BDSM Roles, “Topping From The Bottom”, and “Service Top”
2011 12 Nov
I often say that all consensual sexuality is okay. Open relationships? S&M? Same-sex partnerships? One-night stands? Porn? I could care less how people have sex, as long as the people involved are consenting adults. This means that most of the interesting and important questions are about consent: how do we make sure that we always have consensual sex? How do we ensure that we’re always respecting our own boundaries and our partners’ boundaries? How do we talk about our preferences and our consent? I write a lot about sexual communication for this reason.
Every once in a while, though, there’s something interesting to discuss besides consent. (Totally weird, I know!) One of those interesting things is stereotypes. Also interesting: bad dynamics in the BDSM community.
One example of a bad, weird dynamic is the “one true way” thing. Some people act like there are “right” ways and “wrong” ways to do consensual BDSM — as if some consensual BDSM is more legit than other consensual BDSM. Often, people do this via what we call “role policing”: they make claims about “real submission” and “real dominance”. (Even worse, people will sometimes act like dominant people are socially “better” or “more important” than submissive people. Or they’ll act like men are “inherently” dominant, or women are “inherently” submissive. It’s a clusterfuck! Thomas MacAulay Millar has a great essay about this called “Domism“.)
Examples of role policing might include:
* “If you were really submissive, then you would be serving my dinner right now instead of having me serve myself.”
* “If you were really dominant, then you would pay for my drinks.”
* “If you were really submissive, then you wouldn’t be confident enough to write a blog about your sex life.” (Not that I’m biased or anything.)
Sometimes these are hilarious light-hearted jokes. But sometimes they’re not. Sometimes they’re bullshit, and they make people feel as though they’re “bad at submission” or “bad at dominance”. Also, it gets really silly when we start thinking about switches — people who can feel comfortable in the dominant role or the submissive role, such as myself.
One very common, relevant assumption is that dominant people always enjoy inflicting pain: that sadists and dominants are always the same group. They’re not! Sometimes people are into sadism, or into dominance, or maybe they’re into a lot of sadism but a little dominance, or whatever. The same thing goes for submission: sometimes people are submissive and like taking pain, but sometimes people are submissive without being masochistic, or maybe they’re into a little bit of submission and a lot of masochism, or whatever.
Or maybe they’re masochists who like ordering their partners to hurt them. I once threw a memorable party at which my then-boyfriend, a mostly-submissive gentleman, arranged for a bunch of our friends to grab me and hold me down while he ate cake off my body. As he did this, I clearly recall shouting at him: “You better hurt me, or I’m going to safeword on your ass.” So he hurt me! It was great.
Because “submissive” and “masochist” aren’t always the same thing — and “dominant” and “sadist” aren’t always the same thing — the BDSM community uses the terms “bottom” and “top”. A “bottom” is a blanket term for a submissive and/or a masochist — the receiving partner. A “top” is a blanket term for a dominant and/or a sadist — the partner who is providing sensation. The point is to have words that indicate who is giving and who is receiving, without making claims about each partner’s preferences. (These words can also be used as verbs. For example, if I am “topping”, then I am in the dominant and/or sadistic position.)
And yet! Even though we have these handy terms “top” and “bottom”, which are specifically designed to help us avoid making assumptions, people end up making assumptions. There are two common BDSM community phrases that are often deployed in tones of disgust and irritation. One of those phrases is “topping from the bottom”. The other phrase is “service top”.
“Topping from the bottom” indicates a person who exercises power in the relationship, despite being in the “bottom” position. There’s nothing wrong with doing that, as long as both partners consent. But some people talk about “topping from the bottom” like it’s bad — as if power ought to belong to one side or the other; as if the bottom should never express preferences or make decisions about what’s going on. Which is ridiculous.
