We’ve been talking about tops, bottoms and switches for weeks now! After 3.6 thousand of you answered our very own in-house survey about what we talk about when we talk about this terminology for queer women, we wrote about bottoming in and out of kink contexts and submission; what it means to be a top or a dominant in lesbian sex; what is even the deal with switches, and compared statistical data we crunched on what all these people like to do in bed with and to each other. We talked about the different sub-identities within these terms — wtf is a pain switch or service sub!

And now today, finally and with much fanfare, *Law and Order sound* these are our stories — Autostraddle staffers share how they personally identify (or don’t!) and why. The 13.4% of you who said you don’t identify with these terms and the 8.9% of you who said you weren’t sure how you identified, if at all, will be pleased to find that your experience is shared! The 12% of you who are tops, the 14.3% of you who are bottoms, and the staggering 51.6% who are switches will also find your brethren and sistren here. Stay tuned for one more post in this series later today!

Molly Priddy, Staff Writer

I identify as a switch who can bottom really well or also top pretty well. I’m more of a service top, which to me means I like when the lady or non-binary femme I’m having sex with is having a great time, it turns me on more than anything else. It’s a nice trait, I’ve found, because I’m kind of a large person and I think that can be intimidating to some smaller people. But then they realize I’m either a big ol’ bottom or a super focused and detailed service top and I think it sets them at ease. In real life, this means I’m often making sure my person is fed, fucked, safe and warm, whether I’m over or under them.

Cee, Technical Director

I identify as a soft Daddy, which for me is a Top who is into nurturing and discipline (in theory), but actually lets their partners/boys get away with almost everything. I think I’m probably more Dad than Daddy, so much so that most of my friends just call me Dad at this point.

I’m a Top in the bedroom. I’m also a Pain and Rope Top. I’m someone who likes being in charge and in control, and I really enjoy power dynamics. This often (consensually) bleeds outside the bedroom in my relationships, with light D/s play. I tend to date submissives and masochists who like power dynamics or are into service.

Carolyn, NSFW Consultant

I’m a bottom, and more than being a bottom, I’m submissive. To me that means being open, and being vulnerable, and accepting that I can’t control everything (I really, really want to control everything), both in kink and sex and in life. I want to do things for doms and I want doms to fucking notice. I like having structure but I like my day-to-day structure to come from myself.

I’m also a brat. I like to be good, but you have to earn it.

I had a Daddy, and when she left I thought I would never use that word for anyone else, but I have, and I do. Sometimes I’m a little girl, and though “girl” isn’t exactly right any more it works for this. I like teasing and playfulness and partners who are also sort of brats, inasmuch as doms can be brats (they totally can be).

Alsooooo even though I have no interest in topping or doming or switching 99.9% of that time, sometimes also I get a feeling that is new, specifically, fuck yes call me sir while I hit you in the face and fuck you until you weep. I can’t be true to myself when I’m being that, but it’s no fun to be all one thing all the time forever.

Riese, CEO

I identify as a switch. I imagine that bottoms I’ve been with will tell you that I’m definitely a top, and tops I’ve been with will tell you that I’m definitely a bottom.

Tell me what you’re into and I will be that thing, is what I’m saying.

I began my lesbian sex life certain I was a top, that’s the only thing that made sense to me, and my first long-term girlfriend said she was a masc bottom, which cemented that certainty. My next girlfriend was like, “No I’m the top,” and I was like “okay fine you’re right” and that felt true also. Is this related to me being a Libra?

In general, I feel like I’ve usually bottomed for more masc partners and topped for more femme partners, which I know sounds ~a way~. But most of my long-term relationships have been with masc tops, leading to a renewed conviction that I was a total bottom, or maybe a toppy submissive. I thought that maybe running Autostraddle had changed me, like being such an intense Work Top made me desperate for a break from being in charge in order to transition into a sexual mindset. But… it turns out I was VERY wrong about that and it’s been fun to get back into topping. I think I just like power play, period, and I get a lot out of being very firmly on either side of that.

While I usually (but definitely not always!!) prefer to be pursued or to have my partner initiate, most other behaviors associated with “topping” feel inherent to me, and nothing turns me on like turning my partner on. I just want to see that “fuck, I didn’t know the world could be this good” face, you know? That can happen when I’m hitting you or when you’re fucking me, I’ll take it however it comes. Cee recently introduced me to the term “pain switch” and I defined it for myself and then assigned it to myself, which is my privilege as a modern homosexual woman. Although I enjoy vanilla sex a whole lot, I think I’ve known before I even knew I was gay that I’m also really drawn to sex that has some element of aggression and/or violence and/or D/S dynamics, or, at the very least, intensity. 

