The terms top, bottom and versatile (or switch) are used to describe roles for the duration of a Topping from the bottom is a related BDSM term, meaning a person simultaneously adopts the role of bottom and dom. take the subordinate position are called submissives or subs (male or female). . Read · Edit · View history.
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Values are what bring distinction to your life. You don't find them, you choose them.
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And when you do, you're on the path to fulfillment. Verified by Psychology Today. Understanding the Erotic Code. What I love most about the book, and now the movie, Fifty Shades of Grey is that it is provoking a discussion about kinky sex and whether or not BDSM is a healthy expression of human sexuality.
The controversy surrounds the male protagonist of this erotic fairy tale. Christian Grey has a history of suffering physical and sexual abuse—as well as poverty and neglect. There are many therapists who believe that all BDSM sex stems from childhood abuse and trauma and that any sex that includes pain, bondage, discipline, or humiliation is unhealthy. I am not one of those therapists. There is an important distinction between trauma reenactment and trauma play.
Trauma reenactment is when people recycle the events and relationships from childhood, repeating old wounds by placing themselves at emotional risk or in physical danger in a compulsive mimicry of the past.
Top, bottom, switch (BDSM) - Wikipedia
An example of this may be a man who was physically beaten by his mother, who finds himself in relationship after relationship with physically abusive women. A person learns to transcend his or her past rather than having it inflicted upon them. Using the example of the man who was physically beaten as a child, he may have some sexual kink in which he becomes physically aroused by being spanked or whipped. This is possible in a non-abusive relationship between consenting adults.
Just as an artist may use past trauma to express herself in her work, a person may use past trauma to express herself in the bedroom. Nobody tries to get an artist to stop expressing past traumas! The character Christian Grey participates in trauma reenactment. His inability to love, not his sexual kinks. We have seen this with so-called conversion therapists, burying facts, and lying to clients and desperately homophobic parents of clients about changing sexual orientation from gay to straight.
This exists despite the fact that no creditable scientific study has shown any trend of psychological pathologies in people drawn to BDSM. An example of this is the case of Bob Bashara , who lived in my area of Detroit, and who killed his wife rather than divorcing her. It was discovered during the investigation that he was a sexual dominant with a secret life in the BDSM world. To me, the connection is as relevant as if we had discovered he was a recreational skydiver or bungee jumper.
Who, after all, but a mentally deranged person, would willingly put himself in unnecessary danger? Yet it still goes on and on while the public eats it up. The truth is that not all people who are into BDSM have a major trauma or abuse history. However, there are many who do.
Many therapists wrongly refer to this as trauma reenactment and focus on what happened in childhood to make someone interested in kinky play. But the term reenactment should only apply in cases where the adult returns to the scene of the crime to unconsciously seek to correct it—or to remain emotionally trapped and stunted. In cases of BDSM play, however, the return is consciously manipulated or played with to enhance a sexual experience.
There need be no angst or shaming involved. And no need for years of therapy to correct. The truth is that most of our sexual fantasies stem from our childhoods. An excellent book is Erotic Mind: Safe, sane, and consensual sex of any kind cannot be logically or humanely called criminal or pathological. This is sometimes referred to as being versatile. Those who take the superior position in dominance and submission scenes and relationships are called dominants , doms male or dommes female , while those who take the subordinate position are called submissives or subs male or female.
Top, bottom, switch (BDSM)
A top filling the dominant role is not necessarily a dominant, and vice versa, and a bottom is not necessarily submissive. The main difference between a dominant and a top is that the dominant ostensibly does not follow instructions, although they are limited by what the submissive is willing to do. The top may sometimes even be the partner who is following instructions, i. Contrast this with the pure dominant, who might give orders to a submissive, or otherwise employ physical or psychological techniques of control, but might instruct the submissive to perform the act on them.
The main difference between a submissive and a bottom is that the submissive ostensibly does not give instructions, although they do set limits on what the dominant can do.
Dom, Sub, Switch
A bottom is not necessarily a submissive; they may enjoy intense physical and psychological stimulation but not submit to the person delivering it. The top may sometimes even be the partner who is following instructions, i.
Contrast this with the pure dominant, who might give orders to a submissive, or otherwise employ physical or psychological techniques of control, but might instruct the submissive to perform the act on them. The main difference between a submissive and a bottom is that the submissive ostensibly does not give instructions, although they do set limits on what the dominant can do.
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- Shades of Grey is an opportunity to explore clinicians’ biases surrounding BDSM?
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- Discovering a Sermon: Personal Pastoral Preaching.
A bottom is not necessarily a submissive; they may enjoy intense physical and psychological stimulation but not submit to the person delivering it. Similarly, a submissive might not be a bottom; they may enjoy taking orders from a dominant without receiving any physical stimulation. For bottoms who are not submissive, the bottom is most often the partner who is giving instructions—the top typically tops when, and in the manner, requested by the bottom.
The terms sadism and masochism , while reflecting a "do" vs. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.