I’ll grant that it can be annoying if I’m trying to be a top, and my partner isn’t listening or isn’t doing what I want. But in those cases, it’s important to pay attention to what is actually going on. Is my partner resisting because he actually doesn’t want to do what we’re doing? In that case, I should respect his preferences. Or maybe my partner is resisting because he wants me to punish him. Or maybe we just have bad chemistry! Whatever. The point is, “topping from the bottom” isn’t inherently a bad thing. “Topping from the bottom” doesn’t make the bottom into a “bad submissive” or whatever. It just means that either the person is trying to communicate, or the person is looking for a certain kind of push-pull dynamic.
(I am hardly the first person to notice that “topping from the bottom” is a badly-used phrase; here’s a rant from another BDSMer on the topic.)
Simultaneously, there’s the phrase “service top”. It’s basically the same thing in reverse. A “service top” is a top who enjoys topping in line with his partner’s desires. And once again, some people act like this is a bad thing — as if service tops “aren’t dominant enough”. But it’s not inherently a bad thing! If a service top is doing things just because her partner likes them … then good for her!
I sometimes use phrases like “topping from the bottom” and “service top” to describe dynamics of a relationship: to talk about what is actually going on. But that’s because I don’t think there’s anything wrong with topping from the bottom or being a service top. I try to avoid joking around about it unless I know that the person I’m talking to is not sensitive about the topic. And I really don’t like it when people use those phrases while role policing.
BDSM can carry an incredible emotional charge, and a lot of the time, people will want comfort and snuggles after doing BDSM together. Sometimes, part of that comfort and snuggles includes reassuring the partner: “I know you just beat the shit out of me until I cried; I enjoyed it — I still like you and think you’re a good person.” Or, “I know you called your safeword while I was hurting you; I still think you’re a beautiful submissive and you did a great job — in fact I love it when you call your safeword because it helps me understand you better.” I think that in these cases it’s totally okay to say something like, “You’re such a good submissive.” But it’s so important to keep in mind that there isn’t some kind of submission that’s inherently “better” than any other kind — or dominance that’s “better” — or sadism, masochism, whatever.
And here is the part of the entry where I pull aside the mask and reveal that even though I claimed I wouldn’t talk about consent … I was secretly talking about consent all along!
The consent problem here is that role policing can be used to mess with people’s consent, because role policing can be used to pressure people. If a person wants to feel like a “real submissive”, and you tell them that “real submissives” always receive anal sex … then the person might accept anal sex even if he doesn’t really want to … because he wants to be a “real submissive”.
I have personally witnessed accusations of “topping from the bottom” or “service top” being used to hurt people who were just trying to communicate, or arrange a relationship that they liked. For example: “I thought you were a submissive. Why are you asking me to tie you up? Stop topping from the bottom! I’m the dominant partner, I make the decisions!”
An important facet of consent is trying to create a pressure-free environment, so that all partners feel comfortable talking about what they want. Sometimes, it can be very hard to create that environment, because pressure isn’t always easy to see or understand — but if we want maximum consent power, then we have to do our best. One way to create a pressure-free environment is to be careful about phrases like “topping from the bottom”, “service top”, and the role policing that can go along with those phrases.
The image at the top of this post shows a shocked-looking man wearing a leash and a collar. He is about to spank a dominatrix who is bent over his knee. I believe that I first spotted the picture over at maymay’s blog.
Tags: BDSM, communication, community, terms
Fabulous piece, and I quite agree–the problem with saying “you fail at domination if you’re doing what your bottom wants” is that domination probably isn’t what that person is going for. It’s one thing to say “I’m not sure you can call it submission if you’re the one making the calls,” but it’s a whole other thing to say “I know you don’t call yourself a submissive, just a bottom, but nonetheless you’re clearly Doing It Wrong by failing to be submissive while stuff is being done to you.”
One terminology question: I’ve seen service top used like this, but I’ve more often seen it used for tops who receive service (where service in that context means boot-polishing or tea-serving or cleaning the floor with a toothbrush or giving a massage, etc). Have you seen that version? I’m not sure if it’s a case of regional variation or what, but it makes me want to lean on new terms for both activities, just for clarity’s sake.
