Note: This essay originally ran on February 14, 2015

“A day to celebrate bottoms? Why?”

Why not?

International Bottom Appreciation Day is a holiday held very close to the hearts of us at the International Order of Sodomites and we’re hoping this year to reach the hearts, and perhaps other parts, of the membership.

It’s a time to celebrate our friends, our lovers, our mentors, and ourselves for the giving and receiving we do all year.

I could go into the rich history of the holiday, dating back to colonial times, when one day while churning butter, a young Miles Fearsgarden turned to his pilgrim lover and said, “This has me thinking, you need a cake.”

Or I could touch upon the illustrious contributions of some of the world’s most famous bottoms, like T.E. Lawrence, George Platt Lynes and Jerry Herman.

But International Bottom Appreciation Day is more than that.

The holiday is held annually on February 15. (Yes it's the day after Valentine’s Day—that's by design.) It's a day of love, of reflection and of thanksgiving.

Think back over the past year: How has a bottom helped you? Been kind to you? Offered you not only a resting place, but perhaps a sanctuary? And what have you learned from a bottom this year? Pacing? Patience? Planning? Some other alliterative lesson?

We take our bottoms for granted, but a true bottom is a master of us all—and has something to teach each and every one of you.

Sometimes we forget the gratitude we owe bottoms: In too many dark corners of this masc (mask?) culture of ours, there’s still a stigma surrounding bottomhood. A perception that bottoms are, perhaps, “less than.”

But I ask you—yes you, America's tops—where would you be without a bottom? What kind of empty and miserable existence would you have? We need bottoms, and we should be happy we have them.

We also need a chance, as a community, to celebrate ourselves—not for our legal victories, our heroism in the face of bigotry, or our accomplishments on daytime television—but just for ourselves.

We need a chance to say, "What we do and how we do it is beautiful and right."

Again I ask: Why not? Why not take a day to be nice to someone who has been more than nice to you?

Why not ask a bottom out to brunch? Why not show up at a bottom's house with a basket of bagels and say, “Thank you for everything. You were great!”

This February 15, remember to appreciate the bottoms in your life. I’m sure they've appreciated you.

Acclaimed writer-performer Justin Sayer hosts performances of the Meeting in New York and L.A., where he is currently writing for CBS' 2 Broke Girls. Sayre also produces the hilarious podcast "Sparkle and Circulate" on iTunes, and is the author of Husky.