Hetero-normative Relationships

[Bowyn Aerrow]

In BDSM there are two words that are more appropriate to roles in relationship than 'male/female' and that would be Dominant/Submissive.

Unfortunately these two words are sexually overloaded and call to mind Master/Slave sort of relationships.

However Dominant means 'leader' and Submissive means 'follower' - in broad general terms.

For a realtionship to work, each aspect of that relationship one partner leads and the other follows. Yeah sometimes the work is divided equally, other times one partner leads in more areas than the other.

One partner will tend to take on the domestic chores more often than both partners, one will be more of a provider (financial, emotional, physical whatever), one partner tends to dominate in the garden/yard, one takes charge of keeping the books. Even when it comes to who holds the remote control, one partner will tend to take charge. It doesn't have to be the same partner for every single aspect, but if both are arguing about who controls the situation, nothing gets done except lots of fights. If both are waiting for the other to take charge and lead, nothing gets done except lots of waiting.

The whole 'gender role' notion comes from very real differences between the genders. Woman to nurture children and the man goes out and hunt up the food and be a provider and protects the female and child from saber-tooth tigers or whatever threat was there.

Sex ties into that because males are penetrators and women are pentrated. Like it or not all gay men are raised by a straight society which taught us a two gender relationship deal and neglected to teach us alternatives since society has until very recently frowned on the idea of alternatives. So it tends to follow that the bottom in bed tends to be more submissive to the top in bed who tends to be more dominant.

This is evolution at work, a product of tried and tested methods to insure the survival of human DNA from generation to generation.

Submissive and dominant behaviors are tied into millions of years of evolution with a species that gives birth to premature fetuses that can't do anything for themselves for a longish period of time. Deer, horses and other such species the infant gets up and immediately starts walking.... Most other species the infant can find its way to its mother's nipples (at the very least) and grow up far faster, achieving walking skills in a matter of weeks or less.

Most ape species the infant comes out and can cling to its mother and she can go about the business of foraging for food. Human infants are so lazy they flat refuse to cling and insist on being carried.

In order to work with that, humans had to adapt certain roles associated with genders and that is most likely built on an earlier foundation of working social orders as we see in our living primate relatives today.

For Gorillas (a close living relative of humans) the eldest male becomes the supreme leader, he dominates the family, decides swift judgment, where the family moves to, where the family sleeps at night.

Chimpanzees (even closer to humans) are patriarchal, while Bonobos are matriarchal. Bonobos no so close to us. The two apes have diversely different societies, in Bonobos they do pretty much all the work of raising the offspring as 'broods' of females who take turns, in chimpanzees males tend to help the females more than in Bonobos.

Most of the primates however, the males are the dominant ones, the leaders, protectors and providers to one extent or another and the females are more submissive and usually quietly follow the leader.

Pecking orders in social settings works very well, having a leader and the rest following works better when it comes to survival for the species as a whole. Yes a few leaders will lead their family into death, but with sufficient number of families, far more lead their families out of danger long enough to survive to make a next generation.

So that is where we get the idea that Dominant must mean Male Role. However humans are not merely animals, they are animals with a fore-brain, a reasoning, thinking problem solving newly evolved portion that not only makes the infants extremely lazy (demanding to be waiting on hand and foot for years), it also makes us capable of considering potentials and possibilities, of being self aware and most importantly being able to imagine ourselves in the shoes of another.

We have complex notions about what it is to be 'human' and we are currently struggling with how to level the playing field between the genders with this silly notion that the genders are equal - which tends to get us all in the mindset that everyone is uniform. More on that in a moment.

For the most part you will note that most (not all) gay couples will have a more 'softer' partner, one who is physically weaker, slighter, shorter who is going to be more passive/submissive in the relationship while the taller/stronger/older/bigger partner is going to tend to be more dominant. It is a reflection of millions of years of evolution to view size differences as important as to who leads and who followers. Women are predominately smaller, softer, more slender, physically weaker, etc than males who tend to be taller, larger, more muscled - whatever. Size exudes strength, strength is viewed as 'dominant'. And this goes even further to the differences in sizes of adult Vs child. Adults tend to be naturally more protective of the smaller, weaker child and a lot of dominant behaviors take place even with the most submissive person.

