How humans perceive the world is subject to interpretation. The stories we tell ourselves about the events we experienced or witnessed are distorted, biased, conveyed with an arbitrarily chosen vocabulary. Whenever some interaction between two sentient beings happens, both of them will interpret it so as to suit their own preferences. If it is an interaction between two humans, both will use arbitrarily chosen words in order to create fictional and inaccurate portrayals of what just happened. We aren’t thinking or talking about reality as such, pure and unbiased, instead we are filtering what we just witnessed, we are distorting our perception of reality. For example, “a man penetrates and conquers, a woman gets penetrated and surrenders?” Or maybe, “A woman engulfs and conquers, a man gets engulfed and surrenders”? Theoretically it would be possible to say it either way, it’s the culture that favors and enforces one possible interpretation over the other.
In the city where I grew up, the local zoo used to have a problem with visitors feeding the animals. Visitors would give animals all sorts of snacks, which were harmful for animals’ health and wrecked their diets. As a child, I once visited the zoo and heard one of the workers say the following:
“A bear is a smart animal, he knows how easy it is to tame humans. This bear has tamed zoo visitors to throw him a snack every time he lifts up his paw.”
That was the first time in my life I started contemplating how people manipulate language in order to create a specific worldview that suits their preferences.
Human/animal relationships are interesting. People may say that “dogs have masters, cats have staff,” but I have observed that even some dogs don’t seem to recognize concepts like “master” or “owner.” They don’t obey and do what they want instead.
Behold: My Fluffy Beast
This absolutely gorgeous fluffy beast doesn’t seem to consider me her master. Some people might call her “poorly trained,” but who knows what the dog is thinking. Maybe she thinks that she is her own master and considers herself free spirited. (Here you can find more photos of my family’s dogs.)
People like to ascribe agency to themselves. Let’s say I tell my boyfriend to bring me breakfast in bed and he complies. I will be thinking: “I made my boyfriend bring me breakfast.” He’s probably thinking: “I chose to cook the breakfast in order to make Andreas shut up and stop nagging me.” Or maybe he’s thinking: “I chose to make the breakfast in order to make Andreas happy.” (He’s a nice and caring guy, so it could be the latter.) In this situation, both involved parties imagine themselves to be in charge and making decisions. Nobody is thinking: “I was forced to do X.”
When it comes to power dynamics between humans and gender roles, we all are familiar with a certain patriarchal worldview; for an illustration, Doug Wilson said the following:
When we quarrel with the way the world is, we find that the world has ways of getting back at us. In other words, however we try, the sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party. A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts.
There’s a profound difference between an action itself versus some human-made interpretation of said action. After some war or genocide, history is always written by the winner who will present their preferred viewpoint. The same goes for language and vocabulary. Terms are chosen based on what better suits people who have power. It’s all about power dynamics. Why do we even use the word “penetration” in order to describe sexual intercourse? (“To penetrate”—active; “to get penetrated”—passive.) Why not use some different verb. (For example, “to engulf”—active; “to get engulfed”—passive.) In a patriarchy, people who happened to be in charge, aka men, chose words so as to better suit their personal preference, that’s all.
In order to control women’s sexuality, those with power (predominantly men) created a discourse that assigns specific roles to each sex. It was all about power and control. A man penetrates, conquers, owns, is in charge, initiates action, does things to his partner. He has the active role. A woman gets penetrated, surrenders, yields, submits, receives action, has things done to her, she has the passive role. A man’s needs and wishes come first, a woman only desires to please and serve him. Of course, the culture had to ascribe all of these imaginary characteristics and connotations to what is essentially a completely neutral action. “Insert part A into slot B.” Or maybe “place part B around part A.” Theoretically, it can be said either way. Why do men “fuck somebody,” while women “get fucked”? Because: patriarchy.
Let’s say a woman inserts a dildo in a man’s butt. It is possible to say: “He gets fucked and dominated.” Alternatively: “He experiences a prostate massage and enjoys himself.” One interpretation isn’t factually more correct than the other. It’s just that one interpretation is more widespread and culturally accepted as the norm. People are conditioned to imagine that in the given situation the woman enters, invades, occupies a precious place. Simultaneously, the man is getting humiliated, relinquishes a delicate and vulnerable part of his body to another person, lies open and exposed, surrenders to the other person’s desire, control, and wishes.
