A side is someone who prefers sex without penetration. Not a top, not a bottom, not versatile: a side. They kiss, grind, stroke, suck, frot, and use toys. They have full, enthusiastic sex lives. Penetration simply isn't on their personal menu, and that's the whole definition.
If the word is new to you, you're not late; the word itself is barely a decade old. The people it describes have always existed. That gap, between how long sides have existed and how recently they got a name, is the real story here.
Before the Word
For decades, gay culture ran on a three-option menu: top, bottom, vers. Every app, every joke, every "so which are you?" assumed penetration was the destination and your only choice was your role in it.
Which left a lot of men with no square on the board. Men who loved sex but not anal sex had three bad options: lie about it and dread the follow-through, deflect ("I'm just not feeling it tonight," indefinitely), or quietly opt out of sex and dating altogether. Many concluded something was wrong with them. The menu said tops, bottoms, and vers were the complete list of ways to be a sexually active gay man, and they weren't on it.
Researchers who study sides have documented exactly this pattern: stigma, shame, and pressure to perform interest in penetration, from within the community that was supposed to be the safe one.
2013: Joe Kort Names It
The word arrived in 2013, when psychotherapist and sex therapist Dr. Joe Kort published an article that quietly changed gay vocabulary: "Guys on the 'Side': Looking Beyond Gay Tops and Bottoms."
Kort wasn't writing from a clinical distance; he was writing about himself. He described sitting with friends, tired of quietly shaming himself for not wanting anal sex, and realizing there wasn't even a word for what he was. Not a top. Not a bottom. So he coined one: side.
The word did what words do. It converted a private source of shame into a shared identity. If there's a name for it, there are others like you. If there are others, you were never broken; the menu was just incomplete.
2022: The Apps Catch Up
For nine years, "side" spread by word of mouth and think-piece. Then in 2022, Grindr added "Side" as a profile role alongside Top, Bottom, and Vers, putting the identity in front of millions of users in the one place where labels do real work. Wikipedia added the term to its terminology of homosexuality around the same time.
It's hard to overstate what app-level recognition means for an identity like this. A side no longer has to explain, apologize, or disclose mid-conversation with an escape route planned. The label filters for compatibility before anyone's feelings are on the line, which is exactly what labels are for.
How Common Are Sides?
More common than the three-option menu ever admitted. Some numbers, with honest caveats about who was surveyed:
- In our largest customer survey (673 respondents from our community, 624 answering the role question), 10.7% identified as sides, alongside 23.2% tops, 11.9% bottoms, and 52.1% vers.
- Even in a broader non-customer 2026 sample of 150 gay and bi men, 4% identified as sides.
Our community skews frot-friendly, so the true population number likely sits somewhere in that range. But the conservative read is still striking: roughly one in ten men in our surveys is a side. For a label that didn't exist before 2013, that's not a niche; that's a constituency the old menu simply erased.
And the preference behind the identity is broader still: 79.8% of surveyed customers agreed that "sex is about pleasure and connection, not just penetration." You don't have to be a side to live by that sentence.
What Sides Actually Do
Time to retire the biggest misconception: sides are not asexual, not shy, and not waiting for the right person to change their mind.
Sides love sex. The menu is everything except penetration: kissing that goes nowhere in the best way, grinding, hands, oral, toys, and frot, which for many sides is the centerpiece, since it's full-contact, face-to-face sex where both partners feel the same thing at the same time. (New to frot? Start with our complete guide, then the frot trifecta positions.)
Two clarifications that keep the definition honest. First, sides aren't necessarily frot-only, and frot isn't sides-only: plenty of tops, bottoms, and vers guys frot too. Second, "side" describes a preference, not a prison; some people identify as sides permanently, others move between labels over time. The word serves the person, not the other way around.
Dating as a Side
Kort's original insight was ultimately about honesty: sides suffered because they couldn't say what they were. The label solved the vocabulary problem; the conversation is still yours to have.
The good news is that the conversation has never been easier. "I'm a side" is now a profile field, a two-second disclosure, and a compatibility filter all at once. And the pool of people it filters in is bigger than most sides were ever led to believe: other sides, curious guys who never loved the pressure either, and partners of every role who agree that connection beats choreography.
If you're a side reading this: you were never broken. The menu was just incomplete. And it took until this decade, but there's finally even a toy category built for the way you have sex. Ask us how we know.
Sides FAQ
Is being a side the same as being asexual? No. Asexuality describes low or absent sexual attraction. Sides experience full sexual attraction and have active sex lives; they simply prefer sex without penetration.
Is "side" a permanent identity? Only if you want it to be. Some people are lifelong sides; others use the label for a season of life. It describes your preference, not your destiny.
How common are sides? In our community surveys, roughly one in ten men identifies as a side, and the share may be higher among men who've heard the term. Grindr considered the group significant enough to add "Side" as a profile role in 2022.
Do sides use sex toys? Enthusiastically. Toys built for non-penetrative play, frot toys especially, were designed with sides squarely in mind: shared, face-to-face, and penetration-free by design.
Who invented the term "side"? Psychotherapist Dr. Joe Kort coined it in a 2013 article, "Guys on the 'Side': Looking Beyond Gay Tops and Bottoms." Kort identifies as a side himself.
Can you be a side and still enjoy frot with a top or bottom? Yes. Frot has no roles, which is part of why it's central to many sides' sex lives: any two people can do it, whatever they'd call themselves elsewhere.
Sources: CockBlock Toys Panel Survey, n=673 (2025); CockBlock Toys customer survey, "What Does 'Real Sex' Mean to You?", n=89 (2025); CockBlock Toys General Gay and Bi Male Survey, n=150 (2026); Kort, J., "Guys on the 'Side': Looking Beyond Gay Tops and Bottoms" (2013); Grindr "Side" profile role rollout as reported by PinkNews (May 2022) and others.