Effeminate Gay Bottoms in the West: Narratives of Pussyboys and Boiwives on Tumblr

ABSTRACT

Recent discussions of gay male bottom identity have been cautious about positioning bottoms in relation to a gendered identity, and thereby colluding with stereotypes about gay bottoms being effeminate and effeminate gays being bottoms. In wider LGBTQ media in Europe and North America there is an effort to destigmatize effeminate gay men in a dating culture that privileges “masc4masc.” While this is welcome, it obscures the existence of effeminate gay bottom fantasies that are gender stratified and which insist on a connection between sex role preference, sex object choice, and gender presentation. This paper analyses sexual fantasy narratives on the social media platform, Tumblr, and interrogates a deep structure of gender-stratified male androphilia that finds thematic similarities in non-Western settings, where “egalitarian” or Western “gay” expressions of male same-sex unions compete with traditional “heterogender” forms. It concludes by reaffirming the need to consider gender positionality among gay bottoms’ narratives in Western contexts, and for further research on Western gay men to recognize the heterogeneity of gay identities and experiences.

KEYWORDS:

• Homosexuality
• pornography
• gay men
• gender identity
• cultural studies
• popular culture
• stigma

Introduction

Since the Second World War and the rise of the middle-class “clone gay” in the US and a similar move away from homosexual effeminacy in Britain—often rooted in working class culture—gender nonconforming or effeminate gay males have been edged out of mainstream understandings of what it means to be gay (Chauncey, 1994; Norton, 2016). In his memoir, The Naked Civil Servant (first published 1968), the effeminate British raconteur, Quentin Crisp, described how an American actor “expressed to [him] the view that obviously gay boys were ‘spoiling it for the rest’” (Crisp, 1985, p. 87). Crisp and his fellow “fairies”—the ones “spoiling it for the rest”—desired masculine men or “roughs” and would mostly assume only the insertee role in anal sex. Fairies saw themselves as effeminate males who were sexually attracted to men quite unlike them. They would also never consider forming a union with someone like them—another “obvious” homosexual.

While these perspectives seem outdated from a Western perspective and certainly far removed from the contemporary online discourse of “masc4masc” and “no fems,” which permeates LGBTQ dating apps such as Grindr and which actively seeks to exclude effeminate gay males as desirable dating partners, they find remarkable resonance in non-Western forms of same-sex desire (Sarson, 2020). In the West, people typically use words such as homosexual or gay to describe male same-sex attraction, but they do not necessarily translate to other cultures, which may perceive such terms to be culturally and historically situated (Murray, 2000). Male androphilia, by contrast, aims to convey a “deep structure” of sexual orientation among “androphilic biological males” and as such can be used as a lens through which to explore non-Western sexuality without imposing Western assumptions attached to labels such as homosexual and gay on non-Western phenomena (Vasey & VanderLaan, 2014, p. 138).

A chief advantage of this cultural sensitivity is that it enables scholars to examine expressions of male androphilia which are not widespread in the developed West, such as gender-stratified male androphilia. In Europe and North America, sex-gender congruent male androphilia predominates, which means that such males “occupy the gender role typical of their sex [and] behave in a relatively masculine manner” while also identifying as men (Vasey & VanderLaan, 2014, p. 138). In everyday settings in the West one encounters an exaggerated emphasis on masculinity and similarity among gay men in their hostile attitudes toward effeminate gay males, those who take the “bottom” or insertee role in anal sex, and in dating ads weighted heavily toward “masc4masc” in user profile descriptions (Ravenhill & de Visser, 2018; Brooks et al., 2017; Taywaditep, 2002). Other scholars have termed the sex-gender congruent version the “egalitarian” model, in which both males are seen on an equal footing and are invited (if not always expected) to switch anal sex roles, or even to privilege non-anal forms of sexual contact (such as oral sex), which further emphasizes the egalitarian nature of the relationship (Cardoso, 2005; Carrier, 1977; Moskowitz, Rieger, & Roloff, 2008; Prieur, 1998).

Although it is true that Western models of androphilia have impacted and challenged “traditional,” non-Western models—in countries such as Mexico or India, for example—it is also still largely the case that “egalitarian systems like the modern ‘gay’ system in which homosexually-defined males have sex with other [masculine] homosexually-defined males is very rare, limited primarily to northern Europeans and their descendants” (Cardoso, 2005, p. 108). By contrast, “gender-stratified” or “heterogender” expressions of male androphilia are more widespread among non-Western settings and are likely to be historically ancestral to the egalitarian model (Cardoso & Werner, 2003; Fernández-Alemany & Murray, 2002; Gómez Jiménez, Court, & Vasey, 2021; Murray, 2000; VanderLaan, Ren, & Vasey, 2013; Vasey & VanderLaan, 2014). This dynamic typically consists of a sexually insertive masculine man and a sexually receptive effeminate “not-man”; although this should be seen as an “ideal type,” with possibility for variation, usually in private as opposed to public (Kulick, 1998; Murray, 2000). Here, and elsewhere in this article, “effeminate” indicates the presence of culturally recognized “feminine” attributes in a male and/or the absence of culturally recognized “masculine” traits, otherwise termed gender nonconforming.

The difficulty is that, as this paper argues, there is at least some evidence of heterogender or gender-stratified androphilia in the contemporary West, in which effeminate gay bottoms desire and are desired by masculine, dominant top men. Currently such sexual fantasies consisting of this dynamic are marginalized and misunderstood largely, I would argue, because they imitate or invoke heterosexual stereotypes (such as the 1950s housewife) that have been subjected to consistent criticism for decades (Eagly, 2018).