I have always understood “topping from the bottom” as referring specifically to manipulative behaviour that is, essentially, not an attempt to communicate, but an attempt to avoid or overrule any communication. If I feel a partner is trying to manipulate or control my actions in that sense, instead of communicating what they desire, it can make me very angry. It certainly doesn’t get the desired result, usually. I love telling the story about the time a girlfriend wanted me to “punish” her, and so decided to aim a slap at my bottom instead of simply asking for what she wanted. Instead, since I am masochist as well as sadist, I made her learn to give a good, proper, solid spanking – she didn’t get what she wanted, but I got some fun out of it!
I recognise that some people use the term in the much looser, and more damaging, way that you describe, but I think there is a proper place for it when used carefully.
I think the disparagement of “service tops” is quite ironic, because my suspicion is that it comes from the general tendency I observe of people to disparage those who do not match what they themselves are looking for or value in themselves (like the tendency towards mutual contempt between sports fans and nerds). Thus, subs who are seeking control from a Dom may tend to see tops who aren’t into control as being objectively “not valuable”, rather than realising that it is a subjective value; and similarly, Doms who pride themselves on their ability in that role tend to lack understanding of those who want to top but not be all controlling. I see it happen in vanilla dating (or discussions of…) as well, and even have to watch my own reactions when I read a profile that turns out not to match my preferences (especially when it comes to smoking or being a big lover of travelling – I have to remind myself that those are only my values, not everyone else’s).
The irony, of course, being that a service top is disparaged for wanting to give hir partner what zie wants directly, thus making hir not what the disparager wants…
As it happens, I think all tops, however Domly/Masterful they may be or present themselves as, are ultimately providing a service on some level and, as long as the relationship is on consensual grounds, then it is conditional on their providing that service! (The same is true of bottoms as well, of course, but people speak more naturally of bottoms providing service)
@ Molly:
I personally have never encountered “service top” used to mean anything other than the definition in the OP.
Before I settled on identifying as a switch, for a long time I identified as a service top because it encompassed both my submissive and sadistic inclinations, which were both strong at the time. Also, I admit I liked the looks I got when I freely applied to myself what was essentially a pejorative term. :P
I always found it helpful to use “top” and “bottom” as terms to indicate who is giving or receiving sensation, respectively, while “dom” and “sub” refer to the power dynamics at play. Hence you can be a submissive top or a dominant bottom, or a dominant top/submissive bottom. It adds an additional axis to the available terms for self-identification.
An example from something I wrote back in July: “If I have [my partner] leashed and on his knees licking my clit, he is — according to my understanding — topping by inflicting sensation while I am, in sitting back and luxuriating, exhibiting more passive, bottoming behaviour. But who’s being dominant there? Is it me, sitting in a position of power and giving instructions, or is it him, controlling the responses of my flesh with his tongue? Is it me, because I am performing an act of dominance, or is it him, because he is allowing me to do so?”
Really, the complexities are what make playing with power dynamics so fun!
I think of top and bottom having more to do with positions than power. I think associating topping with dominance is so prevalent it’s pretty much “BDSM-bending” to flip that but they’re distinct to me.
I think of someone “topping from the bottom” more like Snowdrop does, someone who’s agreed to one role yet is constantly, annoyingly trying to enact another.
I wish I could meet these fantastic BDSMers of the Internet, like you and Thomas of Yes means Yes, who seem fictitious to me, rather than the BDSM community I’ve actually interacted with.
I’m submissive but not masochist. Every time I’ve interacted with people who actually identify as “BDSM” I’ve been told I just need to learn to like pain. “Stick with me and I’ll turn you into a pain slut.” Expressing my desires and my limits gets called “topping from the bottom.”
So I’ve given up on the BDSM community, and I seek out people who are curious about the activities but don’t have preconceptions. It’s too bad, as I love the idea of play parties etc., but not if it’s going to involve telling me my desires are wrong and deliberately transgressing my pre-agreed limits once I’m in a vulnerable position.
@Molly: I have also usually understood “service top” to mean somebody who likes to receive service. I’m also curious as t whether these are regional differences or what.
