Menu Close

Tag: top

Uke Versus Seme – Who’s Really on Top?

Okay, so we all know in the world of gay men there are the tops and the bottoms, the pitchers and the catchers, the hot dogs and the buns (?)…You get it, I’ll stop there:) In Yaoi or Boys Love anime and manga, it’s referred to as the uke (botton) and the seme(top). Let’s have a little discussion about this, shall we?

The seme is typically what you’d find in your standard romance novel, the confident alpha male who may be famous, runs a business empire, is some type of royalty or otherwise has lots of money and/or high social status. The uke is the shy, nerdy guy who’s usually a college student or just a kid (can you say shota? But this is a topic for another blog). I suppose if you draw lines to tradional romance novels you’d see the uke acting in the traditional woman’s role – girl meets dashing, wealthy asshole who just so happens to have a thing for her, but won’t admit it until well into the story, maybe even the end. But what’s different and maybe so alluring about the uke in a Yaoi story is that because this character is a male, he may be catching in the bedroom, but he surely isn’t always catching outside of it.

How many times have we seen a Yaoi plot where the seme is falling all over the uke, bending to his every whim, just to get him in the bedroom? And how many times do we see the uke manipulating the seme in and out of the bedroom to get what he wants? What about the uke’s pretending not to like sex? Not like sex? A guy? Really??? And so I ask the question, who’s really on top? And more over, why can’t they be switch hitters? *drool*

So in the quest to figure out who’s really on top, I asked Roy Mustang and Edward Elric from Full Metal Alchemist fame (because I know them best):

Me: So, Edward, would you consider yourself a bottom or a top?
Ed: What?!
Roy: He’s a bottom.
Ed: Shut up, Mustang. Don’t pretend you know what that is.
Roy: Please, just be a good boy and drink your milk.
Ed: *sputters* This isn’t milk, it’s egg nog!
Me: Oh, but there’s milk in it. Sorry…
Ed: *spits all over the table* What the fuck?
Me: Here, let me get some paper towels *gets paper towels and comes back*
Ed: *glares at me and wipes up mess*
Roy: Ahem…the question was top or bottom, right?
Me: Uh, yeah. *watching Ed and keeping far away*
Roy: I’d definitely say that Ed is the bottom and I’m the top. I mean, really…I’m the older one, the bigger one, the one with–
Ed: The one who likes it up the ass!
Roy: *turns red*
Ed: Yeah, I said it. He likes it in the ass. *snickers* that makes him a bottom, right?
Me: I, I guess so…
And so there you have it. Seme or Uke, it’s all good and we love it!
Regards,
Christie