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Thoughts on Switching: Dom/Top/submissive/bottom? - 12/23/2006 2:02:37 PM   
Bearlee


Posts: 2311
Joined: 10/25/2004
From: South Central CO
Status: offline 		I mentioned in another thread that today seems to be the day for deep discussion!  I love it; makes me think, yanno?  This is something I just sent a friend:
 
As far as most couples into BDSM following the ‘natural order’  (MaleDom+FemaleSub)  …I just don’t see it.  A good portion of the couples I know are same-sex…and another are Domme’s with male partners… submissive or slave.  What I mean is, they’re not ProDoms with the pet of the week; they’re all couples.
 
I do agree with you though, that an M/s relationship doesn’t seem any more intense as a D/s relationship, but I’m guessing most of them do look ‘watered-down’ a bit.  We do live in a vanilla world and we all have lives to live…money to earn, homes to keep, children to rear, friends to enjoy.  One cannot keep her boy shackled to the basement floor ALL the time, now can she?
 
While I’ve never had a live-in relationship with any of the boys I’ve played with…I have had a couple in ongoing relationships.  So, yes…I can see me as the one who is dominant.  And, while I feel completely comfortable asking or telling them to do just about anything …spanking/flogging/whipping me is something I’d never ask.  See…for me those activities are playful examples of of Dominance but not necessarily dominance (Topping, perhaps?  LOL)  It is the power exchange I can’t see trying to get around; it’d never work for me.  For me, either a person is Dominant or submissive…or vanilla.  Well, or Top/bottom <grins>  It would take ‘the conscious suspension of reality’ to kick in big time to override my belief that my boy could actually Dom me…and that I’d buy it. 
 
Still…I do know people who switch and I’m not saying I couldn’t.  Right now, I just don’t think I could get my head around it.  That does not mean to say that I couldn’t include a bunch of kinky, sexual things with my Dom that I just don’t see having TPE-energy in them; watersports, all manner of ass play, strapping, sensual play, dress-up and so on.
 
Okay…having said all that…I am a submissive who Tops.  I don’t really see myself as all that much of a Domme (though for some reason many people do…go figure)   I also know several serious Dom/mes (every one into TPE and Sadistic as hell), who occasionally enjoy bottoming.  Could a girl like me Top a Dom like that?  I wonder…  I might like it, even! 
 
Wow…talk about trust, huh?  What are your thoughts?
beverly

edited to fix:  "..an M/s relationship doesn’t seem any more intense as a D/s relationship..."  Thank you akbarbarian, it was a typo. 

< Message edited by Bearlee -- 12/23/2006 2:44:04 PM >
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RE: Thoughts on Switching: Dom/Top/submissive/bottom? - 12/23/2006 2:26:07 PM   
MasterFireMaam


Posts: 5587
Joined: 3/1/2006
From: Charleston, WV
Status: offline 		There's a school of thought that says that Top/bottom are physical roles, Dom/sub are mental roles and Master/slave are spritual roles...and that they can be combined in any number of ways. Works for me.

Master Fire


_____________________________

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RE: Thoughts on Switching: Dom/Top/submissive/bottom? - 12/23/2006 2:36:27 PM   
akbarbarian


Posts: 596
Joined: 12/19/2006
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Bearlee
I do agree with you though, that an M/s relationship doesn’t seem as intense as a D/s relationship,

Huh what?  First I saw someone saying D/s isn't part of BDSM even though it was being discussed in a General BDSM Discussion thread.  That seemed baffling enough.  Now M/s as in Master/slave isn't as intense as Dominant/submissive?  Tell me being a Master with a slave isn't a dominant person with a submissive partner to the extreme.  Please.  BDSM still means Bondage+Discipline, Dominance+Submission, Sadism+Masochism right?  That hasn't changed?  Master/slave is a way of expressing D/s, yes?

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RE: Thoughts on Switching: Dom/Top/submissive/bottom? - 12/23/2006 2:44:48 PM   
Bearlee


Posts: 2311
Joined: 10/25/2004
From: South Central CO
Status: offline 		 
 
Yes, I couldn't agree more...  it was a typo.  Sorry for the confusion.
b

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RE: Thoughts on Switching: Dom/Top/submissive/bottom? - 12/23/2006 2:50:21 PM   
akbarbarian


Posts: 596
Joined: 12/19/2006
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Bearlee

 
 
Yes, I couldn't agree more...  it was a typo.  Sorry for the confusion.
b

Ok my confusion was reaching a peak, thanks for clearing that up.

