Tops, Bottoms, Dommes and Subs.

Eveyrone has their own proviate language. And sex is one of the subjects which is the most private of all, because we so rarely have someone we can talk to about it. Even lovers, do not alway share the conversations of love.

For me, and this is only for me and for no other, one of the concepts which is most often made a mess of, is the distinction between top and bottom, versus dom and sub. Many people treat them interchangeably. This, in my experience, particularly on sl, is not at all a good way of looking at it.

In my own private world, a dom is the person who is demanding respect, and has authority. They often control the shape of the scene and what is to be done. A Top, however, is the person who is doing the work. Tops like to do to other people, but that is not the same as making the decisions, and having the authority. A master who likes his slaves to service him may be every bit and inch a dom, but he may also prefer to lie back and let other tongues do the rowing.

Escorting, I am almost always expected to be the top, particularly when the man has his hands, well otherwise occupied. But I am very often not in control of the scene. In fact, that is what paying gets, ultimately, the power to set aside what I want, and I have my own wants, for what the client wants. It is also the expectation that I am going to have my hands firmly on the keyboard and mouse, doing things to bring pleasure to my partner.

Many people get uncomfortable with the idea that they are a bottom, particularly men who place a great deal of their identity in being masters. The "top" is merely yet another way of thinking of themselves in powerful doing terms. In distancing themselves from anything they see as related to being gay or feminine. At the same time, some subs seem to be uncomfortable with the idea that they are tops, in that they like to do to someone else, actively and continually. They just don't like to have to make decisions, they want their energy to be directed and unleashed.

Dominant bottoms want submissive tops, it is a natural combination, one likes to make decisions and be pleased, the other to have decisions made, and please. It is not uncommon for men to be willing to trade dominance for the ability to unleash the power of their sex on a woman's body, to actively have her, and to lavish their physical attention on her, and on those parts of her body which attract them most.

Dominant tops come in two types. One kind, as you would expect, likes submissive bottoms, a lush target for their energies, a canvas for their sexual art. However, another set of dominant tops, likes the submissive top. The idea being to have a collision of activity and desire, a ball of need that roars over the other, and a storm of doing.

Many people are fluid in being top or bottom, just as people are often fluid in wanting to control or be controlled. This fluidity of role again, is often interrupted by how someone thinks of the label.

Which is why labels are more useful in inner vocabulary, as guides to experience, because as soon as they become spoken, the associations of the words scatters outward, into the anxieties of the ears, and away from hard won wisdom.