On Going Sideways

"There's the road to heaven
And the road to hell,
And there -
There's the road to Faerie."

I'm giving a lot of thought lately to third roads and other pathways: queering the categories, genderfuck, switching. Paradoxes and in-between spaces.

Should I start by saying that there's no "better than"? Do I need to? If I do, let me say: there is nothing wrong with being straight or gay, being top or bottom, being gendered, being firm in one place. But also - there is nothing less than in being where I am, which is a place where none of these distinctions hold much meaning other than providing points of frission for play.

Even when you get to recognizing switching in the scene, there's a whole mode of discourse on switching that less and less resembles who I am or how I play. The discourse seems defined by a set of either/ors that don't fit my life. The local scene is actually pretty "accepting" of switches, but still there are groups that are open to "tops, or switches in top mode," or "bottoms, or switches who are in bottom mode."

First, you have to get there. You have to get beyond the question "Are you a top or a bottom?" Please don't ask me who I am, at least not by providing a set of binary checkboxes. Instead, ask me what I do. Asking, "Do you top or bottom?" would at least be a first step. Asking "Do you top? Do you bottom?" expecting an answer for each not contingient on the other would get us even further there. But not quite. Not for me anymore.

Top mode. Bottom mode. I used to think I knew that that meant. I had a lover once with an icon that had a little picture of a light switch on it, and said: "I do switch. Do you?" And I loved that icon. I was just starting my adventures in topping at that point, and the idea delighted me. Yes, of course I did! And I felt a lot like that light switch. Up position: now I am topping! Down position: now I am bottoming!

And at first, I'd get frustrated. Why couldn't I hold myself to one of those perfect boxes? As a bottom, I began to find myself noticing exactly what my tops did, taking notes. Did that make me a "bad" bottom? As a top, I found myself wanting to please. Did that make me one of those terrible service tops I kept hearing so many bad things about?

And yet, there was already something compelling about switching. That lover with the light switch was the one who growled to me, taking me down for the first time after a short history of bottoming to me, "There's a reason that I'm usually the bottom, and it's not that I'm the nice one . . . " And I kept finding it over and over to be true, and delighted in it. By accident or design, I found that to a one the masochists that topped me played me much harder than any top ever had, and I loved it. I quickly grew to expand my capacity even more as a pain slut under these vicious players than I had in years of (just) bottoming to (just) tops. These days, I get the same feedback about my own play; I take people harder than they might otherwise go, because I've been there, and I know the way.

I think it was my priestess training that actually began to change things for me. The concept of dual awareness began to really sink in, and seep over into my play. Ah, yes. I can top, and still be open and vulnerable. I can be tied up, and maintain enough dual awareness to also learn the ties I'm in and plan to use them later.

But it's more than that. There's a kind of alchemy that I'm just starting to explore. A place where I'm not either/or but both/and, and I honestly can't tell what parts of me are running top or bottom energies or why that distinction would be relevant. There are moments when it's all just life force - my life force connecting with the life force of someone else, and becoming a new entity. The ferocity of getting back to my early days of incredible rough sex before anyone ever thought to ask me what team I was playing for. Getting back to just life force.

Ironically, or maybe not, this is coming at the first time in my life that I'm also gaining a serious interest in D/s.

I had an amusing moment the other day at the SIG. I was in a partial suspension, lazily swinging in a completely comfortable chest harness, one leg in the air, slowly working my way from a half moon up into standing again. One of the local riggers said, "I could have sworn when I met you at ARS you were a top." I just smiled and said "I am . . . !" And there's no paradox for me there for me any more.

I am still dropping the last vestiges of worrying about being seen as a top or a bottom, and I'm happy with that. It's a process. Mostly it's not my ego that makes me not want to lose "cred"; it's my desire to keep finding bottoms who will play with me. And I find as I give in and trust the process that it still happens, pretty much in the way I need. I love that surprise of folks that mostly see me in one mode suddenly seeing me in the other. Even more, I love those that can see and honor both of them in me at once. Something as simple as my calling in a sweet submissive who's never met me to do a quick act of service for me while I'm in suspension: beautiful.

There's a great moment from the SIG last week caught on tape. I'm dressed already, have my glasses on, but Pyrate Lass is still in a full katana. I'm testing her breasts for sensitivity, "all in the service of photography". She's in the rope, but she's standing, I'm kneeling. I'm doing, she's receiving. But she's beaming. I come back from it, and one of the photographers orders, "Do it again." And Pyrate Lass beams "And she does!" as I do. Who is topping here? Who is bottoming? Does it matter?

Like most things in my life, this is a work and play in progress. I don't think I've figured out an ending point. It seems more likely I am just beginning to queer these categories.