When somebody’s external erogenous zones (like a penis) are stimulated, then this person is conquering and fulfilling his desires. When internal erogenous zones (butthole, vagina) are stimulated, then said person is surrendering. Why? Just why? It’s illogical to think like this. All of these situations describe an identical action, namely a person’s skin is getting rubbed/touched/stroked. Why should it matter whether said skin covers an appendage or whether it lines a hole?
Next, let’s think about words like “top” and “bottom.” Whoever happens to be positioned vertically higher than the other person is somehow in charge? Why? Christians praise the missionary position, because the man is “on top.” So what? Why should humans ascribe meaning to how somebody’s body is positioned in terms of vertical height? Alternatively, the person who does the thrusting motion with their pelvis is somehow dominating and the person who moves less is submitting? Again: why?
Of course, this isn’t only about gender roles. The same principles apply whenever it comes to some situation that involves power dynamics, and it’s interesting to analyze the language people use. Let’s consider schools and universities, for example. “To teach”—professor teaches (active role), student gets taught (passive role). “To learn”—student learns (active role), professor helps with learning (support role). Depending on how professors and students perceive their roles, the learning environment can differ tremendously. Incidentally, whenever the professor doesn’t have a captive audience, it’s better to try to help students learn rather than teach them by delivering lectures with the aura of some kind of authority figure. My observation is that most students prefer to learn instead of being taught and lectured.
———
I’m reluctant to talk about myself and my sex life. Not because I feel like it is private information that I should hide. I have no qualms about publicly sharing these facts.
It’s just that I expect my readers not to care about my sex life and find such details boring. Whenever I read other people’s blog posts, I find such information irrelevant and not interesting. So, you are writing a blog post about sex? Great. Do you have a point to make? Some generally useful information? Any tips? Insights? Ideas? The reader probably doesn’t know the writer personally and doesn’t really have a reason to care about the writer. Thus the reader is more likely to appreciate information that is somehow useful for the reader. Hence my question to any blogger who chooses to talk about sex: do you have a point to make, or do you simply have the urge to publicly describe what sex acts you did last night? Since I’m not a good enough writer to create literary erotic fiction and get published, I might as well abstain from putting online poorly written descriptions of what I do in the bedroom.
Unfortunately, there’s a problem with this attitude—writing about my own experiences is simple; writing about what I have overheard about other people’s experiences is trickier. And I do think that this time I have a point to make.
I considered using words and phrases that make it sound like I’m talking about people in general and not about myself. I could say “many people like,” or “some people do,” instead of “I like,” and “I do.” But that would mean misleading the reader by implying that I’m talking about people in general when actually I’m thinking about my own experiences.
Anyway, here we go.
If I actually believed all this Christian nonsense about the meaning of various actions, the only sex act I’d be willing to have with a man would be me anally fucking him with a strap on dildo (unfortunately, I don’t have a dick). Conveniently, I don’t accept the Christian interpretation about what some specific actions imply, so my options are so much wider.
When it comes to how I prefer to think about my actions, I’m strongly dominant. I hate the idea of surrendering or serving to fulfill the needs of another person. I consider the idea of being conquered as offensive. I am not a prize to be won, an object to be utilized for somebody else’s pleasure. I like to ascribe agency to myself, I prefer to think that I’m deciding for myself.
When it comes to what actions I actually enjoy, I like a lot of different things.
Let’s say my partner tells me to get on my knees, I comply, and then he has anal sex with me. In my mind I don’t picture the scene as me submitting. I won’t be thinking: “He made me get on my knees and now he is fucking my ass.” Instead I will be thinking: “He is entertaining me, because I asked to be entertained.”
I will interpret the scene so as to give myself agency. I will be thinking, “I chose, I did,” instead of, “I was forced to, I was made to.” I will think, “I temporarily choose to follow the other person’s instructions and cooperate with him.” I won’t think, “I yield, I surrender.” I won’t see myself as fulfilling the needs of another person. Instead I will think, “The other person is pleasuring and entertaining me; I choose to allow the other person to put things into my body, because it feels good and I enjoy the physical sensation of having things in there.”
My tendency to interpret some scenario so that I have agency within it is also reflected in my choice of words. I won’t ask, “fuck me,” instead I will say, “entertain me.”
Obviously, I’m happy with various scenarios where I’m in charge and directing what I and my partner do. But I don’t necessarily want to be controlling every aspect of each scene every single time. I’m perfectly happy to think, “This time I’m here for the ride, you are welcome to do most of the work and entertain me while I just lie down and enjoy myself.” As long as I’m enjoying what the other person does with my body, I see no reason to complain. The key point is that I feel like I choose to temporarily obey the other person’s instructions in the given situation, I never think that I surrender or get conquered.
