The New Topping Book

Vulnerability follows intensity. After playing a terrifying street hoodlum who kidnapped and tormented Dossie at a party, Janet sat at Dossie's feet and said, "Could you just pet me for a while, please?" She needed reassurance that Dossie still liked her after witnessing such a dark persona. The authors frame this need as normal and essential — accessing your shadow puts you into tremendous emotional vulnerability.

The Top's Bill of Rights explicitly includes the right to nurturance, support, and responsiveness. A bottom who withdraws the moment the whip goes down isn't meeting their obligations. The authors insist: a top pretending to be without vulnerability, compromise, or connection is an unsafe and unhealthy top. Emotional honesty isn't weakness — it's the foundation safe play demands.

The leathermen lesson. Dossie recalls watching two intimidating leather-clad men at a party — aviator sunglasses, nickel studs gleaming. She expected mayhem. Instead, the top began with riding-crop taps as light as rain, flushing the skin with barely perceptible touches. Only after the bottom became entranced did he increase intensity by a single notch, pausing to establish rhythm at each new level. Eventually he was striking with full force, the bottom thrashing in wild abandon — but it took a patient, deliberate build.

The biggest novice mistake is escalating when the bottom starts responding. That response means you're doing something right — stay there. The same applies to control scenes: start with easy orders (remove clothes, kneel) before graduating to emotionally demanding ones. There is always next time.

Even stoic bottoms emit signals. The authors identify three key channels to monitor constantly:
1. Muscle tension — relaxed and loose means happy; clenched fists, grimacing, and quivering muscles mean struggling
2. Breathing — deep diaphragmatic breaths signal ease; rapid shallow chest-breathing signals distress and risks hyperventilation
3. Posture and movement — leaning into sensation means "more"; flinching away means back off; rhythmic swaying signals the onset of trance

One powerful technique: Rather than verbally ordering a bottom to breathe slower, place your palm firmly on their chest or back and breathe audibly in the rhythm you want. Most bottoms instinctively synchronize. The authors note that impending orgasm looks remarkably like intense pain — context and familiarity matter enormously.

Negotiation is a top skill. Many bottoms struggle to share desires because it feels like ordering the top around. A professional dominatrix got so frustrated with a client who would only say "I only want to please you, Mistress" that she told him, "Then give me the money and leave; I'll go to a movie." Tops must actively create space for information — through letters, in-role commands, or structured out-of-role conversations.

Phrasing is everything. "I'd like to cane you now, would that be OK?" and "You're about to get a caning you'll never forget, you little slut" convey the same information but feel completely different. The art is phrasing requests so they sound like demands for your own pleasure, not fumbling for the bottom's preferences. In scene, you can even order a reluctant bottom to confess desires — embarrassment itself becomes part of the play.

Dossie's branding story. After months of research and practice on potato slices, Dossie prepared to brand her lover at a gathering with invited friends. During the warm-up flogging, nothing felt right — connection was absent, gentle strokes landed wrong. The bottom wanted to proceed. Dossie refused, safewording out of the scene. She felt like an idiot, apologized fifty times, then reminded herself: it is never wrong to stop when something doesn't feel safe. A month later, they pulled off the branding beautifully.

S/M is not a competition. Responding to anyone's safeword with scorn or ridicule is unethical. If your bottom safewords and you feel anger or rejection — which is human — take three deep breaths and start caring for each other. The scene may not be over; often, addressing the issue lets both parties resume.

The hierarchy of hip about heaviness is the authors' term for a toxic BDSM cultural pattern where players who attempt extreme play are deemed superior to those whose gentle sessions leave partners glowing like a 200-watt bulb. The authors deplore this ranking. A handspanking that thrills both parties outranks a needle suspension that left someone cold. One player's mantra: "This is not a contest. This is not a contest."

The same poison infects identity labels. Phrases like "real dominant" or "true submissive" translate to "someone who plays in a way I approve of." The player doing a light session twice a year is doing something just as real as a 24/7 master-slave household. When you set an unattainable ideal and subtract points every time someone falls short, you guarantee disappointment.

Top drop is the pendulum swinging back. Hours or days after an intense scene, many tops experience guilt, inadequacy, or horror — "What did I just do?" You may tear apart a genuinely transcendent scene, convince yourself your bottom was faking ecstasy, or question your sanity. The authors compare it to postpartum depression: you were very high, so the pendulum now swings low.

Playing parental roles cuts deepest. Coming out of daddy or mommy roles can awaken internalized messages from your own parents, making you feel like a child who did something terrible. In some cases, buried childhood memories surface as flashbacks or disturbing dreams. The practical advice: call your bottom for reassurance, share the aftercare equally, and consider therapy if old wounds keep reopening. Aftercare is mutual — bottoms should nurture their tops just as tops nurture them.

Jung's Shadow meets BDSM. The authors draw on Carl Jung's concept of the Shadow — the repository of everything we've banished from awareness: trauma, shame, rage, neediness, cruelty. Their thesis: our kinky desires may be the longing to reunite with lost parts of ourselves. When we eroticize forbidden roles, we inject self-rejection with the healing energy of Eros and confirm our enlarged selves through the affirmation of orgasm.

Dossie's workhouse scene illustrates this. Playing a pathetic orphan with Janet, she later realized she was reconnecting with a time in her twenties when she was actually destitute and pregnant — but couldn't afford to feel pathetic then. The scene, 25 years later, gave her compassion for her younger self. The shame dissolved. Not all play goes this deep, but the authors argue all BDSM is shadow play to some degree — finding acceptance for what's unacceptable outside scene space.