This article therefore aims to increase understanding of effeminate gay bottoms in the West by close reading a small sample of pornographic sexual fantasy narratives published in the public domain on the social media and blogging platform, Tumblr, contextualizing them by reference to non-Western illustrations of gender-stratified androphilia. These narratives consolidate identities such as the pussyboy and the boiwife, which denote an exclusively sexually receptive male androphile with marked evidence of gender nonconformity who seek as sexual partners men who are masculine, dominant, and exclusively sexually insertive. Crucially, their sexual orientation, sex role preference, and gender expression are seen as inextricably linked and mutually reinforcing; they are not simply gay men who “like to bottom.” I will argue that narratives of pussyboys and boiwives on Tumblr indicate the continued existence in the West of a form of male androphilia which is more typical outside the West: “a combination of sexual attraction, position preference in anal sex (insertive/receptive), and gender presentation” (Stief, 2017, p. 82). These narratives demand attention in order to nuance debate around gay bottoms, and to insist that gender role positionality is important in making sense of anal sex role for some gay men (Hoppe, 2011).

The article begins by exploring the double bind effeminate gay men in the West experience, where effeminacy is defended but associated sexual receptivity is derided. I argue that the popular media discourse is at odds with scholarly findings which emphasize links between bottoms and childhood and adult gender nonconformity. I then outline examples of gender-stratified male androphilia outside the West to begin to interrogate a “deep structure” of effeminate bottom subjectivity which can be identified in Western representations. In the main section, I analyze Tumblr narratives of pussyboys and boiwives to explore characteristics of effeminate bottom identity they communicate. I argue that these sexual fantasies emphasize the interconnectedness of sex-object choice, anal sex role preference, and gender presentation in generating narratives of effeminate gay bottoms in Western contexts.

The precarity of gale male effeminacy in the west

In the West, gender nonconforming gay men (or effeminate gay men) are in a double bind. On the one hand, there is a concerted effort within the gay community to counter femmephobia and effeminophobia, or fear of effeminacy in gay males (Hoskin, 2019; Taywaditep, 2002). For example, in a piece about the American figure skater, Adam Rippon, Splinter News praised Rippon for the fact that he “is not only gay, but our first nationally recognized and respected faggot,” by which the author means that “his gayness [or effeminate presentation] is not an afterthought, but a central piece of his personality” (Moskowitz, 2018). Prior to this, Out.com penned a paean to “nelly queens,” explaining that gay male effeminacy is “a reminder of the diversity of our community” (Musto, 2015).

On the other hand, there are also voices within the gay community insisting that an effeminate gay male should never automatically be perceived as an obvious bottom in gay anal sex—regardless of their actual preferences. For example, one commentator, writing for the online LGBTQ blog, Queer Voices, argues that “there’s this common misconception that if you’re an effeminate gay man you are automatically a bottom” (Fragaso, n.d.). In 2018, i-D magazine proposed that

the problem is that we assume feminine men are bottoms in the first place. The all-consuming need to conform to archetypes punishes every gay man—why is it that, thousands of years on from Ancient Greece, we still bow to a heteronormative ideal of a masculine top and feminine bottom? (O’Flynn, 2018)

The consensus among LGBTQ media seems to be that it is important for gay men to express their gender nonconformity in societies such as those in Britain and North America, but only in ways that do not perpetuate “harmful stereotypes” such as effeminate gays being submissive bottoms in anal sex.

What is especially ironic is that in the scientific literature on gay male effeminacy and bottom sex role preference in the West, the relationship between gender nonconformity and preferring to bottom is well established. In 1992, Weinrich et al. concluded that there exists a cross-culturally validated personality type “in which childhood gender role was relatively feminine and in which receptive anal intercourse has become a highly preferred adult genitoerotic role” (Weinrich et al., 1992, p. 583). Tskhay and Rule (2013) argue “not only that perceivers apply stereotypes associated with gender roles to infer the sexual roles of gay men, but also that these stereotypes may be valid” (Tskhay & Rule, 2013, p. 1221). In a study conducted by Johns et al., one self-identifying top suggested that “the bottoms are the softer ones, the feminine ones. They’re the real fags” (Johns, Pingel, Eisenberg, Santana, & Bauermeister, 2012, p. 510). Recent studies conducted by Swift-Gallant and colleagues have concluded that anal sex role bottoms typically report higher levels of childhood and adult gender nonconformity (Li, Kung, & Hines, 2017; Swift-Gallant et al., 2017; Swift-Gallant et al., 2021; Zheng, Hart, & Zheng, 2012).

Together, these studies complicate the popular LGBTQ media campaign to disassociate gay male effeminacy from a receptive sex role, although it should be emphasized that currently there is no national probability study of gay and/or bisexual men that examined this relationship and therefore, while non-probability samples are convincing given that most (such as the above) point to the same conclusions, only studies that use probability samples will be able to fully determine the relationship between gender expression and sex role preferences. Having said that, the media insistence in the US, UK, and elsewhere, that gay male effeminacy be decoupled from an emphasis on sexual receptivity and/or sexual submissiveness is not only frustrated by contrary evidence but also ignorant of the fact that many gay sex role bottoms in Europe and North America are in fact typically more gender nonconforming as both children and adults than tops. While this can cause considerable anxiety in LGBTQ media in the West, in other parts of the world the connection between effeminacy and sexual receptivity among a subsection of male androphiles is less likely to be controversial.

