What makes up a Dom / Top?

I have a question about Doms/Tops.

What elements go into the psychologial profile of a Dom?

I lack direct experience with either side of the BDSM world, though I have been to fetish parties where various aspects of BDSM were being displayed. I've also read various material (including O and the Beauty series) and on this board and elsewhere on the internet, but most material and information seems to be provided by subs or from the sub's perspective.

I'd like to have a better understanding of what's in it for the top. Why do various top activities give pleasure to the top? What psychological / personality traits are being satisfied or lead one to gain satisfaction from the experience?

We've had this one a few times....

but I don't know how to link the thread(s), so I'll cheese my way out and actually answer you directly.

The opinions expressed herein are strictly those of SpectreT, and do not reflect the policy or views of Literotica, BDSM, The forum moderators, Professional Dom(me)s, or anyone other than SpectreT. Your experience may differ.

Damn disclaimer! how'd that get in here?

Well, there's the energy involved. Emotionally, psychologically, and intellectually, the dominant has a certain something that I'm at a loss for words to describe. Intensity might be a good one, but don't think of someone ranting and frothing at the mouth. Intensity can be subtle and controlled as well. Control might be a good part of the "profile"; someone who's confident and poised.

All I know is you can feel it when you're near some people, and I've seen how it works coming off me.

What one "gets out of" being dominant? Harder to say. Please, I'm not trying to be cryptic... It just feels right. There is another human being, right over there, who has given you power. Who's waiting to see what you have in store, who's ready to work or be worked by your will. Someone you've (hopefully) come to know quite well already. You know what will elicit a response, be it "ouch!" or "MMMMmmmmMMM!" or "I'm scared." or "Can we please move on to something else?"

The fact that they're there, and want to play, to trade energies with you.

The fact that you're expressing a part of who and what you are, and helping another person to do likewise.

Might as well ask what we "get out of" talking to each other.....

As to specific forms of play, they feed one of those needs above.

as Dennis Miller says,
"Of course, that's just my opinion......
I could be wrong."

Geeze I love these tuough questions

I really don't know, other than it feels right.

What I like most ..... is your sub, is their gift to you, and you MUST cherish your sub.

You each must ultimatley respect each other, and be completely honest and always communicate your needs and problems with each other.

Open Communication

Open communication is a must
This is the first and only time I will ever attempt a D/s relationship online
And, only then because mo and I are working towards a real life future together
Talking is what we have to sustain us
We don't 'cyber'
We chat, we e-mail each other, we come here to spill our ideas and read others
Nothng is better than learning, asking questions
Getting other points of view
~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~

For Me it's when you get in that zone
where everything comes loose and you fly together
Either talking straight out about something
Or, that skin to skin contact
That to Me is as intimate a the best sex you can have
And. God knows I love sex lol

Thanks SpectreT, for the response.

Control might be a good part of the "profile"; someone who's confident and poised.

Click to expand...

Hope you don't mind my asking. I'm trying to learn for my own benefit, as well as for future character developement, but,

Might the person instead be feeling that they lack confidence or poise, and that this position gives them a situation to feel more like they want to feel (ie. more confident/poised)?

Or do you think that a person that is feeling that they lack these aspects is unlikely to be a "good" top, that instead the gap would lead them to not manage the control well and perhaps be inconsiderately sadistic?

I guess I could clarify my question a bit too.

The reason that I ask about profile elements is to help me to work backwards to understand characters for development. I think that even when little of a charater's background is covered in a story, you still have to have it as you write. Kind of the Stanislavski / Method acting approach.

For example, I'm a hobby musican. I'm not a great socializer, but I like the socialization of creating music with others, and being listened to by an audience in a non-verbal manner. I'm also somewhat insecure yet egotistical and get an ego kick from being the center of attention in a situation that I'm prepared for being the center of attention. And so on. I understand enough so that I can draw on that understanding to create a believable character who is a musician, or actor, or painter. Or so I like to think.

