image description: a reply by @fizhowl which reads:
Guilt can definitely come to tops when it comes to particularly the act of inserting and, in some cases, enacting what at times can be an aggressive display of physically handling another person. It can sometimes feel like 'conquering' which can be a mixed feeling due to passions and wanting to be someone's special something paired with guilt of having, in a way, 'used' the bottom to gain that feeling even if it isn't intentional. There's also something to be said there about patriarchy.
there's always something to be said about patriarchy huh đ but yeah these themes / narratives are often complicated for me bc like. hmm how do i put this. i'm aware these societal messages exist, & they do impact my life (extensively.), but they're so distant/disparate from how i actually experience sex.
bottoming has never made me feel conquered, even when other people have wanted it to. that's not to shame anyone who has felt that way (because they wanted to or not) from any positionâfor one thing we live in a societyâbut to gesture at the diversity of experiences we collapse into one extremely limited framework. ways i've felt during not-great experiences bottoming: bored, wary, selfish, confused, annoyed. ways i've felt during great experiences bottoming: powerful, capable, centered, connected, pleased, pleasured, served, serviced, worshiped, indulged, adored, transcendent.
the sex that has made me feel used is when i've been assumed, expected, or pressured to top, to touch someone a certain way, to "give," to "reciprocate." been thinking on it & i still wouldn't articulate the internal experience as 'conquered' (again nothing wrong with that being somebody's experience), more severedâdissociated & disconnected, like, i can only do this with my body if it isn't mine & i'm not me.
one of those memes like "feminist brain: " "dom brain: " for me lol but i appreciate the reframing of circlusion (another source). it's not 100% of the time my lens on so-called penetration but it is definitely an experience i relate to in certain contexts. i think a lot of people treat high fem & pillow princess as synonymous which is fine but not how i characterize myself, for me high fem describes my not "giving" & only receiving/taking, the self-centeredness of my sex, whereas pillow princess i associate more with a supposed "passive" role, so i tend to only consider myself in that role when i'm doing more directing someone else's movements or being serviced than, like, moving myself. when i'm feeling both "active" & receptive i resonate with circlusion a lot.
wrote once (& haven't worked it into a longer piece so just turn it over in my mouth like a mantra sometimes) "my cunt swallows, my cunt gulps, my cunt engulfs. i cunt him down; i take cuntrol." a lot of the time for me bottoming feels the way society describes/constructs topping. action & power & centrality & pleasure.
another perspective this convo made me think of, from Stone Femme by Regan McLure:
I realize I've found some part of her stone. I'd passed through this territory earlier in the night when I caressed her feet. This is her reserve. Her cunt is open city, but here I can't touch. I smile to myself at the irony of her low-cut leather fancies, femme armor daring the world with her strutting sexuality, and all the while her boots have been laced up knee-high.
personally my stone isn't located in my feet, but i savor the imagery here so much. "Her cunt is open city, but here I can't touch," though â god i could weepâŒïžâŒïž i feel so much power through that. the (re)location of vulnerability in non-normative areas, that basically summarizes stone for me. my cunt is open city, but you can't touch my knees.
some thoughts i was writing a few nights ago:
obv in life as we experience it, top/bottom are roles impacted by all of the bullshit bersani mentionsâancient greek ideas around activity/passivity + colonial & patriarchal ideas around reproduction + s&m + butch/fem + porn + radical feminism + bioessentialism + bersani's own work, &on&on. all of these ideas & imprints & resonances & violences exist around & in me, are lenses through which i read my body, every goddamn time i bottom. and all of the personally-targeted shames and all of the carefully-cultivated reliefs of my life, everything layered one over the other like phyllo dough, like a rotoscope. look how much my cunt can take.
but sex isn't just an echo, it's a conversation.
["sex is a conversation" via katherine angel]
