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[–][deleted] 20 insightful - 1 fun20 insightful - 0 fun21 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

Dom/sub... I read a Reddit thread where a young person discovered that they enjoyed an activity during sex, that was completely innocent and not at all atypical, and now they're dom and their partner is sub. BDSM is trendy, I guess. That's no good. (Not that I'm looking down on BDSM, just that if it's trendy, they probably won't internalize BDSM consent culture or technical knowledge about safer practices.)

BDSMers also use Top/Bottom terms, rarely as their BDSM role, but sometimes. Top is the active, giving partner, bottom is the receptive partner. So you can have a "Rope Top," who likes to tie with rope, or a "Rope Bottom" who likes to be tied. Top/bottom is usually concordant with Dom/Sub, the common roles, but not always... they love to play with words to keep their role personas intact. Plenty of "Doms" like getting beaten, for instance. Switch would be vers.

[–]reluctant_commenter[S] 13 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 0 fun14 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Fascinating. Sounds like this may be something borrowed from BDSM, then, as opposed to being borrowed from gay men.

[–][deleted] 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

It's a little cloudy. I think BDSM may have borrowed it from gay men first, specifically gay men into SM, back when it was called that. Then that was ported into the pansexual (all sexes, all attractions) BDSM community. If you're dying to know, I can ask around.

[–]reluctant_commenter[S] 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Gotcha, thanks for clarifying! I am curious but no pressure :)

[–][deleted] 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Well, I did some sleuthing, and nobody knows off the Top of their heads. I did find out there's a rather rich and diverse history of sadomasochism post WWII that's very interesting.

[–]reluctant_commenter[S] 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Okay! No worries, thanks for asking.