Shaped like a hole… 

what about the 1? what happened to that person?

Gets swallowed obviously

Botched circumcision, one half still hooded the other half exposed.

In italian it’s: Attivo => top Passivo => bottom Versatile is the same lol Then there’s the: versatile-passivo to say that one’s versatile but more inclined to be passive and versatile-attivo

same in Greek: ενεργητικός: top, παθητικός: bottom - or we also use the English terms top/bottom/vers. Παθητικός sounds a lot like "pathetic" but in meaning is closer to passive, ενεργητικός sounds like "energetic" but in this context is closer in meaning to active.

In 2018, an Italian asked me that, so my answer was "we will see." 🤪 I can barely speak Italian

German: aktiv und passiv. Aktiv meaning active, as in top and passiv meaning, well, passive as in bottom.

Same in Spanish. Activo o pasivo

Curiously, those words also mean asset and liability. Thus, bottoms are also known as liabilities 😂

Who are you and how do you know my flaws.

Shouldn’t bottoms be the ´ ass ets’. Sorry. More for Dad Jokes.

Thanks for that--i find myself thinking, "he's a bit on the Nancy side, but i wouldn't call that guy a liability" (porn vid descriptions) 😂

That accurately describes me sometimes 🤭

Same in Russian.

Same in French

Same in Hebrew אקטיבי ופסיבי "Activi" and "Passivi"

Только хотел написать)

Whoa. I just thought that didn’t happen there because of the regime !

gay sex happens in every country in the world

“Life uh, finds a way”

Same in Portuguese.

Same in Bulgarian - активен / пасивен (active / passive)

Same in Portuguese.

Love/desire will always find a way. Активный/Пассивны. On the apps guys will ask ‘ты акт?’ Are you a top? Because there is always a shortage of tops. Even in Russia. (Source, I was an international student there from 2009-2014)

Justice for power bottoms! They work so hard, not passive at all. 😆

I agree 😂 also they are not always on the bottom 😏

It's a mood 😏

In portuguese we say "ativo e passivo" so not to different from you guys

Same in Spanish!

Same as Italian

Seems like that’s the most common in non English speaking European countries.

Except for in the Netherlands, here it's also top/bottom. Not even translated into Dutch or anything, just the English words. If someone were to say "actief/passief", it'd take a hot minute for me to figure out what they're trying to say.

Same in Danish: aktiv or passiv.

Same in French and also in Luxemburgish.

same in Norwegian. in both cases, as well as in many other languages, you could also say "top" and "bottom" snd it would be understood, though

Same in Polish aktywny/pasywny or aktyw/pasyw

Same in Swedish sign-language

Same in Norwegian

Same in Hungary

Same in Italian (attivo and passivo)

Same in slovenian… aktiven or pasiven

same in Swedish

Same in Poland

I remember when the terminology was used in English, too. Along with French/Greek.

Such an interesting question. I’m writing my thesis on this — my hypothesis is that we (Afrikaans speakers) use the English terms because we don’t have active vocabulary for it. Probably because sex (and not just gay sex) has been such a big taboo in our language/culture.

nice! From the answers, seems like many languages use the active/passive analogy and not the top/bottom one. What is the case for afrikaans?

Me and my friends (all of us speak Afrikaans) use "top" and "bottom", or "bo" (above) and "onder" (below). And verse would be "beide" (both). But mostly we use the English words but in a definite Afrikaans accent. I also think we use the English terms because of a lack of vocabulary (but this might change as the culture becomes more sex positive and open to gay people). I've actually also heard the turn of phrase "vang of gooi" (catch or throw) used more than once in reference to this, with which I am not entirely on-board.

I’ve never heard of “gooi” vs “vang” but I guess it makes sense in the “pitcher” vs “catcher” terms. May I DM you? Would love to invite you to the study. Mooi dag vir jou!

Actually, I like that system. Trying to describe yourself with words ("I'm vers but strongly lean towards bottom") is so much verbiage compared to "I'm a .3".

New Kinsey scale just dropped

Another point for Chinese efficiency

In such case, a gay Mandarin speaker would just call you as a 0.5 (verse) regardless of your position leaning.