Do tops need to have a sense of themselves being above-average worthy people, so that they feel they deserve the gift given by the subs? Do they tend to have larger than average egos?

And I'm guessing that for a top control would play a part of their makeup. And that control might play a part in the other parts of their lives too, like an interest in the military, or a highly tweaked computer or car.

But maybe not; I suppose some might be the opposite of the stereotypical executive boss that needs to be a sub to achieve satisfaction, so a top could be non-dominant in other aspects of life but find satisfaction being dominant in private.


Just my mental meanderings. Comments greatly appreciated.

More Meanderings

A dominant must be confident and show it to a submissive. It doesn't mean he is a control freak. He just accepts the gift because the submissve gives it to Him. Accepts that that is who He is. Too much ego can work against you.

I know a D/s couple here in Florida. He is an over the road trucker. She is a college professor. To see them in their everyday lives at work you would never see that she is the Domme and he is her willing submissive. Yet they have practiced the lifestyle for five years or better.

boz said:

I have a question about Doms/Tops.

What elements go into the psychologial profile of a Dom?

I lack direct experience with either side of the BDSM world, though I have been to fetish parties where various aspects of BDSM were being displayed. I've also read various material (including O and the Beauty series) and on this board and elsewhere on the internet, but most material and information seems to be provided by subs or from the sub's perspective.

I'd like to have a better understanding of what's in it for the top. Why do various top activities give pleasure to the top? What psychological / personality traits are being satisfied or lead one to gain satisfaction from the experience?

Click to expand...

I personally (which means this is my opinion) do not subscribe to psychological profiling of D/s or Top/bottom activities. Like most things the bell curve applies. The largest group of people tend to fall in the middle of the bell curve, and the extremes are at either end.

For example, I am one of the minority of dominants who strive to live my personal life in a dominant manner. That means it is not about "play", "sex" or "scenes". It is about having one (or more )slave(s) submit to Me for the express purpose of serving Me. This is a negotiated "relationship" that is usually permanent (tavish) for long-term (chrissy snow).

I like to be served, and I have male submissives who enjoy serving Me.

Ebony

Re: Profiling

What she said. They don't really work. As a Switch, my dominant experience is going to vary quite greatly from hers, or WriterDom's, or even Risia Skye's. Like I said in my first post, you can feel it, when it's there. I really don't know what I can say that'll help with your needs; maybe you should peruse the other threads here and see if you can build "profiles" for your writing based on some of the things we've posted here.... Only help I think I can offer you, friend.

Hmm, okay.

Thanks all, for your thoughts. I'll keep surfing thru various topics here to see what I glean.

And the web too.

I've run accross a few very interesting personal descriptions/analysis' on various web sites written by subs about their experiences and how they think they came to be where/who they are.

In some cases these apparently were assignments given to them by their Masters. Perhaps that's why I haven't seen equivalent writings by tops.

First off, we've got to do a little vocabulary review, i think.

For many of us here, and out in "real life", Top is not equivalent to Dominant. They are complements of each other but they are not the same. Are you asking us about Tops or about Dominants? Such a distinction is necessary for us to answer your question with the seriousness it deserves.

Generally i don't have much intuitive, emotional understanding of Top/bottom headspace, though i can define them adequately (for myself in my life, anyway). I'll answer your questions, therefore, with regard to my rather limited understanding of who and what a dominant is - to me, for me, in my eyes, as a submissive. (I've been thinking and musing over this question of who the hell would want to be a dominant when we subs have all the fun for a very long time. )

Originally posted by boz Do tops need to have a sense of themselves being above-average worthy people, so that they feel they deserve the gift given by the subs? Do they tend to have larger than average egos?

Click to expand...

