Top (BDSM)
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Gender
A Top may be male or female.
Role
A Top is a partner who takes the role of giver in such acts as bondage, discipline (e.g. flogging) or humiliation. The Top performs acts such as these upon the bottom.
The top is sometimes the partner who is following instructions, i.e., he tops when, and in the manner, requested by the bottom. A person who applies sensation or control to a bottom, but does so to the bottom's explicit instruction is a service top. A Top who has been given more power in general over their partner and might give orders would usually be termed a Dom (or Dominant) or possibly a Master, or the gender equivalents.
A Top need not be a top (i.e. insertive sex partner). Activities between a Top and Bottom might or might not include sex.
In order to explore BDSM, it is essential for a top to be responsive to the needs, feelings, and limits of his or her bottom. Otherwise the scene can be ruined, being simply painful or inconvenient rather than erotic.
It is possible for two partners to switch roles from one encounter to the other, or even during a single encounter, depending on mood and preference. See switch.
In Japanese bondage and sexually-themed anime and manga (especially yaoi), a top is referred to as seme, a term from Martial Arts.
The relationship between a Top and their bottom may be very transitory or can be permanent. Some Tops are married to their bottom.
A Top might also be a sadist but is unlikely to be a masochist.
Context
For convenience, people who are "In Charge" or wielding the crop or whatever are referred to as "tops", and the person on the other end is called a "bottom". Many people enjoy being both and are said to be "switches".
Furthermore, tops in a DS context are called "doms" (short for "dominants") and bottoms in DS are "subs". It's very important to remember that not all tops are doms, and not all bottoms are subs (ie not everyone into some parts of BDSM is into the DS part.) The diagram should help make this clearer. If you need to indicate gender, there are modified terms: maledom, femdom, domme (which is a feminine form of gender neutral word dom), malesub and femsub.