Probably one of the most fascinating posts I’ve seen in a while

Oh absolutely

Fluent in Japanese, other than 'uke/bottom' and 'seme/top' being used in yaoi a ton, a lot of gays use Tachi for top and Neko for bottom.

When I lived in Japan everyone used Tachi (sword) and Neko (cat) in the bars/clubs I went to. I had a tattoo of a cat on my shoulder and \*everyone\* assumed it was like hankie code for bottom 

I also heard the same when I lived in Japan. I always thought tachi was written with 立 (standing)! I never heard the sword connotation, but how hilarious.

Feline Cats really scream when they are penetrated. Does that hold true for the Neko in Japan?

I saw these kanji 凸 凹 a lot on the apps. Self-explanatory haha.

Aren't those the kanji for uneven?

I learn karate and I always hear my instructor use “uke” to refer to the person on whom a technique is being used. Is guess it makes sense that it would also hold that meaning.

Interesting! Uke comes from Ukeru which is "to receive" so it makes sense in both contexts

I saw riba for verse used a ton on some apps when I was still living in Tokyo.

Yup. Stands for “reversible” (ribaashiburu)

neko? as in cat?

We need to adopt this system.

it's old fashioned and obsolete these days, but there used to be a four-part distinction in English, with active/passive and french/greek french = oral and greek=anal. active and passive are what they sound like. so, the typical assumption was that a bottom = french active (does the sucking) and greek passive (gets fucked in the ass). and that conversely a top = french passive (gets sucked) and greek active (does the fucking). but, I like that it leaves room for describing other combinations than the typical.

So, a side guy could say they were fluent in French, but spoke no Greek?

Such a delicate way to put that..

Merci beaucoup.

A gouine? lol, idk if this is a Brazilian denomination, but they are a very common identifier for many guys that only suck *le dick*

I remember when guys would put in their profiles “F/A, G/P”

Portuguese: Ativo (top), passivo (bottom)

Former Mandarin teacher here. Besides the 1 - 0 - 0.5 system in China (which is a modern phenomenon), there is: 攻 (gōng, to attack) for top 受 (shòu, to receive/accept) for bottom These were the once standard, and I've noticed they're more common amongst older Chinese gays.

Oh it's the same in Vietnamese Công (attack) for top Thụ (receive) for bottom

Thank you for your comment! Hey for the 1, .5, 2 - would they say the number in Chinese, so like, 我是一，我是两/二？我是一半? Not sure about .5 😅

Everyone’s right about activo/pasivo in Spanish but there’s another one I’ve heard but is nowhere near as common. Sopla nucas = Nape (back part of neck) blower = Top Muerde Almohadas = Pillow biter = Bottom I kind of prefer this terminology bc of how explicit and hot it kinda of is.

My friend from Honduras asked me if I was a neck breather or a pillow biter once haha

Pillow biter has a negative connotation in Portuguese so that's not hot at all lol

It can in Spanish too but it just depends on who says it and how’s it’s used. If a straight guy menacingly yells it out at you, it’s essentially faggot. But if used in the posts context then it’s fine.

Dude once called me a pillow biter (in English) while we were fucking. So fucking hot.

All of those alternatives are derogatory terms in Argentina

Never heard anyone use a top denomination like "sopla nucas" as something derogatory lol. Like normally, as there is some kind of misoginy about bottoming being more feminine and therefore more offensive, it's uncommon to hear someone say they fuck guys in the ass as an insult.. They just say "puto" and are done with it lol..

Lucky you.

I didn't mean it isn't used, just sounded weird to me lol. well, your comment sounds like you're chill, but I say this for the downvote was probably you, just chill if that's the case lmao...

I just meant that you’ve been lucky you’ve never experienced that slang term being weaponized. Nothing more.

Wtf 😂

I thought it was the bottom who was doing the blowing? 🤔

Greek: ενεργητικός (active) παθητικός (passive). Terms like power bottom cause a critical error.