As long as I enjoy myself, I’m perfectly happy to let the other person decide what we will do. Only if something goes wrong and the other person does something that I don’t like, I start feeling the urge to grab the reins and regain control over what is happening.
On top of all that, I don’t even consider any sex acts humiliating. The way how humans ascribe meaning to specific actions is a fun topic. A while ago, I wrote about that here. The short summary: Humans arbitrarily assign meaning to various acts. There is nothing intrinsically humiliating or shameful about any situation a person can potentially experience throughout their life. All the humiliation is imaginary. For example, I don’t consider anal sex humiliating for the recipient. Alternatively—facials are something I personally dislike; but I don’t consider the practice degrading or anything like that, it’s just that it’s a big mess and having liquids near your eyes isn’t fun. Some people might imagine various sexual practices as shameful or humiliating, but it’s all in their heads, and I refuse to take seriously various cultural norms about what should or shouldn’t be considered shameful or degrading.
Thanks, this is thought provoking. I’ve personally long disliked the kind of language that frames PIV sex as something men do to women, as opposed to with women. Only now it occurs to me to question why “penetration” is such a commonly used concept (and not only in sexual sense, either), whereas corresponding envagination (?) is rarely talked about.
I also started wondering about the distinction between submissive sex vs. passive sex. I have some thoughts on this, as I’m interested in both BDSM and general “intellectual wanking” (pun intended). Before I get into that, I might ask If you have some thoughts on this distinction, or if you’d rather not hear my ponderings on BDSM. I don’t really know much about what other kinksters generally think on conceptual definitions – it’s not really important for practical purposes and therefore kind of frivolous.
lumipuna@#1
Yes, I am interested in BDSM. I intentionally avoided including BDSM terminology in this blog post, because that is a niche interest, and I assume that most readers wouldn’t find that relevant.
Here’s the short version about how I see the distinction:
Passive: “I am here only because my pastor said that my husband needs to use my body in order to fulfil his needs. I will just lie here while he does whatever he wants.”
Submissive: “I like being tied up and spanked. Here are some things I especially enjoy. And here are the things that I don’t want you to do with me.”
If somebody enjoys being submissive, as long as they enjoy it, great.
If somebody is actually passive, then that’s a problem. We live in a religious society that has problems talking about sex. I know that there are some people who are either shy or religiously indoctrinated, thus they struggle with articulating their desires about sex. They struggle with expressing what they like or dislike. At worst, they might even be religiously indoctrinated to think that wanting sex for its own sake is sinful. Thus they might settle for being passive.
The most obvious problem with being passive is about consent. Personally, I am perfectly happy to take initiative in relationships and be in control and do things to other people. But how the hell am I supposed to know what the other person wants if they fail to clearly communicate their desires? I absolutely don’t want to risk accidentally raping another person. “They don’t seem to complain, so they probably enjoy what I am doing,” is fine with me only as long as I feel certain that the other person will speak up the moment they are no longer comfortable with what is happening.
Thanks. I might have to elaborate my thoughts tomorrow, because it’s late.
I’ll just say I don’t think of “passive” sex as something that precludes explicit negotiation of limits outside of the act, or even during the act. I also like to distinguish between topping/bottoming vs. dominance/submission. More on this later.
When you’re literally letting someone into your body, it’s… it’s a vulnerability thing.
WMDKitty — Survivor @#4
Nope, I don’t see it this way.
Alternatively, if you put a part of your body in somebody else’s mouth between their teeth, how is that any different? At the very least is should require some trust that they won’t bite you.
Anyway, I do think that trust is required, but I fail to see the vulnerability.
Have you read Dale Spender?
A lot of thoughts I’ve had on how language is used (similar to the above) that I thought were novel turn out to have been articulated by Dale Spender long before. Man Made Language is a good book to start with…
Crip Dyke @#6
No, I haven’t.
The things I wrote in this blog post seem very obvious for me, hence I imagine that these ideas cannot possibly be novel, many other people must have thought about this before.
Again, I have too little time, but
I’d define consensual submission as play where one is temporarily under the other person’s control, as in letting them decide what happens during the scene, and determinedly following any requests as much as possible. Only general limits will have been agreed beforehand, and the sub can always use safeword to stop the scene if that feels necessary.