_____________________________

Out and proud as a dominant male
United we stand!
Also:Not a service top!
Heretic of Gor

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RE: Thoughts on Switching: Dom/Top/submissive/bottom? - 12/23/2006 2:53:53 PM   
mstrjx


Posts: 2045
Joined: 11/27/2005
Status: offline 		I think when people speak about natural order, they are describing something along the lines of the 50's style relationship.  The man is the breadwinner, the woman stays home, the man grunts, the woman obeys.

Now, we all know that most women work these days, so this doesn't exactly hold true any longer.  But, in seeing people post here, in organizations that I have belonged to in the past, and in seeing couples at munches, many or most don't seem to have power-exchange type relationships.  They just follow what, for them, is the way people are supposed to be everywhere.  Men make the rules, women follow them.  That is their definition of a power exchange.

My personal beliefs for my own behavior has never been this way.  Although I have been dominant in all of my D/s or M/s relationships, it has always been because the two people involved (me and the partner for that set of months/years) decided that that is how we would organize our relationship.  We didn't follow a traditional relationship and call it D/s.  We lived it.  Restraints, toys, tools of pain, the works.

I can't imagine a relationship any other way.

I believe that some people call themselves M/s when they really are just in a traditional relationship.  I don't necessarily see the power exchanged.

Jeff

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RE: Thoughts on Switching: Dom/Top/submissive/bottom? - 12/23/2006 3:05:58 PM   
MaryT


Posts: 553
Joined: 12/8/2006
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: mstrjx

I think when people speak about natural order, they are describing something along the lines of the 50's style relationship.


What they are actually doing is perpetuating the teachings of St. Augustine, though most of them probably don't know it.

MaryT



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RE: Thoughts on Switching: Dom/Top/submissive/bottom? - 12/23/2006 3:31:07 PM   
Grlwithboy


Posts: 655
Joined: 2/8/2005
Status: offline 		As I see it, life is long and butterflies come from little wormy things that don't look like butterflies at all, frogs come from cute fishy looking stuff - I know that my identity was in flux through my 20's, though I suspect a part of me always thought I'd land where I've landed, Dominant, able to acknowledge that periodically we all should probably have our moms spank us.

When looking for said spanking, I've always meshed best with switches /subs-who-can-top-wickedly to get the itch scratched - there's something really re-assuring to a D that we're bottoming to someone whose main agenda is that we have a good time.

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RE: Thoughts on Switching: Dom/Top/submissive/bottom? - 12/23/2006 3:50:11 PM   
Bearlee


Posts: 2311
Joined: 10/25/2004
From: South Central CO
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Grlwithboy

...I'd land where I've landed, Dominant, able to acknowledge that periodically we all should probably have our moms spank us.

When looking for said spanking, I've always meshed best with switches /subs-who-can-top-wickedly to get the itch scratched - there's something really re-assuring to a D that we're bottoming to someone whose main agenda is that we have a good time. 


OMG...that's PERFECT!!!   The light came on... 
 
Soooooo a switch 'could' be a submissive who Tops...even her Dominant, sometimes?  Now THAT I could do...I think.  I just don't really want to take over that control and authority thang!  My power-exchange would end up all messed over.
 
beverly

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RE: Thoughts on Switching: Dom/Top/submissive/bottom? - 12/23/2006 3:54:39 PM   
Focus50


Posts: 3962
Joined: 12/28/2004
From: Newcastle, Australia
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: mstrjx

I think when people speak about natural order, they are describing something along the lines of the 50's style relationship.  The man is the breadwinner, the woman stays home, the man grunts, the woman obeys.

Personally, when I think of the "natural order", I think of something much more primal than a different generation.  I mean, the feminists have had so much fun maligning men as hunters and gatherers and even "knuckle dragging Neanderthals" who get their females by clubbing and dragging them back to their caves etc.... lol
 
Natural order has always been that men are predominantly the explorers, inventors and captains of industry etc; the ones who take charge and make decisions.  I reckon if you put a hundred couples in a lush valley on a distant planet with all their worldly needs, ninety of the women would say "this is perfect, we'll live here" and ninety of the men would say "I wonder what's over that mountain...."
 
Sure a lot has changed in today's "civilised" world with female managers and CEOs etc but when natural disasters occur and things are thrown back to a primal law of the jungle and survival of the fittest status, it'll always be men at the top of the pecking order - for better AND worse.
 
