numbers anyone?

[00Syd]

Personally, I think her statement is largely spot on. The first reason is that she is portraying it as someone coming from the queer world into a largely hetero board, and seeing how the words are used differently. By my read, it is more of an observation than a judgement.

I think it would be interesting to have a discussion as to why this is, why the queer and het communities use these terms differently, but this board has so few queer voices that I have the feeling that discussion would turn into a circular wank-fest with any dissenting voices lost in the muddle.

 

[Claire73]

I think it would be interesting to have a discussion as to why this is, why the queer and het communities use these terms differently, but this board has so few queer voices that I have the feeling that discussion would turn into a circular wank-fest with any dissenting voices lost in the muddle.

Top/bottom sounds too average to the average heterosexual, so D/s is preffered.
Queers are used to being "not average", so they are more likely to use the correct terminology.

??
I'm just taking a wild guess, as i have no idea, but do like to hear other opinions.

 

[seela]

Here the terms top and bottom are used almost exclusively for gay men and don't have anything to do with BDSM per se. Some, very few, people use the terms top and bottom in the D/s sense, but most often you would just get blank stares if you used the terms here.

The funny thing is that for some the Finnish words alistava (dominant) and alistuva (submissive) seem to have more of a function of Dominant and submissive and the English equivalents, which are also used in Finnish speech, seem to be more like Top and bottom. I suppose the Finnish words are more serious and the English words more flippant, or something

I never bother really defining what I am. I'm a big fan of pyl.

 

[PhaonsBrother]

A previous post reminds me that "Pussy Fucking" is a stupid label.

 

[Netzach]

I come out of a primarily queer leather world, though pansexual and sex-mixed it is queer majority - and T/b are the catch-all terms. There's obviously room for a a bottom to be a boy a slave a puppy a little bitch or a bootblack, it's just that the M/s and D/s connotations are like the embellishments on the identity "bottom."

It *is* the hetero scene that made bottoming "a purely physical decision ONLY" and privileged the mental so fucking much over the physical that I find it becomes absurd at times- I find the leather-oriented players recognize the gray areas more and really see powerplay as more of a scene-by-scene person-by-person negotiable. You can bottom with NO powerplay, or some, or a ton.

I also think this has to do with the more comfortable commonality of families and hierarchies.

You will find fewer switches but many more Mistresses or Masters who will refer to "my Owner." No eye bats or perplexity ensues at all, and no one would dream of treating this woman as anything other than "Mistress/Master/Daddy/Mommy so and so."

Almost everyone you meet has bottomed and almost everyone accepting service is in it actively to someone or has been. There is much less a sense of your identity as being fixed eternally, rather than fixed in relation to any other individual - aha.

 

[00Syd]

I come out of a primarily queer leather world, though pansexual and sex-mixed it is queer majority - and T/b are the catch-all terms. There's obviously room for a a bottom to be a boy a slave a puppy a little bitch or a bootblack, it's just that the M/s and D/s connotations are like the embellishments on the identity "bottom."

It *is* the hetero scene that made bottoming "a purely physical decision ONLY" and privileged the mental so fucking much over the physical that I find it becomes absurd at times- I find the leather-oriented players recognize the gray areas more and really see powerplay as more of a scene-by-scene person-by-person negotiable. You can bottom with NO powerplay, or some, or a ton.

I also think this has to do with the more comfortable commonality of families and hierarchies.

You will find fewer switches but many more Mistresses who will refer to "my Owner." Almost everyone you meet has bottomed and almost everyone accepting service is in it actively to someone or has been. There is much less a sense of your identity as being fixed eternally, rather than fixed in relation to any other individual - aha.

Sorta off topic, but did I tell you that we went and took a day trip to IML while we were at Shibaricon? HOLY CRAP what an awesome scene.

 

[Netzach]

Sorta off topic, but did I tell you that we went and took a day trip to IML while we were at Shibaricon? HOLY CRAP what an awesome scene.

