#top/bottom discourse

[hey-its-sybarite]

I live for the angsty repressed service top in stories. They think they’re a bad person. They think they’re unworthy. They think they’ve tricked the other person into an unfair trade where the top tries to understand and provide for their every desire, and in return for the bottom never trying to understand them. This, they reason unhappily, is better than Being Known for the monster you are. And anyway, they’ve never been happy before but this arrangement makes them less lonely - something for which they are so grateful. The bottom thinks they’re in a normal relationship.

Related: AO3 fic tag pining while fucking

Another thing fandom needs to start doing more of is projecting on tops.

There are delicious amounts of psychological distress you can inflict on that guy once you get into his head. The brainworms of forcing agency and initiative on someone who genuinely is Not Fucking Ready For It are exquisite.

[hprambles-blog]

Reading Tomarry is kinda hard after being used to Drarry because Harry is totally opposite in behaviour. While I love the concept of Tomarry, it's kind a strange to read because in almost every fic, Harry is the bottom and he's written in a 'badass sassy female lead,' which is not how he acts in the books.

I don't want to bring up sex positions into a ship talk, but it's definitely related. No matter how much you deny t/b dynamics bleeding into personalities, it's extremely common in fics. It's not even heteronormativity because I see men worshipping their women on their knees and being babygirls in general. But in Tomarry, it's always daddy dom Tom. Its kinda ridiculous because Tom is a bit of a loser. He's powerful, witty and charming but he's a loser and also an unapologetic princess in canon. This line is apparently so hard to foot it seems.

Tomarry are true equals. So why does the scale tilt in the favor of Tom in every popular fic? Why isn't their relationship balanced the way it's supposed to be?

Harry's characterization isn't very hard to emulate, is it? I mean the books are literally created based on him.

Why is he so mischaracterized? No, he's not a cinnamon roll. He's not a tired but sassy girl in a boy's body. He's not a whiny wittle baby. He's not dependent on Hermione for everything. He's not a dumbass with only luck on his side. He's not a stunted kid who didn't grow past 5'5". He's not light and all that is holy personified. He's not kind but not unkind either. He's not submissive. He's not oblivious.

I really wanna get into tomarry, but the fics I've been filtering are still not what I'm looking for.

I know I'm complaining and I should probably write a fic of my own to satiate my craving but I really just needed to get this off my chest.

🐈

[lilacpaperbird]

top/bottom discourse is so pointless. no preference is "more rooted in canon", I'm sorry. especially when we're talking about a ship that was never canon to begin with lol. "dean/sam topping sam/dean makes more sense—" well, canon dean and canon sam would never touch each other's dicks. now what?

plus, many takes on top/bottom discourse end up relying on weird psychosexual analyses and stereotypes that I don't think reflect how real people experience their sexual preferences

you can take sam and dean and form great compelling scenarios involving any kind of top/bottom and dom/sub combination. have fun !! making others feel like they "don't understand the characters" because of this preference is not cool

[uchiha-gaeshi]

Ok, I need to know:

[jinkieswouldyoulookatthis]

To the eternal top/bottom discourse...

Top!Dean is not canon. Bottom!Dean is not canon.

Top!Sam is not canon. Bottom!Sam is not canon.

All top/bottom discourse is 100% headcanon territory and both/any version of these dynamics can be supported by canon, because it totally depends on which moments of canon you are using as support. The boys' relationship and dynamic changes from season to season and episode to episode, and sometimes from scene to scene. So there is rich and fertile ground to sow headcanons in.

Also, yet again, top and dominant are not synonymous. They are two separate traits that can overlap, or not. Likewise with bottom and submissive. And versatility and switching are very much things that are also valid.

If you have a preference in how you view their dynamic, that's fine. Have fun and run with your preferences.

But if you catch yourself getting angry or upset that other people have other preferences or views or interpretations of the relationship, and are drawing from canon to try and support their preferences, please just scroll on by or block them. It is not their responsibility to cultivate your Tumblr experience for you. And it's not a personal attack against you if they see things differently than you do, this is all just fiction based on fiction.