Both dominants and submissives need healthy self-esteem to take a D/s relationship to a fully adult and entirely consensual level. If they don't have that self-esteem as people, as individuals, then it remains a thing of somewhat childish interdependence sometimes, or kinky bedroom games, or a poorly understood mishmash of emotional needs that may or may not be getting met. Any of those scenarios are just fine, of course, if it works for those who are most intimately involved.

Dominants are just people, but they're people who understand how to control erotic power in and out of the bedroom. They understand, sometimes without realizing it, the nuances of power psychology that are at the heart of our relationships. Almost without exception, they're highly moral and honorable people who feel the weight of the enormous amounts of trust that thier submissive has invested in them, and they strive to remain worthy of that trust.

Does that translate into having "a sense of themselves being above-average worthy people"?
----- Perhaps. Perhaps not. One cannot place such a braod statement over such a diverse group of people and have it fit well on everyone. Mostly, i'd say, dominants feel empowered by the reality of thier lives. They feel central in their lives and they feel calmly able in almost all situations. The very real power they exert in thier personal relationships give them an important pshchological tool when dealing with daily life. Does that make them feel "above-average worthy" in all situations? No. But it does give them a edge of competence that's denied those who don't understand or participate in power-exchange relationships, IMO.

Does that feeling of above-averageness translate into an entitlement from thier sub, a feeling "they deserve the gift given by the subs"?
----- Oh no! No one who is at all real in this, who is at all serious about learning and growing as a BDSM dominant feels at all entitled to the submission offered by his/her partner. That submission is our gift. We give it when we choose to give. It cannot be forced or guilted or wheedled from us. It's not a tangible anything and cannot be taken from us. It's a feeling. It's a level of trust. It's a heartspace, a headspace, a opening.

Dominants who prove to be undeserving of the gift of true submission get offered that very thing, of course. We submissives think with our hearts and our needs far too often for that not to happen. Inexperienced dominants abound, of course, those who don't know what they're asking for, who wouldn't know how to recognize it if it were offered to them, and who cannot understand the incredible gift we're offering to them. Those dominants can and do hurt us badly with thier inexperience and inability to recognize the immensity and intensity of what we're offering when we offer our open-hearted submission. They don't, though, feel entitled to it. How can they feel entitled to something they don't understand?

But do experienced and caring dominants think they "deserve" it, our submission? No. I've not met them in all the years i've been doing this, anyway.

Do they tend to have larger than average egos?
----- Actually, they tend to be incredibly self-assured people, those real dominants. If thier self-assurance translates into egoism in the eyes of outsiders, then so be it.

We know who we are.
We know who our partners are.
We know how to stay safe while doing dangerously edgy things with each other, physically and emotionally.

Our dominants are rightfully self-confident and centered. Daily practice of being capable, caring, honorable, and ultimately trustworthy will give that to a person, don't you think?

And I'm guessing that for a top control would play a part of their makeup. And that control might play a part in the other parts of their lives too, like an interest in the military, or a highly tweaked computer or car.

But maybe not; I suppose some might be the opposite of the stereotypical executive boss that needs to be a sub to achieve satisfaction, so a top could be non-dominant in other aspects of life but find satisfaction being dominant in private.

Click to expand...

Within the BDSM world, for those of us who claim a place under this umbrella, control is central in our lives. We are all control freaks, all of us, dominants and switches and submissives alike.

The real trick is in matching your control needs with someone whose needs (emotional and sexual and psychological and philosophical) are like your own. Then the control can shift and bend and flex in ways that can make both partners exceeding content.

Hope this helped a bit.





(edited to make this long ramble make some kinda logical sense as well as to correct the spelling of the word "vocabulary". It couldn't have been another word i misspelled, could it?)

Wow, thanks cymbidia.

Both dominants and submissives need healthy self-esteem to take a D/s relationship to a fully adult and entirely consensual level.

Click to expand...

