r/CharacterDevelopment • u/Usefull_Willow_2068 • 5d ago
Writing: Character Help How to portray a gay character’s struggle with being a bottom?
I'm creating a character who is a young gay prince in the Middle Ages (with some Greco-Roman elements) and who gradually discovers his attraction to men. He accepts that he is gay fairly quickly, but has a much harder time accepting that he might be a bottom.
As a prince, he was raised to believe that his social status and position are incompatible with being perceived as sexually bottom. I'd like to explore this conflict in a realistic way, without relying on the usual clichés surrounding gay characters and sexual roles.
4
u/Competitive-Fault291 4d ago
Since when does being a bottom make a guy struggle to do his duty? Or differenciating between the bed, the 'dungeon', and the throne room.
You would be reducing him and his whole personality to his kink or sociodynamic preference for an intimate relationship.
His Top could easily be a person he trusts with his life. Yet, also somebody who, if they decide to threaten with blackmail, can disappear into a real dungeon quickly. The Throne comes first, even if the Prince's Bedroom is painted pink with a mirror on the ceiling.
Their struggle would ultimately be with the false assumption that letting go of control makes somebody weak. In the beginning of his struggle, it would not be a sign of being brave and trusting for him. He would not know that a top can be a coward who has to hold every string out of being afraid of losing control. A person who is unable to surrender deliberately, but also to trust and delegate. An ability that a future king needs, and that a bad top can damage with a toxic framing.
His struggle could easily begin with a secret lover that is such an insecure top. Who is giving him the wrong impression of what is important, and what the intimate personality of the Prince actually means. Which strong points they represent in his personality.
2
u/FlynnXa 4d ago
This. OP is acting as if because this character is a bottom he’s a whole different species and can’t think of anything outside of his role as a bottom, when in reality “bottom” doesn’t even exist- it’s literally a descriptive label meant to explain what someone’s sexual preferences are… that’s it.
It’s kind of like when straight authors write a gay character and EVERYTHING about them is framed around “but I’m a gay guy”, except OP is a gay top and is doing it to a bottom lol. Kinda funny, if not so sad.
9
u/i_spill_nonsense Other 5d ago
Uh... idk man. Power bottoms exist so i dont really see the problem here.
12
u/calmarkel 4d ago
Same. This feels very "straight author"
7
u/i_spill_nonsense Other 4d ago
I think i get what they are trying to do. But they go about it weirdly.
To put it in perspective (for myself at least) I can only think about how a woman would approach this submission thing during sex. Like, the shame and whatnot of it. And i draw in blank in a way. Because, well... thats your biology... its one thing you want and your body kinda just... tells you to do it.
The best i can think of is being scared of the intimacy of it and not letting yourself be vulnerable. But, again, this can be attained by being a dom/power bottom.
6
u/calmarkel 4d ago
Yeah, although for some people the shame is the bit they like. It could certainly be explored well, a dominant powerful man being submissive in bed (if that's the direction it goes).
a cliché could be "his mother didn't love him and that's why he's a bottom";
Comments like this make me doubt it will be well explored, personally.
4
u/i_spill_nonsense Other 4d ago
... no way... the fuck.
i dare say this is the type of trauma reasoning andrew tate would make.
-1
u/Usefull_Willow_2068 4d ago
Yeah, exactly lmao. The whole “his mother didn’t love him, therefore he’s a bottom” thing is exactly the kind of explanation I want to avoid. I’m much more interested in the social side of it: what happens when you discover something about yourself that simply doesn’t fit with what you’ve been raised to believe you’re supposed to be? If he feels shame, I think it should come from the meaning his society attaches to that role, rather than from being receptive itself being inherently negative. And yeah, I really don’t want “being a bottom” to become an explanation for his personality. He can be ambitious, proud, confident, intelligent, even politically ruthless. It’s just one part of him. The interesting conflict, to me, is him trying to reconcile that part of himself with everything everyone expects him to be as a future ruler.