Meanwhile children look up to the taller, stronger adults seeking guidance, leadership, dominance - even if the child challenges those adult ideas of right and wrong.

With all of that evolution of the species and of social orders, the 'hetro-normative' way is most likely the more natural way that two same gendered people would naturally develop a relationship. No not in all cases, but undoubtedly with all of those millions of years of adaptation we will see one partner being more dominant than the other.

Things got very confusing in the middle of the last century. As a species we suddenly up and decided to push this concept called 'equality' of the genders. While this did free mom from hearth and home and gave her humanity, it does tend to fly in the face of the physical and mental differences between man and woman.

The genders cannot be 'equal' - that is akin to saying that an apple is equal to an orange.

After all I can't think of a single male who can carry a parasite for nine months, pass it out his urinary tract and in a matter of days be up and about and tending to the screaming selfish beast with no pain after that nine months of hell.

Like it or not, women process pain in a whole different way, they process their emotions differently, with few exceptions women don't kill the parasite that just tried to rip them asunder, most men fail to have that massive control of their emotions and will try to kill something that just tried to kill them. Women approach problem solving far differently (and in many ways more efficiently, like they read the instructions first) than men.

Not-equal does not mean less than.

Unfortunately the freeing of women from slavery, has translated that she must not be 'submissive'. Somehow being submissive to anyone is now a 'bad thing' - although our social order of doing things needs a few to dominate and everyone else to submit - failure to do so leads to bad things. Like nothing gets done, civilization ceases to be built.

This isn't to say that all women must be submissive - I think we need to start rethinking the whole dynamics of family and chuck out gender based leadership and let the couple decide who leads in what aspect no matter what is or is not between the legs. I suspect that evolution being what it is that more women will prefer to be more submissive to their mate, if left to their own devices and if we stop associating 'submissive' to something bad.

How does this apply to gays? Well if I did my research correctly some gay men are more wired like straight women: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/...brain.html

I suspect that the difference between top/Dom and bottom/Sub in and out of bed has more to do with how wired a gay man is toward more 'womanly' thinking. This isn't a bad thing, it is what it is. I doubt that it is black and white and that the wiring varies from individual to individual so we get varying levels of just how "top" and how "bottom" an individual will or can be.

If gay men can be more hard wired to think like a woman, then it would follow that all of those millions of years that evolution wired humans toward having more submissive traits in women (all for the survival of the DNA), would carry over to the more submissive traits of some gay men.

So this whole 'hetro-normal' thing alludes to what? How the majority of the species associates gender roles based on specific traits that lead to the survival of the species in family and social settings? If so, then I think there will be a strong leaning toward some sort of 'hetro-normal' dynamic in most (not all) gay relationships.


I assume that versatility in relationships is a reaction to the whole Woman's Lib thing and how 'submissive' seems to mean 'less than'. Further more, we are being subjected to stereotypical 'gay' negative reactions by society, thus a lot of gay men are struggling with being what society considers to be 'a man' while at the same time trying to be a gay man.

20+ years ago versatility in relationships wasn't as common as it is now. I fear our culture is one that does automatically label personality traits with very specific roles in bed. It is assumed that if you are masculine in behavior you are a top, and if you are Nelly in behavior you are a bottom. I think guys that who are truly versatile in bed are marginalized by this general assumption about what X behavior means in role in bed.

[Sylph]

In BDSM there are two words that are more appropriate to roles in relationship than 'male/female' and that would be Dominant/Submissive.

Unfortunately these two words are sexually overloaded and call to mind Master/Slave sort of relationships.

However Dominant means 'leader' and Submissive means 'follower' - in broad general terms.

For a realtionship to work, each aspect of that relationship one partner leads and the other follows. Yeah sometimes the work is divided equally, other times one partner leads in more areas than the other.

One partner will tend to take on the domestic chores more often than both partners, one will be more of a provider (financial, emotional, physical whatever), one partner tends to dominate in the garden/yard, one takes charge of keeping the books. Even when it comes to who holds the remote control, one partner will tend to take charge. It doesn't have to be the same partner for every single aspect, but if both are arguing about who controls the situation, nothing gets done except lots of fights. If both are waiting for the other to take charge and lead, nothing gets done except lots of waiting.

The whole 'gender role' notion comes from very real differences between the genders. Woman to nurture children and the man goes out and hunt up the food and be a provider and protects the female and child from saber-tooth tigers or whatever threat was there.

