What Does It Mean to Be a “Top” or a “Dominant” in Lesbian Intercourse?

Hello and welcome to part two of our series about what the hell we suggest as soon as we state “top, ” “bottom” or “switch”! Last we talked about bottoms and submissives, and this week we’re talking about tops and dominants week. Let’s go into it.

The Tops, Bottoms and Switches Intercourse Survey

Three weeks hence, we provided you with a study about these slippery terms, and over 3.6k people turned up to generally share their tops and bottoms beside me. They are the demographics regarding the participants:

Demographics of Intercourse Survey Respondents // Age: Under 18 (1.2%), 18-24 (25%), 25-34 (56%), 35-44 (14%), 44+ (4.5%) // Sexual Orientation: Lesbian (43.4%), Queer (30%), Bi or Pansexual (19%), Gay (6.2%), Other (1%) // Gender Identity: Cis girl (71.2%), Trans girl (3.4%), Non-Binary or woman that is genderqueer9.5%), Non-Binary or Genderqueer Individual (7.6%), Other (8.2%) // Relationship Status: Single or Dating, devoid of Intercourse Frequently (30.6%), Solitary or Dating, Sex Frequently (8.7%), In A monogamous relationship (32.6%), In a relationship that is non-monogamous9.3%), Married & Monogamous (15.5%), Married & Non-Monogamous (3.2%)

I’ll be going right through the information gradually during the period of the— next week we’ll talk about switches and people who don’t employ these terms at all month. We’ll also speak about sub-identities (bratty bottom, power base, service top, etc. ) and we’ll glance at the information in general and how it intersects with different identities and demographics. Each week’s data will build on final week’s and will also be extremely satisfying for nerds and fans of intercourse.

Exactly how many Tops Are on the market?

Despite all of the talk of tops and bottoms in the community that is queer our study unveiled that individuals whom identify particularly as tops or bottoms have been in the minority overall. Additionally, you can find slightly more bottoms out there than tops.

Tops: 12% // Bottoms: 14.3per cent // Switches: 51.6% // None regarding the Above: 13.4% // I’m Not Yes: 8.9%

What exactly is Topping?

Before queer women’s culture used top/bottom as terminology strongly related non-kinky sex, the terms were mainly utilized by homosexual guys, or perhaps in kink or BDSM contexts by both straight and LGBTQ+ people. For the time being, a couple of things are unmistakeable from our surveys: “top” now is easier to determine than “bottom, ” there’s more consensus on favored functions among tops versus bottoms, and there appears to be a more distinction that is clear-cut “top” and “dominant” than between “bottom” and “submissive. ”

Just Exactly What Do Tops choose to Do during intercourse?

We asked survey-takers to point their passion for providing and receiving a number of intimate functions, and in addition asked them to define what “top” methods to them. We’ve included several of the most activities that are popular. (remember that scissoring/dry-humping wasn’t included sexy feet porn regarding the study because it does not have any clear giving/receiving dynamics. )

WHAT TOPS LOVE TO DO IN BED – Vaginal Penetration: Receiving (32%), Providing (95%) // Oral Sex (Genital): Getting (56%), Providing (90%) // Strap-On Penetration (Vaginal): Receiving (20%), Offering (72%) // Genital Fisting: Getting (8.5%), Offering (29%) // Fingering (External Genital Touch): Giving (97%), Receiving (60%) // Nipple Enjoy: Getting (49%), Providing (86%) // Anal: Getting (12.4%), Providing (29%)

The chart above reveals which activities inspired tops to declare “this is regarded as my things that are favorite give/receive” or “i enjoy give/receive this. ” They could additionally show feelings that are neutral a provided act, say they didn’t choose to do it, say they’d never done it or choose “N/A. ” But “I give this and don’t like it” ended up being selected extremely seldom — precisely zero tops explicitly don’t like giving genital penetration, for instance, therefore the only intercourse acts that motivated a lot more than five tops to select “I give this and don’t like it” had been anal oral sex (six respondents don’t like it) and anal penetration (seven respondents don’t enjoy it).

There was clearly a better opinion among tops versus bottoms in terms of acts that are preferred. For instance, 95% of tops choose to penetrate vaginally; 80% of bottoms love to receive stated penetration. Needless to say, it is worth noting that not totally all those who took this study have actually vaginas to enter, but eliminating the team least prone to have vagina (trans females) from our base information would not make a statistically appropriate affect that portion. Ab muscles definitions of “giving” and “receiving” provide on their own to greater top consensus for, since it had been written Pat Califia’s 1988 lesbian sex guide Sapphistry: The Book of Lesbian sex: “the top’s power is obviously restricted to the requirements and abilities for the base. ” Likewise, you can find a lot more bottoms enthusiastic about finger-fucking (68.6%) than you will find tops who wish to get finger-fucked (32%).