We are all here to have fun and we are all playing with headcanons, let's try to play nicely.

[skibasyndrome]

why are your kinktober stories all bottom Simon heavy? I trusted we would see more bottom Wille from you /gen

Anon, up front, genuinely sorry if you meant well and are now about to get the brunt of my frustration that I've built up for over a decade of existing in fandoms and fanfic spaces surrounding queer men and their sex.

Ooookay, I try not to engage in this discourse normally because frankly? It's kinda draining, because the way queer men's sex lifes are picked apart in lots of online spaces is not okay and, frankly, hurtful. But, okay:

I have posted 10 of 31 stories

I intentionally don't tag any of my smut as top!/bottom! anything (tho I don't mind other writers doing it - go off) cause frankly? I don't believe that's something that should matter. It doesn't to me when I think of wilmon. Preferences are fine, cool, awesome, both irl and in reading, there are couples who like to do things one way only and there are couples who mix things up and there's lots of stuff in between. People love to bottom! People love to top! People love any- and everything in between and that is great for them. All of that is fun and cool and absolutely awesome if everyone involved is on board. I simply don't have any one way I headcanon wilmon, I literally just go with whatever the vibe is. That also means I don't believe in having to strike a 50/50 balance or whatever. Also because

sex between men (and, since in one of the stories Wille is a trans woman, between all people, for that matter) is about more than anal and/or penetration. I love to read and write about Wille bottoming, love to write and read about Simon bottoming. But that's noooooot all there is. One thing I do try to do with my smut is write about some of the other ways sex can look. Which includes (mutual) masturbation, hand jobs, blow jobs, intercrural, frottage, a myriad of other acts. All of these are fullfilling ways of having sex, all of these don't follow top/bottom "logic" or whatever you'd like to call it. So what do we do about that?

I know some people - not saying you do, this, anon - like to conflate topping and bottoming with power dynamics, be it sub/dom type of stuff, or just... some vague idea of who is superior or whatever. And that very much CAN be the case, I'd argue Wille bottoming in my vampire fic or even Wille during the wax play in the one fic and the intercrural afterwards is definitely bordering sub-y territory. But you know? That also very much doesn't have to be the case. In the fic that includes 69 it's Simon "calling the shots" or whatever you'd like to call it, despite being the one that's being penetrated. I have fics planned out where the opposite is the case, I have plenty of fics where bottoming doesn't have anything to do about being sub or being dom or anything like that. I think there's this idea going around that somehow, (gay) sex acts are linked to power and power exchange and that there needs to be some equilibrium or... justice??? And. No. That's not how consensual sex, be it in relationships or hookups, works in my mind. In consensual sex, there is no disadvantage in bottoming or no need for any of the partners to bottom to fix some sort of hierarchy. Because there is none. Not in the consensual sex of two (or more) partners that want to have sex to have a good time or feel close or relax or any of the other reasons people have sex.

Fair question to ask, just know that I don't write bottom anything for the sake of making a point, I just write whatever feels like the characters would enjoy it in that particular moment in time, whatever suits the POV I wanna go with. I don't keep a tally of times penetrative sex has been part of a story and who did what. If that's a no-go for you, that's fine and I won't hold it against you. I have a bunch more stories coming up with all kinds of dynamics, all kinds of sex acts, all kinds of differently written versions of our two blorbos.

hope this was concise enough and I recognize that I've definitely put all kinds of other, adjacent, points into this, but this gay man right here is kind of fucking sick and tired of seeing stuff assigned to gay sex acts that are just. sex between consenting partners

[imbiowaresbitch]

Say it with me, friends. Top/bottom are not kinks!

The fic in question IS tagged for omegaverse, and it mentions in the summary that Dean is dancing with an Alpha. On the first screen on a cell phone, it indicates Dean is the Omega in the equation, 'cause his ass goes slick.