@OP: I think the issue might simply be the use of social norms as a proxy for communicated desires. Basically, we all come to expect certain things about people. When a random person meets a random bottom, they will assume until communication gives extra information, that the random bottom they just met wants “normal” bottom things. Same thing for tops. Many people don’t venture far from that initial assumption and even when they try, many people are bad at communication. (assumption on my part here) As it turns out, if you are a “normal bottom” or a “normal top”, the step where you communicate and establish what you actually want is in a sense already accomplished. So when a communication failure occurs, you fall back on initial assumptions and things work out. But what happens when you fail to communicate with someone who has non-standard desires? Well, when you fall back on initial assumptions, you fail at satisfying each other and everybody leaves in varying degrees of unhappiness. The result is that people who “top from the bottom” or are “service tops” are more likely to be involved in an unhappy scene than “normal” tops or “normal” bottoms ceterus paribus giving them a bad rep. The answer is of course to better communicate with partners so you can both tell them what you need and ask them what they need so you can both be happier.
That’s my $0.02.
This kind of role policing is also a big issue for bi/pansexual types. There can be a lot of “you’re not really into dudes unless you do anal” for bi guys, for example. Because there are top/bottom roles that need to be negotiated in gay sex as well, the level of communication needed can be very high. For example, imagine how difficult it would be to communicate to a first-time or casual partner that you are looking to be submissive and masochistic, and yet still be the ‘top’ when it comes to anal. What would that be called? Bottoming from the top?
Anxiety over being dictated to by “real” gay men on the subject of what I should want is part of why I mostly sleep with women these days.
I love how you play with and discuss the idea of consent. Such an important discussion to have.
@Molly, @alex
I’m based in Australia, but have had a reasonable amount of exposure to the UK scene, and a little in the US and Canada. There are certainly regional variations of dialect, but I’ve not come across service top in any context other than a top who is performing a service for their bottom. I’ve certainly noticed in parts of the US scene, a much stronger focus on protocol and withdrawl from some of the more relaxed and casual approaches to BDSM (chill out, it’s just kinky sex) that are common in the UK and Australia. But I’ve also seen that strong focus on protocol and withdrawl from casual/chilled attitutdes in the local gay men’s scene. I could certainly imagine some of those more protocol heavy environments using service top in the context you’ve mentioned.
@Leo -
I’ve certainly experienced the role policing from gay and bi men – implying that I wasn’t realy into guys because I’m an exclusive top and don’t particularly enjoy giving blow jobs. It’s one of those things that I’ve never understood. I mean I get not being into the dynamic I’m looking to explore if you want a more versatile partner – but if I want to fuck a guy, or have him suck my cock, I might not be into men? how the fuck do they figure?
@Dr. Confused -
I’m being presumptuous about your gender, orientation and interests in general – but if you’re a submissive guy who’s into/open to dominant women, but not a masochist and you want to check out parties, you might want to look into CFNM (clothed female, naked male) tea parties in your area. While not my own area of interest – I know in the area I live in, there are certainly guys who aren’t masochists who go to and enjoy the local CFNM scene and find extensive play/service options in that dynamic that work for them. But I have certainly seen people treat submissive guys who aren’t masochistic as less worthy. I don’t really get that shit either. Some of my longest running D/s dynamics have been with submissive but not masochistic partners. It’s not something I could personally do on a monogamous basis, I’m pretty into hurting people. But it’s still a lot of fun.
@Clarisse – the role policing thing is one of those thigns that really bugs me. I sometimes ‘service top’. This weekend for example I did a needle scene on a friend. My interest in needles is fairly specific/isolated and didn’t really touch on what we were doing in the scene at all. My connection with the friend in question isn’t sexual and the power exchange was limited – he was very much directing the scene despite the fact that he was bottoming to me. It was still a fucking hot scene – but he felt like he had to repeatedly appologize for topping from the bottom – and I had to have a talk with a few people who didn’t realy get how I didn’t feel lesser after being topped from the bottom like that. Such a waste of energy to have to deal with those dramas.