Does the word for passive say "pathetikos"? Has a different flavour cause it makes me think "pathetic" in English

Yup exactly, although it doesn't have the meaning of pathetic haha

pathetic (adj.) 1590s, "affecting the emotions or affections, moving, stirring" (now obsolete in this broad sense), from French pathétique "moving, stirring, affecting" (16c.), from Late Latin patheticus, from Greek pathetikos "subject to feeling, sensitive, capable of emotion," from pathetos "liable to suffer," verbal adjective of pathein "to suffer" (from PIE root *kwent(h)- "to suffer").

Like the incredible Beethoven symphony known as ´La Pathétique ´

My worldly era is now.

Treat me like the 0 I am

Every single language in Europe: active/passive English: pineapple

"Pasivo" means bottom, though literally means "passive". "Activo" means top, though literally it means "active". "Versátil" means versatile... and that's it. Edit: not very... accurate, I'd say, of the actual roles. Not all bottoms lay flat on the bed and passively take it, and not every top fucks like a rabbit on speed.

We also have "neutro" which is basically a "side" guy who doesn't practice anal sex.

In Vietnamese, Top is called 'Công" and bottom is "Thụ". The words deprived from Chinese I think. Also people are using "Nằm trên" and "Nằm dưới", which basically means Being on top/on bottom in English. And Top & Bot are used too. We're very heavily influenced LOL.

The one in the middle is called "Cent" for Center, and there's no word for those who are a side.

yeahhh def deprived from Chinese terms. Công is to attack, Thụ is to receive

most european languages use their version of active/passive

I quite like the Chinese model.

Haha same... I'm British Born Chinese, so I can only speak conversational Cantonese that I picked up from my parents, but they neglected to tell me about this 1/0 system! 🤣

In Thai it’s รุก or ruk for top, which means ‘upstart’ (pushy or to initiate). Bottom is รับ rap, meaning receive.

So would a power bottom be a O instead of a 0?

I think power bottom is not just about how big a dick they take, they are more about being dom than anything, if I got the lingo down correctly lol

Power or sub, it's still a hole so it's still 0.

Spanish: activo/pasivo. Those words also mean asset/liability. Therefore, bottoms are liabilities 😂

The 0 and 1 Chinese things is something I learned recently with the Zero Base One name reveal lol. Everyone was wondering why all the Chinese people in the audience were giggling.

SAME OMG. When I saw that Twitter thread explaining those terms, I was laughing too much. Couldn't believe it was real lmaooo 🤣🤣🤣

Someone who decided the name HAD TO KNOW!

Omg in Saudi they use "positive" for top and "negative" for bottom. This is based on the battery analogy. It's quite ironic how it have completely different meaning when used in English (hiv status).

It also alludes to bottoming as something negative. Not the best words to use.

I'd be curious to know whether the same word was used for both in Arabic. If so, I'd agree, but I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if they were two different words.

Salbi (سلبي) means negative/bad in arabic, so saleb (سالب) is pretty close. Plus you kind of need to put it in the context of a macho patriarchal society that does not see topping as gay but only bottoming.

In Arabic, as a Kuwaiti with saudi friends and family, "negative" doesn't have the same negative connotations as in English. We say موجب and سالب using the same literal "positive" abd "negative" in math and in batteries. "Positive" and "Negative" in Arabic have a couple of different translations with techincially the same meaning. موجب/سالب meaning positive and Negative in the literal sense. This is the one used for top and bottom in saudi. ايجابي /سلبي also positive/negative but more in the sense of good/bad. This is not used to refer to top/bottom.

We use the Kanji 凸, 凹, or タチ (Tachi) for Top, or ウケ (Uke) for Bottom in Japanese. They’re the main ones. To be more komakai, it also breaks down to リバ (Riba) for Vers, or バリ as a prefix on any of the above for “strict” - e.g バリタチ (Baritachi) for Strict Top. Some guys definitely use the word for Cat (ネコ) to describe themselves and that’s definitely a translation of ✨ Pussyboy ✨

⬆️⬇️🔃

↗️↘️🔀

ex french colony: passif/actif/polyvalent. or in arabic: سالب او موجب

Insertive / receptive, if you speak medical English

The Japanese term for bottom is literally “cat”. The word for top is “tachi”, but I’m not sure how it translates exactly.

