Gay culture is a remarkably creative community, and its linguistic world is every bit as colorful and inventive. The arduous task of popularizing this vocabulary has traditionally fallen to fans of boys-love fiction, who tirelessly explain to the public what “coming out,” “bear,” “top,” “bottom,” and “younger top” mean (English has its own queer slang dictionaries too — see A Brief Dictionary of Queer Slang and Culture, and Watching The Normal Heart — Part Three). A good deal of my own “linguistic” education has come this way — take, for instance, the term “Mengdiou” (蒙迪欧). I looked it up online and it seems this term hasn’t really caught on yet. So let me presume to explain it myself. “Mengdiou” refers to a muscular, well-built bottom: “Meng” (蒙) echoes “meng” (猛, “fierce/strapping”), suggesting a sturdy, muscular build; “di” (迪) echoes “de” (的, a grammatical particle); and “ou” (欧) is literally the letter O, a sly nod to the bottom’s role (sometimes called “0”).

Those well versed in this vocabulary might say “Mengdiou” is just a synonym for “buff bottom” (强受), but the two terms differ:

  1. “Mengdiou” functions both as a noun and as an adjective, while “buff bottom” is only a noun. For example, “Li Lei is a Mengdiou” uses it as a noun, meaning Li Lei is a muscular bottom. But “Li Lei is so damn Mengdiou!” uses it as an adjective, which can carry multiple meanings — shock at learning Li Lei’s role, or simple admiration for his physique. Context determines which.
  2. “Mengdiou” is more refined than “buff bottom.” “Buff bottom” points directly at the sexual dimension, whereas “Mengdiou” also emphasizes role and identity — the psychological side of things.
  3. “Mengdiou” is used mostly within the community itself and carries more of an insider, in-group flavor than the more widely understood “buff bottom.”

From the standpoint of linguistic development, “Mengdiou” really does have an edge over “buff bottom.” It expresses, in a more humane way, a gay identity that doesn’t fit the social stereotype, rather than slapping on the blunt label of “weak top, strong bottom.” At the same time, it captures, from a psychological angle, a certain type of gay man who appears tough on the outside but is soft within. Sometimes that “toughness” on the outside even forces them to change things about themselves they otherwise couldn’t — getting married and having children, for instance. So the deeper social and psychological questions hidden beneath the word “Mengdiou” are still very much worth studying.