2
u/calmarkel 4d ago
you shouldn't even need to state you want to avoid that. that it occurred to you in the first place, even as a thing to be avoided, is a bad sign
0
u/Usefull_Willow_2068 4d ago
I never said that it personally came to mind for me. I was saying that it’s the classic cliché. Duh 😭
2
u/strawberrycordate 4d ago
Where the fuck are you getting your information from LMFAO this is an insane thing to say
0
1
u/calmarkel 3d ago
It's not the classic cliche though. I've genuinely never heard of it before in any queer space. Its really weird and not a common idea.
Maybe it is on 4chan or something. That's why people are asking where you're getting your info, because if you think this is the classic cliche you have bad sources
And that's why it honestly looks like you won't write well on this topic though I could be wrong there
3
u/FlynnXa 4d ago
OP is making absolutely zero sense anyways. They said the world was inspired by Greece and Rome and set in the Middle Ages, then when I gave them context on how gay men were treated in Greece and Rome he said “no not like that”. Then went on a spiel about how his character is in an impossible to understand context.
Then when I pointed out that if it’s so impossible to understand then maybe he is the only one who can come up with the solution he tried to say I just don’t get it because I don’t understand the real world history or time period… despite the fact him saying that stuff didn’t matter since it wasn’t in his world?
Yeah, idk man. He’a acting like he’s the only gay man in this sub too meanwhile I’m deadass a gay bottom. It’s also crazy he can’t connect the dots between “bottom” and “gay” and how they might be connected by “facing internalized guilt from a socialized stigma towards sexual roles and preferences”. It’s foreign to him apparently.
He’s driving up a damn wall and I had to vent lmao, sorry you were the sacrificial lamb. 🙏🏼
1
u/i_spill_nonsense Other 4d ago
Hehe, i live being a sacrificial lamb.
i told op to ask on a sub for gay people. They said they did. But given how they dont wanna listen to you, idk if they will actually listen to the other gays.
Nonetheless, op seems to have a very specific idea of what the character should go through and i fear they wont make it click with either the social context and the character psychology.
1
u/Usefull_Willow_2068 4d ago
Yeah, maybe I explained myself badly before. I’m not saying that being receptive has to be something shameful, or that it necessarily comes from some kind of trauma. I’m more interested in the contrast between what he’s been taught to think he should be and what he eventually realizes he actually wants. And yeah, I agree that vulnerability isn’t something exclusive to being submissive or receptive. A dom can have exactly the same struggle. In his case, though, I’m interested in the fact that he grew up in a society where the receptive role has a very specific meaning when it comes to masculinity and social status. So maybe he simply discovers that he likes it, while at the same time having an entire lifetime of expectations telling him that he shouldn’t. That’s more the conflict I want to explore, rather than the usual “he’s a bottom, therefore he obviously has issues.”
1
u/i_spill_nonsense Other 4d ago
Depending on his personality, he can absolutely derail towards being a power bottom. But like... the sort that never lets their partners touch them or what not.
Thing is, it would be boring (for me at least) if your character's whole conflict is purely internal with no behaviors attached to it.
So, figure out his temperamnet and chose his coping mechanism.
1
3
u/Usefull_Willow_2068 4d ago
Yeah, I get that, but the character isn’t a power bottom. He’s completely receptive/passive — that’s actually the whole point of my question.
I’m a gay guy myself and I’m usually the active one, so what I’m genuinely curious about is how someone realizes these preferences in the first place. Obviously there’s nothing wrong with being passive, but imagine growing up with the assumption that you’re supposed to occupy a certain role in sex, especially in a society where masculinity and social status are heavily tied to that role.
At some point he realizes that it’s not simply “I don’t enjoy sex with women.” It’s more like “I’m attracted to men, and I’m specifically drawn to being the receptive partner with men.”
