Oh Joy Sex Toy – Picking Sides by Hien Pham

Page 1

Hien Pham illustrates his comic with a simplified-realistic style with lovingly rendered hair details that sweep along his characters. He uses a full spectrum of colors and rich textures.

Narration: Dr. Joe Kort, a sex and relationship therapist, coined the term Side in his 2013 online article “Guys on the ‘Side’: Looking Beyond Gay Tops and Bottoms”. To put simply, a Side is a gay man who does not prefer penetrative anal sex.

A series of dating profile cards fans across the page. There are three that take the forefront.

One card is titled, “HAIRY BOTTOM” and is pink and purple hued showing a selfie of a fat man with curly brown hair and a full short beard. The stats read,

Online

35, Single

Bottom, Vers, Oral

[obscured], 135kg

[obscured]

The middle card is labeled “SIDE BEAR”, featuring a candid photo of a tall man with slicked back pink hair, rectangular glasses, and a neat full beard who is getting his cheek licked by a dog.

Stats:

Online

42, Single

Side, Oral, Fetish

185 cm, 120kg

“Lover of dogs and body h[obscured]

The third card peeks out from under the stack of profiles with the title, “TOP [eyeballs emoji] NOW”. A short man with fluffy blond-dyed hair, circular glasses, and mutton chops beard poses in a summery suit, clearly in a group picture but he has cropped out the others so the focus is on him. The stats of that profile are obscured.

Narration: It’s only within the last few years that the biggest gay dating apps have started to allow their users to identify as Sides.

Narration: It was on one of these apps that I first encountered the label, and it took me by complete surprise.

“Huh?” Muses a mildly surprised Hien as he looks at the phone that he holds in his two hands.

Now transforming into his chibi-self, he begins tapping away at his phone in a frenzy, announcing, “Wait, I’ve gotta look this up!”

Narration: You see, I… have never had a huge affinity towards backdoor penetration… But… I haven’t always been confident enough to say it with my whole chest.

Page 2

Narration: Physically speaking, my phimosis makes it painful to top! Even blowjobs would often sting!

To demonstrate, the man from the Side Bear dating profile card is shown fucking the Hairy Bottom fellow in doggy position. “Yowza!” Side Bear yelps in pain with jagged zig-zag action lines emoting off of him mid-thrust. Hairy Bottom looks over his shoulder towards Side Bear with an expression of surprise and concern. This takes place in a sparsely-drawn pink panel.

Narration: I also don’t have the itch to bottom, so cleaning out feels like a fruitless chore that exhausts my body…

In a sparsely-drawn yellow panel, we now see Side Bear exiting the bathroom looking absolutely exhausted. He wipes the sweat from his brow with the back of one hand while the other holds an enema bulb. Top Now, the guy from the third dating profile, regards Side Bear with a similar expression of concern and surprise as he had received in the previous panel.

The color palette shifts to deep and cosmic blues.

Narration: When I read smut or watch porn, I often find myself totally invested in the scenes leading up to anal!

From behind, we see Side Bear sitting at his desktop computer with hearts exploding out of his monitor at him.

“Oooh~!” He coos.

Narration: …but when the actual fucking begins…

Now facing Side Bear, whose face is illuminated in his monitor’s blue light, he blandly states, “Thank you, next.” as he decisively clicks down hard on his computer’s mouse.

Once again more realistically drawn, Hien announces to the reader, “Before I knew about the Side label, I used to tell people that I ‘operate in the space between foreplay and penetration.’ And, oh! What a beautiful space it is!”

Side Bear, also more realistically drawn, peeks over Hien’s shoulder at an illustrative bubble that floats above our author’s hand. This Example Bubble shows Hairy Bottom and Top Now in chibi form overtly flirting with each other, blowing kisses and giggling.

Above Hien’s other hand floats another Example Bubble, this time showing the chibi versions of Hairy Bottom getting absolutely ass-fucked stupid by Top Now with lots of hearts and action lines.

Page 3

A collage of blue-tinted snapshots spreads out across the page, featuring elaborately, lovingly rendered realistic drawings of Hairy Bottom and Top Now in various forms of intimate contact. A hand firmly holds the other’s underwear bulge. They kiss. An underwear-clad boner rubs against a belly. Shower water rains down over a hairy ass while another hand squeezes the cheeky flesh and sends an exploratory finger between the crack. Arms are bound up in ropes. A whisper against a cheek. A nipple pinched. Two underwear-covered boners rub against each other. A hand pulls down the waistband of pants.

Captions scatter over these images, reading, “Touching! Kissing! Cuddling! Fondling! Flogging! Tying! Showering! Teasing! Frotting! Whispering! Stripping!”

Hien and Side Bear look on at this tableau in wonder, their flesh tones and pinks of Hien’s shirt and Side’s hair contrasting against the blues of the snapshots. This wall of images towers over them, casting a small blue light to catch against the edges of their bodies. They stand with their backs to the reader.

Narration: To me, everything that’s thought to only be stepping stones toward the final, really “real” anal sex are all fully-realized acts of intimacy.

In a close-up profile, Hien and Side Bear wonder in appreciation at the wall of intimate snapshots, their faces both fully bathed in blue light.

Narration: The more options i discover, the less and less anal feels like an automatic expectation I can’t live up to. I even uncovered dimensions of anal that certainly pique my interest! Fantasy dildos and vibrating sensations ahoy~

Chibi Hien and Side Bear bounce as cartoony miniatures of themselves against enormous butt plugs and even a tentacle-shaped dildo.

“Oooh! Wheeee!” They exclaim.

Page 4

Returned once again to reality, realistically-drawn Hien looks at his phone apprehensively. “Still…” He says, while his other hand nervously rubs the back of his neck. “I don’t know… I’m already not popular on the apps, wouldn’t being a Side makes me even less enticing?”

Out of nowhere appears the realistically-drawn Top Now, saying, “Sure, but life’s not that long. Why waste time on things you can’t bring your whole heart into?”

“Plus,” Joins in Hairy Bottom, also appearing from now where and with a pup-masked companion in tow. “-isn’t Side actually a selling point?”

“We aren’t the only ones who feel the expectation to perform anal!” Agrees the dog-maked companion.

“It’s a pressure that there should be no shame in taking away!” Concurs yet another new person in a pup mask.

“Truly!” A third, and final, pup-player concurs.

Page 5

Alone again, Hien smiles at down at his phone while letting out a breath.

Narration: Side might just be a label, but it feels meaningful.

Confidently, Hien’s finger taps down onto a dating profile checklist, highlighting an option reading, “SIDE”. Other options include “VERS” (no checkmark), “ORAL” (checkmark), “FETISH” (checkmark), and “NO SEX” (no checkmark).

Narration: Nowadays, when I come across a fellow Side on the apps, it brings me a great sense of relief.

Chibi Hien reacts in surprise as his phone lets out a mighty DING! alert.

In the dating app’s Direct Messages, Side Bear has a text exchange with Hien.

Side Bear: It’s an invitation to a conversation, isn’t it?

Hien: What can we do?

Hien: What are we excited to do?

Side Bear: What new intimacy horizons can we discover?

(Hien’s chat box indicates that he’s in the process of typing.)

The reader’s perspective pulls back to reveal a realistically-drawn Hien with an army of mini chibi versions of all the comic’s characters frolicking and posing on him. The background shows the blue cosmos unfurling behind him, indicative of limitless possibilities.

With a wink, Hien concludes, “Let’s explore our side of the story, together!”

Picking Sides by Hien Pham published on April 22, 2025 for transcribed by Erika Moen on April 21, 2025