I sometimes object to topping from the bottom, where the negotiated dynamic is for a power exchange. I’ve certainly had scenes where someone wanted to submit to me and I wanted them to be submissive and take my lead (within the negotiatied boundaries of the scene) where I’ve had to either fight for/take control (and make that part of the scene) or just shut the scene down – because my headspace wasn’t right for that kind of dynamic, or because it wasn’t what we had negotiated for and I wasn’t comfortable proceeding without more negotiation. I also certainly know bottoms who will routinely push and push and push and push and demand control and power and not understand why that doesn’t work for their dominant power fetishist partner. And I understand the negativity sometimes directed towards those kinds of topping from the bottom – I just wish there was a better vocabulary for differentiating those acts from negotiated/consensual/awesome situations where the activity bottom is the one directing the scene. And that people were in general not dicks about those kind of situations.
I’ve never encountered “service top” used in more than one way, personally.
Dr. Confused — We may not be as rare as you think? But it depends on your local scene, certainly. And if your local scene hews close to a single, toxic perspective, then I would imagine that other people who think more like you might be driven away as well. There are certainly people in my local scene who I can’t stand, but I do my best to spend time with the ones who have ideals in line with mine.
@Scootah — I see what you’re saying … you’re right that it would be nice to have better vocabulary for it. What would that vocab look like, do you think?
@Clarisse – I don’t really ahve a good proposal. I think there’s probably something around operant conditioning/extinction bursts ( http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/07/07/extinction-burst/ ) in a lot of topping form the bottom.
IE person 1 realizes that they really like submitting, experiencing pain, being restrained and the surrender of control. They find immense reward in that process. They want more. They look for ways to find more – and maybe they find that being bossy, being pushy, demanding, etc, gets them more of that reward. They take an increasingly assertive role in getting their submission high – and without really examining the cognitive dissonance inherent in adopting a domineering manner to gain more rewards as a submissive – they fall into the negatively viewed topping from the bottom thing.
I don’t have a good kink friendly phrase for that, but it certainly sounds like the lead up to an extinction burst.
I generally think of things in separate groups relating to power, pain and positions. At least that’s how I’ve generally seen them used.
Dominant, Submissive, Switch or None
- power
Sadist, Masochist, Sadomasochist or None
- pain
Top, Bottom, Versatile/Switch or None
- positions
There are a number of ways that “topping from the bottom” can occur, such as a person who likes to bottom but isn’t at all submissive, or likes to dominate, or likes to be non-compliant.
Scootah @ #11:
What you describe there sounds like what I understand by the term “Smart Ass Masochist”, which is quite an extreme form of what I understand by “topping from the bottom”.
As for vocabulary, playing with portmanteau words amuses me:
Masochist top (i.e. giving instructions): Map or Mop
Sadist bottom (i.e. following instructions): Sattom or Satom
Dominant bottom (i.e. masochist): Dottom or possibly Masodom
Submissive top (i.e. sadist): Sop, Sup or Sadosub.
So, the possibilities for the person who gets wrongly called “topping from the bottom”, I suggest “Map”, “Mop”, “Dottom” or “Masodom”. Also possible are, of course, “Bop” and “Tottom”.
Scootah, thank you for the suggestions, although I won’t be using it as your assumptions about me aren’t true. (is it the Dr?)
Clarisse, really, thanks for this. It’s motivated me to maybe keep looking for a community that fits better with the ideals that I always see written but never seem to be able to see implemented.
Great post – I myself identify as a topping-bottom, because it was my idea to get my boyfriend into kink with me in the first place. So there are times when I have to suggest stuff strongly.
On the other hand, I would suggest that there are ways and means of getting what you want from a scene – and that means communication after and before the scene, not demanding during!
@Dr. Confused
More the story. Most of the doctor’s I know/engage with professionally are either women, and most of the exceptions wouldn’t be into sexualised events with women present…
I’ve certainly seen a lot of cisgendered, primarily heterosexual men experience difficulty with the submissive but not masochistic role and with people transgressing limits in that regard. It’s a much more rare difficulty (in my experience) for other gender roles.