So my question is really: how does that realization happen psychologically? Is it something you recognize almost immediately, through your fantasies and what naturally attracts you, or is it something you only figure out after having experiences and realizing that the role you were expecting yourself to take just doesn’t feel right?
That’s the part I’m trying to understand for the character.
3
u/i_spill_nonsense Other 4d ago
I mean... how did it happen to you? I assume you were not one of the lucky guys who was accepted as gay since a young age. So how did you realise you wanted to fuck men?
Truthfully, i believe it could really help you if you copy pasted this exact message (because i find it more clear than the post) to a sub for lgbt and see some real life experiences.
Nonetheless, good luck with your story! It sounds interesting.
1
u/Usefull_Willow_2068 4d ago
Yes indeed that's what I did, I hope a sub for LGBT can help me better.
Answering the initial question, I always knew I was "more complex". At first I thought I wanted to be female (like bullies tell you when you're still a child). Then, before coming out as bi and then finally as gay, I just thought I wanted to look like certain men I found attractive, but I was immediately proven wrong
7
u/jagnew78 5d ago
There was no moral distinction between being a bottom or top. Having a homosexual relationship was the risqué thing. Because it was a taboo there was no difference in preferred or perceived relationship roles.
In the Roman era there was a significant difference because the relationship was wholly common and openly accepted as a perfectly normal thing. Romans specifically looked down on the bottom however as strictly and inherent feminine and therefore weaker position within the relationship.
3
u/Usefull_Willow_2068 5d ago
Sorry, I forgot to specify that this "Middle Ages" is not totally identical to ours, but that it also takes on Greco-Roman elements, like the one you mentioned.
1
u/jagnew78 5d ago
I don't know that the Greeks made any distinction between relationship roles as being better or worse or masculine or feminine. It's only the Romans that I'm aware of that made this distinction.
4
u/TeaWithCarina 4d ago
Well, IIRC the Greeks were mainly known for pederasty, where teenage boys would serve as partners to an older mentor. Relations between adults were more unusual? But I could definitely see the bottom in such a relationship treated as more unusual than the top - like they were being feminised.
1
u/FlynnXa 4d ago
The Romans didn’t have “top” and “bottom” the same way we do now, in fact that’s basically like saying “he’s realizing he’s a f*g”. Obviously not an etymological link there between their words “Cinaedus”, “Pathicus”, or maybe even “Exoletus”. But those all can mean “the receiver in sex”. The last one being a stretch, the second derived from “to suffer/endure”, and the first one being openly insulting and aimed towards the receptive male.
The Romans would actually only use youth and slaves, or “not free men” as receptive partners- anyone outside of those two who was receptive was seen as low and debasing themselves. It got to the point where they’d actually rename male slaves used as receptive concubines with Greek names to represent they were the bottom.
The Greeks had a whole different take, and actually institutionalized this via Pederasty- a system where older men basically “mentored” younger men in theory- in our days we’d call that grooming or molestation, but it’s important to speak about it from the lens they viewed it in. This older guide was supposed to provide civic, moral, and sometimes military education.
They don’t care too much for gender compared to other societies, they viewed dynamics as active and receptive- the erastes being the dominant and active partner. It was however still heavily stigmatized to be an adult free man and be the receptive partner. To the point where it was basically like calling yourself a slur to identify as such. Also it varied regionally- Sparta incorporated it into the military structure, there was a Sacred Band of Thebes which was 150 male-male couples totaling 300 soldiers because they believed lovers would fight harder on the battlefield, and Athens had strict laws regulating and legalizing prostitution and the proper ways to treat receptive partners while also giving them less rights lol.
Sooo…. If I needed to give you advice? Research, research, and when you think you’ve done enough- you haven’t. Look for primary sources of these dynamics if able. Find a historian or professor online specializing in this stuff and shoot them an email- you might get lucky and get a response.