Almost all successful men have a devoted and supportive woman in the background - that's the "natural order" to me.  Note: Solely the opinion of a hetero male and self confessed control freak.
 
Focus.

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RE: Thoughts on Switching: Dom/Top/submissive/bottom? - 12/23/2006 3:59:09 PM   
Grlwithboy


Posts: 655
Joined: 2/8/2005
Status: offline 		A switch could be a million variants, really -- I started out one of those very 50/50 gung ho omnisexual I'll try anything once people and to a degree I still envy those players - I'm just not that.  I think if you have a really strong primary identity, it's fine to go with that, the shades of gray are sometimes just personality and how we express it.  In my eyes you're no less sub because you happen to have the skills to top. For me that's a desireable skill set in a submissive, for others it's not - same could be said of bootblacking, doing windows, or tying cherry stems with your tongue. :)

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RE: Thoughts on Switching: Dom/Top/submissive/bottom? - 12/23/2006 4:04:47 PM   
akbarbarian


Posts: 596
Joined: 12/19/2006
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: mstrjx

I think when people speak about natural order, they are describing something along the lines of the 50's style relationship.  The man is the breadwinner, the woman stays home, the man grunts, the woman obeys.

Now, we all know that most women work these days, so this doesn't exactly hold true any longer.  But, in seeing people post here, in organizations that I have belonged to in the past, and in seeing couples at munches, many or most don't seem to have power-exchange type relationships.  They just follow what, for them, is the way people are supposed to be everywhere.  Men make the rules, women follow them.  That is their definition of a power exchange.

My personal beliefs for my own behavior has never been this way.  Although I have been dominant in all of my D/s or M/s relationships, it has always been because the two people involved (me and the partner for that set of months/years) decided that that is how we would organize our relationship.  We didn't follow a traditional relationship and call it D/s.  We lived it.  Restraints, toys, tools of pain, the works.

I can't imagine a relationship any other way.

I believe that some people call themselves M/s when they really are just in a traditional relationship.  I don't necessarily see the power exchanged.

Jeff

This seems mighty common actually.  I want more than this.  50s lifestyle, Donna reed, it sounds cute but cute to me like pony play.  It's not my main kink, and certainly not the limit of my interest.

_____________________________

Out and proud as a dominant male
United we stand!
Also:Not a service top!
Heretic of Gor

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RE: Thoughts on Switching: Dom/Top/submissive/bottom? - 12/23/2006 4:07:31 PM   
Grlwithboy


Posts: 655
Joined: 2/8/2005
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Focus50

quote:

ORIGINAL: mstrjx

I think when people speak about natural order, they are describing something along the lines of the 50's style relationship.  The man is the breadwinner, the woman stays home, the man grunts, the woman obeys.

Personally, when I think of the "natural order", I think of something much more primal than a different generation.  I mean, the feminists have had so much fun maligning men as hunters and gatherers and even "knuckle dragging Neanderthals" who get their females by clubbing and dragging them back to their caves etc.... lol
 
Natural order has always been that men are predominantly the explorers, inventors and captains of industry etc; the ones who take charge and make decisions.  I reckon if you put a hundred couples in a lush valley on a distant planet with all their worldly needs, ninety of the women would say "this is perfect, we'll live here" and ninety of the men would say "I wonder what's over that mountain...."
 
Sure a lot has changed in today's "civilised" world with female managers and CEOs etc but when natural disasters occur and things are thrown back to a primal law of the jungle and survival of the fittest status, it'll always be men at the top of the pecking order - for better AND worse.
 
Almost all successful men have a devoted and supportive woman in the background - that's the "natural order" to me.  Note: Solely the opinion of a hetero male and self confessed control freak.
 
Focus.


Most societies we consider "primitive" have elaborate hierarchies along single sex lines and according to AGE over sex.  The old women, rather than being cast aside as completely irrelevant have a lot more directing power than the newly initiated males.

Most of these cultures have a "men and women are separate but fulfill equally critical roles" understanding.  This isn't revisionist, these are pretty Leakey era basics and come from interviews with the subjects in question.

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RE: Thoughts on Switching: Dom/Top/submissive/bottom? - 12/23/2006 4:10:53 PM   
akbarbarian


Posts: 596
Joined: 12/19/2006
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Bearlee

quote:

ORIGINAL: Grlwithboy

...I'd land where I've landed, Dominant, able to acknowledge that periodically we all should probably have our moms spank us.

