In the On-Off, Top-Bottom world of the sometimes too-linear gay male psyche, I have always been rather interested in the somewhat anomalous concept of the ‘Power-Bottom’.

But then a number of encounters over the years with Power-Bottoms in positions of influence in our society gradually narrowed my curiosity into suspicion and then, ultimately, hardened it into prejudice.

Generally, a Power-Bottom is a gay male who enthusiastically and aggressively embraces bottoming in anal sex. It is, however, not a simple process of enjoyment. It is an in-your-face ‘fuck me’ demand that is driven from underneath. It is a world-view where, apparently, the Top is a manipulated sex-toy to service the needs of the Power-Bottom - it’s all “faster, faster” and “harder, harder” in the Power-Bottom’s solipsistic world. And if one Top doesn’t suffice, another can be found, cornered, and taken. It is an ultimate ‘it is all about Me’ stance on life and nothing is permitted to stand between the Power-Bottom and his satisfaction. And never mistake it for hedonism - it is far more complex than that.

It is also an attitude that is not limited to the bed or the sex-on-site venue. The Power-Bottom extends his outlook into the totality of his human existence and inevitably, as we might extrapolate from the ‘power’ part of the equation, into our social, cultural, political, military and business structures.

Power-play was always an important part of gay erotics - the who tops and who bottoms is a frequently fascinating foreplay where power and sexuality are mingled in a spirit of play for mutual satisfaction. But there is always a place where the play stops and things become serious – and a Power-Bottom’s fundamentally solitary and duplicitous nature, when given an organizational structure in which to work, is quickly revealed for what it is.

Personally, over the course of a lifetime, I have had frequent problems with gay men in larger bureaucratic organizations - multinational corporates, government departments, service organizations, or media conglomerates. When I had contact with any of these men problems seem to multiply. I discovered layers of complexity and hints of deeper schemes. I saw power accruing to a Dark Star in the organisation’s universe that no-one else seemed to notice. Any involvement, I found, with these men was less than straight-forward. Then I discovered that these men were almost invariably Power-Bottoms. And they were not there to serve anything other than themselves.

An honest Bottom in an organization, I discovered, will selflessly service the hierarchy. A Top will want to surf it. But a Power-Bottom wants it both ways and this dual demand contains the seeds of destruction – for the organization’s integrity, those who work within it and for all of those who engage with the Power-Bottom in his professional role.

The call-centre and delivery ends of the business are fine - it is honest and human at those levels. Things are given and taken with transparency. It’s when we get to the middle and upper management levels, that we find the much darker natural home of the Power Bottom. It is there that we can frequently observe an air of mingy and hungry Power-Bottom-hood, magnified by bureaucratic desperation and thwarted ambition, that doesn’t do healthy things to a gay character.

Power-Bottoms seek to dominate from below, whether in a sexual or an organizational world, because it is the only way they know how. So give a Power-Bottom a corporate suit and you’ll create a Machiavelli of The Water-Cooler, a Goebbels in the Communication Department, and an Attila The Hun in Human Resources.

It is a world of shadowy designs and blacker intentions. It is a world without loyalties or trust where all allegiances are strategic and temporary. There is no sense of reciprocity. Everything is sacrificed to the Power-Bottom’s fundamental needs and basic character-warp.

Character-warp? The Power-Bottom’s will to power is self-contradictory. To be victorious actually means the defeat of one component or the other of the Power-Bottom’s basic urge. To succeed in the Power part of the equation is to negate the Bottom aspect. To win on Bottomhood is to defeat the urge to dominate. True satisfaction is impossible for the Power-Bottom and the personality twists and splits under the strain.

In corporate terms the pent-up frustration of an aggressive Power-Bottom trapped in a middle-level management position moves outwards to encompass anyone who has dealings with them. Never straight-forward, Power-Bottoms are inevitably social and personally amoral. It is all about them and their needs. They’ll betray you as soon as it is convenient. Never approach one with the attitude that you’ve found a fellow gay man who will understand. You haven’t.

Instead think J. Edgar Hoover, the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, one of the ultimate Power-Bottoms of history. He was gay, in a subordinate position, but he dominated half a century of American Presidents. He also used the weight of the FBI to gather sexual information that could be used for political blackmail, and he persecuted his fellow gay men relentlessly for duration of his career.

Think Roy Cohn, an amoral American lawyer whose personal history has been recently revived for the contemporary world in Tony Kushner’s play, Angels in America. Cohn could and did sacrifice everything, including the lives of others, to his own hunger for influence. He was capable of attending conservative events with his boyfriend and make the anti-gay after-dinner speech. Unscrupulous in business, he was even more cavalier about moral and ethical questions in life - every human contact was strategic and it was a definite case of the end justifying the means.

So never trust a Power-Bottom in a position of influence in an organization and, if at all possible, steer clear of any involvement with them. There will be no honesty in your dealings and you will be sacrificed as soon as it is convenient. Be prepared for what you might term hypocrisy but the Power-Bottom will consider to be expediency.

If you work in an a hierachial business structure and you discover a Power-Bottom in your midst, work immediately to isolate him. Transfers to places like Invercargill or Hokitika should be considered as possibilities. If you don’t manage to firewall the Power-Bottom, you’ll suddenly find things are not as they seem, the office-politics have new layers, customer satisfaction is down, and your own position in the structure is somehow being undermined in strange ways.

Always avoid a Power-Bottom whose superior is a woman. In the modern world, where women are frequently in positions of power, and where the role of the ‘gay handbag’ has moved into corporate society, no worse position for a Power-Bottom could be imagined. No matter the amount of innocuous and unthreatening signals the Power-Bottom might wave about - where gal-pal and gay-friend seem sweet over an after-work chardonnay - this is all an illusion. The frustrated power-bottom is lethal in this context. No-one, including the power-bottom’s female superior, is safe.

And never ever mate with a Power-Bottom. You will simply be a living vibrator for their sexual needs and a plastic pawn in their schemes. And because of the Power-Bottom’s basic contradiction in character, every time you think you have satisfied them you will have only further sowed the seeds of their resentment.

In a time when it seems all gay men are picture perfect and any critique is either homophobic, if it comes from a straight person, or betrays internalised homophobia, if it comes from another gay man, we are actually denying human nature. Not all gay men are good. Not all gay men are honest. And in the gay world, the category of Power-Bottom should give us all cause for consideration of the silence we have imposed upon ourselves. If we cannot transmit what we know, if we can’t communicate our experiences in an advisory way, then everything is lost…