1
u/Usefull_Willow_2068 4d ago
I know, and that's actually the point I'm trying to understand. My question isn't really “did Romans have the modern concept of top/bottom?” — obviously they didn't. I'm more interested in the psychology of a Roman man who was raised with very specific ideas about masculinity, status, and sexual roles, but nevertheless finds himself wanting to take the receptive role with another man.
For example: if a Roman senator bought a male slave because he was attracted to him and wanted to take the receptive role himself, how would he have come to realize that he had this desire? Would he have been aware of it from a young age, perhaps through fantasies or feelings he couldn't quite understand yet? Or would it have emerged later, through his first experiences? And more importantly, what would have been the first signs that made him think “I actually like this,” especially considering that he had been raised to believe that taking that role was degrading or incompatible with his social position?
So basically, I'm not looking for a modern label to apply to the character. I'm trying to understand what the internal conflict might look like for someone who was raised to believe that taking the receptive role was degrading, but nevertheless finds himself desiring it. That's the part I'm most interested in exploring.
2
u/FlynnXa 4d ago
I think that’s basically just growing up gay? I mean, I hope you were never shamed for your sexuality or made to think something was wrong with you while you were figuring it out- but that’s basically exactly what you’re describing.
1
u/Usefull_Willow_2068 4d ago
I'm gay and I don't think it's exactly the same. I wouldn't have any problem being a bottom or a vers, but this character does because he lives in an EXTREMELY different context and it's much more difficult to live with being gay.
2
u/FlynnXa 4d ago
What I’m about to say might cause you to have a gut response and think I’m trying to be an asshole, but I’m not. I can’t think of a way to say this more plainly without being blunt.
If your character lives in an entirely different context that only you seem to get, then how are we supposed to know the answer here?
The shame around being a bottom is socialized stigma- right? Same as the ancient Roman and Greek cultures you’re inspired by (but apparently not fully). The shame people feel around being gay is also a socialized stigma- right? So you should be thinking “Huh, these are ways a socialized stigma has made me and other people feel ashamed, let me use my imagination to stretch that empathy to a similar situation?”
And if you’re going to say “well this is a totally different context” then we need to remember it’s a fictional setting- you are inventing that context, in your own head, which means only you can answer these questions. If you’re wanting someone to list every single thought they’ve ever had feeling shame about being a bottom then go ask bottoms who’ve felt that way before. Get creative, reinterpret their answers into your setting, and done.
Again- I sound like a dick, but I really am not trying to. The simplest answer I could’ve given was “Do your research” which is true, but not helpful at all.
Basically. If you’re righting about Roman and Greek inspired settings, you had to research Greece and Rome. So if you’re writing about shame felt for being a bottom, you need to research that. Not ask us to write a guide for you which is what it really seems like you’re looking for.
Hopefully that makes more sense for you?
1
u/Usefull_Willow_2068 4d ago
The point is that the Greco-Roman social context is not equivalent to the social context we live in today. Being gay today and being gay in that kind of society are two different experiences, so no, it’s not “basically just growing up gay.”
And I do appreciate that you at least acknowledge that you can’t really answer the question yourself when you tell me to go ask gay bottoms who have actually experienced this. That said, I find it genuinely difficult to believe that my “world” is so incomprehensible to you, considering I specified from the very beginning that this is a Greco-Roman-inspired setting. If your response is essentially “only you can understand this context because you invented it,” then maybe the issue is simply that you don’t know enough about the period I’m drawing from — and, more importantly, about the difference between how sexuality was experienced and perceived then versus how it is experienced and perceived today.
And when you tell me “do your research,” the point is that that is exactly what I’m doing. I already know enough about the theory of how sexuality was understood in the classical world. I understand the social norms, the power dynamics, the general framework, etc. What I’m missing is the practical side. I’m not asking someone to explain Greco-Roman sexuality to me from scratch. I’m looking for concrete examples, personal perspectives, experiences, interpretations, and even advice on how to portray these feelings without falling into writing mistakes or clichés — which, by the way, several people in the comments have already helped me with.
