About a month ago we solicited your participation in a survey about the way top / bottom / switch terminology is used (or not!) within queer women & trans folks’ sexual lives and communities. There were plenty of opportunities within the survey for you to share not only your choice-from-multiple options, but also your open-ended answers.
For example, you were free to tell me what your identification as Top, Bottom, Switch or “None of the Above” meant to you. I asked “anything else you wanna tell us about how you have sex” on page three, and at the end of the survey I asked “anything else you wanna tell us?” Mostly you told us that you love Autostraddle, which, thank you so much; or reminded me that St. Paul erasure is a problem that I was perpetuating by writing Minneapolis instead of “Minneapolis/St.Paul” and you know what, thank you so much, I did not know that! (And for the record, I’m from the Midwest, so.)
So, the sentences below were ripped mercilessly out of context from your open-ended answers to questions about your sexual behavior and identity as well as questions about how you would define various sexual terms. I have turned fragments into complete sentences and made spelling corrections when it felt like the right thing to do. Please note that the inclusion of an idea on this list is not an endorsement of that idea.
1. I think we should bring back the term ‘Kiki’ for switch ’cause it’s cute
2. I am a Gemini who can’t keep their mouth shut even during oral
3. My ex really wanted ass stuff done to her, that’s why she’s my ex
4. A former sub of mine once described me as “Xena the Warrior English Teacher.”
5. YES I’ve been dying to tell someone about how my partner and I finally found a name for our new dildo and it’s Antoni
6. I’m so happy I’m a lesbian.
7. I’m married now and my wife would say I am a bottom. In fact, when we wrap up our leftover pizza, she always puts mine on the bottom for this reason.
8. I didn’t realize how boring my wife and I are so….thanks? STONEWALL WAS A RIOT
9. in this hell timeline, have as much queer sex as possible. anything to make life worse for mike pence and better for us <3
10. If I don’t focus and mentally force myself to come, I can’t. Doesn’t matter how much stimulation I’m receiving or how good it is, if the conscious decision isn’t there, I just don’t orgasm. Believe me, plenty of past partners have taken that as a challenge. Need someone’s ego deflated? Your ex thinks they’re god’s gift to sex? I am now taking commissions!!
11. Its always better when Beyonce is playing. (Self titled album of course, I’m not a monster)
12. Also I misread “pain switch” as “pain witch”, so i identify as that, now, obviously.
14. Being a top means that I don’t wear pants
15. pillow princesses are braver than the US marines
16. I love my tiny top girlfriend!
17. “i am a bottom and also an alpha which means i don’t mind getting dunked on as long as you recognize i jump higher than you.” @hellenorosevelt said it first.
[ed. note: please note that our dear friend hellen added “@hellenorosevelt said it first” to her own open-ended response, that was not an editorial addition.]
18. I’m a big angry femme top really into shy butch bottoms
19. I mommy domme more often these days. I think my subs are looking for a place of comfort in this terrible time.
20. Oh god, I don’t know what any of these words mean! I’m about to turn 30, is it happening? Am I becoming one of these endearing old gay men trying to understand the words the young gays are using?
21. I LITERALLY DONT UNDERSTAND WHAT THESE TERMS MEAN IN THE CONTEXT OF LADIES GETTING IT ON. PLEASE HELP ME!!!!!
22. … the sex we have is just the sex we have, you know? So I’m kind of taking a stab in the dark with all of these questions. I guess it’s a survey and that’s kind of the point but I can’t help but feel like I’m going to be graded! F ON GAY LINGO, I WILL NEVER GET MY LESBIAN DEGREE NOW. That said, I guess I’m a top.
23. You know that episode of the L Word when they are on the cruise, and Shane and that author sneak away to hook up, but then realize they are both tops and decide to not actually hook up, but just tell everyone they did? That’s happened to me a few times.
24. The L Word taught me queer relationships are all switchy did they lead me astray?
25. I love making my partner feel good but sometimes my jaw / wrist / face aches HELP
26. Once I was receiving a glorious fisting, and I was being so vocal that the dogs figured out how to open the bedroom door to check that I was okay.
27. one of my cats likes to lay right next to my partner and i while we get it on. she just stares at us and purrs. cats are weird and also kinda creepy huh?
