Bottom, Slave, Masochist ... ?
» BDSM, D/s, S&M: Speculations
Whether someone is a submissive person (one day I’ll manage to get myself to use submissive as a noun and spare myself typing that extra word though my usage of sub will always remain nautical) or a slave is perhaps one of the stalest debates within BDSM.
As ill-conceived as such a simple binary is there’s a difficulty in escaping it in profiles when you are looking for a lover or play partner. On some BDSM dating sites you have to check one or the other so that people skimming the profiles will find you.
Forces you to circumscribe your sexuality with a label that may not be a perfect match. And it omits the useful term bottom. Thankfully most online hookup sites have blogs and other spaces where you can qualify the label you’ve selected so it matches you.
And anyone who fails to elaborate who they are in their profile invites mismatched inclinations and expectations.
In my early conversations about BDSM with Alexandra I did a fair amount of soul searching trying to figure out which designation best fit me. If that strikes you as unnecessary you need to understand this was before we’d actually met and found out how well things would work out. And I admit to taking some pleasure in working through my internal complications.
Bottom I put aside. Being acclimated to it in the vanilla gay sense I wasn’t able to align it with D/s. Alexandra I think did speak more in terms of top and bottom dynamic. Much later I see the point.
My conflict wasn’t so much whether I was a slave or a submissive person but whether my masochism or my desire to surrender was stronger. In BDSM was I more greedy or giving? Outside of kink I felt I could honestly call myself a kind and considerate man. But would the long constrained hungers push that consideration out of my mind?
Not that my efforts to diagnose forthcoming events accomplished anything useful.
I certainly proved to be a pain bottom, a masochist. And a bit of a smart-assed one that that. I acted as a SAM twice only. Realizing that teasing her to really inflict pain wasn’t giving either of us what we sought. Thankfully Alexandra has always taken my failings with grace and patience.
(Been a time since I said this: anyone who reads this site should never doubt the depth of my gratitude in finding and bonding with Alexandra. I’m a lucky man to have someone smart and caring. And not willing to either sit silent or be spiteful or petty when my behavior wasn’t what it should be.)
That my interior could rewire itself so that at times surrender and obedience simply happened without any intent on my end proved my pleasure in pleasing.
What is the label for me?
There’s no doubt I’m a pain and humiliation bottom: both a physical and emotional masochist.
By most BDSM purist definitions I’m a submissive man. That I choose the label slave is my way of saying that I want my giving of myself to be as close to unconditional as possible.
I believe in the value of labels because I think definitions are useful things. But with such intimate designations it isn’t the abstract but the nuances that attach to how they apply to you as an individual.
