145 Submissions and Counting!

Hey everyone! Happy 2009! Thanks for all your lovely bottom-talk that you’ve been submitting since we launched last month. We’re already up to 145 fabulous submissions. It’s making my head spin reading all these funny, touching, and wonderfully bottom-centered stories from across the world. A special shout out to all those Italians who’ve been sending in their thoughts, as well as to a gaggle of bottoms from the Netherlands.

We’re knee-deep on juicy bottom goodness, but don’t stop now! Keep sending your stories, and keep spreading the word!

xoxo

Trevor

Thanks for all the linkages!

Thanks to Queerty for posting a link here! And a special thanks to Vagenius @ GMSC for this lovely quote:

Not only is this a cleverly furtive approach to creating “gay” art without shying away from, y’know, graphic content (dicks in butts, y’all!), but it’s also refreshingly devoid of sensationalism. Without being overly sensitive (read: a lesbo) about it, Hoppe is spearheading an idea — one that could, indeed, be considered precarious in its nature — with a sense of boy-next-door charm, thus denying it the type of naughty novelty flavor that free gay weeklies would kill to cover (if only The Bottom Monologues were stamped with a picture of a twink — eyebrows tweezed like the dickens — holding a book over his buttcrack and a pinky at the mouth).

We think so too! xoxo

Posterrific

My friend Bill asked if I could whip up an 8.5×11 poster for him to spread around the Castro. I happily obliged. You can use it too! Perhaps not best suited for the workplace water cooler, but if you’re headed to a community event where bottoms will abound, definitely feel free to print off a few. We love you for it! Click the image below to grab the PDF. xoxo

Why ‘Bottom’?

Several folks have been linking to us and pushing over a sizable chunk of web traffic! Very exciting stuff. Thanks to everyone who’s helping spread the word about The Bottom Monologues!

I’ve noticed a few folks wondering what’s up with the title — and noting that vagina does not equal Bottom for gay men. First, this isn’t about recreating The Vagina Monologues, so that’s quite alright that it’s not a direct translation. But one reader notes that the word vagina makes people “feel generally awkward, threatened, scared,” while bottom just “makes people giggle.” Well… I’m not sold, actually. In the queer community, identifying as a bottom comes loaded with a heaping serving of stigma. How many boys do we know who desperately try to convince others that they are, in fact, a “top” — not a bottom. This need to present socially as top is all about that stigma. The Bottom Monologues is about destroying that stigma, about queer men proudly proclaiming their decidedly threatening desires.

And it will be funny. And dramatic. And liberating. That’s the point Hope you’ll join in the fun by submitting a story!

We Need Your Stories!

Hey guys! I’m Trevor — one of the three organizers of “The Bottom Monologues,” and I’m thrilled to see this project in motion. “The Bottom Monologues” is first and foremost about cutting through all that bullshit stigma that plagues queer communities about taking it in the butt. We’re bottoms, and we’re proud of it thank-you-very-much! It’s kind of like the “Vagina Monologues,” with a few obvious differences

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Before we can get this thing on stage, we need to hear from YOU! Yes, that’s right, I said you. Not a bottom? That’s cool. You probably still have a few ideas that you’d like to share about bottoms or getting fucked. So let me explain this process a bit:

I. First, we’re collecting *your* stories about *your* lives as a bottoms, tops, versatiles, or none-of-the-above. We’ve developed this lovely online questionnaire for your fill out that asks some pretty broad questions about bottoms: what is a bottom, what’s great sex as a bottom, what’s different between tops and bottoms — that sort of thing! I think it’s a pretty fun exercise, since most of us really don’t get to talk about bottomming out in the open. Which is exactly what this project is all about!

II. We’ll collect all those amazing and fabulous stories and look for consistencies across them. What’s similar in the stories we get? Is there a particular narrative that pops up in many of your stories? And of course, we’ll also be looking for stories that stand out from those similarities and challenge the those common themes.

III. Once we’ve had a chance to pour over the data, we’ll do our best to distill the stories into “composite characters” — our best effort to boil down dozens of stories into one. These will be the products that will be shown on stage in the “Bottom Monologues,” an expression of the diversity and richness of bottoms’ lived experiences. You may not see the word-for-word account of your fabulous experiences in the final product, but you can be assured that it has had an impact on the stories we’ll tell on stage.

I hope you join in on this amazing project. Help us bring the “Bottom Monologues” to life. It will be fabulous. You can have a hand in making our vision happen. Join us! Tell us your story today!

I Love Bottoms!

hi all, thanks so much for particpating in this project. i am a big believer in storytelling and the diverse stories of bottoms have yet to be fully explored. i look forward to hearing about your experiences so they we can a create something that will make everyone proud.

thanks again,

Alex

Bottoms Up!!

As one of the organizers of this project, I’d just like to say…Welcome to the official Bottom Monologues website!  We are excited that you’ve found us…and even more excited about this project. If you take some time using the tabs above to look over the information here, then hopefully you’ll be as excited about The Bottom Monologues as we are—and you’ll submit some of your own thoughts and stories!  We want as much involvement and as many voices to be included as possible…so submit your stories today and help us spread the word!!

—Erik