Gender-stratified male androphilia in the rest of the world

Gender-stratified male androphilia has been observed in many non-Western countries, including among the kothi in India (Gill, 2016; Stief, 2017), the bakla in the Philippines (Garcia, 2009; Manalansan, 2003), the paneleiro, maricón, and travesti in Brazil (Cardoso, 2005; Carrier, 1976; Kulick, 1998), the loca in Honduras (Fernández-Alemany & Murray, 2002), the kūnī in Iran (Guitoo, 2021), and the jota in Mexico (Prieur, 1998). Allowing for the nuances of cultural variation due to the specific societies in which they are found, as well as varying degrees of gender nonconformity, these effeminate male androphilic types nevertheless show remarkable similarity in characteristics (Whitam, 1980): strong preference to be sexually receptive; marked gender nonconformity in childhood and adulthood, including interest in “women’s work”; a clear desire for men unlike themselves—masculine, sexually insertive—and a similar dislike of sexual relations with other “not-men” like themselves. They are often also found among the working classes and are relatively shielded from the Western LGBT “lifestyle.”

As early as the 1970s researchers were discovering the gendered connotations attached to men who assumed the receptive role in anal sex with men in non-Western countries. In his study of Mexican male androphilia, Carrier noted that in Mexico “an equivalence is always made between the effeminate male and the homosexual male” (Carrier, 1976, p. 111). In his 1971 study of Mexican maricónes (translated in English by Carrier as “sissy,” “fairy,” or “queer”), Carrier observed that a large proportion of “anal passive males having adult homosexual contacts remembered themselves as being slightly to very effeminate children, whereas the anal active males having adult homosexual contacts did not” (Carrier, 1971, p. 290).

In India kothi is a term used “by many effeminate men to signal their preference for being receptive (bottom) partners during sexual intercourse among men who have sex with men (MSM)” (Gill, 2016, p. 1). In English it can be translated as “fag” or “sissy” (Gill, 2016, p. 1). Cardoso’s study of the paneleiro in Brazil offers strikingly similar observations of this mode of gender-stratified male androphilia to that of the kothi, despite being culturally and geographically remote from India (Cardoso, 2005). The paneleiros whom Cardoso interviewed invariably preferred receptive anal sex and enjoyed performing oral sex in comparison to the men interviewed who had sexual relations with paneleiros. Moreover, as with the Indian kothis, these Brazilian paneleiros refused to have sexual relations with other paneleiros, “since they prefer ‘real men’” (Cardoso, 2005, p. 105). Similar findings were established by Prieur in her study of Mexican jotas who were described “as effeminate men who are penetrated by other men” (Prieur, 1998, p. 10; Melhuus, 1998). Jotas, like the kothis and paneleiros, will rarely if ever seek sexual contact with each other: they seek a more masculine man. More recently, Guitoo has explored the Iranian kūnī in online sexual fantasy stories, and the kūnī (approximating the Western “faggot”) has similar characteristics to these other non-Western identities, while also incorporating the Western “gay” as a shorthand for traditional understandings of same-sex subjectivity (Guitoo, 2021, p. 890).

Together, these studies and others like them indicate the existence of cross-cultural expression of effeminate male androphilia in non-Western societies, with some common themes. Nearly all of these societies will only designate a male as a “homosexual” or “not-man” if they are effeminate (to varying degrees) and purported to be sexually receptive in male anal sex, which is the preferred form of sexual contact, compared to Western interest in oral sex, for example (Fernández-Alemany & Murray, 2002; Kulick, 1998). This attitude echoes that voiced by the Western anal sex role top quoted earlier: “the bottoms are the softer one’s, the feminine ones. They’re the real fags” (Johns et al., 2012, p. 510). Other pertinent commonalities include a preference for domestic tasks such as cooking to emphasize one’s assumed effeminacy, and a strong preference for men who are starkly different from them in sexual object choice, sex role, and gender presentation.

Each of these studies also notes the tensions at play between these traditional, often working-class expressions of effeminate male androphilia, and the encroachment of the middle-class Western “gay” egalitarian form, which has increased since some of these studies were conducted. In India, for example, Gill reports Western-identified gay men in Mumbai boycotting nightclubs if kothis were present, with a response from kothis and hijras to incorporate their identities into a LGBTKQH movement (Gupta, 2005). In some countries gender nonconforming male androphilia now exists, to some degree, alongside egalitarian models (Gómez Jiménez et al., 2021).

Western pussyboys and boiwives face the additional challenge of trying to negotiate such gender-nonconforming and sexually receptive identities in a context in which the Western egalitarian “gay” form is thriving, and any outdated gay male expression that threatens to imitate heteronormative dynamics (such as butch top and fem bottom) is eschewed (Johns et al., 2012). The pussyboy and boiwife represent gay males who are gender nonconforming to varying degrees, and who are also resolutely bottom and submissive in anal sex with masculine men, and therefore they refuse to be locked into the double bind I observed earlier, which was that it is fine to be effeminate, but not to perpetuate stereotypes of the effeminate bottom. The pussyboy and boiwife, on the other hand, are visibly effeminate and exclusively bottom in anal sex; they fulfil the stereotype.