@SnowdropExplodes – I see Smart Ass Masochists (SAM’s) in a fairly different light. I like brats and SAM’s. I like the challenge and the engagement and the struggle.
I quite like Dottom as a description. A friend of mine is a very scene active guy who’s very well regarded and very fun to play with. But topping him is about the most submissive thing you’ll ever do. He’s absolutely what I’ll think of as a Dottom from now on. Where a SAM is pushy/funny/provocative/taking the piss for giggles, the Dottom is straight up bossy, demanding to extremes, and it’s not a joke. A scene with a SAM will be about mutual wants, or just what the top wants, with the SAM agitating for direction. A scene with the Dottom will be exclusively about what the Dottom wants, and any interests of the top that are met in the scene are largely coincidental. Where the SAM shit talks about what you’re doing wrong to provoke a reaction, the Dottom criticizes, because you’re doing it wrong. Where the SAM tells you that you hit like a girl and asks if you’ve got a bigger flogger somewhere in that bag, the Dottom tells you where to stand, which floggers to use, in what order, for how long, and how hard, and what stroke technique to use.
@ Scootah:
I’ve read some quite sternly-worded criticisms online of using SAM in the sense that you describe, because it confuses consensual with non-consensual behaviour that the authors of those criticisms take as the original or central meaning of the term. It may be something to do with the way I kink generally, that I tend to lean towards agreeing with that criticism. I would be a very bad play partner for the type of SAM that you describe, because the most probable reaction is that I would sulk – partly in order to provoke the reaction that I want, and partly because that kind of play is almost a hard limit for me, and almost certainly not consented to. I see “brat” somewhat differently, as a “boundary-testing” thing rather than a “provoking” thing – more to do with D/s than SM, but I don’t know how well that reflects the common usage. While I can see that some might consent to the SAMmy play you describe, and have seen the term used that way, it is hard for me to appreciate the term positively.
OTOH, I think I might like topping for your Dottom, because I like the sense of orchestration that the description produces. As long as it’s clearly negotiated and agreed beforehand that it is a Dottom/sop scene and I’m the sop, that would be cool for me.
One of my favourites has always been, ‘You’re not really a Switch, you’re just a submissive who hasn’t been trained out of topping from the bottom.’ therefore negating a hefty chunk of my kink identity. Needless to say, I didn’t stick around long after that.
@Scootah & @SnowdropExplodes – my first kinky partner suggested I might be a SAM. Luckily for me he meant it in a positive sense. I’ve always seen being a SAM in a consenual context to be this fantastic self-perpetuating cycle – I’m being a smart-arse because my masochist needs some attention and when it gets that attention, it naturally wants it to continue.
I guess it all really does just come back to negotiation and consent. And that people really don’t fit into nice neat boxes, they’re all sorts of fascinating and unique shapes that you actually have to look at up close.
@Scootah:
Come to think of it, I have usually heard the word “service top” used humorously: Heavy sadists joking about being sweet service tops. So I may have simply misunderstood. Also, the last time I played with someone who self-described as a “service top”, there was no service involved and she was kind and kept asking me what I wanted during the scene so, she was probably using the OP’s definition. I guess that sort of supports my point about mis-communication.
As someone who has spent a lot of time looking VERY closely at his porn and his masturbation (to the point he feels inspired to look at everyone else’s) I might be projecting here, or even oversimplifying, but here goes
BDSM porn is probably more problematic than any other kind specifically because it further confuses the dehumanizing balance factor; thinking ‘they’re just actors’ ruins the arousal so people replace that thought with ‘look what that stupid whore has to subject themselves to, haha.’ I’d imagine this then further exacerbates the omnipresent ‘porn to improve vs porn to replace sex life’ argument.
Perhaps BDSM people need to be that much more conscious of the difference between a partner and a human masturbation tool, seeing as they are that much likely to have tools in bed. ;)
@ ZJSimon:
I’m not sure what that has to do with the topping from the bottom/service top question?
