I was perusing my Google Analytics, when I noticed a few hits from a post over at The Sword that responded to my criticism of their research on Craigslist ads. They accused me of having an "ugly haircut". But I digress. That new post at The Sword linked to Manhunt's publication of this interesting map, which shows which states are top/bottom/vers-heavy based on their online profiles (which is the kind of data I wish I could get my hands on - but Manhunt refuses to release it):
This falls right in line with my attempt to reconstruct Manhunt's databases in New York, Atlanta, and San Francisco (see here and here). Despite many gays complaining that cities are full of bottoms, research seems to indicate that this is empirically false.
I think part of this disconnect between the top-scarcity myth and reality is a healthy dose of bottom stigma, which fuels a devaluation of bottoms. Curious in Manhunt's data that there's a bunch of vers guys hanging out in the Northwest (Montana, South and North Dakota, and Wyoming) and Alaska. The only states that bottom-heavy in terms of Manhunt profiles are not geographically clustered: West Virginia, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Vermont, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire. How to explain the variation?
Hmm, I see a fascinating openin for a research project here:
Wisconsin: Does eating massive amounts of cheese turn you into a bottom?
or
Alaska: Frigid Flexibility
I wish I had the data for Australia cuz there'd be some great puns in that :D
Heh @Snownova. Queensland: Yep it is! Versatile in Victor/Victoria. Deep harbour in Sydney. Survival of the Fittest in Darwin. And of course, Hung Parliament in Canberra. Okay, too much red cordial for me today...
As an info visualisation that map is bloody useless! They haven't said how they categorised top/versatile and bottom/versatile profiles. Given the stigma against getting fucked, I'd expect to (and do) see more bottoms listing themselves "top/versatile".
Something just occurred to me. You could have a perfectly even mix of tops and bottoms in the database (the total) and still get an impression of a bottom-heavy population from the Who's Online list (the sample) if it's harder (and therefore takes longer) to find a top. Since I reclaimed my versatility I've found it definitely takes me longer to find a top I'm interested in hooking up with; there's a dimension of trust and assessment of skill involved that just wasn't there when I was hooking up with btm/vers guys.
Actual numbers would be much better than a map, where the difference can be anywhere from 1 to 1,000 that pushes it over to top and we wouldn't know the difference.
Nevertheless, I think some "bottom stigma" is clearly at play here, because the map simply doesn't make any sense.
Still, beyond being a question on Gay Jeopardy--which strangely would still be hosted by Alex Trebeck--I fail to see what this implies.
@clarence: Yes, without numbers the data is not very helpful. But as I said, Manhunt will not disclose those numbers publicly -- which I find ridiculous since they do not need to disclose any identifying info like screennames or user-generated text -- just demographic data and sexual preference data, which at the aggregate level is totally anonymous.
I have tried to reconstruct their database myself (see links in main post), but this is incredibly difficult to do without programming a webbot to do the job (which I don't have the skills to do).
A 2003 "Unzipped" magazine tabulated 2,650 readers' responses to a snail mail paper survey that asked the question, "What do you identify as?" Nearly one-quarter checked "top," one quarter checked "bottom," and half checked "versatile (a.k.a., bottom in denial)." For more details and a scanned image, see my blog page Thomas Kraemer, "Top, bottom, versatile "Unzipped" 2003 survey," blog page posted Jun. 7, 2009
This is an interesting survey result because respondents were anonymously indentifying as being a top, bottom or versatile without having to worry about marketing themselves to a potential partner. Conventional wisdom says that when soliciting sex, truth-in-advertising is often lacking.
For example, I have been told by many college-aged gay men who are versatile and prefer to bottom that they intentionally advertise themselves as tops online for two reasons. First, they will get more responses to the ad. Second, they can more easily say "no" to being fucked in the ass and limit the encounter to oral sex only. They say it is easier to avoid feeling obligated to do a "mercy fuck" or "charity shag" as 40 percent of "Unzipped" respondents said they had done with a partner they didn't like.