Now, usually in d/s play the requests are roleplayed as commands and there’s some show of demonstrating physical/social/psychological power. In addition, there is typically a goal of taking the sub outside their comfort zone, often by exercises that are meant to feel humiliating. These elements seem to be missing in what you describe as your submissive(?) sexual scenes. (I only mention that as a reference, I don’t mean to come off as one of those judgemental True Kinksters, and I wouldn’t get far along in that game anyway.)
Then there’s consensual bottoming, which hugely overlaps with submission play but is a slightly different thing. Here one roleplays the trappings of being under the other person’s control (for example, restrained in bondage or receiving inflicted pain) but isn’t necessarily committed to going along with what the other person decides. A bottom might negotiate continuously during the scene, or the play might be scripted in detail beforehand. Instead of a submissive desire, the bottom’s motivation is basically masochism or desire to roleplay various fetishes – the latter is basically my thing. (Again, this kind of stuff often gets scoffed by the True Kinksters.)
I’ll get to passive sex tomorrow.
lumipuna @#8
In the original blog post I intentionally didn’t include anything that would be outside mainstream preferences, because I expect most of my readers to have mostly vanilla interests, given how that is statistically more common. I wasn’t really trying to describe a submissive scene as understood by the BDSM community, because this blog post was aimed for general audience instead.
Humiliation play is something I just cannot take seriously. It just makes me giggle. I wrote about that here — https://andreasavester.com/why-the-society-wants-you-to-feel-ashamed/
Returning to #2:
Traditionally, women are taught/encouraged to prioritize their male partner’s sexual desires while ignoring their own desires, going outside their comfort zone, even outside their pain limits if necessary. In some very conservative circles, this is even officially prescribed and termed “submission” to one’s husband, applicable in all aspects of domestic life (not just sex). I think this is different from BDSM submission in that it’s the cultural default for the power dynamic in the relationship. It’s not framed as play, it is presumed to happen without negotiation and it’s not “deviating” from a cultural norm in any way.
Since BDSM is by definition norm-bending and seeks to customize sexual practice for individual desire, it’s more likely to involve proper communication, and more likely to occur in sexually liberated cultures. These things tend to support sexual pleasure and sexual agency also for women (in a heterosexual context), though obviously that’s by no means guaranteed.
Sometimes, people participating in BDSM (esp. sub women) are not properly consenting, or not getting much anything out of it for themselves (unlike the model of enthusiastically consenting sub described above). Also, notably, maledom/femsub practice tends to get easily accepted and incorporated patriarchal mainstream culture and its sexual norms, esp. via pornography. (I once saw an interesting feminist essay, arguing that not all kink is equally norm-bending, and specifically maledom/femsub isn’t very much so.)
@#10
I agree. Of course, the differences ought to be obvious.
Christian version: “All AFAB people must submit to their husbands and do everything their husband asks for. It doesn’t matter whether the wife enjoys it or no.”
BDSM version: “Submissive people of any gender who enjoy specific activities can choose to participate in them. They should only agree to participate in scenes that they enjoy, and they can always negotiate with their partner what exactly they like or dislike. The submissive partner is expected to enjoy the experience. Moreover, usually the submissive partner obeys only in specific situations. For example, in a marriage the submissive spouse can enjoy being tied up during sex, but they still remain financially independent, they make their own career choices, they are in charge of their own life.”
I have read some erotic novels written from the point of view of the submissive partner that I found enjoyable to read. In the first chapter, the sub is established as somebody who already knows what they like during sex. It is clearly stated that they want a BDSM relationship. Then this person meets Mr. Right or Ms. Right who enjoys being dominant during sex. At this point both people explain to each other what they like, negotiate what they will or won’t do during sex. More importantly, in the description of every sex scene the author clearly indicates that the submissive partner enjoys everything that is done to them and that they actually want this for their own pleasure. For example, Natural Law by Joey Hill.
Contrast this with a different way how erotic novels are sometimes written. In the first chapters the “submissive” partner is established as either somebody with vanilla preferences or a virgin altogether. Then they fall in love with another person who wants to be dominant in a BDSM relationship. The “submissive” partner agrees to this only because they are in love and fear losing their partner, moreover, they want to please the dominant partner. During descriptions of sex scenes the author focuses on how much the “submissive” person loves their partner and how desperately they want to please them. With these kinds of novels, I never made it past the first few chapters, because I felt like reading about romanticized domestic abuse, and ouch. That’s totally not something I can enjoy. And do I even need to mention examples for such books? It’s incredible how prevalent positive portrayals of domestic abuse are in literary fiction. Fifty Shades of Grey would be an example.