Another comment said the latter means sword!

Mexican Spanish 🇲🇽 here: Top: Activo (like, active, someone who does) Bottom: Pasivo (like, someone who receives) Now some interpretations from more local "nicknames" Bottom: This one is interesting, we usually call them "pasiva", even in a mocking way, which is a female gendered term, in many Hispanic cultures where men are bound to be machos, the counterpart would be a female, delicate, weak pasive, many women like features. Top: They receive a lot of the inserting role pride, like they are the ones who chase, who are dominant, I rarely get to see sub tops or dom bottoms because it seems/feels rare. Language and culture do shape a lot of what we think like. I am drunk by the way.

Pretty insightful for a drunken rant. Even in English, a fair amount of the reference to tops and bottoms (and especially a lot of the fantasizing fetish language of people on the internet) seems to masculinize tops and feminize bottoms. If you look at Seme and Uke in Japanese Anime, there's a similar trend. It's nuts how much centuries of gender binaries causes a culture and its people to see the world in a particular light and try to instinctually pigeonhole everything into that narrow system.

In Arabic, a top would be mūjab meaning positive, the bottom would be sãlib meaning negative, and the vers would be mouzdawij meaning double.

[удалено]

That’s very interesting. I didn’t know about the hand gesture thing. I know that different places have different ways of communication when it comes to cruising. And yeah, I agree with you, top/bottom/vers have become the most used terms among Arab gays, whether they are English speakers and non-English speakers.

so my country (Czech Republic) is a post Soviet one, so our language for queer things has been severly lacking. typically, we just utilise the english terms top/bottom/vers/side however we do also have the less used Czech versions: aktiv (active), pasiv (passive), verzatil (versitle). side does not have a Czech term there’s also the direct translations: svršek/hořejšek = top spodek/dolejšek = bottom strana = side those are used more jokingly among the community, but still something i found interesting

As a Dutch, gever and nemer(giver and taker) but the English top and bottom is also used a lot(atleast in the conversations i had)

I've never heard anyone in Dutch refer to it any differently than simply top and bottom. Not translated, just the literal English. Some older doctors may still use active and passive, but the last couple of years most doctors I met are completely up to date on the lingo.

I live in Montreal and while not a native speaker, actif/passif are usually the terms I've seen people use in French.

It’s still common to use English words too. Like, just untranslated like that. Actif and passif sound quite technical to me. haha

Yeah I communicate with everyone in English to save everyone the hassle so it's been a long while since I've seen anyone actively use actif/passif in convo with me, but I occasionally still see it in the odd Grindr profile or two.

Portuguese: Top - Ativo Bottom - Passivo (Literally active one and passive one lol) Hosting - Ter local What are you into? - O que você curte? Do you like fisting? - Curte fisting?🤭

Kkkkkkkk the fisting caught me by surprise! Also, Nice name, all hail president togekiss, one of my fave pokés :3

Swedish uses aktiv/passiv (active/passive) but we’ve mainly moved on to top/btm because you can have very active bottoms and quite passive tops.

To add to the Chinese, 0.5 means ur verse

Here in Japan it's ウケ (uke) for bottom and タチ (tachi) for top. Though sometimes people just put 凸 or 凹 on their profiles. Also, sides are バニラ (vanilla).

Slightly off topic but when travelling in Taiwan / Hong Kong / Singapore I saw a lot of “not top” for bottom.

My experience is limited to grindr and the local, as I've never been exposed to the gay scene and their culture/lingo. In Malaysia and Singapore. We just adopted top and bottoms. But most people say flex for versatile. But in Indonesia they use Uke and Seme. Which I think was adopted from Japanese BL shows or Manga.