Noooo, oh yeah. Very very awesome scene. M has done so, I have not, I wish to. I also have eyes for IMSL.

 

[00Syd]

Noooo, oh yeah. Very very awesome scene. M has done so, I have not, I wish to. I also have eyes for IMSL.

It was intense. Thousands of leather-men in their Sunday best walking around looking/being awesome (and tons of hot leather-dudes with their asses hanging out, the best eye candy ever). I don't have a lot of connections to the leather scene, but I wish I did. What a thing. Next year (assuming we go back), I want to try and go check out the leather archives and museum.

And the vendor area was huge and full of excellent things. I bought my first dildo there (no idea why it took me this long) from a very good looking and shirtless young man.

What does the S in IMSL stand for?

 

[Netzach]

It was intense. Thousands of leather-men in their Sunday best walking around looking/being awesome (and tons of hot leather-dudes with their asses hanging out, the best eye candy ever). I don't have a lot of connections to the leather scene, but I wish I did. What a thing. Next year (assuming we go back), I want to try and go check out the leather archives and museum.

And the vendor area was huge and full of excellent things. I bought my first dildo there (no idea why it took me this long) from a very good looking and shirtless young man.

What does the S in IMSL stand for?

International MS Leather

 

[Stella_Omega]

I come out of a primarily queer leather world, though pansexual and sex-mixed it is queer majority - and T/b are the catch-all terms. There's obviously room for a a bottom to be a boy a slave a puppy a little bitch or a bootblack, it's just that the M/s and D/s connotations are like the embellishments on the identity "bottom."

It *is* the hetero scene that made bottoming "a purely physical decision ONLY" and privileged the mental so fucking much over the physical that I find it becomes absurd at times- I find the leather-oriented players recognize the gray areas more and really see powerplay as more of a scene-by-scene person-by-person negotiable. You can bottom with NO powerplay, or some, or a ton.

I also think this has to do with the more comfortable commonality of families and hierarchies.

You will find fewer switches but many more Mistresses or Masters who will refer to "my Owner." No eye bats or perplexity ensues at all, and no one would dream of treating this woman as anything other than "Mistress/Master/Daddy/Mommy so and so."

Almost everyone you meet has bottomed and almost everyone accepting service is in it actively to someone or has been. There is much less a sense of your identity as being fixed eternally, rather than fixed in relation to any other individual - aha.

This. And those.

This forum is really the first heteronormative BDSm community I have ever spent much time at-- these things are really visible to me.

And heirarchy-- in the queer scenes I have been part of, you will find that A bottoms and answers to B, and both of them bottom and answer to C-- who may very well bottom for, but not answer to, A.

 

[00Syd]

International MS Leather

Oh yeah, duh. Thanks.

 

[Netzach]

Stella, I doubt if you meant it this way, but your final sentence sounds very condescending to my ears.

I do wonder about the way folks seem to use the terms "dominant" and "submission" somewhat more broadly than a stickler for the dominant/top - submissive/bottom distinctions might like. Perhaps it's as simple as being an expression of the same kind of language evolution that has turned "amateur" into the loose equivalent of "unskilled" which I blame on the presence of professional athletes in the Olympics.

It's also possible that "submission" may seem to carry a more romantic connotation than does "bottom."

Know what's condescending to mine?

"Top and bottom refers to purely physical transient exchange, D/s refers to our elevated mentally engaged hoo ha" which is the call of the pan hetero participant on this topic.

When Top and bottom were prefectly FINE for decades among my peeps, no confusion, no need to differentiate your level of "real" submission versus mere bottoming - because there was none assumed or not assumed. Now, suddenly, we need to improve our vocabulary?

I actually feel as though there is a current of homophobia in the distinction, that may no longer be present because it's been around for so long but sure as shit I think it was a subtle 'phobic thing when people really started making the point - so that it was clear we DON'T do the same thing those fags do in some measure.

