It’s been a long ol time since I’ve known any lesbians well enough to ask such things, but I followed my brain down a weird line of inquiry, and got to wondering about the current state of the art for the gay gals. I guess I had always assumed it was similar to the dynamics of a gay guy relationship, but then I realized that since men have both an input and an output, they can choose, but it’s mechanically a bit different for cis women. Is there any relationship between that, and the slightly more masculine versus feminine flavors? Asking for a friend, who is me. I want to know. Thanks.
Hi! Not strictly a lesbian here but in a lesbian relationship. Yes, lesbians have top/bottom dynamics typically in the “one doing the action” vs the “one being acted upon” across various different acts. Most switch it up (“vers”), rather than identifying primarily as tops or bottoms. If you are strictly a top or strictly a bottom, you’re described as “stone” as in “stone top” or “stone bottom”.
Very important that these are completely different roles than dominant/submissive/switch, which are BDSM terms and describe a more psychological aspect of a relationship than the more physical top/bottom/vers.
I always wondered where Steve Austin got his name from.
I always assumed it was his nickname from when he worked at the creamery.
Nope. Turns out he’s just a very inflexible lesbian. Who knew?
I mean looking at him I can see how he’s not very flexible…
Whatever you say, Stone Cold Growsomethinggood
I suppose this question better than the previous generation’s “So which one of you is the man?”
I’m very much a lesbian and can confirm we are flatlanders. I get left and right, front and back, but top and bottom? Completely foreign concepts.
Seriously though. It seems to me very popular among young lesbians to talk about tops and bottoms, but I’m a bit older (around 40) and that was never really a thing for me or the people around me.
Fascinating. Are you able to rotate axially parallel to your allowed dimensions of travel, or does this require some degree of bi-curiosity to accomplish?
I read this in Mr. Spock’s voice.
This is awesome! I am adding in bridge sci-fi noises. Data also works.
That seems logical and stuff.
I can no more do this than you can freely move through a fourth spatial dimension
Kinda? It kinda permeated in through gay men, trans lesbians, and the kink community and developed a meaning of active partner with a dominant implication. So for example if I go down on my girlfriend before she returns the favor, it probably wouldn’t be called topping. But if I’m three fingers into a pillow princess as she calls me “Miss” you bet your ass that was topping. So it’s definitely more vibes based as versatility is assumed unless otherwise specified (and not being versatile is kinda rare)
It also can refer to who’s wearing the strap at the moment.
Cool. God I love the nomenclature so much. I think I’m just jealous, because we don’t really have any fun terminology over here in Straight Vanilla Land. Explain Pillow Princess immediately.
Also, while I have you: can you put into words the appeal of a strap-on in a lesbian relationship/encounter? I’m all for it, but It just seems like more work to achieve what you could using your hands, and neither party is usually into dicks anyway. Is it a Dom thing? Better cardio workout?
Straight Pillow Princesses exist lol
first time seing a Galaxy Quest gif. 10/10
I’ve always heard them referred to as starfish
I think the difference is that starfish just lie there, spread out, not really participating, and a pillow princess participates with words and moans, and their hands are roaming, and they’re I think usually good receivers they just don’t get on top and take a turn at the work part. They do motivate their partner to continue pleasing them though.
Sounds like everyone I know at work.
That’s fair, but I learned the term from a bi girl so makes sense
Yeah it comes from not having a default script to follow. A pillow princess is a woman, usually femme, who exclusively fills the receptive role in sex with women.
As the old saying goes: it’s not penises we aren’t attracted to but the dicks they tend to be attached to. Less hostly said though, it’s that the sensation feels good, and it’s completely unrelated to men. In fact I usually forget that straight people don’t tend to see them as unrelated to men as we often do.