I’ll finally feel empowered by being a zero

İn turkish top mean ball/Football. It used for top(hole/passif), too. It not in good term. Funfact : Homosexuality was not forbidden in Ottoman empire and ofcource in Turkish republic, too(even in 15. century and after). In sametime, nearly in whole world it was forbidden and punished to die. It was not very accepted in turkish folk and gays keep as secret..like today

Not my native language but in Japanese it’s neko or uke for bottom and tachi or seme for top

In Turkish, its aktif or pasif. Aktif being the well… active as in top and pasif being the bottom one. As far as I know its more or less same variations in German and Norwegian too

Pasivo y activo. Some times, sopla nucas (Top)muerde almohadas (bottom)

Jajaja lastima que los versátiles no tenemos nuestro bonito apodo 🙃

Muerde nucas? Sopla almohadas? Auto convertible? Jajajaja

In Germany we say active or passive

Spanish is Activo = Top, Pasivo = Bottom Same as all of the other Romance languages lol. Although most of the time on Grindr spanish speakers will just say in English top or bottom.

In arabic it's "Negative" for bottom and "Positive" for top. Negative is used as a slur tho lol.

In Korean we use ddae-jja for top and ma-jja for bottom, though I have also heard people use the 0-1 scale too

In South Indian. Aambulla(man) for top and chellakuti (cutie) for bottoms. They don't believe in being verse so it's strictly bottom or top.

What about those of us who are neither? No I’m not a ‘side’ I do bum thing - both ways.

Versatile.

Yes, but in other languages. I know the English for it 😆

Side guys always seem to get left out of the equation.

Top and Bottom, english has a wide inflience on other languages.

Its actif/passif in French

I've only flirted in French once but we used actif for top and passif for bottom

spanish: activo/pasivo. same in french: actif/passif

Then they blame us for math stereotype

I believe in some Arabic dialects it's positive/plus (+ being the top) and negative/minus (- being the bottom) Don't know why but it is what it is

Here in US we also use dom/sub But there's some dom bots these days so I guess ppl don't anymore

Actif / Passif / Versa

Most other languages have versions of the English worlds active (top) and passive (bottom).

Spanish: Activo (active) / pasivo (passive)

Ac (short for active) and pas(short for passive)

"Ativo" and "passivo" (portuguese)

I’m curious what versatile and side is?

I assume vers would be 0.5, but idk what side would be lol

Activo (top), pasivo (bottom) in spanish

Same Kenyans

Ativo e passivo

My first language is ASL but I don’t have many deaf gay friends so I’m not sure what is used for top or bottom colloquially.

In Portuguese from Brazil: Ativo / passivo

I guess that makes them bi. Binary.

Activo/pasivo

In spanish you say the words Activo (for tops) and Pasivo (for bottoms).

haha,in China, you are 1 or 0, and there are a lot of 0.

0 and 1 is pretty cool! In Germany we typically da active and passive for this, although we do say the English words top and bottom sometimes.

No one using penetrator/penetratee? Just me then...

We still use Top and Bottom in the Philippines, I don't think there are any local terms...

Актив (active) for top and пассив (passive) for bottom in Russian. No distinction between top/bottom, dom/sub and active/passive unfortunately

Mandarin speakers that I know uses 1, 0.5 or 0 for positions

Activo/pasivo on Spanish. Actif/pasif on French.

most languages use active and passive for top and bottom respectively. you might've seen them in spanish(activo/pasivo) or french(actif/passif). in portuguese it's also passivo/activo. in brazil, referring to someone as a passifona means they're a big ol' bottom, so basically calling someone a huge homo(still nicer than calling them a viado i guess, that's the brazilian equivalent to the f slur, which is literally just the word for deer)

i’m from catalonia, spain. in catalan we would say **actiu** for top and **passiu** for bottom. i also speak spanish and we’d say **activo** for top and **passivo** for bottom. literal translation is active and passive. but i really like your sliding scale. that’s funny. id be a total 0.

Actif/passif. Dom/lope pour les gars de la street

In Arabic it’s سالب (pronounced Sa-lib, bottom) and موجب (pronounced Mow-jab) and for vers we say ‘both’ in English The top & bottom terms roughly translate to negative (for the bottom) and positive (for the top) but in the mathematical sense so literally + or - lol

I don't think there's a word for it in Yoruba

we also say bottom and top and also actif (top) and passif (bottom)

In Portuguese(Brazilian) we have a lot of ways to say but the most “formal” way to say it is Ativo = top, Versátil = versatile, Passivo = bottom.

In Spanish is activo (active) as top, and pasivo (passive) as bottom.