Sex ties into that because males are penetrators and women are pentrated. Like it or not all gay men are raised by a straight society which taught us a two gender relationship deal and neglected to teach us alternatives since society has until very recently frowned on the idea of alternatives. So it tends to follow that the bottom in bed tends to be more submissive to the top in bed who tends to be more dominant.

This is evolution at work, a product of tried and tested methods to insure the survival of human DNA from generation to generation.

Submissive and dominant behaviors are tied into millions of years of evolution with a species that gives birth to premature fetuses that can't do anything for themselves for a longish period of time. Deer, horses and other such species the infant gets up and immediately starts walking.... Most other species the infant can find its way to its mother's nipples (at the very least) and grow up far faster, achieving walking skills in a matter of weeks or less.

Most ape species the infant comes out and can cling to its mother and she can go about the business of foraging for food. Human infants are so lazy they flat refuse to cling and insist on being carried.

In order to work with that, humans had to adapt certain roles associated with genders and that is most likely built on an earlier foundation of working social orders as we see in our living primate relatives today.

For Gorillas (a close living relative of humans) the eldest male becomes the supreme leader, he dominates the family, decides swift judgment, where the family moves to, where the family sleeps at night.

Chimpanzees (even closer to humans) are patriarchal, while Bonobos are matriarchal. Bonobos no so close to us. The two apes have diversely different societies, in Bonobos they do pretty much all the work of raising the offspring as 'broods' of females who take turns, in chimpanzees males tend to help the females more than in Bonobos.

Most of the primates however, the males are the dominant ones, the leaders, protectors and providers to one extent or another and the females are more submissive and usually quietly follow the leader.

Pecking orders in social settings works very well, having a leader and the rest following works better when it comes to survival for the species as a whole. Yes a few leaders will lead their family into death, but with sufficient number of families, far more lead their families out of danger long enough to survive to make a next generation.

So that is where we get the idea that Dominant must mean Male Role. However humans are not merely animals, they are animals with a fore-brain, a reasoning, thinking problem solving newly evolved portion that not only makes the infants extremely lazy (demanding to be waiting on hand and foot for years), it also makes us capable of considering potentials and possibilities, of being self aware and most importantly being able to imagine ourselves in the shoes of another.

We have complex notions about what it is to be 'human' and we are currently struggling with how to level the playing field between the genders with this silly notion that the genders are equal - which tends to get us all in the mindset that everyone is uniform. More on that in a moment.

For the most part you will note that most (not all) gay couples will have a more 'softer' partner, one who is physically weaker, slighter, shorter who is going to be more passive/submissive in the relationship while the taller/stronger/older/bigger partner is going to tend to be more dominant. It is a reflection of millions of years of evolution to view size differences as important as to who leads and who followers. Women are predominately smaller, softer, more slender, physically weaker, etc than males who tend to be taller, larger, more muscled - whatever. Size exudes strength, strength is viewed as 'dominant'. And this goes even further to the differences in sizes of adult Vs child. Adults tend to be naturally more protective of the smaller, weaker child and a lot of dominant behaviors take place even with the most submissive person.

Meanwhile children look up to the taller, stronger adults seeking guidance, leadership, dominance - even if the child challenges those adult ideas of right and wrong.

With all of that evolution of the species and of social orders, the 'hetro-normative' way is most likely the more natural way that two same gendered people would naturally develop a relationship. No not in all cases, but undoubtedly with all of those millions of years of adaptation we will see one partner being more dominant than the other.

Things got very confusing in the middle of the last century. As a species we suddenly up and decided to push this concept called 'equality' of the genders. While this did free mom from hearth and home and gave her humanity, it does tend to fly in the face of the physical and mental differences between man and woman.

The genders cannot be 'equal' - that is akin to saying that an apple is equal to an orange.

After all I can't think of a single male who can carry a parasite for nine months, pass it out his urinary tract and in a matter of days be up and about and tending to the screaming selfish beast with no pain after that nine months of hell.

Like it or not, women process pain in a whole different way, they process their emotions differently, with few exceptions women don't kill the parasite that just tried to rip them asunder, most men fail to have that massive control of their emotions and will try to kill something that just tried to kill them. Women approach problem solving far differently (and in many ways more efficiently, like they read the instructions first) than men.