Narratives of pussyboys and boiwives on Tumblr

The majority of the literature on Western gay bottoms focuses primarily on the broad category of “bottom” as a gay male who takes the insertee role in anal and oral sex: in other words, as the male who is penetrated in some way by another male (Ravenhill & de Visser, 2018; Moskowitz and Roloff, 2017; Moskowitz & Hart, 2011; Kippax & Smith, 2001). It is clear from this research that across the West bottoms are apt to face stigma associated with some kind of loss of masculinity (Brooks, Reysen, & Shaw, 2017; Reilly, 2016), although bottoms who assume an “active” role such as a “power bottom” tend to feel that their sense of masculinity remains intact and that bottoming itself can be a masculine activity (Brennan, 2016a; Ravenhill & de Visser, 2017). As a commentator for Men’s Health put it: “There are a ton of stereotypes associated with bottoms, such as being more effeminate, submissive, and emotionally needy,” he explains; “being a power bottom bucks those stereotypes and shows that bottoms can be dominant, commanding, and masculine, too” (Zane, 2021).

The pussyboy and boiwife nuance perspectives on gay bottoms in the West because they indicate effeminate, sexually receptive male androphilia, even if only in the realm of sexual fantasy. The pussyboy and boiwife—particularly as explored in these online sexual fantasy narratives—can be described as bottoms but their form of bottomhood explicitly permeates their gender nonconforming identity in ways that for other bottoms it might not. The pussyboy and boiwife are identity consolidations which have emerged from a subsection of Western gay bottoms and they have primarily developed and circulated through online communal sexual fantasies which synthesize image and text (Barker, 2014; Norton, 2016). Those online users who publish blogs exploring effeminate gay bottom identity may not necessarily identify as this in their actual sex and romantic lives (although some say they do); but they nevertheless use this online medium to explore sexual fantasies important to them.

This paper draws on posts published by fourteen Tumblr accounts that were located via tracing reblogs in a snowball fashion via comments and by looking for the terms pussyboy and boiwife. This is admittedly a small sample, but they were selected out of 203 blogs which I have identified as circulating fantasies related to gender-stratified androphilia more broadly and which sit within the category of BDSM erotica (dominant/submissive gay sexual fantasies). The rationale for selecting these fourteen for close analysis is that they post original written text with reblogged images or GIFs; that they have a large follower count in the thousands (indicating influence); and that they deal explicitly in fantasies involving a pussyboy or boiwife. Most of these blogs are run by users who self-identify as a pussyboy or boiwife, and their posts and/or blog bios use these terms frequently. This was a further reason for selecting the fourteen blogs under analysis: to explore the distinctive nature of their voices and how they fantasize about being a boiwife or pussyboy. A few of the blogs selected are also run by users who self-identify as masculine lovers of effeminate pussyboys and boiwives; these were selected to offer a broader picture of who the pussyboys and boiwives are in dialogue with, and how their fantasies intersect with those of the “Daddies.” To the best of my knowledge, most of the posts here date from between 2015 and 2021, and, because they are Not Safe for Work (NSFW), they can only be accessed by registered Tumblr account holders using the following formula in the search bar: (@username), even though they are effectively in the public domain. For anonymity and privacy purposes, I have anonymised the usernames of blog users and hence blog names. Due to Tumblr's 2018 crackdown on adult NSFW content, all of these blogs are now accessible only to registered users and hence are only available to selected viewers (i.e. registered users), which is why I am anonymising the blogs, to protect privacy. Finally, due to the ambiguity of the bloggers’ preferred pronouns, I will use they/them, unless otherwise indicated from their writing.

Identifying as a pussyboy and/or a boiwife

Pussyboys and boiwives on Tumblr use the medium to explore their identity, which weaves together sex-object choice (masculine, dominant top men), sex role (exclusive submissive bottom to the extent that most will only suck dick and get fucked), and gender presentation (effeminate, domesticated “wife”). These interconnecting features largely shape the themes which these bloggers explore in their blogs. Physically, these males present as recognizably male rather than typically female, and most identify as gay. Blogger 1 encapsulates this effeminate bottom identity when they say: “As a boy who wants to be a wife to a dominant Man, I want to embody all the traditional roles—my Husband won’t ever have to worry about not coming home to a clean house, an uncooked dinner, or a smooth pussy.” Blogger 1 is one of the most vocal of the boiwives I have studied in that they have thought hard about their role as an effeminate bottom: “Males can be girls too,” they argue, “and that’s perfectly ok. And some males only want to be girls to their respective Man, but still be a male to everyone else. And that’s ok too.” Equally, Blogger 1 is insistent that while they value those “girls” who have made “that final plunge and truly switch[ed]” over to becoming a woman, they nevertheless still identify as a male. Blogger 2 strikes a complementary position in relation to their overall identity—effeminate, but still male. In their blog bio, Blogger 2 expresses a desire for an “Alpha Male willing to wife me up,” and in one of their posts they explain that part of the joy of being with a “real man” is that “I can let myself be affeminate [sic] around him and others. I can be the girl he needs as much as he’s the man I need.” Blogger 2 identifies as “100% bottom and submissive,” and just like the non-Western effeminate androphiles explored above, is attracted to explicitly or even exaggeratedly masculine men: “I love hairy beefy dominant men.” Indeed, Blogger 2 expresses an idea shared by non-Western effeminate androphiles which insists that being anally penetrated is a key part of being “wifed up”: there is something lacking in one’s femininity until one has been anally penetrated.