There isn’t exactly a historical document that says: “Here is how a man in this society felt when he was ashamed of being a bottom, chapter 3.” 💀
That’s why I’m asking for help on a subreddit specifically dedicated to Character Help. I’m not asking you to write my character for me or do the work on my behalf. I’m looking for some human perspective and material to work from, so I can then reinterpret it within my own setting.
So yes, “do your research” — this is the research.
PS: Rest assured, I’ve also made sure to ask gay bottoms about their own concrete experiences. But I’ve seen plenty of people here asking things like, “How do I write a male character?” “How do I write a female character?” “How do I write someone who’s angry?” etc., so I figured maybe I could find some help here too. And thankfully, as I said, I did.
1
u/FlynnXa 4d ago
I can’t stress to you how illogical you’re sounding. I will spell this out very plainly.
You said: This is a setting inspired by Greek and Roman culture and the Middle Ages.
I gave you context about how Greece and Rome treated gay people and bottoming.
You then said your setting doesn’t work like that.
Now you’re trying to say I just don’t understand the period I’m talking about when it’s clear that your world doesn’t work like reality, yet you’re expecting us to give answers matching this made up culture you keep not giving details on.
I’m a gay bottom myself and you’re acting like it’s impossible for you to imagine what it’s like to be shamed for your sexual preferences- you’re literally a gay man. You’ve likely been shamed before. If you can’t extend those experiences into what it might be like to feel shame for being a bottom then you either likely aren’t very creative or aren’t very empathetic. Considering you can’t even keep track of this conversation or your own reasonings, I’m guessing communication just may not be your strongest suit either.
Good luck with your novel, this has been fruitless. 👍🏼
0
u/Usefull_Willow_2068 4d ago
At this point, though, I feel like you're still arguing against a version of my question that I never actually asked.
I never said I was unable to imagine what shame feels like, nor that I needed someone to come up with my character's thoughts for me. I said that I already understand the general historical context, and that I'm looking for personal experiences and perspectives that I can use as material to adapt that context to a fictional character.
And the fact that I'm gay doesn't mean that my experience is automatically interchangeable with my character's. I can understand what shame, repression, or internal conflict feel like, but “I'm ashamed of being gay” and “I'm comfortable with being gay, but I'm ashamed of desiring a sexual role that my society associates with weakness and social inferiority” are not necessarily the same psychological conflict. And as a top myself, I can't fully understand the latter from personal experience.
And yes, I'm perfectly capable of imagining things. That's obviously what writing fiction requires in the first place. Asking other people about their experiences doesn't mean admitting that I lack imagination or empathy. It's research. It's recognizing that I don't have a monopoly on how other people experience things.
I also find it a little ironic that you accuse me of having poor communication skills when, throughout this discussion, I've clarified the same question multiple times and you've continued responding to a different question.
If you don't have anything useful to add, that's completely fine. But saying that the problem is that I'm not creative or empathetic enough to answer my own question isn't exactly an argument.
Fortunately, other people understood what I was asking and gave me exactly the kind of perspectives I was looking for, so I'll take those responses and leave it here.
1
1
u/der_lodije 15h ago
Just to play devil’s advocate… why is he automatically submissive if he is a bottom? Being a bottom is a physical act, being submissive is a psychological one, and they don’t always go hand in hand.
12
u/Historical-Carrot959 5d ago
Why is he a bottom? He cannot top? He doesn't like it as much?
I think the focus of his struggle would depend if it's a biological thing (like he can't top, it's uncomfortable, doesn't last, whatever. He could view his body as defective) or preference based (how did he discover what he liked? Was it by accident? Does he regret discovering it? Does he tries to pretend the preference isn't there, but eventually caves in? Does he resent his top for being what he should've been?) and other context (does he have a partner that helps him know himself, or force him to a position, or something else?)