 

[00Syd]

This forum is really the first heteronormative BDSm community I have ever spent much time at-- these things are really visible to me.

It's funny, because this is the first BDSM community I ever spent much tome at, and so everything that went on around here seemed pretty spot-on and normal for a long time. But then as I ventured out into the real-life scene I encountered so much more diversity of thought/orientation/person/being/everything that now the het-normative-ness of this board, and the ideas/terminology/assumptions that go along with that, are very apparent to me, where they weren't before.

I think it's really interesting to think about the differences in the queer/het BDSM scenes. I don't think it's strange that there is a difference, because of course there's a difference, but the sheer amount of difference is weird to me. I'm still getting used to navigating between the two communities because of that.

 

[Netzach]

It's funny, because this is the first BDSM community I ever spent much tome at, and so everything that went on around here seemed pretty spot-on and normal for a long time. But then as I ventured out into the real-life scene I encountered so much more diversity of thought/orientation/person/being/everything that now the het-normative-ness of this board, and the ideas/terminology/assumptions that go along with that, are very apparent to me, where they weren't before.

I think it's really interesting to think about the differences in the queer/het BDSM scenes. I don't think it's strange that there is a difference, because of course there's a difference, but the sheer amount of difference is weird to me. I'm still getting used to navigating between the two communities because of that.

I've found both to be as diverse as the other - I think the main difference is in hierarchies being common and a few old protocol things which are totally optional, and most of all this more contextual and relaxed feeling about the specifics of your T/b feelings so that there's less emphasis on buzzwords. With the exception of "slave" which people are pretty serious about - also I find the emphasis in slavery tends to be more on what you do for your owner and less on the degree to which your owner limits and curtails your power and more about the potential for the owner to override any decision at any time but otherwise this kind of high-functioning service dedication. Slavery is *highly active* in its concept more often than *highly passive* but I've seen both. I think the more hetero scene has a passive fantasy of slavery more commonly (whether M/f or F/m fantasizing, interestingly) and both active and passive versions enacted.

 

[JMohegan]

Top/bottom sounds too average to the average heterosexual, so D/s is preffered.
Queers are used to being "not average", so they are more likely to use the correct terminology.

??
I'm just taking a wild guess, as i have no idea, but do like to hear other opinions.

In real life, if orientation is the topic of discussion, I introduce myself as a "guy with control issues" or a "control freak." I am totally uninterested in cultural BDSM.

Among the real life people I've spoken to, the overwhelming majority of heterosexual fans of pain play and power play ID as neither T/b nor D/s. Therefore, I'd say that the "average" just thinks of power and pain as a natural part of sex. They don't want labels, and don't see a need for them, either.

 

[Netzach]

In real life, if orientation is the topic of discussion, I introduce myself as a "guy with control issues" or a "control freak." I am totally uninterested in cultural BDSM.

Among the real life people I've spoken to, the overwhelming majority of heterosexual fans of pain play and power play ID as neither T/b nor D/s. Therefore, I'd say that the "average" just thinks of power and pain as a natural part of sex. They don't want labels, and don't see a need for them, either.

That works for M/f orientations.

You may luck out if you are the opposite, but I don't think a lot of people do. I know there are women who sure as hell don't ID with the weirdo circus of F/m cultural SM, but also can't find partners who don't think they're nuts or fetishiize them instantly.

If there was a "natural part of sex" for me to hide out in, I'd still be there, probably. If I'd met M in my twenties instead of my ex, maybe. Some of the weirdo stuff works well for me, but I view that as a happy alignment, and sometimes it's way too weird.

 

[midwestyankee]

Know what's condescending to mine?

"Top and bottom refers to purely physical transient exchange, D/s refers to our elevated mentally engaged hoo ha" which is the call of the pan hetero participant on this topic.

When Top and bottom were prefectly FINE for decades among my peeps, no confusion, no need to differentiate your level of "real" submission versus mere bottoming - because there was none assumed or not assumed. Now, suddenly, we need to improve our vocabulary?

