On Being a Reaction Top

Eileen, one of my heroines, has written my favorite BDSM themed post of the year. Perhaps one of the very best written about power exchange ever.

And it is power exchange. Like Stock Exchange: value given in exchange for value received. Some tops feel they have to be the junk bond kings of BDSM.

Eileen writes of what she wants to evoke in a bottom:

I get off on the ripples I make in the world. His world.

Fear. Vulnerability. Arousal. Surrender.

That half flinch when he has to stop himself from holding his hands in front of his face as I raise my arm to slap him again. Oh god, I love that one.

She writes of two of what I think the greatest human qualities: adaptability and fluidity. Neither virtue is to be confused with weakness: only the weak do that. They don’t mean a person will bend or break like a tree branch in the wind.

The capacity for self-revision and change makes - unless you are a mere monomaniac - you more likely to get what you want. And with greater variety and depth.

This seems like such a nice, pleasant thing to say, really. If you weren’t paying attention you could almost call it selfless.

Don’t be fooled. I am a selfish woman. I am this fluid because fluidity gets me what I want.

Service top is one of those bugaboo phrases. Probably invented by some online wanker in order to disparage someone one disagreed with him. Another weapon for that fatuous army of people who tell others they aren’t ‘real.’

While some dominants fear they lack in compassion others fret they’ve failed to pass Fascist Behavior 101. Relationships worth sustaining are beyond slogans.

Look. If I’m a service top … It doesn’t mean I’ll let you control the scene.

But it does mean that if I like you, I might make some of your fantasies come true. It does mean I want to know your buttons, and I want to push them again, and again, and again.

Surely unless your dominance is constricted by narrow fantasies then mastering the control panel is the surest route to getting what you want.

Eileen says this is the first of three on being a reaction top. Go read all of I Want It.

Why is this so rarely or adequately said?

Probably as always some of it is bottoms mistaking their private porn as a map of reality. Though less frequently admitted I think there are many tops who have done the same. Look at the ads that tops have been running for years demanding unconditional M/s, TPE and 24/7 without success.

What excites our nervous system can corrupt our imagination. I sure know.

Both sides of the power exchange have to work to clear away images of the impossible and inauthentic. Often gained second hand on the web.

Many have their self-perception distorted by all the foolish, shabby talk about what is right and wrong in ways that have nothing to do with either morality or safety. Some unconsciously respond to bottoms claim that if they aren’t ruthless then they aren’t really dominant. Weakness of a sadly funny sort.

There’s no possibly shame in acquiring a more complicated and intricate form of mastery. Surely more self-esteem and pleasure.