While Blogger 1 and Blogger 2 are honest about their ongoing search for a man, Blogger 3 notes that they are already “a married stay at home femboy housewife,” which makes their blog distinctive for insights into areas where fantasy seeps into real life. In a post entitled “Some Thoughts on Masculinity,” Blogger 3 writes about their preference for strongly demarcated gender and sexual roles in their androphilic relationships: “I personally feel much safer knowing my husband wears the pants in the relationship and makes the important decisions. I like that he is conventionally masculine and patriarchal with me even though I’m not female.” For this boiwife, to experience prejudice because of their “traditional” femininity is the parallel of their husband experiencing prejudice because of their traditional expression of masculinity, which might not be welcomed among those seeking to question or critique more traditional forms of masculinity and patriarchy: “I know how much it hurts when someone tells me to be less feminine because my femininity contradicts their views, so I would never put my husband in that position, or would I want to either.” Both partners want to avoid prejudice directed against their adherence to traditional gender roles.

Similarly, Blogger 4 also writes in their blog bio that they are married: “I am biologically man [male] but I don’t associate with society norm set for male. I am married to most handsome man and I am his wife.” Blogger 4 also states that they are on Tumblr in part to make friends with other boiwives. One of their reblogs indicates how they visualize their relationship, and those of other men and boiwives/pussyboys:

Figure 1 illustrates a typical contrast of which there are countless variations which indicate a gender-stratified expression of male androphilia. The bodies, poses, and clothing are highly differentiated and, while exaggerated in this image, the main difference is clear: the “man” is considerably more muscular (hence stronger) and physically masculine than the boiwife, who lacks muscle and wears a white thong, exposing their bottom to men they hope to attract.

Figure 1. Real man and boiwife contrast (screenshot Blogger 4).

In terms of sex-object choice, the boiwives and pussyboys in this paper express a uniform desire for males completely unlike them along certain correlates (i.e. muscularity, hirsuteness). Blogger 5 believes that “sissyboys like me are naturally attracted to Strong Men.” In another post, this blogger explains that “pussyboys love all things masculine. A Man’s hairy chest, his muscles, and of course his cock”; they “love being picked up by Alpha Males like this. Knowing their Man’s arms are strong enough to easily pick them up and Manhandle them like a sissy is such a turn on.” Blogger 2 suggests in a similar vein that “Men have big pecs to serve as pillows for their boywives.” Blogger 6, whose blog name explicitly references a film highlighting a fantasy of domestic bliss, argues that “nothing is better than feeling a man’s strong arms around you, knowing he will always only ever use them to protect you.”

These bloggers’ sex-object choice is complemented by their fantasies of sexual submissiveness and anal receptivity. They embody what another blogger (Blogger 7) said more generally of bottoms

bottom is both a ‘gender’ and a ‘sexual orientation.’ It’s a comprehensive identity and way of life, based on embracing one’s natural femininity and receptivity, one’s inferiority to and complementarity to Men. A true bottom turns her receptivity according to Nature into freely-chosen and actualised complete acceptivity [sic].

As with the Indian kothis and the Brazilian paneleiros discussed above, for these Western pussyboys and boiwives, their desire to be sexually penetrated by a “real man” also explains their gender presentation. Their desire for powerful, strong, and typically masculine men leads these bloggers to present in ways that they believe will entice men to penetrate them. As Kulick noted about the Brazilian travestis he studied, “it is thus in the bed where gender is truly established” (Kulick, 1998, p. 126). Blogger 8, for example, advocates the wearing of thongs “for bottoms in and out of bed. All bottoms should have these in their lingerie drawers. And real tops are always turned on by them.” The implication here is that effeminate bottoms have lingerie drawers, not simply underwear drawers, and that by wearing stereotypically feminine clothing like thongs like the boiwife in Figure 1, “real tops”—not just any old top—will be fired up by them.

Blogger 8 has also published several sex scenarios in which effeminate bottoms such as boiwives and pussyboys are ravished by dominant men because they perceive their boiwives’ sexual penetrability. In one of these, a male character called Sasha sits waiting patiently on a bed for her new husband, Vlad, who is “tall, dark, muscular.” As Vlad enters the marriage bedroom,

the sight of his young virgin bride all naked and ready to be taken sent fire to his loin. What beauty. What innocence. What softness. Vlad couldn’t wait to mount him and sink his manhood into his boiwife’s virgin cunt, impregnating her on her marriage day.

This narrative invokes a stereotypical Russian or pan-Slavic context which, for Western audiences, perhaps contrasts with the more egalitarian context from which the blogger writes. In this Slavic world where traditional gender roles remain (or at least they do so in this fantasy), the only option for a submissive effeminate bottom like Sasha is for her not only to be anally penetrated by a masculine, muscular man, but to be “impregnated,” by which is inferred the depositing of semen in her body after being fucked anally, typically referred to in this genre as being “bred.”

The mention of marriage is also significant, because especially for boiwives, part of their identity is centered on at least the aspiration to a long-term monogamous union with a man, and this in turn contributes to the number of domestic fantasies through which the boiwives express their gender and which also takes the focus away from only being fucked. Blogger 6 implores other boiwives to “learn how to cook for your man,” because “it’s not just about keeping his dick happy, any slut can do that. It’s about keeping him happy. Knowing how to take care of his house, how to cook well for him.” Similarly, Blogger 1 argues that

if a Man takes care of you and his family, financially provides for you, and treats you right, then the absolute least a wife can do is cook him his favorite meals. Men deserve to feel loved and needed, and they should be taken care of the same way they take care of those around them. (original emphasis)

Of course, the boiwives here are not, in fact, taking care of their men in exactly the same way as their men take care of them: for the boiwives, there is a strong emphasis on traditional “women’s work.” As with the Indian kothis, housework is a way for these boiwives to express their effeminacy and feeling that they are not like other, “real men.” But then, as Prieur said about the Mexican jotas she studied, they “are not feminists,” and neither, in the main, are boiwives and pussyboys (Prieur, 1998, p. 63). As Blogger 6 notes, “a [boi]wife knows her place is in His kitchen, feeding Him.”

