I've been thinking about how much of the modern use of "twink" seems to be to reach for what "punk" used to mean. Basically we had trades—masculine men—who'd top various tgirls—i.e. fairies—or punks, which were boys who'd bottom and were usually submissive but weren't per se feminine.

Ofc these weren't the only relationships that existed at all, but "if you're a man you can have gay sex, but only if you're topping a boy or a third-sex girl" is such a persistent and recognizable system for these relations to take place in. This all still applies today, too!

The desire for masculine/not explicitly feminine bottoms was somewhat suppressed in gay media that got mainstreamed and I'm not certain why