Fifty Shades is certainly one horrible train wreck, based on the reviews I’ve seen. Exactly as you describe, and apparently only getting worse chapter after chapter.
Going briefly back to the OP:
That’s a good question. I think the names come from the vertical positions, but the meaning does indeed come from a culturally perceived subject/object dynamic. AFAIK the top/bottom terms were first used by cisgay men to label different sexual roles in anal intercourse. Traditionally, in cishet sex (mainly understood to mean missionary PIV intercourse) there was no need for such labels since sexual subject/object dynamic was an integral part of the gender roles.
How did this dynamic originate? My best guess would be that women were historically generally the “gatekeepers” of sex, fearing pregnancy or physical discomfort/pain, often not expecting much pleasure for themselves. Most couples seem to find the missionary position most practical/comfortable. Presumably, if the man is asking or coercing for the woman’s consent, it’d be easiest if he makes the movement and she gets to lay still. Hence, the vagina role of PIV was associated with surrender, submission, passivity, bottom position and the penis role was associated with conquest, dominance, activity and top position.
These ideas were eventually adapted for labeling roles in BDSM play, which I brought up. I think I’ve personally developed, based on cultural cues, various fetishes relating to tropes of topping/bottoming and dominance/submission. Of course, I don’t actually believe anything silly like “submission is natural for women/AFAB people” or “being penetrated is inherently degrading”.
@#12
Or maybe this position is common, because for millennia a certain church insisted that no other positions are allowed?
Personally, I simply cannot get an orgasm in the missionary position. Thus for me there is nothing practical or comfortable about it.
Well, anyone’s individual mileage may vary. Humans have a habit of of turning sexual trends into self-reinforcing sexual norms. If the traditional normativity of man-moving-on-top positions in Western culture is originally just a fluke, then the association between active role, penis and top position would be a result of that fluke. Another matter is how conquest/dominance associates with these.
@#14
Many women cannot get an orgasm without clitoral stimulation. Often they need direct, pinpoint, and relatively intense clitoral stimulation, meaning that the man’s pelvis rubbing approximately around that area isn’t going to count. Reaching the clitoris with your fingers in the missionary position is problematic, definitely less comfortable than in other positions. In 21st century, it has become possible to place a small vibrator against the clitoris while having sex in the missionary position, but that wasn’t possible before humans invented vibrators.
This means that the missionary position simply cannot work for some women. Thus declaring it as the default or even the only permissible sex position is a really terrible idea.
Of course, we are talking about a church that declared sex as something that a woman isn’t even supposed to enjoy. Of course, such an oppressive church wasn’t interested in recommending sex positions that would allow all women to get orgasms.
Some animal species associate being vertically above the other animal with dominance. For example, while fighting for status, dogs will try to position themselves above the other dog. I am talking about this pose.
That being said, it is irrational for humans to try to engage in the same behavior. We aren’t dogs.
Ah, I forgot to consider the association of top position to fighting dominance. That also sounds plausible.
BTW, I skim-read your essay on shame, and noted the example of people using doggy bowls in humiliation play. I happen to be quite a lot into puppy play, not as a humiliation kink but basically as an aesthetic and sensual fetish thing. Very irrational, I admit, but I trust you didn’t mean that in a kink-shaming sense 🙂
Anyway, it now occurs to me that “proper” humiliation play probably mostly relies on the dom’s acting skills in portraying mockery and disapproval of the sub, rather than any props used. As for using puppy bowl, the sub would be likely not playing a role as “dog” in proper sense, but rather as “human being treated somewhat like a dog”. Then again, there’s continuum and ambiguity between these roles.
Puppy play is often quite relaxed and affectionate, sometimes even approaching realistic interaction between a dog and human. IDK if this is what you refer to as your “goofy” kink play. There’s certainly goofiness in it, and I can appreciate pure silliness in sexual play – but for me the primary motivation is how it relates to my deep fetish interest. Then again, maybe we’re using different words to describe the same thing.
Of course, I wouldn’t kink-shame somebody.
It’s interesting how you can take pretty much any example from this list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erotic_humiliation and perceive it as either humiliation play or just people being goofy and doing it for fun.
Which was basically my point when I wrote about shame and humiliation—humiliation isn’t intrinsic to any specific action, instead it’s a matter of how people interpret whatever situation. For example, a butt plug with a pig tail attached to it can be used as a prop for humiliation play or, alternatively, it can be instead perceived as just funny and not humiliating at all.