Top/bottom, Dom/sub

Top/bottom

The top is person who is dishing out the activity. The bottom is on the more passive end of this. Many kinky games are played with one player active and the other receiving. For examples

• the top flogs and the bottom is flogged
• the top fucks and the bottom takes it
• the top ties up the bottom

There is some trust and power exchange required here, in the same was as in any intimate encounter. If I pick up a man at a bar and bring him home, I am giving him some power over myself and my personal space.

Topping is very much physical, and the power dynamic could easily be that the bottom is equal to or even dominating over the top.

Dom/sub

Domination is much more subtle than topping, it is a dynamic where power and control are actively given from the submissive to the dominant.

Domination is the taking of power by one person, which is given by the submissive. D/s is more of a dynamic than an activity. Depending on the people involved, many different sorts of activities can be loaded with D/s energy.  The same activity could be a dominant thing for one person and submissive for another.  For instance, a sub could bathe their dominant at a service, to pamper them.  On the other hand, a dominant could bathe a submissive to show access rights over the sub’s body, or because they did not do a good enough job themselves.  It depends on the people involved.

There are some acts which are traditionally seen as being dominant, such as the giving of pain, restraining.  But for someone like me, when I play as a dominant, I still like the same things.  I still like being slapped and squeezed and flogged.  To me these are all services a sub could provide if they were skillful and took my direction.

My personal interest, on the whole, is much more in the D/s side of things than the Top/bottom area, although I think the latter is useful for learning.