But, just to clarify, I don’t think anyone in BDSM thinks “look what that stupid whore has to subject themselves to, haha.” Because most BDSMers know that bottoming is (or is meant to be) FUN. It’s not “subjecting themselves” to anything, even when it looks to the vanilla mindset as though it’s utterly horrible. It’s them having an experience that is a lot of fun, even though it may involve extreme things like pain, fear (Hey, ever enjoyed riding a roller coaster? Same deal!), humiliation and so on. It’s worth noting that several porn companies, including BDSM-centred ones, now make this explicit by showing before and after sequences as well as the actual events.
ZJSimon, I’m confused by your comment. I’m not sure I understand what you’re trying to say? Also, do you have any personal experience with BDSM yourself?
@Dr. Confused
I had the exact same issue re: masochism vs submission. It was even more confusing because I prefer physical punishment to remain present in the relationship/session as punishment. If anything I’m more (phsyically) sadistic than masochistic myself and I’m attracted to kind, but as a submissive. Tl;dr – I don’t like pain. But I like for her to like causing pain. :) How greedy am I?
This was a frequent point of contention between my wife and I. She’s tougher than I am and likes receiving a little (sometimes more than a little) physical abuse during play. She thought as a sub, mymotivations were leaning towards that end, only more so. It’s been clarified. :)
I was recently counseling a young friend of mine on his relationship and I had to use the phrase “topping from the bottom,” in a negative light. But I explained the negativity was that she didn’t know she was doing it. I’ve since spoken to her too.
@Clarrise
This post is possibly one of my faves so far. :D Love it.
Clarisse, I strongly agree with your sentiment that role-policing is a negative thing. There ought not to be any One True Way to do or be anything sexual. That is how I feel, but at the same time…
Is it not slightly hypocritical to try to police role-policing?
I have a libertarian streak in me, and if I see two attempts to constrain others’ behaviour on moral grounds, one of which (role-policing) is held to be bad, and the other (policing role-policing) to be good, I want to know why! :)
I must also apologise for not reading the previous comments on this post — so it’s possible that the point I’m trying to make has already been raised and answered. If so, sorry everyone! I know it’s lazy, but I just can’t spare the time right now, and I really wanted to reply to a more recent post of Clarisse’s, so she wouldn’t think I’m fixated on her “Questions I Want To Ask Entitled Cis Het Men” page :)
Um, no. Policing people who are policing other people is not hypocritical. Your right to swing your first ends where the other person’s nose begins: it’s kind of the entire principle of justice.
Another way to put it would be that role policers are non-consensually restricting the activities and affecting the experiences of people around them. They can say whatever they want, of course. And certainly, if they want to make assertions about what makes a “real” submissive in the privacy of their homes, then I’m not gonna bother with them. It’s when they role-policers start trying to non-consensually pressure and limit other people that I start having a problem.
But where does persuading end and pressuring begin? Aren’t the people who maintain that there is a One True Way entitled to try to persuade others to adopt their viewpoint, just as we are entitled to try to persuade people that e.g. accepting all consensual expressions of sexuality is the One True Way?
Maybe I’m misunderstanding, but it sounds to me like you want to censor the people in the first group above. I would much prefer it if they didn’t spout their One True Way rubbish, and I admit I don’t even want them to internally think that way, but in the end I think they should be entitled to think and say those things all the same. If someone else expresses disapproval of something I do, they are not “nonconsensually pressuring and limiting” me in my book. I don’t have to get hurt/upset — I can choose not to, and I frequently do.
At what point did I censor them, or even attempt to censor them? I’m saying why I think their viewpoint is toxic and problematic, and I’m saying that I think they make the environment around them worse for other people, and I’m saying that I think their approach has consent problems. But if I ran a venue, then I wouldn’t tell them they couldn’t spout their crap in my venue; although I would certainly tell them I think they’re ridiculous. And if they chose to comment here, I wouldn’t delete their comments.