When looking for said spanking, I've always meshed best with switches /subs-who-can-top-wickedly to get the itch scratched - there's something really re-assuring to a D that we're bottoming to someone whose main agenda is that we have a good time. 


OMG...that's PERFECT!!!   The light came on... 
 
Soooooo a switch 'could' be a submissive who Tops...even her Dominant, sometimes?  Now THAT I could do...I think.  I just don't really want to take over that control and authority thang!  My power-exchange would end up all messed over.
 
beverly

I submitted, not just bottomed but submitted to my ex for a few days once upon a time.  It was meant to be a teaching experience, because she tended not to understand how I felt as a dominant.  I learned a few additional things about what a submissive deals with as well.  I'm really not very switchy so it took alot of willpower to do, but it was worth the experience.  Since I'm pretty forceful, I was able to get her butt in gear and paddle me.  I made fun of her till she got mad   Ouch!  That got the ball rolling.

_____________________________

Out and proud as a dominant male
United we stand!
Also:Not a service top!
Heretic of Gor

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RE: Thoughts on Switching: Dom/Top/submissive/bottom? - 12/23/2006 4:16:44 PM   
Bearlee


Posts: 2311
Joined: 10/25/2004
From: South Central CO
Status: offline 		Okay, we're almost getting away from my original questions about switching.  HOW is it that someone who enjoys the power exchange; (in my case giving control and authority to another) just up and flip it?
 
I DO understand someone can BE both sides of the same coin; I am both very submissive AND a pretty good Top with a nice little sadistic streak.
 
I'm unable to get how someone can be both Dominant and submissive to the same person...which of course includes GETTING both submission and Dominance from that same person.  I dunno...it just upsets my nice little applecart.  (till Gilwithboy said what SHE said!  LOL).
 
What are your thoughs on flipping the power exchange with the same person?
 
I enjoyed this:
quote:

ORIGINAL: MasterFireMaam

There's a school of thought that says that Top/bottom are physical roles, Dom/sub are mental roles and Master/slave are spritual roles...and that they can be combined in any number of ways. Works for me.

Perhaps this is why I get that maybe I could just help scratch my Dom's itch?  Maybe I could Top my Dom and have a blast doing it...but IS that really flipping the power exchange?  I wonder...
 

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RE: Thoughts on Switching: Dom/Top/submissive/bottom? - 12/23/2006 6:55:47 PM   
Littlepita


Posts: 1430
Joined: 10/6/2005
Status: offline 		My Master and I switched one weekend not long ago. It was a great learning experience. We were both so good in the roles that I actually almost had a panic attack thinking he would want to switch permanently and that I would lose my Daddy! Funny thing was that he was having the same concerns about me. What we discovered was that I'm a pretty good Top, but no dominant, and that he is capable of bottoming really well as long as he focuses hard on not taking control back. It was fun and we will do it again.

_____________________________

“I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naive or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman.” – Anais Nin

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RE: Thoughts on Switching: Dom/Top/submissive/bottom? - 12/23/2006 7:20:14 PM   
Lashra


Posts: 4900
Joined: 2/9/2006
Status: offline 		I don't believe that there is a "natural order" other then the ones that we (society)makes for ourselves. I've always been dominant, very naturally so. I hunt, I fish , I work. In fact I own my own company. I am the head of household and the decision maker. My business is home construction, a mostly male profession to which I took too like a fish to water. The "natural order" doesn't apply to me and a bunch of other dominant females and submales. I suppose we are the oddballs, or are we? Perhaps we are just people doing what comes "naturally" to us.

I am a dominant female and sometimes I like to bottom, yet I give no submission to my submale. I tell him what it is that I want and how I want it done. He does this because I tell him too and he desires to please me. I am in control at all times.

I know people have trouble figuring out how this all happens but without making it all complicated, it just does and it works for us. There is a power exchange going on and it is Me controlling him while he wields the whip. It is just as powerful as when I hold the whip in My hand and apply it to his backside.

I agree that alot of marriages seem to be D/s watered down. That is one reason why I am divorced. The man I was married to after we took the vows decided he wanted to be topdog and I wasn't going to have it.  He knew before I married him that I was dominant and independent. He said he loved that in a woman. But after we got married he suddenly changed and wanted an old fashioned marriage like his parents had. Amazing how that happens, huh? So after a few years of horrible fights, my suffering a stroke and him nearly driving us bankrupt, I'd had enough and I tossed him out. I will never let a man do that to me again, it simply isnt worth it. I love my current relationship it is exactly what I want and need.

