The “bottom surplus” or “top shortage” that doesn’t exist

“San Francisco is a city full of bottoms,” my friend Marcus said, his tone chock full of disappointment. He rolled his eyes, gesturing with his cocktail – some elaborate thing with a botanical garnish that cost more than my entire outfit. A group of guys near us, all impossibly sculpted and wearing variations of tight black t-shirts, seemed to pause and lean in, as if the statement was both scandalous and universally understood.

Did I believe him? No. But did I get where he was coming from–and understand why he was saying what he was saying? Yes. 

Let’s dig in: when he talks as if there’s some “top shortage,” what he’s really saying is nobody is pleasing him the way he wants, and he is not okay with that.

When we in the gay community talk about tops and bottoms as if there’s some shortage or surplus of either, it’s a performance of powerlessness disguised as cultural commentary. It’s never been about numbers. It’s about desire, power, and the complicated ways we perform sexuality in a world that’s constantly trying to categorize us. 

So when I hear, “San Francisco is a city full of bottoms”, the expressed exasperation only represents an attempt to take one’s personal sexual frustration and turn it into something that sounds more intellectual, more detached. Instead of admitting “I’m struggling to connect with partners,” it’s easier to create this mythical landscape of sexual scarcity. The “top shortage” becomes an alibi, an explanation that actually works because we’ve convinced ourselves that it must be the reason. 

But here’s the truth: desire is not a scarce resource. It’s not a market to be traded, not a commodity to be consumed. It’s not bitcoin, and it doesn’t fluctuate based on interest rates and global markets. When we talk about shortages and surpluses, we’re using the language of capitalism to describe something fundamentally human and infinitely complex.

In queer spaces, we’ve developed this elaborate language of sexual positioning that’s less about actual desire and more about performance. “Top shortage” sounds more sophisticated than “I’m afraid of rejection.” This approximate expression transforms personal vulnerability into a communal narrative, something we can joke about in bars and discuss in group chats. But sophisticated attempts never were the savior of unsatisfied sexual desires. 

I’ve been on both sides of this conversation. I’ve heard the jokes, the whispered comments, the not-so-subtle discrimination that suggests we have too many bottoms. It’s probably okay to say there’s a point where parking tickets, email, and cats can become “too many.” But, please, please let’s refrain from talking about bottoms that way. 

But outdated jokes and narratives don’t relax sphincters. Connection does.

The real work isn’t complaining about who’s available. It’s about understanding why you’re not connecting. Are your expectations unrealistic? Are you treating potential partners like menu items instead of human beings? Are you so caught up in performative sexual roles that you’ve forgotten how to actually be present?

The real shortage isn’t of tops. It’s a shortage of empathy. Of understanding. Of seeing each other as full, complicated human beings whose desires cannot be reduced to a single position.

And just a couple of years ago, you could have caught me talking just like Marcus. These words I use now to describe tops and bottoms and sexual liberation weren’t so accessible to me back then. Now I realize that every time I once complained about a “top shortage,” it’s been a moment of profound self-deception. What I was really short on wasn’t sexual partners – it was courage. Courage to be direct. Courage to be vulnerable. Courage to be rejected. Courage to want what I want without apologizing.

What if we stopped thinking about tops and bottoms and started thinking about connection? About mutual pleasure? About the radical act of being truly present with another person?

Sexual scarcity is a myth we tell ourselves to avoid the far more terrifying prospect of sexual abundance. Because abundance means responsibility. It means showing up. It means being seen exactly as you are.

In queer spaces, we’ve always had the opportunity to rewrite the rules. To challenge the scripts that society hands us. The “top shortage” is just another script – and like all scripts, it can be thrown away, rewritten, reimagined.

The irony is that the moment you stop believing in the shortage is the moment partners start appearing. Not because the numbers changed, but because your energy changed. Because you stopped performing helplessness and started embodying desire.

Our desires are not scarce. They are abundant. They are powerful. They are ours, and connection is the key to fulfilling them.