As a top, you take the lead and control the situation. Social stigmas and unfounded stereotypes dictate that tops are naturally more masculine and often, they're physically larger too. Sex Education s3 star reacts to Eric/Adam backlash And ironically enough, that's primarily down to a lack of education about sex, or the gay kind, at least. It doesn't even occur to Eric that Adam might want to bottom, or that he himself might want to top. Where Eric's inexperience does comes in though is with his assumption that he would be the one bottoming, or receiving. Even though Eric says he doesn't know what he's doing when it comes to sex, that's not entirely true, because he's already douched and ready to go with that all-important lube/condom combo. As Ncuti Gatwa himself told us just recently, 'There's not a blueprint for a queer youth's romantic journey through life.' And that's true in both a physical and an emotional sense.Īs Eric is more experienced with LGBTQ+ culture, he's essentially Adam's blueprint for being queer, and at times, that can put an unfair amount of pressure on him. And why's that? 'I'm worried that I don't know what I'm doing.' That's often the case with first-time sex, particularly for teenagers, and even more so again for young queer people. But suddenly, faced with the deed itself, Eric admits that he is 'a bit scared,' after all.