Don't like? Don't read. Click out of the damn page. Don't leave dumbass comments for the author because you can't be bothered to moderate your own reading experience.

~~

And if you want to read the fic in question, it's here. Do mind the tags I did use, they're there for a reason.

[trickstersmagic]

Miguel stay winning 💅

[wincestwhispers]

friendly fandom reminder that bottoming ≠ submissiveness and penetration is not inherently dominance

[isalisewrites]

"You’re missing out on some amazing stories if you’re filtering for bottom/top tags. It’s why I refuse to add that in any of my stories, even when we get to the sex scenes."

YAAAASSSSS MY QUEEN 👏 so glad you brought this point up, and THANK YOU for being brave enough to speak up about it. i'm so tired of these attempts at suppressing creativity in this fandom. LET OUR FREAK FLAGS FLY AND BE FREE

Absolutely. I've seen someone on Twitter complain about a long fic (think it was 200k+) not having the top/bottom tag and when the story finally got to sex, it "ruined" the story for them because Tom happened to bottom.

I'm sorry, but I have nothing nice to say about that, ngl. Anything I have to say will just sound mean. XD

I will say this, though. What a terrible way to treat the author who put hundreds, if not thousands of hours (I certainly have into mine.) into their story. How could anyone spit on someone else's work like that? How can anyone dismiss the story because of that? For a slow burn fic like that, I'd bet money it was perfectly in character for them, too. I just can't begin to fathom it.

In a long fic like that, it's not about sex. It's about the characters connecting through intimacy. There's such an immense lack of understanding about this concept and I, quite frankly, am fucking exhausted by it all.

[thatsprettylane]

It’s very funny to me that top/bottom discourse apparently got so intense in the Naruto fandom that sns became the default ship tag for Naruto and Sasuke. Nobody tops. Nobody bottoms.

[young-royals-confessions]

is simon a top or a bottom?

Simon seems to prefer kissing Wille's top lip, but there was one time in season 2 where he experimented with kissing his bottom lip. Maybe he'll be more vers in season 3?

[avengersnewb]

There must be a psychological reason for the way I develop a negative reaction to a fandom’s designated bottom.

Like it just bugs me and gets my hackles up to see a group collectively decide this character (or worse, this real person) is a bottom and they all roll with it.

Just makes me want to push back and write it the other way tbh.

(Except for Dean Winchester - that little twink is 100% a bottom uwu)

[lilacpaperbird]

*holding the hands of bottom!sam lovers and bottom!dean lovers* c'mon guys. please don't fight anymore. I have the solution

[uchiha-gaeshi]

Time to rev up the top/bottom discourse engine 😈

[jinkieswouldyoulookatthis]

Folks have got me thinking about Sam and Dean (like I ever think of anything else) and top/bottom sub/Dom stuff. Neither of them are Doms, as far as I can see it, although Dean has some subby tendencies where sex is concerned. What I mean by that is that Dean is down for whatever as long as his partner is enthusiastically into it. Seriously think you could push that man around in bed so easily and he'd be smiling the whole time. Sam is a little more take charge, but not in a domineering way, just in a he'll pick up his partner and toss them onto the bed before completely blanketing them kind of way.

While in canon they only have female partners, so are more often than not going to be the penetrating participant, I don't think it would take too much to convince either of them to play catcher at least once. Dean because he'll try anything once. Sam because he is 100% kinkier than he seems like he would be.

Now in fanfic, where there are no rules, I like the idea of them switching just because why not. but my default tends to be bottom!Dean and top!Sam because I like the idea of Sam getting all worked up and handsy and pushy when he's turned on and Dean just going with it.

But there is no wrong way in fanfic.

So get creative, mix things up, and most importantly, do what you want. Write the story that you want to read. Write what you think is hot, or interesting, or traumatizing, or scary, or sad, or schmoopy. Just try not to yuck other people's yums and don't kink shame. If something's not for you, scroll on.