28. A month ago, a cis guy I had been dating for 3 months broke up with me via text SPELLING MY NAME WRONG and that sex was great, but WOW I’m I glad to be fucking within my standard queer group of “women and nonbinary folks (regardless of genitalia)” now
29. Most of the time I feel like a top but sometimes I want an Amazon to throw me over her shoulder and carry me back to her place.
30. The way I have sex is like a tornado in a bottle, analogously intense and all-consuming but without the destruction and death
31. Lately we keep having sex after watching movies with lesbians. This was started after we watched Carol. It’s quite an enjoyable trend.
32. I’ve had a moment where every ex I’ve dated in my town was in the same room talking to each other. Don’t date in a small town.
33. God I miss women and I have no idea what I’m doing with my life.
34. My arms are WEAK and I get TIRED on top
35. Sometimes I do her, sometimes she does me, sometimes we do each other at the same time….and sometimes we just drink a beer and cuddle because that’s awesome too
36. Be gay, do crimes!
37. No butt stuff
38. Spring comes around and it has to be EVERYDAY
39. Sex is usually something people delude themselves into believing is for mutual care when it is more often about inflicting mutual suffering, exploiting another person to participate in petty and pointless psychosexual dramas. And too many are iffy on the mutual part.
40. I want murder
41. Well!
42. I am 100% switchy for life. My wife is a bottom. This sometimes causes tantrums
43. My gf and I are both bottoms so it’s a CONVERSATION.
44. My girlfriend and I have made a few jokes recently about what counts as topping and about what either of us are because for the first two months of us being sexually active, we each thought of ourselves as tops and the other one as bottoms
45. Wasn’t on the list above but to be clear we don’t scissor. We tried it once and it DID NOT work for us.
46. I love to scissor, I can’t believe you didn’t include anything humping related on this survey. Sometimes when I grind up on my girlfriend’s thigh I think “thank god I’m a lesbian”
47. In response to “How would you define “switch”?”
“You know the Will Smith song “Switch” from 2005? It’s like that”
48. In response to “How would you define “top”?
“It’s a me, Mario”
49. My girlfriend is so attractive that I still get nervous and don’t initiate sex as much as I would like to
51. Autostraddle makes my heart go mushy and I have crushes on like 90% of your writers
52. Filling out the rest of this survey was weird enough for me, my catholic upbringing is cringing at seeing this all on paper. This is how much I love you guys. You’re welcome.
53. I would define “bottom” as the person “receiving”? Maybe? Honestly I wondered if I should Google, but didnt want that search on my work internet server
54. now I’m distracted thinking about sex and can’t focus on my work THX GUYS
55. I can’t really think of any specific other terms I use to describe how I have sex. But I’m sure I’ll think of several as soon as I submit the survey.
Why is everybody but me getting laid?
Right?! Like what the hell! No fair. ?
I know how you feel.
can we give 15 a presidential medal of freedom for speaking truth to power?
#39! I swear it doesn’t have to be like that! If you want happy, healthy, friendly, hot sex, that’s a goal I believe in for you!
My gay heart heart goes out to #3’s ex–may they be getting all the ass play they want elsewhere.
I WAS LITERALLY JUST COMING HERE TO SAY “THE BUTT OF TODAY IS NOT THE BUTT OF TOMORROW.”
emoji with the heart eyes.
Right???
I’m loving the two interpretations of #31.
So who else reads these and wonders if they know who wrote some?
I’m sorry I’m just Aquarian and can’t switch my brain off, ‘k?
… I was just going to say “Moi aussi” then I saw that you’re a fellow aquarian ?
Freaking out now.
Oh…how bizarre!
Aquarian Canadian also recovering from a long-term relationship break-up high-five I guess…?
Yes to the High-Five, because WE’RE CRUSHING IT !
I misplaced that we have so much in common, didn’t we commiserate together in a much earlier comment thread ? Autostraddle is its own multiverse, I lose track of when and what exactly I’ve confessed (a lot. I’VE SAID A LOT ON AUTOSTRADDLE DEAR GOD).
I’m sure I’ll be suitably pun-ished in the near future, please and thank you !
:-))
unsure whether i should high five #43 for their situation, or #43 was me….EITHER WAY THANK YOU @ THE FOSTERS for giving bottom/bottom relationships representation
The Fosters were bottom/bottom, that’s right!
