Grindr says there is a 4th sexual position for queer men

Grindr THE ‘dating’ app for queer men does its very best to appear ‘relevant’ and keep its brand in the (gay) public eye with a myriad of ideas/statements. This year they launched Grindr Valentines Day Meat Markets, and then they produced a dreadfully unfunny web series called Bridegroom.

Despite the raunchy image they want to portray Grindr is actually owned by U.S.-based (very heterosexual) San Vicente Acquisition LLC which bought it from Chinese gaming company Kunlin for $608 million. Which is no laughing matter. Nor was the $12million fine the European Union’s General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR) levied for violating its rules. Now Grindr wants to tell us there is a ‘new’ option for gay men to have sex.

If you thought the three options are ‘top’ ‘bottom’ and versatile, then think again. If you are a gay man who for any reason does not like anal sex, then there is evidently now a fourth option. ‘side’

This is not a new term that Grindr has invented (as if?) but it was one that was popularised in 2013 by American psychotherapist Joe Kort, a clinical director and founder of The Center for Relationship and Sexual Health in Royal Oak, Michigan.

Kort said that he popularised the label as a way to counter the idea that anal sex is the default way for men to connect sexually. He called it a “breakthrough” which we have to say is more than a tad of an exaggeration. But it will at least help gay men to choose whether to swipe right or left when next Grindr especially now that the app’s nearly four million daily users have been able to list their position as a side.

“A lot of tops and bottoms call sides boring, virgins, trauma survivors, but Grindr adding side as an option in the company with the typical tops and bottoms could change this. “It’s giving sides a sense of belonging like they don’t have to feel left out of the gay male community sexually,” Kort said.

P.S. Urban Dictionary definitions for the term “side,“ are a man who does not partake in anal-penetrative sex” but “will engage in other forms of same-sex activity: fellatio, frottage, mutual masturbation, etc.”