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

xoxo

Trevor

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

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!

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!

thanks again,

Alex

—Erik