Curiousity question: At the end of Story of O and the version where she kills herself (or asks to be killed, I can't remember which) in your opinion, do you think perhaps O lacks this requisite level of self-esteem, or does she have it and she's just taking her situation to too much of an extreme, or is it an extreme that some subs might want to go to? Or maybe the S/M is irrelavant; pehaps her death is like a vanilla relationship death wish after the end of the relationship.

On a less morbid topic, I suppose one way of looking at things would be to compare a intimate vanilla relationship, which includes trust, and the other extreme being a psychotic sadist, who if they ever had trust to begin with, goes beyond the boundries, and possibly gets the most pleasure from things that are beyond the other persons' desire/need/acceptance level.

Somewhere in between might lie the dominant?

Or is the dominant in the other direction, with the vanilla relationship in the middle?

I guess it depends whether the scale is measuring trust (where the vanilla might be in the middle) or pleasure-from-control-over-someone-else, where the dominant would be between the sadist and the vanilla.



Sorry, more meanderings.

My opinion (again)

"On a less morbid topic, I suppose one way of looking at things would be to compare a intimate vanilla relationship, which includes trust, and the other extreme being a psychotic sadist, who if they ever had trust to begin with, goes beyond the boundries, and possibly gets the most pleasure from things that are beyond the other persons' desire/need/acceptance level."

I think that there are plenty of vanilla relationships that have sadism involved. They call it abusive relationships. No one is 100% vanilla or 100% D/s or BDSM. The lines can be and are blurred to meet the demands of each relationship.


"I guess it depends whether the scale is measuring trust (where the vanilla might be in the middle) or pleasure-from-control-over-someone-else, where the dominant would be between the sadist and the vanilla."

Trust is trust regardless of the nature of the relationship. Either you have it or you don't. the commitments may vary, but if you need trust in a relationship, does it really matter if it is a kinky one or not?

My being dominant has nothing to do with my psychological profile. I am perfectly capable of maintaining a vanilla relationship...if I choose to. I do not choose to.

Ebony

No one is 100% vanilla or 100% D/s or BDSM. The lines can be and are blurred to meet the demands of each relationship.

Click to expand...

True enough. We ocassionally use light bondage for a little spice in our own relationship, when the abscence of our kids allows us. On the other hand, in order to find characteristics that help to define the center of the bell curve for each type of relationship, some degree of dualism is required. (So much for my Zen studies )

Trust is trust regardless of the nature of the relationship. Either you have it or you don't. the commitments may vary, but if you need trust in a relationship, does it really matter if it is a kinky one or not?

Click to expand...

Maybe I should have said, the way in which the trust is tested. But then the S/M relationship would be back in the middle again, with the psychotic sadist beyond the breaking point.

via cymbidia:

(I've been thinking and musing over this question of who the hell would want to be a dominant when we subs have all the fun for a very long time. )

Click to expand...

I just realized, this is kind of where my question arises from. I can more easily understand how a sub gets pleasure from the situation than how a dominant gets pleasure.

This is spite of my lack of experience as a sub and in spite of my suspicion of my own leaning towards being a dominant. Odd.

cym

As always your thought provoking touch of reality resounds with the complex simplicity of the spectrum of D/s from both sides of the coin. The ultimate win/win situation!

I can find not a word that I am not in agreement with and all I can add to make it complete is WRONG!

~~~grin~~~subs do not have all the fun... subs GIVE Domme all the fun! And I for one..thank you very much.

Domination is life, joy, dancing it the streets kind of a kick for Me...I am a Domming addict if I do say so Myself

Shadowsdream said:

cym

As always your thought provoking touch of reality resounds with the complex simplicity of the spectrum of D/s from both sides of the coin. The ultimate win/win situation!

I can find not a word that I am not in agreement with and all I can add to make it complete is WRONG!

~~~grin~~~subs do not have all the fun... subs GIVE Domme all the fun! And I for one..thank you very much.

Domination is life, joy, dancing it the streets kind of a kick for Me...I am a Domming addict if I do say so Myself

Click to expand...

what she said!

Ebony