On Wednesday morning, a bizarre interview with Aussie musician Troye Sivan began making the rounds on Twitter.

Much like the strangely moralistic (and probably fake) Drew Barrymore interview in EgyptAir magazine that went viral last year, this one read like a Mad Libs of journalistic faux pas, beginning with the reporter’s obsessive line of questioning about Shawn Mendes (who really wishes you'd stop speculating about his sexuality) and ending with a now-infamous inquiry: "Top or bottom?"

In the printed version of the piece, which originally appeared in the New Zealand’s LGBTQ magazine Express, Sivan deflects that final question, politely responding, “Ooo… definitely passing!” But on Twitter, the musician took a more aggressive stance.

“I thought about asking the interviewer about his absolute fave sex position after that last question, but then I remembered how wildly invasive, strange and innapropriate [sic] that would be,” the singer tweeted along with a screenshot of the exchange. “Didn’t stop him though!”

The idea of flippantly asking a queer star about their preferred sexual position seems absolutely nuts, especially when the nature of their fame isn’t directly connected with sex. But more is at play here than tactlessness.

For one, labeling someone a bottom or a top is an exercise that’s inherently laden with cultural baggage. The continuous fetishization of masculinity among gay men means that those who identify as bottoms are automatically assumed to be more effeminate. Studies have even shown that men who perceive their partners to have more masculine physical characteristics (being older, taller, or well-endowed) were more likely to bottom, and vice versa. In that sense, it’s not surprising that Sivan would want to avoid dealing with the social projections that come with the label. In reality, it could be that biology predisposes gay men to prefer certain sexual roles.

This is also an incredibly reductive and binary way of dividing up the gay male population. Researchers have found that gay men rely on stereotypical gender-based attributes around topping and bottoming when making decisions about who to hook up with, but take a more expansive view of pleasure when negotiating sexual positions in their long-term relationships. Other studies have found that many gay men actually self-identify as versatile, with no strong preference for either giving or receiving during intercourse. And, of course, some men lack any interest in anal sex.

Considering the sheer messiness of human sexual desire, it’s probably more fruitful to ask someone if they feel like a bottom or a top in a particular moment—you know, like in the bedroom.

As if to underscore the complexity of sexual identity, the controversy over Sivan's interview emerged just as a landmark study was released on the intricate genetic basis of same-sex attraction. The study, which looked at the DNA of nearly half a million people, revealed that not one but potentially thousands of genes influence same-sex sexual behavior—and environmental factors play a significant role as well. If that’s what goes into sexual orientation, just imagine the myriad factors that affect desire.

Sivan’s interviewer probably wasn’t thinking about any of that when he asked Sivan a “cheeky” question about his preferred position, but it makes sense that such a seemingly innocuous inquiry would spark a social media firestorm: It’s a complicated and sensitive matter whittled down to just another possible source of amusement.

Granted, there are smart ways to ask interviewees about their sexual proclivities, and no subject should be deemed completely off-limits. Last year, after Sivan released his song “Bloom”—widely considered an allegory for anal sex—the singer gave an interview to Them in which he was thoughtfully asked about how the “twink bottom” label has affected him.

“Without getting into like any sort of details whatsoever, that was a song I wrote about a particular experience,” he said last August. “I’m not branding that as myself forever. It was definitely just writing a song.”

But some still think the fact that Sivan briefly alluded to the act of bottoming in a since-deleted promotional tweet for the song gives media outlets carte blanche to probe him about it.

After Sivan’s reaction to the interview went viral, Out magazine's editorial team wrote, “It’s a bit hypocritical for Sivan to act as if talking about his sex life is taboo when he wrote a whole ass album about bottoming.” The passage has since been deleted; a note at the top of the article reads that it “didn’t meet the magazine’s editorial standards.”

In response to Out’s article, Sivan addressed the issue again, tweeting, “I speak about sex in my music on my terms, when I’m in control, and writing music that is going to be close to my heart forever. That does not open the flood gates + give anyone a pass on basic manners and allow them to ask about the ins and outs of what I do in bed.”

“There’s no shame in anal sex or any kind of sex,” he continued. “I just don’t want to talk about it over the phone to a complete stranger.”

That is Sivan's right—and the right of every other queer celebrity who's been prodded to discuss their sex lives on the record.