Not-equal does not mean less than.

Unfortunately the freeing of women from slavery, has translated that she must not be 'submissive'. Somehow being submissive to anyone is now a 'bad thing' - although our social order of doing things needs a few to dominate and everyone else to submit - failure to do so leads to bad things. Like nothing gets done, civilization ceases to be built.

This isn't to say that all women must be submissive - I think we need to start rethinking the whole dynamics of family and chuck out gender based leadership and let the couple decide who leads in what aspect no matter what is or is not between the legs. I suspect that evolution being what it is that more women will prefer to be more submissive to their mate, if left to their own devices and if we stop associating 'submissive' to something bad.

How does this apply to gays? Well if I did my research correctly some gay men are more wired like straight women: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/...brain.html

I suspect that the difference between top/Dom and bottom/Sub in and out of bed has more to do with how wired a gay man is toward more 'womanly' thinking. This isn't a bad thing, it is what it is. I doubt that it is black and white and that the wiring varies from individual to individual so we get varying levels of just how "top" and how "bottom" an individual will or can be.

If gay men can be more hard wired to think like a woman, then it would follow that all of those millions of years that evolution wired humans toward having more submissive traits in women (all for the survival of the DNA), would carry over to the more submissive traits of some gay men.

So this whole 'hetro-normal' thing alludes to what? How the majority of the species associates gender roles based on specific traits that lead to the survival of the species in family and social settings? If so, then I think there will be a strong leaning toward some sort of 'hetro-normal' dynamic in most (not all) gay relationships.


I assume that versatility in relationships is a reaction to the whole Woman's Lib thing and how 'submissive' seems to mean 'less than'. Further more, we are being subjected to stereotypical 'gay' negative reactions by society, thus a lot of gay men are struggling with being what society considers to be 'a man' while at the same time trying to be a gay man.

20+ years ago versatility in relationships wasn't as common as it is now. I fear our culture is one that does automatically label personality traits with very specific roles in bed. It is assumed that if you are masculine in behavior you are a top, and if you are Nelly in behavior you are a bottom. I think guys that who are truly versatile in bed are marginalized by this general assumption about what X behavior means in role in bed.

And just like that, you've both educated me thoroughly and given GS wordcap a run for its money :p

This is all very interesting. In a way, I myself feel this way, however, having you explain it makes even more sense than what I was actually thinking.

However much its going against gay men's ideals.

There is quite the bundle of credibility and fact in your reasonings. I especially found the idea of Human conditioning or evolution rather, in regards to traits atypical to a role or persona even, very interesting.

BA, did you sit up all night just typing this out for Lil ol' me? :p

~let it be henceforth known...I have been learned something new~

But now I want to know more T-T .

[partis]

I dont know how BA does it with all the drugs hes taken… shit, maybe that explains it :biggrin:

Actually just wanted say thanks, i liked your post.

[nfisher1226]

After all is said, done, and analyzed I am very grateful to have the freedom to fly in the face of convention. I am very masculine in my appearance and demeanor and have almost universally been the larger and stronger partner, but have a very strong preference to be the nurturing, homemaking, somewhat submissive partner as well as being 100% comfortable with being 100% bottom in bed.

I get that this is not the norm. Like I said, I'm grateful to live in a time and a place where it's possible to live my life the way I want to.

[Maverick]

Wow Bowyn, you sure do your homework, lol.

I think in general, relationships on a whole (gay and straight) have evolved and many of the "typical roles" have changed (or at least the lines have become more blurred than ever before). I think this is a good thing, it allows people more freedom to be who they want to be, and or try different roles to see if they like it, with less pressure to conform to the "norm" (whatever that may be). I think with every new generation, it's a bit easier to express yourself, and hopefully that will continue to be the trend in future years to come.

[Undreamt]

masculine/feminine, top/bottom, dominant/submissive, All very different things.

[dfiant1]

Love is love

trendy words are trendy words

Love will always be love

Trendy words will be passe

Hetero-normative....do you really need another word to describe love just because it is trendy?

[Bowyn Aerrow]

No Sylph, it wasn't just written for you, and yes I did spend a couple hours thinking it over and writing it. and finding what links I could.

