Why I'm A Bottom And Not A Sub...

[joreth]

A playfellow I'll be, but no man's toy.  A partner, helper, but no one's servant nor slave.  I will be captain of my fate and commander of my destiny, though the path I may share and the course I chart be followed by others.  What I have, I'll share, but I'll not give it over.  What I am, I am, and I'll not change it  What I will be, I will be, by my own will and no other.
~Mercedes Lackey, The Fairy Godmother

...although this does not preclude me from voluntarily giving up "control" in a temporary BDSM setting with very particular individiuals, but this is how I see life in general.

Comments

Re: continued...

[joreth]

It's difficult for me to give proper credit to what the Doms & subs are doing psychologically, and to really say how what I'm doing is "different" since I don't fully understand it. I've heard "topping from the bottom" as both an insult and a simple explanation comment with no judgement attached.

Yes, I see a difference in enjoying being tied up or feeling pain from being "dominated". There are a whole lot of categories in the BDSM subject and most people enjoy only a few of them, certainly not *all* of them. I think it's even possible for someone to enjoy being dominated and humiliated but to not like whipping or bondage. There are nearly infinate number of combinations of subtopics in BDSM that a person can enjoy and that should be OK. Fortunately, I don't meet too many One True Wayers in the BDSM community. I'm not very active in it, so that might help ;-)

I recently had a conversation with a partner who wants me to top him. I initially turned him down and had to do some thinking about why. So far what I've come up with is that he and I have an intentionally low-intimacy relationship, a casual FWB kinda thing. Topping him, for me, requires some assumptions that I am not comfortable making in a casual partnership. It requires me to know him psychologically, for him to put a great deal of trust in me, and for me to assume that, when I take control of him, that he *wants* me to do so. In a casual relationship, I can't make those assumptions because the relationshp has no sense of permanance, no committment, no stated intentions of being together, no intimate discussions of our psychological makeup, no framework for caring for the unexpected "hot buttons" that BDSM might bring out. The relationship could end at any time, for any or no reason. I don't have the confidence that my advances would be welcome at any given time.

For some people, and for certain relationships, these kinds of concerns aren't applicable, so I suppose a Top position isn't necessarily stressful. But it puts me in a position of vulnerability because I have to assume my actions are wanted, and I can't ever assume that my actions will be well-received in this situation. He might one day just decide he's done playing with me (as theoretically so could I).

Hmm, unexpected processing ... must go think