As I will explore below, the domestic aspect of boiwives’ and pussyboys’ gender presentation is mirrored by the desire for their lovers to see them in the kitchen. But although the kitchen might be seen by these bloggers as an obvious place in which boiwives and pussyboys belong, this is also a space in which these effeminate bottoms are still penetrable and impregnable. Blogger 7 suggests that if “she” cannot access items on top shelves, then husbands should help reach them for them (assuming of course that the husbands will be taller): “Rub your strong chest against her smooth back. Grind your hefty manhood against her familiar yet stunning bottom […] Show her you are still her top shelf man. She isn’t cooking like this to make you just lunch.” The implication is that she is cooking for her man because she wants to submit to him, nurture him, and position herself in a subordinate role.

Together, these sexual fantasies circulated by boiwives and pussyboys on Tumblr, who may also at times simply identify as bottoms or with other related but distinct terms such as “sissyboy” or “femboy,” help create a narrative which enables these bloggers to join together their sex-object choice, their sex role, and their gender nonconforming presentations in a form of subjectivity that others can identify with. These are not simply gay males who enjoy bottoming: they are self-identified effeminate androphilic males who exclusively seek to be penetrated by dominant, masculine men and in such a union, to adopt a stereotypical—even exaggerated—role traditionally associated in Europe and North America with women. In this sense, these pussyboys and boiwives are presenting themselves as effeminate bottoms who, I would argue, share a “deep structure” or set of core characteristics of effeminate bottom identity with non-Western males.

Lovers of pussyboys and boiwives

Lovers of pussyboys and boiwives on Tumblr tend to call themselves “Daddy,” but this is not immediately the same as the kind of “Daddy” identified by Mercer in his otherwise comprehensive analysis of gay pornography (Mercer, 2017). For the Daddies in my study (who all invariably use he/him pronouns), the key aspect of their identity is that they are in most respects strongly differentiated from their sex-object choice in both identity and gender role presentation from the effeminate boiwives and pussyboys. They present themselves as masculine, heteronormative, dominant, and exclusively sexually insertive in anal sex.

The Daddies in this study play a key role in their blogging in affirming the effeminate identities of the boiwives and pussyboys who ardently follow them and reblog their posts. In one text post, Blogger 9 argues that the term pussyboy “is not an insult.” A pussyboy is

a very specific type of submissive but nonetheless respected bottom who [has] a particular relationship with being the penetrated partner and whose role seem[s] very self-defined in giving pleasure to tops and deriving primary pleasure from doing so and in particular from being fucked in their ‘boy-pussy’ […] It connote[s] also a certain sexual softness and yielding. (Blogger 9)

Other Daddies encourage the explicitly effeminate aspects of their desired partners. Blogger 10—perhaps the most imaginative of all the Daddies analyzed in this study—explains how “I love you for exactly the wifely qualities that made you feel rejected by others.” Elsewhere he writes encouragingly, “no such thing as too much femininity for me.” Equally, he makes it clear that if one were to be his boiwife or pussyboy, one would feel comfortable in expressing one’s femininity: “Unafraid to be her feminine self, all day every day, because her Daddy makes her feel safe and valid.” Indeed, “Daddy knows how to bring you out of your shell and cultivate you, princess” (Blogger 10). Imagining a boiwife being reluctant, Blogger 10 creates a narrative of liberation in which he is the enabler:

‘So, you mean I could take off this hoodie and wear my lip gloss and lace panties? I could have girlfriends who talk about their nails and fashion, instead of their trucks and sports? I could walk in my natural swishy fashion instead and stop trying to fit in with the guys?’ Consider it a prerequisite.

In Figure 2, the boiwife seductively fingers her lip and looks directly into the camera with knowing eyes. The implication is that she already knows the answer to the question, but wants her Daddy to reassure her. She is already gender nonconforming to some degree but needs that constant validation from her man that he finds her attractive. Blogger 10 recognizes that for many of the boiwives and pussyboys he knows, it is not simply that they want to look or behave in ways they perceive to be feminine: they want to do so because they feel they will be more attractive to their partners. In this sense, their behavior mirrors that observed among non-Western effeminate bottoms, who are interested in effeminacy as a means of negotiating and amplifying their receptive androphilia/homosexuality (Kulick, 1998; Prieur, 1998).

Figure 2. Boiwife asking her daddy for reassurance (screenshot: Blogger 10).

In a similar vein, Blogger 11 writes how he can’t get enough effeminacy in a desired male partner: “As a real butch bear masc daddy, I love flaming femme fags, they’re what I’m naturally attracted too [sic] the mincinger, queenier and campier a faggot is; the more likely I will be into him.” This text acts as a caption to a GIF of the Canadian singer Shawn Mendes, who is depicted seated and “talking with his hands” in what can be perceived to be a stereotypically effeminate way (Daniele, 2020; Ravenhill & de Visser, 2017). For this Daddy, Mendes’s perceived effeminacy is extremely attractive, and he desires all latently effeminate gay bottoms to become more feminized. Elsewhere he writes how he loves a “fairy effeminate voice, and a classic gay boy voice drives me wild with desire” (Blogger 11).