Different people bring out different sides of you. Who knows what any of us could be next.

Laneia, Executive Editor

I don’t really identify as any of these things! A long long time ago in a galaxy far far away, I probably would’ve said bottom, just because that’s uh, the box I’d already placed myself in? I remember hearing about tops and bottoms and pillow princesses when I first came out and being stressed as fuck that I was going to have to choose to be one of those types before I’d even done anything with another woman. And I think years of really bad heterosexual sex that I wasn’t into just conditioned me to be the desired thing that someone was fucking, instead of me having an active interest in the sex or in the person doing the fucking, so that mindset carried over into lesbian sex. I was like “ok do whatever you want to me, I guess! good luck out there!” That wasn’t a super fun time. Now I really try to do whatever I want — as in, give myself permission to actually want to do something in the first place, after years of suppressing all those lesbian feelings! wheee! — and also do whatever she wants and have a lovely time together like the goddess universe intended.

Heather, Senior Editor

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this whole top/bottom/switch thing since Riese started doing this series; more time, in fact, than I’ve spent thinking about it at all ever in my life. At first I wrote it off my disinterest in these labels as my age and relationship status. I’m 39 and I’ve been with my partner for eight years, in a monogamous relationship, and I plan to be with her forever, so there hasn’t been a need for me to signal my sex preferences and desires and habits to anyone else in almost a decade, and when we met, gosh, social media was still mostly just being used for queer people to find each other. The sub-identities conversation wasn’t as mainstream in queer internet circles as it is now (and at the time the only conversations I had with other groups of queer people was on the internet). And so yes, all that is true. But! Upon further reflection, I also think the fact that I never sought out this conversation or explored it any any real detail was because when I came out, and the first few years I was out, I wanted my sexuality to be as non-confrontational as possible. I didn’t want to lose my family. I didn’t want to lose my lifelong friends. And so I didn’t want to confront them with the sex part of my sexuality and so I didn’t confront myself with it either? All of that has changed now, in drastic ways, but it changed in large part because being with Stacy empowered me to inhabit the fullness of my identity in ways I wasn’t courageous enough to do before I met her. I’ll say switch and also that I wish tumblr had been around when I was a youth!

Rachel, Managing Editor

I think most technically and accurately I am a top-leaning switch! Experientially I have fulfilled… most roles along the top-bottom spectrum and with the right partner that I trust very much I’m into bottoming, but in terms of what I get the most out of and consistently return to in terms of fantasizing/revisiting from past experiences, it’s definitely doing things to other people rather than having them done to me. I like being in control of a situation, whether very explicitly so in a kink sense or more conceptually being the person who leads things along, performs “giving” sexual acts and checks in to make sure they’re ok in vanilla sex. The vulnerability and power of someone else letting me be in control is hot, and at the same time I like caring for people and making them feel good, the intersection of which (to me) is topping.

As a bisexual woman who’s dated men, this gets more complicated in that context — I don’t generally think that topping and bottoming are really like a thing with “straight” sex, but also my likes and dislikes in bed don’t flip like a light switch depending on the gender I’m with, and so I still tend to be naturally ‘toppy’ in bed with men and there are acts and positions that I don’t like because they feel uncomfortable to me in a way that’s linked to them feeling submissive. Some men are super into me being toppy and that’s great; with some men it’s been difficult to navigate or they feel, I think, emasculated in some way, especially if they’re used to being with straight women.

Creatrix Tiara, Staff Writer

In general I would say power bottom or pillow princess. I find a lot of power in receiving pleasure – like an extra sexualised version of being an odalisque or even getting a spa treatment. I never understood why being the receiver is automatically some kind of submissive position. Cis guys don’t call themselves “bottoms” for getting blowjobs, they see it as a mark of dominance!

However, I find that different people bring out different things in me. With one ex we had this whole Mommi/daughter thing going (I was the Mommi, though hilariously I was younger than her, but she acted like a kid anyway so…) and I really doubt that would have worked with anyone else. With another ex I felt more service-top. Some people I’d be more willing to submit to; others I’m like “lol as if.” And some just inspire me to be flexible and experimental!

Someone on Fetlife described that kind of feeling as similar to enthalpy in thermodynamics – I don’t remember what she meant by that (something about the particular meld of the energies of you & your partner creating something unique?) but I feel like that describes me very well.