The concept of the dildo makes perfect sense. I even buy the premise that a cock shaped fake cock would feel good given the original design specs of Mk.1 Human Vagangus. It’s just that thrusting from the hips is hard work, and while it’s a fantastic butt and ab workout, if i could get the same pleasure from a hand mounted penis, I would be constantly dehydrated. Is it more of an emotional or connection thing than a pragmatic choice?
A lesbian couple on Twitch got asked who the top and who the bottom was. They said they switched.
No idea what that means mechanically.
Probably like a Nintendo Switch
No, at that time they didn’t have a Nintendo Switch yet. A PS5 for Baldur’s Gate 3 was their first console.
Is that the one where you slide the joycons in and out trying to get the console to recognize and assign the joycons?
And there’s an affable Miyamoto head smiling down on them like mufasa
Anecdotes okay? If so, read on.
So, I’m cishetero, but have been involved with gay culture in specific, and broader LGBTQ+ culture generally. I was also a beard multiple times over the years, including for a lesbian couple that ended up being a bit more intimate.
But, yeah, there’s definitely dynamics with lesbians akin to top and bottom. Afaik, the terminology isn’t used often for lesbians, but it’s there in that regard too. Back in my younger days, an exclusively “top” lesbian was sometimes called a butch, whether or not they were butch in the more common sense if presenting in a more “masculine” manner. And, that was true of “bottom” lesbians being referred to as femme, even when they presented masculine.
Mind you, there was predominance of butch lesbians being tops in a sexual sense compared to being bottoms. It was fairly unusual to run into the stereotypical butch lesbian and have them not also want to be the more active partner, and even to the extent of not wanting any sexual acts being performed on them at all. By no means a universal thing, but it was common enough that people would be surprised when a butch lesbian wanted to receive head.
Being masculine presenting or feminine presenting isn’t a reliable predictor of sexual dynamics, but it’s not far off from reliable in my experience. Men and women, not just women. I’d say 8/10, the closer to a generic "masculine"presentation a person is, they’re a top in the bedroom. Mind you, that’s based on people willing to talk about such things fairly casually, which could leave out a ton of people that aren’t that way, but just don’t like talking about their sex lives in a group at work or party or other gathering.
The best lesbian friend I’ve ever had, that literally saved my life at least twice, was butch as hell. Flannels, boots, truck, went hunting, and mirrored male mannerisms with zero effort. But she was most definitely a bottom sexually. She would complain like hell that everyone wanted her to do all the work, every time, and all she wanted was some hot making out where the other woman was in charge, followed by “my pussy getting ate like a fat kid at a pie eating contest”. She didn’t mind reciprocating, but what made her most happy, most satisfied was being “bottom” in a sexual sense. But, being butch as hell, the women into her tended to assume she was going to be in control and be the active partner exclusively.
It seemed to me that the butch lesbians had a harder time with being stereotyped sexually than the femme/lipstick lesbians. It wasn’t as big a surprise to people when a feminine presenting lesbian wanted to be the more active party, or to be in charge even from the bottom. Power bottom lesbians exist in the same way laid back tops do, though a bit more frequently from what I’ve seen and heard.
You might want to differentiate between Top, Bottom, Switch and Top, Bottom, Versatile, i.e. BDSM vs penetration positions.
I’d also say that this is less about physiology and more about the individual acceptance of the concept of position.
Top, Bottom, Versatile is not necessarily a queer thing, since (cis&trans) heterosex can have positions as well. That is to say, not all queer relationships regardless of gender follow the concept of position.
It’s not just a position thing. It’s just that everyone exists either left or right of the center on the spectrum of ‘mostly giver vs mostly receiver/passive’ spectrum. The gay male community has taken to the terms of Top and Bottom to articulate ones usual preferences, and I was just curious if lesbians had come up with a similar canvas, or if it just doesn’t come up as much with them as it does for guys.
the top is the one who has to go get the electrolyte water from the fridge when you’re both out of breath
You’ll find that in queer culture, there’s not just top/bottom but a wide spectrum to define or describe preferences; I’m sure this all also applies to the BDSM world as well. There’s a variety of tops and bottoms and preferences like Bambi lesbians who don’t want sexual dynamics beyond cuddling and kissing.