Connected to encouraging their partners’ effeminate physical appearance, dress, voice, and mannerisms, these Daddies also affirm the emphasis placed on domesticity by the boiwives and pussyboys. Sometimes this affirmation is couched in simple phrases such as “in your kitchen, in your place” (Blogger 12), “her heart is at peace when she’s where she belongs” (Blogger 10), and “subdued, domesticated and loved” (Blogger 13). But often blog posts give these Daddies an opportunity to fantasize about more concrete situations. In two essay-long posts, Blogger 10 writes extensively about the kind of gender-stratified domestic life he seeks with a partner. In the first, a typical day might involve the boiwife

mak[ing] sure the kids and I have breakfast and that my tie is straight, or at least that the chest hair isn’t exposed too much by my polo, before I leave for the office and they go off to school […] I know you feel like there’s never enough time to do things the way you’d really like to do them, but, baby, really … the idea of any of us trying to get along without you is laughable. (Blogger 10)

This post, which then goes on to discuss the rest of a typical day, is unusual for the emphasis placed on non-sexual interaction between a Daddy and his effeminate bottom. Blogger 10 creates a narrative in which a partner is sought not simply to be sexually available to him, but also to create a home and rear children. As he says, addressing his imagined boiwife: “this is our civilized life—civilized for you and me, by you and me. We’ve made our choices and we’re happy” (Blogger 10). But then the blogger moves into a different register and imagines a trip away to the countryside where he can more fully express his masculinity and manhood: “out here is one place that a man like me gets back in touch with his more primal core.” So he makes a fire and goes hunting for food: “I know you don’t understand the gratification of hunting, of subduing and conquering an animal. I also know I can’t explain it to you. The challenge … the conquest … this is what it’s all about” (Blogger 10). The narrative acknowledges the importance the author attaches to a stereotypical middle-class American domestic life in which they have enough money for the boiwife to stay at home and keep house. But it also recognizes that this life in itself is somehow restrictive, and that when he’s out in the countryside, he only requires his “wife” to be there to welcome him home. “I’m the man in the middle,” he explains, “finding my way as dual selves caught between two worlds. Not a mincing fancy man by any means, but not a fully wild man anymore, either. But that’s ok—I’m just honored to be your man.” Importantly, he finishes by saying “I still get to be an animal when I have you on your back with your legs spread—subdued and conquered” (Blogger 10). His animalistic instincts have been transferred to the bedroom.

The movement of this narrative from “civilized” urban domestic bliss to a more precarious rural wilderness symbolizes a movement from the challenge—even undesirability—of egalitarian androphilia to a simpler fantasy of rural-focused gender-stratified relationship where his male sexuality can blossom at the same time as he is permitted to physically “subdue and conquer” the food he provides for his family. But this rural fantasy remains just that—fragile and infrequent: he recognizes the importance of the town life in which he works and his boiwife remains at home, keeping house.

When asked by a follower whether he would be “okay with your girl working and having a career,” Blogger 10 responds in another essay by explaining that having been brought up himself in circumstances where his mother suffered for having to make ends meet and bring up children, he would prefer it if his wife did not have to struggle in the same way:

I’m not at all convinced that our lives will be made better by having double the income but coming home to a frazzled wife, takeout on the dinner table, processed food in the cupboards, and my pants wrinkled and still in the dryer. I believe the home is the foundation of the rest of our lives. It is literally where we create our identity as a family, and its comfort, for the sake of recuperation from the trials of the day, and its proper functioning, to enable everything else we do in our lives, are every bit as important as the money that also enables our lives. (Blogger 10)

This Daddy recognizes that not everyone will respond sympathetically or in an understanding way to these desires, but the point is that he is laying them out in case a boiwife or pussyboy identifies with them. While this is unlikely to be the kind of life some readers/viewers, male or female, would wish on someone, Blogger 10 is using these posts to express a form of desire that others might identify with, recognizing that while these desires may strike the wrong note in an egalitarian society such as the one in which he lives, it is still fantasized about by some.

Blogging about their fantasies using a medium like Tumblr also enables the Daddies who desire boiwives and pussyboys to feel affirmed in their own identity. They cannot take their desirability, power, or dominance for granted, but by dialoguing with submissive effeminate gay bottoms through reblogs and comments on posts, both halves in the gender stratified union can be strengthened in the validity of their sexual desires which, as I have explored above, are mutually reinforced by gender presentation and sex-object choice. For Blogger 10, a boiwife’s “pussy is much more to me than a simple pleasure source. It’s my home and comfort in a trying world, my safe place, nurturing me in body and soul, to help me be the man you deserve” (Blogger 10). For Blogger 13, “a good man’s reward is a submissive pussyboy desperate to serve him and treat him like a king the moment he walks in the door,” highlighting that it is the man who works and the boiwife who keeps house (Blogger 13). For Blogger 14, “a wife seduces her husband for HIS sake to fulfil her wifely duties” (Blogger 14 original emphasis).

These statements need to be read in the genre of sexual fantasy. They are not necessarily intended to be read as verbatim thoughts for how these men want to conduct their real sex lives day-in-day-out. But they do indicate the sexual energy which drives the rest of these representations of effeminate gay bottoms. It is the act of penetrating and being penetrated in such dimorphic ways between the two partners that ignites enthusiasm for other gender-stratified roles in the relationship. What is beyond question is that the Daddies in this study clearly have sexual desire for “types” of gay males that in more mainstream Western gay culture are frequently touted as undesirable sexual partners. For these men, they really do want fem, fem, fem. As Blogger 14 puts it: “sissy femme bois are my hearts [sic] deepest, longest inferring desire” (Blogger 14). That boiwives and pussyboys desire them in return is equally affirming.

