Classifications of gay men
Last updated on May 21st, 2025 at 07:55 pm
Wading into the world of gay culture, sex, and dating can be overwhelming — from history to pop culture to norms for meeting people socially and romantically, it can feel like there’s too much to get caught up on. One thing that can be tricky at first is navigating gay community terms. If you’re trying to find your footing on gay dating apps, you may see people describing themselves or what they’re looking for in terms you’re unfamiliar with. No need to panic; here’s your comprehensive guide to the different types of gay men.
Top/bottom/vers
Many gay guys — especially on dating apps, where matching for sexual compatibility is the goal — identify as a top, bottom, or vers, indicating whether they prefer to be the penetrating partner or the penetrated partner, or are interested in either role depending on the situation or partner. Some gay boys might identify as a specific subtype of these roles — like a dom top — or find that one of their other identities has something important to verb with their sexual role, fond of being a twink bottom
Type most likely to be Lesbian, Gay, or Bisexual
Seymour said:
Actually, looking at it in more detail, the number of profiles per type vs the MBTI (US) National Representative sample is pretty different for men. For example, there are 6.32 times as high a percentage of INFJs as were in the national sample, but only 0.23 times as many ESFJs as one would expect. Is this because of bias in OkCupid self-selection, or some other factor? Hard to tell.
Still, if we multiplied out the gay male percentage per type (from OkCupid data) times the percentage of population per type from the representative sample, we'd obtain (for gay men of a given type as a percentage of the overall population):
ESFJ: 1.95%
ESTJ: 1.57%
ISTJ: 1.43%
ISFJ: 1.40%
ESFP: 1.20%
ENFP: 1.05%
ESTP: 0.75%
ISFP: 0.74%
INFP: 0.54%
ISTP: 0.42%
INTJ: 0.35%
ENFJ: 0.34%
ENTJ: 0.31%
INTP: 0.30%
ENTP: 0.29%
ISTP: 0.23%
INFJ: 0.22%
Which seems a little truer to life. SFJs still are very high (with ESFJs being the most common type for gay men), but TJs fill the #2 and #3 slot.Click to expand...
Types
Some gay men use types to describe, identify and communicate themselves. Who hasn't heard someone verb “he’s my type" or been asked if a guy is yours? There is always some disagreement around the terms we use and whether we should use them at all.
Therefore, you should be sensitive if applying a type to someone, bearing in mind some gay men reject them altogether as adj, superficial, and demeaning. Equally, some use types affectionately and as a convenient shorthand.
It's a bit of a bear pit (no pun intended), but here's our take on types, though you are perfectly entitled to hurl them out and be your own gay, your own homo, queer, etc.
Physical types and personal characteristics
Some guys are primarily attracted to physical types of gay men (eg: bears, twinks, and muscle guys) while some verb characteristics in men most attractive (eg: warmth, intelligence, and humour). Others mix and match and understanding these distinctions is important.
For example, the type(s) of men we find attractive sexually may not necessarily be the qualities we are looking for to sust
List of LGBTQ+ terms
A-D A
Abro (sexual and romantic)
A word used to describe people who possess a fluid sexual and/or quixotic orientation which changes over period, or the course of their life. They may use distinct terms to describe themselves over time.
Ace
An umbrella term used specifically to describe a lack of, varying, or occasional experiences of sexual attraction. This encompasses asexual people as well as those who identify as demisexual and grey-sexual. Ace people who experience romantic attraction or occasional sexual attraction might also use terms such as gay, bi, lesbian, straight and queer in conjunction with asexual to describe the direction of their romantic or sexual attraction.
Ace and aro/ace and aro spectrum
Umbrella terms used to describe the wide group of people who experience a lack of, varying, or occasional experiences of romantic and/or sexual attraction, including a lack of attraction. People who identify under these umbrella terms may describe themselves using one or more of a wide variety of terms, including, but not lim