Ya, but why is everyone jumping to BDSM? That’s not what I asked. I’ve never heard the term before, but I feel like “Bambi lesbian” is kinda reinventing the wheel for the sake of a cute name. Isn’t that just a romantic asexual with a gay modifier?
I think the reason people are jumping to BDSM community terms is because BDSM people fucking love terms. They’ve got taxonomy for days, and they live to whip it out, so to speak.
It’s also because like half the time a woman refers to herself as topping a woman that’s the context
Bambi is an old term, older than me. It predates descriptions like homoromantic asexual, so not reinventing the wheel at all
it kind of is, as far as i can tell, or at least it’s adjacent, though the term actually predates modern asexual nomenclature, and the split-attraction model, which didn’t really take off until the internet did. ‘bambi lesbian’ has merely had a resurgence in recent years because it sounds cute as hell.
It also seems to be additional evidence that Rule 34 predates the internet.
i don’t see the relation to rule 34
Just the idea of sexualizing nonsexual things for no reason and/or it’s funny.
All right, then. Keep your secrets.
I’ve seen people (lesbians) talk about it, so I’m leaning toward “yes they can but not always”, but I cannot give an authoritative answer as I am not a lesbian.
I don’t think you can give a authoritative answer unless you personally are ‘all’ of the lesbians.
I think in the second half you’re asking whether butches are more likely to be toppy and femmes are more likely to be bottomy.
I think there’s probably some positive correlation there but butchness and toppiness are distinct concepts.
Things about this post:
- It’s concise, and address the initial post
- I’ve never heard the terms ‘toppy’ or ‘femme’ used in this way, but I’m happy that I have now.
- Is ‘Butch’ PC these days? I’m old and can’t keep track.
- It has the feeling of being written by a professional Lesbian scientist on their lunch break at work.
- I love it.
Yes, but less so than with gay men. A lot of lesbians won’t identify as either, since penetrative sex is not super common with lesbians, but there are also some lesbians with a strong preference to either penetrate or be penetrated and not the other way round.
what’s a power bottom in lesbian?
They generate all the power during scissoring.
The very real thing that lesbians do.
Daedalus threw his cousin off of a roof for inventing scissors, but jokes on him, lesbians invented power scissoring
I feel like the only lesbian in the world who genuinely enjoys scissoring even though it’s not the most practical position 😭
Recreational sex is the least pragmatic thing in the world. Don’t judge yourself. Why do you think gay guys invited ‘Docking’?
If you do a little googling it is easy to confirm but there is the sexual definition like you where referring to and then there is just the more general relationship definition which is basically the Top is the more dominate / assertive partner and the bottom is the more passive partner.
If you “do a little googling” you can confirm anything you want wether it’s true or not. That’s why I came here to ask actual lesbian, and lesbian adjacent people.
Plus, there’s a real community aspect, which is nice.
So you asked a completely unverifiable public forum, full of users with ambiguous alts and user names and expect a BETTER answer?
You must be new to the internet.
Wow. You sound like the kind of person who picks a fight with a stranger on the internet, declare yourself the winner, goes through their profile to down vote their last hundred posts, and goes to bed at 6am, knowing that you’re the best.
To address what was only a question in the technical sense, I ask this here, because I like being able to respond to people’s stories, and ask follow-up questions, which I can’t do reading a three year old article on an ad supported medium which was probably written to give to Grandma to explain why her favorite granddaughter never brings any boys over for Thanksgiving.
Now quit being a jerk.
No, they just believe in the honesty of people. Well, that and they probably also figured that having an aggregate of answers and the upvote/downvote system, they can ferret out a response.
Like a Nintendo Switch
Scissor-me-timbers
Plunder the Booty