I say this as though I have a ton of experience with power dynamics – I don’t, really. Most of this is just hypothetical fantasy, working off a vibe.

(I would like to be more Domme-y and especially want a service sub of some fashion but I also have this huge hangup over “oh god I don’t want to take advantage of people HOW TO DO THIS ETHICALLY”)

Al(aina), Staff Writer

Hey! It’s me, America’s Next Top Bottom and I’m here to win, not to make friends. I strongly identify as a submissive and I also strongly identify as a brat. My friends would also asay that IRL, even non-sexually, I act like a bottom, whatever that means (kidding, I know exactly what that means)!!! I like for there to be lots of laughter when I’m getting busy, and bratting is my way of teasing my partners into topping me the way that I want to be topped. There’s a pretty fine line between being a brat and being a bitch, and I walk it carefully. The line, for me, is disobedience, which as a submissive is a huge no. D/s is an agreement, and openly going against what we agreed to means everyone loses, and it makes me a jerk. I think that’s the difference between being a submissive and being a bottom; the essence of my submission is a desire to please my partner, which often means following their directions. But it’s also other stuff! In her essay “Sex and the Single Submissive,” Drew Kelly Campbell writes, “Fetching drinks, polishing boots, pulling out chairs, saying “please” and “thank you” and “may I?”: the trappings of my WASP upbringing have become a ritual of seduction. I pride myself… on remembering how my dominants drink their coffee, fold their jockey shorts, and like their necks rubbed. This is my art, my vocation.” I think bottoming is something that primarily happens in the bedroom, being a brat is how I flirt, and submission is a framework for living. It’s the identity I’m continually working on, and yeah, it’s super hecking sexy, but it’s also so much more than sex.

Alyssa, Cartoonist

I identify primarily as a switch/verse leaning a little more toward toppy. But ultimately, I can enjoy and be a lot of things and it’s all really just dependent on my relationship with my partner and what our dynamic is like. In my current relationship, my bedroom quirks have me in a pretty consistent limbo between being a switchy top and power(+++) bottom. I’m rarely anything in between.

My identity labels don’t particularly mean much to me on any kind of status or social level (shy of being fun to dish about with pals). But I guess I can say that for me, bottoming can be really intense emotionally. It’s really something I only do with particular partners (especially when it involves any sort of kink play) and takes a lot of trust for me to get there. I don’t know. I contain multitudes.

Vanessa, Community Editor

The Great Top/Bottom/Switch Conversation Of Summer 2018 has come at a confusing time for me and my sexual desires. I have always identified as switchy, but also as kind of a Life Top which basically just means I’m a Capricorn, but recently I’ve been feeling like maybe I’m a bottom? I am going through a period of intense transition in my life, particularly when it comes to relationships and sex and love and the future (haha okay so yes, everything) and I used to think I knew a lot about myself and now I’m like oh neat, I know nothing at all!

Because of my current confusion about everything, I decided to do some crowdsourcing for this question, because maybe the folks who I’ve been fucking / making out with / flirting with / etc would have a better idea than I do when it comes to knowing the answer to this? Which I realize is sort of a power bottom move, and I acknowledge that. Anyhow, here’s what we all came up with.

One babe I made out with told me they think I’m secretly a top, I’m just pretending to be a bottom right now because I’m sick of being in charge all the time. Another babe told me that she thinks I’m a switch: “I cannot speak to your topping vibes because that hasn’t really been our dynamic, but I believe in you in general, you can be whatever you wanna be when you grow up, etc.” On my last night in Portland I drunkenly asked a whole table of my friends, many of whom I’ve made out with, if they thought I was a top or a bottom or a switch and literally in unison three of them said, “BRATTY BOTTOM,” so. A few people also suggested I was a power bottom but one date said they thought I could be a really good mean top.

I think I am less invested in having a concrete label for myself and more interested in how different dynamics play out with different sexual partners and encounters. It’s really hot to me when someone surprises me – either by being more of a top or more of a bottom than I anticipated – and it’s really hot to me when someone will lean into a power dynamic, regardless of what that specific dynamic looks like. But at the end of the day, as long as the other person is enthusiastic and communicative, we’re probably going to have a nice time. (Ugh okay fine, I showed my best friend this answer and she laughed and said “babe, you mean as long as the other person is enthusiastic and communicative and KIND OF TOPPY you’re probably going to have a nice time,” and FINE, okay, FINE, THAT IS CORRECT, GOODBYE!!!!!!)

