Tab A in ... uh ...

May 5, 2010 6:22 AM

My long-term partner and I are both exclusive tops, and to make matters worse, I used to bottom but am now pretty close to stone. Help a stone top re-learn how to be ok with bottoming. (Conceivably NSFW)

He's straight, 100% pure vanilla, not into bottoming at all. (We've explored the possibility. It was ... awkward and not great.) I'm bi and genderqueer-leaning-toward-FtM but with all my original equipment intact, so hopefully it's not surprising that I'm not wildly enthused about bottoming or receiving oral.

When we first hooked up, I could sort of live with bottoming -- mostly thanks to limerence and a youthful libido. But I truly, strongly prefer to top, and frankly bottoming kind of skeeves me out. With previous partners (male and female) strap-ons have been pretty awesome both for standard "tab a in slot b" and for fellatio, but ... see also "awkward and not great" in this case. Me giving him oral is reasonably entertaining, but, y'know, I want my jollies too.

I've made some attempts to go back to bottoming, but my skin starts crawling before we get very far and it's been kind of a mess. If you've been in a top-top relationship, how did you work it out? If you used to be stone but now are not, what did it take to get you going? Throwaway email: [e-mail]

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Complicating factor A: the last guy I topped was cool with it for a while until he eventually decided my gender identity made him feel gay and he wasn't ok with that, and the breakup was pretty acrimonious/baggage-tastic. (Current partner is aware of this.)

Complicating factor B: We're married (5 years together). The lack of sex is putting kind of a strain on things. He's been very understanding and he knows I'm trying to work it out, but because I used to bottom, he still feels rejected on some level. I'd like to try to work this out before we get too far into DTMFA territory.

posted by anonymous to Human Relations (1 answer total)

My husband is pretty vanilla, though very GGG. I still strongly suspect that, were we the sort of people who put labels on things (not that there's anything wrong with labels--just not our thing, personally), we'd both be tops. We both feel pretty strongly about being dominant, rather than submissive. This has worked for us--our relationship is lots and lots of sexy wrestling and jockeying for our preferred position.

That being said, he's not into strap-on sex at all, either (dang! but what can you do?).

I think if you're really dedicated to this relationship, it's going to require a paradigm shift in your thinking for it to work. I suspect, with your genderqueerness and FtMness, that you might think of being the receptive partner in either PiV or oral sex as more feminine and submissive. The funny thing is, the two uses of "bottoming" (that is, both being the receptive partner physically during sex, and being the submissive partner) don't need to be conflated. You might try being more forceful and commanding during foreplay, before PiV or oral sex. You might take a whack at bossing him around a little bit. You might even try positions that make you feel more powerful. Which is to say, there's no reason you need to lie down to have someone go down on you, and if missionary or, I don't know, doggy style, make you feel uncomfortable and out-of-character, there's no reason to do it in that position.

You might also consider jerking off with something like a feeldoe while he's receiving.

All this is to say that there's more than one way to feel like a top--you can be a top and never peg anyone. My advice would be to explore how the power dynamic, rather than the actual intercourse, could be more in line with your sexual identity here.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 6:45 AM on May 5, 2010 [1 favorite]