~Lashra


_____________________________

“We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation. It's one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it's another to think that yours is the only path.”






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RE: Thoughts on Switching: Dom/Top/submissive/bottom? - 12/23/2006 7:21:41 PM   
Bearlee


Posts: 2311
Joined: 10/25/2004
From: South Central CO
Status: offline 		So...I just caught a piece of Dateline...where they caught up with some sexual predators they'd busted awhile ago. 
 
One of primary interest was a 50+ year old Rabbi…coming to meet a young teenager.
 
His situation made me think of how hard I’m trying to describe my inability to understand ‘switching’.  By switching, I mean flip-flopping D/s with the same person.  (Yes, I now understand it might mean more or something different than that; but for this post, I’m just trying to say where I was coming from before I talked to or read posts from several people.  Okay?)
 
Anyway, I thought in the same way that a ‘real man of God’…like a Rabbi…could ‘switch’ and become a child molester…well, he must be either one or the other…and just playing at what he projects to his prey. 
 
In the same way I can’t imagine a Dominant being submissive to the one they dominate; I can’t  believe a man of God could also be a child molester.  It just does not make sense. 
 
Okay…really radical example; but it works for me. 
 
Now…Topping a Dom…I’m finding that could be yet another delightful story!  WEG
 
I hope all this makes sense…and if all my ‘musings’ have caused any discomfort…I really am sorry.  I’m just kinda thinkin’ out loud here.
 
beverly
 

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RE: Thoughts on Switching: Dom/Top/submissive/bottom? - 12/23/2006 7:33:21 PM   
Bearlee


Posts: 2311
Joined: 10/25/2004
From: South Central CO
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Lashra
...The "natural order" doesn't apply to me and a bunch of other dominant females and submales. I suppose we are the oddballs...

Nawwwwwwwwwwwww...  yer just in that top 10% mentioned earlier!!!!
quote:

I am a dominant female and sometimes I like to bottom, yet I give no submission to my submale. I tell him what it is that I want and how I want it done. He does this because I tell him too and he desires to please me. I am in control at all times.
 
Sooooooooooooo...You're the Dominant, yet he occasionally Tops you! 
 
heh heh heh...I got it now!       ...and I'm thinkin I love it!  OMG

quote:

...but after we got married he suddenly changed and wanted an old fashioned marriage like his parents had. Amazing how that happens, huh?

Not really, sounds like the stuff most of us (especially me) have been through more than once. I'm thinking it goes right back to not PLANNING!  (but that's just me, Maam!)  <giggles>
quote:

So after a few years of horrible fights, my suffering a stroke and him nearly driving us bankrupt, I'd had enough and I tossed him out. ... I love my current relationship it is exactly what I want and need.

awwwwwwwwwwwww...I had no idea how magnificent you are, Lashra.  WOW  Good for you!
beverly

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RE: Thoughts on Switching: Dom/Top/submissive/bottom? - 12/23/2006 7:46:26 PM   
mistoferin


Posts: 8284
Joined: 10/27/2004
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: akbarbarian
BDSM still means Bondage+Discipline, Dominance+Submission, Sadism+Masochism right?  That hasn't changed?  Master/slave is a way of expressing D/s, yes?


LOL...it does now....to some...but didn't always. Dominance and submission were not a part of the original meaning of the acronym and there are still some of us old timers who view BDSM as being about actions and not about relationship dynamics.

As to the OP....I'm finding this thread interesting. I have never really been able to relate to the whole idea of switching myself. Not that I think it's wrong in some way...just that I can't see myself ever doing it. Oh I tried to Top once for a scene....and even doing that just felt really yucky to me. Started out giggling and just feeling out of place...kind of like trying to wear someone else's shoes...and ended up in tears and just feeling all out bad about the whole thing. For me....and I stress that "for me" part.....there really is a natural order and it doesn't have anything to do with hunting, fishing, camping, chopping wood, changing your own oil or owning your own business....I do all of those things and they don't make me Dominant in the least.

_____________________________

Peace and light,
~erin~

There are no victims here...only volunteers.

When you make a habit of playing on the tracks, you thereby forfeit the right to bitch when you get hit by a train.

"I did it! I admit it and I'm gonna do it again!"

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