When you have a different opinion from someone else, you’re normally careful to call out that person’s right to feel the way they feel. In contrast, in your article, you called One True Wayism a “bad, weird dynamic”. From that I inferred that it was something you would shut down if you had the power to do so.
But if you would let One True Wayers advocate their beliefs at meetings you host and on your blog, then I stand corrected. And yes, you’re quite entitled to call them ridiculous or offer other harsh critiques — that’s you exercising *your* right to persuade/pressure others. I think you’d do better (convert more people) with the gentler approach you seem to take with most other differences of opinion, but I could be wrong. There are people in the world who just don’t respond to any amount of patient nudging.
There are some things I have less patience with, for sure. And arguably my patience has gotten shorter over the last year … I’ve had a lot of my work co-opted by people I disagree with, and the amount of trolling I deal with has gone way up, and also I spent a long time researching pickup artists.
Maybe you’re right. I’ll think about it.
@ Tim:
It seems to me that “persuade” implies that there is an open debate about these issues. What I have tended to see with Twueism is that it doesn’t operate in an open exchange of ideas, but seeks to create a hegemonic space in which only their idea is permitted.
Furthermore, “pressure” comes about because people come to a BDSM community or BDSM space at varying levels of development and awareness about their desires, and about how the community is “supposed” to work. That makes it a problem when they are told “you are wrong to like what you like” (which has tended to be the M.O. of One True Way advocates). This language is pressuring someone to be other than they are. While some people do use persuasion language, (e.g. “I believe … because …”) this is not very effective if you want other peope, to accept your One True Way, because the more experienced poly-wayists (for want of a better term!) respond with plenty of examples why they believe differently. If you really want there to be “One True Way”, then you have to state it in terms of absolutes, otherwise other people will pick their own “One True Way” that isn’t yours, and thus you get poly-wayism instead. This is very frustrating (from my observations) for Twueist folks.
I can be tolerant of intolerance as long as the intolerant will tolerate tolerance; but mostly they don’t, and want to shut down tolerance (even other people’s tolerance), and I can’t tolerate that.
Freedom of speech doesn’t imply an obligation for anyone to listen.
I think you might have meant “and ‘dominant’ and ‘sadist’ aren’t always the same thing”.
I was definitely given the impression that both topping from the bottom and being a service top had negative connotations, from both the online and offline communities I engaged in. But, thanks to gentle guidance and advice from one of my partners, I’ve started doing more service topping, and really do get a lot of enjoyment out of it. And, for me personally, it seems like the best way to ease into a more toppy role.
I hate role-policing as well, and really any kind of boxing in and labeling and defining of my sexuality. I also really dislike that, because I have a service-oriented relationship to one of my partners, there is an assumption that I will do acts of service for other members of the community.
@Nell, thanks for the correction — I fixed the post.
First off, I’m really enjoying your blog. This is just one of many really good posts.
I once had a (very hot, but extremely dysfunctional) thing with a guy who would correct me every time I used the word “play” about our scenes (which is the standard phrase used in the scene in my language), because he said that to him it wasn’t a game, it was serious. He didn’t offer an alternative verb, and in the end that attitude effectively shut down any serious discussion about the power dynamics between us.
I am currently in a relationship with a very young man who was almost completely without practical experience, but knew that he is kinky when we met. I’m a submissive masochist, he is a sadomasochist, showing enormous promise as a dominant top with some service top tendencies – he’s very giving, very focused on his partner, but genuinely enjoys power. Because I am older and more experienced than he is, I’ve done a fair bit of something that would probably be called topping from the bottom; I am something of a teacher to him, after all. At this point it’s very much a learning experience to both of us, though, he’s getting really good, both at reading me and steering me. Perhaps we’ll experiment with some sort of service topping from my side at some later point, as well.
I’ve sent quite a few people to this excellent essay, Clarisse.
This post gave me the mental space to come out to myself as:
* A B&D switch
* A D/s top
* An SM switch (in a circumscribed way).
It’s a much more satisfying way of thinking about it than looking at BDSM as a package deal and having to delineate my role, however flexibly, on that basis.