Alexis, Staff Writer

I identify at the moment as a stone top butch because trauma and honestly the idea of receiving instead of *just* giving fills me with so much guilt and unresolved feelings that my Catholic school teachers would probably be lowkey proud that all of their work didn’t go to waste. Like, I’m all for getting you off! I love it! But don’t try to do that whole “now your turn” thing ’cause I will disappear.

Kayla, Staff Writer

Though I don’t really wear my label on my sleeve, I’ve long identified as a switch but like a 70-30 switch in that 70% of the time I prefer to be a bottom and 30% of the time I prefer to be a top. Maybe you are thinking that makes me a bottom but I say NAY. Respect the ratio! But yes tbh MOST of the time I am a bottom. Let’s just say that when Petra Solana on Jane The Virgin insinuated that because she needs control over every situation in her life outside of the bedroom she likes to give up a bit of control in the bedroom… I felt that. But there’s something that keeps me from going full bottom. Every once in a while I like to bring that sense of being in charge into the bedroom. I do tend to date tops, which works out pretty well for my ratio. But even though I do it less, I think BECAUSE I do it less, I get a very powerful thrill out of topping. I do believe that certain things like oral sex can feel like bottoming or topping depending on the context, but when I do it I pretty much always feel like I’m topping, and I’ve had partners who are like Hard Tops but who are very willing to shake up the dynamics when it comes to oral sex.

Stef, Vapid Fluff Editor

I identify as a switch, but honestly I’ve never put too much thought into it. I’m interested in making sure the person I’m with is having a good time, and if I’m being real with you, these days I end up having sex so rarely that when I do, I’m kiiinda willing to do whatever. I’ve had partners with whom I’ve defaulted to being more dominant, and I’ve definitely slept with people who were much toppier than I am, and I find both of those situations equally hot. As long as communication is clear and both people are on the same page, I really don’t spend a lot of time thinking about who’s in charge (unless you’re into that, in which case, let’s talk).

Sarah, Design Director

At the 2017 Autostraddle Shakedown the senior eds asked me to guess if they were tops or bottoms. Before that moment I had never considered the question, or thought about what I personally identified as. I’m still on that journey, but what I do know is that power dynamics have always been hot to me — my most epic crushes have been on women in positions of control/power. If I were to guess I’m most likely a kinky switch who likes to bottom for my partners because I love having someone take away my control and boss me around, but also really enjoy getting someone super unraveled who is normally in control.

Valerie Anne

I… don’t know. I’m a little embarrassed to admit (and a little embarrassed that I’m embarrassed) but I’ve only ever had sex with two women before, one only once, and it really depended on the situation. Sometimes it stresses me out that so many people seem to know if they’re a top or bottom or even sub-identities within, and that often it’s part of their identity. Does not knowing mean I know myself less? Is it something you’re born into, like you’re astrological sign? Or is it like Harry Potter houses, you pick one and that’s it forever? Or is it like the Meyers-Briggs test and it’ll change depending on where you are in life? Is it okay that I don’t know? How do I know who to date? Do people put that on their application form? (I haven’t dated in a while, is that how it works?) I’ve really enjoyed reading about tops/bottoms/switches these past few weeks but I truly don’t know how it applies to me. All I know is that I’m turned on when someone else is turned on, so maybe I’m whatever you want me to be.

Yvonne, Senior Editor

I don’t really identify as any of these labels but you could say I’m a toppy switch, if that’s a thing. I’ve been in a long-term monogamous relationship for eight years now and the sexual dynamics between my partner and I has ebbed and flowed over time. When we first got together, my partner had never been with a woman and I had, so I didn’t want to scare her off?? I didn’t let her touch me even though she really wanted to and I wanted her to; I would move her hands away and I didn’t want her to see me naked. It’s so sad now that I think about it! So for a while I was only pleasing her and that was still really hot for me and for her too. Then I finally got over scaring her off and she really wanted to get me off so we had a grand ‘ole time being switches together. At one point, we introduced more sex toys and we finally got a strap-on and then I became more toppy than usual! I think in general my partner knows what she likes and I know how to give that to her so I take on that role and it’s totally fine with me. I feel I haven’t tapped into my true sexual desires and haven’t really explored what I really want because I’ve been afraid to ask for them and talk about it so it’s easier for me to give my partner what she wants rather than receiving. I think within the last few months my partner and I have had more intentional conversations about our sex life and are more aware of what we both want which has been super great, and now we’re back to being pretty consistently switchy.

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