I actually feel as though there is a current of homophobia in the distinction, that may no longer be present because it's been around for so long but sure as shit I think it was a subtle 'phobic thing when people really started making the point - so that it was clear we DON'T do the same thing those fags do in some measure.

This is fascinating. Like Syd, this is home base for me and discussions of bdsm and such. It's easy to think that what you learned at the beginning of any new venture is the the gospel.

I've been aware of the dominance is for minds and topping is for bodies distinction and took it as meaningful. I would guess that my first contact with this notion was probably one of the seminal books (i.e., SM101 or The Loving Dominant) that I read early on.

I'm listening, folks. And I'm glad there's a shot at some real learning here - at least for me.

 

[JMohegan]

That works for M/f orientations.

You may luck out if you are the opposite, but I don't think a lot of people do. I know there are women who sure as hell don't ID with the weirdo circus of F/m cultural SM, but also can't find partners who don't think they're nuts or fetishiize them instantly.

If there was a "natural part of sex" for me to hide out in, I'd still be there, probably. If I'd met M in my twenties instead of my ex, maybe.

That last sentence makes sense.

Overall, I don't know. When I talk to guys one on one, a lot of the posturing falls away. And there seem to be a fair number of guys who enjoy a female partner taking charge, tying him up, teasing, spanking, etc. Quite a few who are eager to experiment and add that to the sexual menu, far fewer who *need* that on a regular basis.

But I would not describe you, Netzach, as "average." For one thing, humiliation play seems a lot rarer than pain & power play in the population at large.

I wouldn't describe myself as average, either. The reason I describe myself as a guy with control issues is because that is exactly what I am.

 

[Stella_Omega]

This is my kneejerk reaction;

But I would not describe you, Netzach, as "average."

Of course not. She's a woman who doesn't bottom from the top. And you are hetero, with two thousand years of assumptions about the ways women act, back there in your brain.

I wouldn't describe myself as average, either. The reason I describe myself as a guy with control issues is because that is exactly what I am.

And that makes you... incredibly average, to my queer eyes, sorry. A top is far rarer.

 

[JMohegan]

This is my kneejerk reaction; Of course not. She's a woman who doesn't bottom from the top. And you are hetero, with two thousand years of assumptions about the ways women act, back there in your brain. And that makes you... incredibly average, to my queer eyes, sorry. A top is far rarer.

No need to apologize. I am totally uninterested in kinky one-upsmanship, and don't have a need to feel as if my sexual orientation is "rare."

I think you missed my point, however. In addressing heterosexual orientations only, I made the point that most hetero folks who embrace power & pain play, as part of their sexual menus, ID as neither T/b nor D/s. So I've already agreed with you, that hetero Tops are rarer than hetero folks who embrace no labels.

 

[Netzach]

This is fascinating. Like Syd, this is home base for me and discussions of bdsm and such. It's easy to think that what you learned at the beginning of any new venture is the the gospel.

I've been aware of the dominance is for minds and topping is for bodies distinction and took it as meaningful. I would guess that my first contact with this notion was probably one of the seminal books (i.e., SM101 or The Loving Dominant) that I read early on.

I'm listening, folks. And I'm glad there's a shot at some real learning here - at least for me.

Yeah, it's not that that part of the world is bad or anything, it's just that what JM calls "cultural SM" has as its counterpart what I think of as "cultural leather" which has this big ol' gay antecedent. It's weird figuring out to what degree the SM mainstream is derivative of that and also NOT remotely derivative of that. It's fascinating stuff. Protocol and whether it's uniform or completely individual is one issue: if I am at a women's event and I see a girl with her Daddy (f) I will instinctively communicate solely with the Daddy even if I'm friends with the girl, unless and until social cues tell me they're not in high protocol. I'll "Sir" and "Ma'am" people who have been around longer than I have. I'm less liable to do this in the hetero-pan community not because there's no one I respect, but because those unspoken agreements tend to be shed more readily, bottoms have expressed to me that this treatment weirds them the fuck out. It's just not done.