Half of all of that was through my observations and research on dealing with the 'Gay Rights' issues during the last century. Trying to explain the X of why homosexuals do something turning to what science has learned has helped in my debates.

I further suspect that the whole 'gay male being more nurturing' side of the issue has a lot more to do with survival of the tribe than anything else. Gays and lesbians more often than not relate to children better than straight people. The research is leaning toward this: https://www.google.com/#q=gays+better+at+parenting

While I can't find any supporting polls/research, I strongly suspect that Gay/Lesbian/bisexuals regardless of their role (top/bottom, Dom/Sub) are more likely to be natural nurturers. If so this would tie in nicely with my theory that homosexuality is a survival of the tribe trait thus continues to survive in our biology because it serves a purpose for a very social species.

Imagine a hunter gatherer tribe trying to survive. The more active adults they have for hunting and gathering and raising of the offspring with less offspring per adult (to a minor degree) the tribe's ability to survive is improved. I suspect that many Uncles and Aunts who were gay (thus least likely to procreate) acted as surrogate parents for their nieces and nephews, and in a pinch took over full parenting if one or both of the biological parents were killed.

I believe that every condition of the species of humanity ties back to our evolution as a species, either physically or as a social unit. I believe that if we understood were we got our small talent for war (as one example) we can work to overcome that since clearly its no longer an evolutionary survival trait, but contrary to our survival.

Too many keep to the simplest 'Gays can't procreate, thus it can't be genetic' theory. I believe they are wrong, and do not consider the full ramifications to the whole species of having a minor percent of the population as active members of the society without spawning offspring.

Then there are secondary reasons, such as the minor reality that gays from from more fertile moms. Thus throwing off a few gays sons while having many children leads to a greater chance of survival of the DNA of that family line.

This would tie in with my own observation that a tribe with more adults and less procreating couples would survive better, even in the face of high infant mortality rates, your mom or your sister being able to have more offspring means that she will need more offspring or siblings to help gather food and tend the rug-rats.

It all ties together, our behaviors as a 'culture' and as a people even as individuals, ties into much older drives which undoubtedly insured the survival of our tribal clans thus as our species.

I wish that more psychologists and sociologist and anthropologists would look at the species as a whole, and place LGBT in the older tribal structures that existed for hundreds of thousands of years (if not longer) instead of trying to force LGBT roles into today's modern and vastly changed social order. The 'nuclear family' as one example of unnatural and recent changes to social order, of two parents and their offspring is a new condition. Until WWII it was more typical for Parents and their offspring and the grandchildren to all live under the same roof. Thus aunts and uncles and grandparents and parents all worked together in raising of the children.

[southbiochem]

Frankly, Sylph, I can only speak for myself and not for others...

I am simply an average guy...

I hate the phrase "straight acting" as if I was actively trying to resemble a straight guy...

quite in fact, I lack many of the "straight" stereotypical behaviors, at least as it's understood here..for example yelling at the tv during a sports match..

thus, I only seek a guy who is...well...a guy....average like me..(I won't use the word "normal")

I'm not out to seek a guy who will be overpowered by me, nor I will seek a guy to dominate me...

I want an equal partnership (although a bit of dominance game in the bedroom is healthy, hehe)

as for masculine/feminine guys...I think I prefer the first, again...just a regular guy like me..but if I come across a feminine acting guy that I get attracted to I'm not about to shove him away for the sake of him being feminine..

as for top/bottom....well....I have ZERO experience with that...although I often wonder what happens when guys who say they're 100% either one..... what if you find the most perfect person you can imagine ......are you gonna dump him because you're both strict bottoms or strict tops? I can't say I know how that works..

well, I used separate items top/bottom, submissive/dominant, masculine/feminine cause they're different things

people maybe will make associations top>masculine>dominant, for example...but you and I know that is not always true..

so I won't (again, me, just from my point of view) go around searching to resemble a straight couple where one of the partners needs to be a girly pushover and the other a macho bully..

if people want that it's their problem

I prefer, I repeat, an equal partnership with a guy

[Arkansota]

I think that the natural structure of a relationship requires someone to be dominant and someone to be submissive. That doesn't always come into play during sex, but I don't think there can be two dominants or two submissives in a healthy relationship. That doesn't mean that the differences in roles have to be extreme, though. The gap can be small but it has to be there IMO.