If it hurts, you’re probably doing it wrong. 🙂
That said, I’m assuming you’re referring to this post, and now you’ve made me want to get on my soapbox. See what you’ve done? 🙂
One of the more frustrating things to me about slash fandom is the focus on which character in the pairing is the penetrative partner and which one is the receptive partner, and the general preoccupation with anal sex as the One True Sex Act. I mean, people have ship wars over this! “John couldn’t POSSIBLY take it up the ass, look how forceful and manly he is.” It’s problematic and gross for so many reasons.
- It’s misogynistic. It makes the assumption that the person being penetrated (the ‘woman’) is the lesser, more submissive partner, the more feminine partner.
- It’s homophobic. Yeah, I know, we’re talking about gay sex here, but the top vs. bottom debate assumes that the receptive partner is somehow ‘more gay’ than the penetrating partner. Where ‘more gay’ as stated above, means ‘more feminine’.
- It’s heterocentric. In all sexual pairings, somebody’s got to be penetrating somebody, right? Someone’s the ‘man’, and someone’s the ‘woman’, or else how does it count as ‘real sex’?
- It’s reductive. There are so many other ways people have sex, regardless of gender or genitalia. Assuming that every sexual encounter has to end with a penetrative act is dull, frankly.
Having a preference in fic or art is fine! I personally prefer when John tops because that’s hotter to me. (I could get into the reasons for this but they basically all boil down to me turning Sherlock into a wish-fulfillment character. 😉 ) It becomes problematic when you define and defend your preferences by saying character X isn’t ‘the type’ who tops, or ‘the type’ who bottoms, because you’re assigning outdated and icky gender roles to a single sexual act.
When people complain that slash fans fetishize gay men, this is the sort of thing they’re talking about.
Yay, rebloggable! Anyway, as I said to Roane in the comments:
People have anal sex because they like the way if feels (physically, emotionally, whatever). End of.
In which Roane is smart.