Does Subjective Racial Attraction Vary by Sexual Position? An Analysis of Young Sexual Minority Black Men

Existing research suggests that young sexual minority Black men (YSMBM) must navigate racialized notions of desirability in the context of sex and intimacy. For YSMBM, identifying as a ‘top’ (i.e., the insertive sexual partner) may grant relative desirability, due to stereotypes that categorize Black men as tops. Thus, sexual positioning might be thought of as one facet of YSMBM’s erotic capital and may have consequences for partner-selection dynamics, such as self-reported subjective racial attraction. Using data from a cross-sectional web-survey of YSMBM (N = 1,778), a chi-square test of independence and multinomial logistic regression were performed to examine whether men’s sexual positioning role (identifying as mostly bottom, versatile, or mostly top) were associated with racial attraction (being mostly attracted to one’s same race, a different race, or having no racial preferences). Compared with men who identified as mostly bottom or versatile, men who identified as mostly top had significantly greater odds of reporting primary attraction to men of a different race/ethnicity than they were to report primary attraction to men of their same race/ethnicity, or to report having no racial preferences. The dynamics of erotic capital at the intersection of race and sexual position may lead to perceptions of (un)desirability among YSMBM, which may, in turn, influence subjective racial attraction differentially across sexual positioning roles. Future research should examine these relationships using more sophisticated study designs and explore implications for mental health and well-being.