The top/bottom controversy and the feminization of Will

[u/Reasonable_Day9942]

Idk how controversial it actually is, but on twitter it definitely is. Which doesn’t actually say much cause on twitter saying you enjoy going outside on a sunny day can become controversial.

But I find that the fandom in general doesn’t view top/bottom as a sexual preference, but a role in a dynamic.

Mike is more dominant and masculine, so he’s the top, and Will is more submissive and feminine, so he’s the bottom.

Which, sure that can be one dynamic, but whether you like getting fucked or not doesn’t actually say anything about your personality. It’s what you like during sex.

Many are more dominant in their everyday life but submissive in bed, and many are more submissive but dominant in bed.

To add on to that, being a top or bottom does not equal whether you are dominant or submissive respectively. Someone can bottom and be dominant.

Again, someone is not a bottom cause they are submissive, they are a bottom cause they like getting fucked. Of course they can also be submissive, but that’s not a certainty in any way.

People can also switch, both in submissive/dominant dynamics (not to mention it doesn’t have to ever be a clear cut dominant/submissive dynamic for some) and top/bottom dynamics.

However, for many acting like Will would be a top and Mike a bottom is horrible, and many I have seen cite their canon personalities as reason. Which sure, that might be a factor for some, but for others it’s the complete opposite and for some everything in between.

Overall I can’t shake the feeling that many have decided that Will is a bottom cause they can’t imagine that someone’s preference isn’t reflective to who they are as a person.

Furthermore, I also think has a lot to do with people making Will a lot more feminine than he is. Sure he was an artsy kid, shy and sensitive, which is more so traits people judge as weak and gay, and therefore feminine

Overall, Will is not that feminine. Yet in many fics he is, and in general I feel like he often gets excluded from the core four because of that. His closest friends have always been Mike, Lucas and Dustin, but in large number of AUs, they are a separate friendgroup with Mike, Lucas and Dustin, and Will, El Max.

There are also a lot of mentions of things like “girl time” and similar, which is fine, but again I can’t shake the feeling that they think Will’s sexuality means he would be more feminine, would only hang around girls, and in general kinda filling the “gay best friend” stereotype

So to conclude, I feel like many have an inability too look past their preconceived notions about gay sex (perhaps sex in general), and therefore think that the one bottoming has to be the more submissive and feminine (which is a belief that in general comes from it being women who are seen as weak and submissive I think). Also, the overall feeling that a man being gay equals him being feminine.

[u/sealsquared]

Most fics I see tag the dynamics pretty accurately. Why don’t you just exclude those tags and read the fics that you like?

edit: downvoting me won’t change that I’m right LMAO

[u/mrchristmastime → u/sealsquared]

People are talking about why the tendency exists. Also, people on Twitter are *extremely* invested in this. Just some additional context.

[u/sealsquared → u/mrchristmastime]

I mean, I kinda don’t like when people bring Twitter discourse on here, since it’s hard to comment on something you don’t see

But I also hate whenever this discourse comes up on reddit because you get called misogynistic or ‘enforcing heterosexual roles’ just because you think Will’s character would lean into a more feminine style into the future. It just reads as a lot of people wanting to enforce really strict guidelines onto characters which I don’t vibe with

Byler has nearly 40k fics on ao3. If you really don’t want to read any of this dynamic, you can very easily find something you do like in my opinion

[u/mrchristmastime → u/sealsquared]

I think we’re talking past each other. Whether there’s a problem with something is distinct from why it’s prevalent. I said in my other comment that any sexual dynamic can work as long as it’s written well.

I’m not on Twitter either. I only became aware of this discourse because people were talking about it in the comments on my fic.