Conclusion

This study has sought to nuance effeminate gay bottom identity in Western contexts by interrogating a shared “deep structure” between Western and non-Western expressions of gender-stratified sexual relationships. In a broader context in the West in which egalitarian, “masc4masc” gay partnerships and sexual versatility—and even non-anal forms of sex—are the gold standard, it is perhaps unsurprising that desires of effeminate gay bottoms emerge in the realm of online sexual fantasy rather than offline, in “real life.” What seems clear is that there are effeminate and masculine same-sex attracted males who, through their self-generated porn, negotiate a version of sexuality which emphasizes the mutually reinforcing role of sex-object choice, anal sex role, and gender presentation. For these bloggers, these cannot be separated, and are in fact part of the sexual attraction in their partners. But as I have indicated, this is a marginal position compared to the more mainstream discourse on Western gay male relationships, which, while seeking to affirm gender nonconforming gay males, is nevertheless cautious about associating effeminacy with being a bottom in anal sex between men. And there are good reasons for this caution: for some bottoms who may wish to be more versatile in anal sex, being locked in a strict binary of effeminate bottom and masculine top can be restrictive and contain them in a stereotype they feel inaccurately represents them. Moreover, it is also the case that some will find the sexual fantasies explored in this paper to replicate heterosexual gender roles and conventions which feminists and others have sought to deconstruct. Further research would need to balance this critical impulse while maintaining a sensitive interpretive lens on non-Western heterogender forms of male androphilia that seeks to understand these on their own terms.

There are, of course, limitations to this study. Firstly, additional work is needed to contextualize Tumblr fantasies in the broader context of online sexual fantasy surrounding pussyboys and boiwives (by examining Twitter accounts, Reddit threads, BDSMLr accounts, written erotica, and other online platforms through which effeminate gay bottoms and their lovers explore their fantasies). This would also create a larger data sample that could more easily create follow-up questions. In this article I also extracted Tumblr accounts and posts which circulate a wider range of BDSM-related gay fantasy. There are plenty of similar accounts in which dominance and submission are stripped of the gendered connotations I highlighted in this paper, and where a “pussyboy” is synonymous with a masculine presenting “faggot.” Similarly, focusing on sexual fantasy fails to tell us much about the offline lives of these bloggers; they are simply “life stories to identify with” (Wang, 2021). But on the other hand, there is still much to be said for analyzing sexual fantasy and stated preference as perhaps a more accurate indication of people’s sexual interest than actual behavior, which may be incongruent with their preferences (Swift-Gallant, 2021; Moskowitz & Garcia, 2019; Moskowitz & Hart, 2011).

Further research would also need to discuss the ways in which effeminate gay bottoms in these Tumblr fantasies rely on a typology of male bodies and racial types. For example, Western twinks (slim, usually white, youthful-looking, and relatively hairless) are far more visually linked to the effeminate boiwife and pussyboy than more masculine physical types. This is not surprising, given the literature that exists on the twink as relatively effeminate; for example, in a study by Franklin, Bourne, and Lyons (2020), one participant noted how “the Twink is usually younger, thinner, more feminine to an extent. I guess it’s often considered that they’d be a bottom too” (Franklin et al., 2020, pp. 7–8; Wang, 2021; Mercer, 2017; Brennan, 2016a).

It remains a complex question regarding the extent to which one’s body shapes one’s sexual fantasies and vice versa. But one thing seems increasingly sure: sex role preferences among gay men in the West continue, for some, to have strong gender connotations (Ravenhill & de Visser, 2017), despite, for example, the attempt of Hoppe to explore bottom identity “without de facto relying on gender to do the work of explaining a bottom’s experienced positionality” (Hoppe, 2011, p. 213). Certainly for the Daddies, boiwives, and pussyboys in this study, gender role presentation is extremely important—and liberating—in explaining sex role positionality.

Finally, further research on transcultural gender-stratified male androphilia in all its manifestations will need to address the possibilities and limitations of research on psychobiological discourses of sexual orientation, which concern the emerging consensus that male sex role bottoms—particularly exclusive bottoms like the pussyboys and boiwives that have begun to be explored in this article—are typically more gender nonconforming as both children and adults than sex role tops, and that there might be endocrinological, genetic, and immunological reasons for this (Bao & Swaab, 2011; Stief, 2017). Not only might this work help explain why there is a deep structure of effeminate bottom identity and behavior which is largely resistant to cultural difference and change (Vasey & VanderLaan, 2014), but it will also reassert the argument, advanced by Swift-Gallant et al., that “future research should not consider gay men as a homogenous group” (Swift-Gallant et al., 2021, p. 6). Indeed, Weinrich’s suggestion thirty years ago that there is a cross-culturally validated type “in which childhood gender role was relatively feminine and in which receptive anal intercourse has become a highly preferred adult genitoerotic role” might now be explained, in part, by common psychobiological factors shaping effeminate androphilic male sexuality across cultures (Weinrich et al., 1992, p. 583).

Acknowledgments

With thanks to Paul Vasey for his helpful comments on an earlier draft and to the reviewers for their encouraging and constructive feedback. This paper was written while the author was employed as a full-time Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Wellcome Centre for Cultures and Environments of Health (University of Exeter).. An earlier version of the paper was presented at the 25^th Congress of the World Association for Sexual Health, 2021.

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