Also #51 an enthusiastic yes
My partner and I theorise relationships (and particularly, sex) along the silly/serious divide rather than the top/bottom combo. So, in order for things to go well ~sexually~ (and in life partnership, i guess), both people must either be serious or silly. A silly and a serious would never work!
We are sillies because laughter is a key component of our sex, our love, our lives in general. Some people prefer their sex to be /intense/ eyegazing, face-stroking… I don’t really know what serious people like in bed. I want to be playful!
Anyway I still don’t know what it means to be a top or a bottom? I always win in tickle fights though.
YES! That’s a real and important dimension of sexual compatibility, along with probably more of them than I evenknow how to name
Gem! My husband and I are definitely silly-serious switches, leaning silly.
I win tickle fights too.
In my baby dyke hulu binging I recently found my perfect description.
That L Word scene where Molly yells at Shane about how she is gay 101 and but wants to be AP gay then graduate gay etc. All of that.
So I guess that would be “academic bottom?”
Also, I thought scissoring was more about…well, mashing bits together? But sexily?
I want to Luigi so badly for whoever described their top energy as “It’s a me, Mario”.
Was #39’s last partner Jenny Schecter?
bwahahahaha
Schecter lives !
re #26 – we don’t deserve dogs. they’re so pure.
currently eye rolling how hard folks seem to have to call out anal in a shaming sorta way?
ease up, friends.
H O N E S T L Y tho
as someone who just recently ate ass for the first time, I can say that this is definitely the way of the future.
Right!? Now I feel bad for not championing butt stuff as hard in this survey as I did in every conversation I’ve had about the survey since taking it! XD
I love this site and everyone who comments on everything. <3
I have to talk about #31.
I watched Carol with my girlfriend. It was lovely and relaxing and I almost fell asleep on her. It was also a terrible movie, the sex scene wasn’t sexy, and we both felt horribly cheated by it!
How it led the ladies of #31 to get it on, I’ll never know. Unless it was out of sheer boredom.
lol!
I gave you a Thumb because this entire list put me in a good mood. So I love you anyway.
I fantasize that some lucky couples/throuples/whathaveyou watch this movie with utter reverence and then bang the hell out of each other afterwards, re-enacting every single time Carol looked at Therese like a snack and then… snacked.
It’s my fantasy scene anyway.
Honestly, can we have more forums in which to discuss brilliant names for our sex toys? Kthx! ?
#40 is not me I did not do it for I would use too many adjectives for Villanelle and mention the look in their eyes and the power I feel when their life/orgasm is in my literal grasp at least once.
I really liked Killing Eve tho and Villanelle watches people die like I watch people climax.
oh wow lex i’m kind of scared of you now
Why thank you :)
I want to say I am #51, but I don’t I said as eloquently.
#48! I cannot stop laughing about that.
Confirms that the word for a group of queer women is a conversation.
But also HELLEN
Fuckin A villanelle
wherever u go, there she is
for work reasons i read this list while listening to john philip sousa marches and boy howdy does that feel weird
omigosh a thing I said was on an autostraddle list this is my greatest acheivement! To clarify though I was referencing this specific video and not calling myself a gay man in #20 xD –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNGqlXU3r0w
OKURRRR ?
Too funny. I’m so OLD all of a sudden
is there any way #30 is not a scorpio? or a mars in scorpio?
I don’t see a number 50?
#4: That is a fantastic description.
#7: My partner recently made a joke about that. She said I wasn’t allowed to put my leftovers on the top anymore since I mostly bottom. ha.
So much awesomeness. I’m sorry I missed filling out this survey :-)
*reads #1*
welp
I threw up a little in my mouth at the mere idea of having sex with a cat next to you. FFS!! #27 needs some boundaries with their feline!! Also, cat hair gets everywhere!! Ugh. I am gagging and it’s not in a good way….
Once, in college, a friend and I were making out, about to fuck, when their cat jumped on the bed and literally walked up my back. The cat proceeded to lick its owner’s face.
I still swear this is the gayest moment of my life. Surpassing the time I was having a threesome but we all felt like bottoming at the time.
#28 here. Fucking a cishet guy again. Somehow. I don’t even have men turned on for any dating app! Now accepting thoughts and prayers, thanks fam.
There are just a lot of them around I guess ??♀️. It happens. Sending t&p