What is the difference between passive and submissive in a gay relationship?

Answer 1

In the gay community, "passive" is a word used to describe a man who is the "recipient" of the penis during anal intercourse. Sometimes passive is also applied to the one who takes the other's penis into his mouth (receives it inside him) during oral sex. This is opposed to a person who is "active" which means they are the ""inserter" during anal intercourse and the "inserter" during oral sex. Someone who enjoys both giving and receiving during anal intercourse or oral sex would be considered "versatile". Often the term "versatile" is applied only to anal intercourse.

Someone who is "submissive" is often understood to be one who submits to another person's desires, whether in a sexual way or just generally.

"Submissive" is unlike "passive" in that "submissive" does not have to have an opposite. In gay sex, if there is a passive (recipient) person, then there must be an active person. Likewise in BDSM, if there is a submissive partner, there must also be a dominant partner because the submissive partner conforms to the desires of the dominant party. Most people, most of the time, are neither submissive nor dominant in their dealings with others, whether sexual or otherwise. They are cooperative. What we call "vanilla" sex is just cooperative sex, regardless of who is active and who is passive.

There is good reason from what gay men say and do to believe that the passive (recipient) person in gay sex often feels or imagines himself to be submissive and derives sexual pleasure from that feeling or imagination. Likewise, the active person often feels or imagines himself to be dominant and derives sexual pleasure from that.