It's funny to me how sometimes protocol seems a little more rigid, but there's much less rigidity in the styling of queer relationships, to me. Bear in mind there are plenty of single-sex SM relationships outside this vein of queer leather, too.

I'm much more comfortable among UNfixed identities, hierarchies, and a physical emphasis, so I find that I gravitate toward the queer side of things even when I keep herding biological males among other cats, in terms of my own personal completely non-commercial for me and no one else play.

God, if people playing with people they're not romantically one on one involved with gives you a heart attack, this is not the right part of the scene for you, LOL. Service is a social lubricant, it's not even always highly sexualized, it's a way to forge ties with people. I've blacked boots on strangers myself, it's a way to get to know people.

 

[CutieMouse]

God, if people playing with people they're not romantically one on one involved with gives you a heart attack, this is not the right part of the scene for you, LOL. Service is a social lubricant, it's not even always highly sexualized, it's a way to forge ties with people. I've blacked boots on strangers myself, it's a way to get to know people.

I've started wondering lately if I'm not even a freaking pyl type... maybe I'm just a chick who tends to cater to people because it's how I connect. LOL

 

[Stella_Omega]

Yeah, it's not that that part of the world is bad or anything, it's just that what JM calls "cultural SM" has as its counterpart what I think of as "cultural leather" which has this big ol' gay antecedent. It's weird figuring out to what degree the SM mainstream is derivative of that and also NOT remotely derivative of that. It's fascinating stuff. Protocol and whether it's uniform or completely individual is one issue: if I am at a women's event and I see a girl with her Daddy (f) I will instinctively communicate solely with the Daddy even if I'm friends with the girl, unless and until social cues tell me they're not in high protocol. I'll "Sir" and "Ma'am" people who have been around longer than I have. I'm less liable to do this in the hetero-pan community not because there's no one I respect, but because those unspoken agreements tend to be shed more readily, bottoms have expressed to me that this treatment weirds them the fuck out. It's just not done.

It's funny to me how sometimes protocol seems a little more rigid, but there's much less rigidity in the styling of queer relationships, to me. Bear in mind there are plenty of single-sex SM relationships outside this vein of queer leather, too.

I'm much more comfortable among UNfixed identities, hierarchies, and a physical emphasis, so I find that I gravitate toward the queer side of things even when I keep herding biological males among other cats, in terms of my own personal completely non-commercial for me and no one else play.

God, if people playing with people they're not romantically one on one involved with gives you a heart attack, this is not the right part of the scene for you, LOL. Service is a social lubricant, it's not even always highly sexualized, it's a way to forge ties with people. I've blacked boots on strangers myself, it's a way to get to know people.

All of this is exactly my experience as well.

 

[JMohegan]

Has anyone ever seen any study/survey giving the ratio of submissives to dominates?

I seem to remember reading somewhere that there were about 100 submissives to every dominate. I believe that is probably a case of "trying to make a point". But it made me curious as to whether there were any real numbers out there.

Thanks for your help

Honoria

Apologies for my role in hijacking your thread.

My answer to your question is no. I have never seen a scientifically significant study or survey on the relative numbers of people embracing the submissive vs. Dominant labels.

Like you, I do remember reading those 100 to 1 (or similarly disparate) figures at some point. As I recall, it was in an online article warning s-types about the dangers of alleged "wannabe" or "fake" Doms. The (unsubstantiated and self-serving) claim of the piece being: "real" Doms are wise, measured, ethical, devoted to the care of their subs, etc...... and oh so rare.

 

[Netzach]

The bottom line is the usual bottom line. There simply aren't funded studies asking "how many adults have tied each other up for sexual thrills at some point" let alone more nuanced questions about power.

I think a hell of a lot of people are involved in "deviant" sex, which makes the lack thereof outside the norm.