and – to a lesser extent - Emmett, if only by having all three of them bottom for their partners almost 100% of the time. Fic writers – almost entirely women – are apt to extend that characterization to the characters' other areas of activity.
Let us look at the characteristics CowLip has endowed these three men with, starting with Justin and comparing his characteristics with Brian's:

• Emotional Development: Justin is young, naïve, and inexperienced – 17 to Brian's 29 when they first meet. This reflects what we have come to expect in a romantic pairing…that the woman will be younger than the man. Our expectation is rooted in reality. In every year since 1890, the median age of a woman getting married for the first time has been younger than her partner's. Brian and Justin's age difference is, of course, far greater than even the four-year difference recorded in the 1890's. However, the difference is still one that we see around us daily. So…Justin is Brian's bride.

• Physique: Justin is physically shorter, smaller, and weaker than Brian.

• Appearance:: He is blond. Being blond comes with a lot of freight, all of it feminine. "Gentlemen prefer blondes." "Dumb blonde." "Blondes have more fun." Brian, on the other hand, is dark-haired. Even his coloring is darker than Justin's pale, delicate skin.

• Accomplishments: Brian is a college graduate with a successful, professional career. Justin is still a student who, when he is employed, either has a dead-end job (waiting tables in a diner) or chooses a field (the arts) where success is not measured monetarily (unlike Brian's 'real' job where success is certainly measurable and measured). CowLip does not have Justin attend Dartmouth, study business, and enter a field where he might end up competing head-to-head with Brian.

• Bottom or Top? With one exception, Justin always bottoms for Brian. However, Justin does somewhat escape the stereotype because we see him topping his tricks. He is, as he tells Brian in Episode 1, "versatile." He also shows, in Season 4, just how bossy a bottom can be.
How do those same characteristics fit the Michael/Ben duo?

• Emotional Development: Although Michael and Ben are probably about the same age, Michael is far more naïve and childlike than Ben. Despite being over 30 when he meets Ben, emotionally he is still an adolescent. His world is bounded by the two people who are critically important to him: his mother and Brian.

• Physique: Michael is physically shorter, smaller, and weaker than Ben. Of course, in this case, so is most of Pittsburgh. Tellingly, however, Brian too is bigger than Michael.

• Appearance: While coloring is an important factor in making Justin seem feminine, it does not come into play with Michael. He is dark-haired and olive-complected which, combined with his muscular body, give him a more rugged appearance than Justin's. (It is perhaps worth noting, however, that he has an outstanding ass, which I also associate with bottoming and feminization.)

• Accomplishments: Until Michael is able to buy the comic book shop – with Brian's coaching - he was working in retail, a dead-end job that predominately employs women. Ben, on the other hand, is a Ph. D., teaching in a major university, probably in a tenure track position. Michael's ownership of a business puts him on a more equal footing with Ben, but there is still a disparity in their achievements.

• Bottom or Top? Michael always bottoms.

Emmett is more difficult to categorize. Over the five seasons, he partnered with three very different men: George Schickel, Ted, and Drew Boyd. Despite these relationships, he managed to spend much of the five seasons making the most of being unattached. Although Emmett was a dedicated bottom, his character went a long way towards redeeming CowLips' clichéd version of the bottom as represented by Justin and Michael.

• Emotional Development: From the very beginning, Emmett is perhaps the most emotionally mature to the five friends. He is gay and he embraces it, with the exception of the short period of time where he is trying to "see the light." Otherwise, his light always shines brightly and unashamedly, as his wardrobe proclaims.

• Physique: Again Emmett goes against CowLip's stereotype of a bottom. Emmett is tall – as tall as Brian – and well-built.

• Appearance: When Emmett is dressed conservatively, as he is when he visits Brian at work in Season 3, to plead for help for Ted, there is nothing about his appearance that telegraphs, "Bottom." (Contrast that with Michael and Justin's trip to the Chinese medicine store, where the couple behind the counter immediately identify them both as bottoms.) However, he frequently dresses provocatively, especially when clubbing, and his gestures and tone-of-voice is often exaggeratedly swish. His character can sometimes be a compendium of clichés about gay men.

• Accomplishments: In the beginning of the series, Emmett is another man in a dead-end job, selling clothes in a boutique. He is trapped in a low level job because he lacks education and training. Over the course of five years, he moves up in the world and, like Michael, becomes an entrepreneur as he establishes his event-planning business.

• Bottom or Top? Emmett is an enthusiastic bottom who celebrates his own promiscuity as much as does that quintessential top, Brian. For instance, when he is looking for a roommate, one of his requirements is that the candidate must be a 'brutal top,' and he auditions for that ability.

When CowLip cast the Justin and Michael characters with actors who are smaller and less muscular than their partners, they made tangible the popular impression that a gay man who bottoms is more feminine, more sissy, than a man who tops, not only in the bedroom but outside it. In Season 1 particularly, this impression is reinforced by Justin's youth and Michael's immaturity. Even though both grow and change and become more adult over the next five years, their physiques continue to telegraph that they are somehow less masculine than Brian and Ben.

Fortunately, Emmett's character and appearance act as a healthy antidote to this convention. Any feminine characteristics Emmett exhibits are voluntarily assumed, and he can and does put them aside when they are inappropriate. Emmett remains, however, a peripheral character, while Justin is one of the central pair around whom the others revolve. As such, how his character is portrayed carries far more weight than do Michael's and Emmett's characterizations. His physical appearance, combined with his youth and initial naivete, do create the impression that being a bottom equates to assuming a feminine role – yes, we fic writers have been set up by CowLip! It is up to us to see beyond what happens in bed and to portray Justin as a young man, still growing into adulthood, not as a pseudo-girl.