The Nest

HAPPY NARUMITSU WEEK TO ALL WHO CELEBRATE

Bert: Bert and I

Ernie: Bert and I, we've been best friends forever, but we're also something else too!

Rock Eagle-Owl aka Indian Eagle Owl (Bubo bengalensis), family Strigidae,order Strigiformes, India

I am not an exclusive top. At this point in my life I'm pretty evenly vers and it's FUCKING great, but ALSO it has become very obvious to me as a vers how few people actually get the chance to be anything but exclusive top/bottom in their existing dynamics.

And like. In the grand scheme of things, that's not the worst thing in the world but on the other hand.

When I was engaged in college, my fiance was an exclusive bottom both penetratively and power wise, and friends. Friends I learned something about bottoms that it took me WAY too long to fully internalize

A lot of us choose to bottom because it allows us to give up our own agency of sexual activity and desire, and we do this not because we are actually enjoying the giving up of agency but because taking ownership of the agency, interacting with it consciously, is too painful.

I say "we" and "us" here because this includes me! When my fiance left me I could barely stand to ask for anything in bed, I just wanted someone to DO THINGS to me and not have to think about how I got there. This was a VERY bad time for me AND for the partners I was asking to top me. I try really hard not to do this anymore as a bottom. But it's a little heartbreaking how often it surprises the tops I am with that anyone would do things like casual aftercare touches, clean up, debriefs, massages, whatever. They get so blushy when I scratch their scalps and have them lay their heads in my lap and talk to me about how it felt. On the one hand, I treasure these moments. On the other hand, it makes me really sad how many tops seem to collapse into the brief moments of respite I'm offering them.

I think in the last maybe two years the tumblr discourse on tops having more or less the same agency and utility as takeout has calmed down, but burning out as a top is so real. So hyper real.

I've told similar stories on this site before, but I used to spend time and energy as a worldbuilder for other people's fantasies (online and in-person). I constructed elaborate sexual rituals and rites, made spreadsheets, conducted in-depth interviews, investigated their every sexual impulse and inclination, built digital programs, tried very very hard to sustain something like a religious fervor in my partners all for the asking price of a 'hell yeah, that was fun.'

But I realized that I was just shoveling the coal of my own desires and fantasies into the engine while the people bottoming for me provided little reliable emotional or erotic connection. In nearly every situation they were looking to be entertained and engaged, passively. They wanted someone to do shadow puppets on the wall while they lay in bed and watched.

These days I funnel that same energy into D&D because even when I throw my players off cliffs they show up consistently and emote.

So yeah, playing the top burned me out on sex for a while. Play stopped being playful when I realized that mostly I was the one playing and the other party was just waiting for me to deliver the plot. And just rolling over and bottoming so someone else could take up the mantle because I was burned out and empty left me feeling like I'd become part of the problem. (And half the time I'd just end up as the de facto top again eventually.)

It's less dire these days, but it's never going to be what it was before. I'm pretty clear about that now. I can't bear the load for such meager rewards.

Here's the point, so you don't burn your top(s) out: be fun, be a good fucking hang. Communicate and show up and be present. Every scene, every fuck, can't lead to the bottom half-unresponsive facedown on the mattress like they're trying to escape. You have to interrogate the inner life of your tops. Tell them when they've done a good job, compliment them, and be goddamned specific: "I love how your hair got all sweaty, and you really turned me on with how much eye contact you gave, can we do more of that?"

So here's my go-to template for after-care with EVERYONE that I sleep with, not just my tops:

Interaction: some kind of snuggling and casual touch, usually something like giving them a lil scalp massage or laying on them like a human blanket, whatever is comfortable for them, the only rule I have is that I do NOT reinitiate sexual contact, if my partner does, I will often happily participate, but after care performance and sex do not go together as a process imo (your mileage may vary! This is a personal preference for me and many of my partners!)

Questions:

What was something that happened that you liked

What was something that happened that could be different next time (this can include "I didn't like this" but it could also include things like "I liked x but y would make it even better for me")

What's something you might want to try in the future?

Btw, these questions are for me to answer too! It's an exchange, part of how we can lower the stakes of learning each other such that being proactive during sex doesn't feel as scary or overwhelming.

Narumitsu Week - Day 1: Firsts

Investigations in a nutshell