Dear Mr. Sexsmith,
My butch girlfriend wants me to boss her around in bed. She wants me to think of it as just using her for my own pleasure and nothing more (just this once anyway!). I’m a bit shy about it though, and not sure how to go about it. Do you have any tips or advice for me?
Aiming to Please
I love this kind of play, personally, so I got a little grrr growl and chill-thrill when I read your question. It took me a lot of time, experimenting, sharing fantasies, and permission for me to come to loving this play, however. I have been a top hung up on whether or not to make a move in many, many scenarios.
So, my tips and advice kind of depend on where your stuck point is. Do you have trouble figuring out what you’re going to do to her, for your own pleasure? Are you worried that you’ll go “too far,” and will do something she won’t like? Or do you freeze up when you actually get to the point of actually doing the things you want to do (and know she’ll like) in bed?
I’ll give a few ideas for each of those.
And, before we go any further: A Note About Gender and Power
Just for the record, that she’s butch probably doesn’t factor into this. I love having these little details in the question, so thanks for including it, but for the most part throwing around your butch girlfriend isn’t different from throwing around your genderqueer girlfriend or your femme girlfriend or your trans girlfriend or your unicorn girlfriend. Ask yourself if, by any possible stretch anywhere in you, you believe that a necessary component of masculinity is topping or dominance, and wait to see what answer comes to your mind. Wait. Longer than the first “No of course not!” knee-jerk reaction. Maybe, somewhere buried in some crevice?
It’s okay if there is—I just want you to be able to have a conversation with that little piece, and assure yourself that this other piece of you knows that, through and through, her masculinity and gender identity are not contingent upon a certain position of power, in bed or socially.
Topping a butch (and using her for your pleasure, mmm) is only different because individuals are different.
If you’re having trouble figuring out what to do …
You probably already know these answers, if you’ve been fucking for a while, so ask yourself: Are there places she likes or doesn’t like to be touched? Which, if any, holes on her body does she like penetrated? Does she come over and over again, ping ping ping in a row? Or does she have a looong slow buildup to orgasm? Or does she not usually come, but likes being stimulated and finds sexytime play satisfying (outside of the goal-oriented limiting practice of orgasm)? Does she love receiving pain? Does she take stimulation better after she’s come a few times? Or does she crash after coming?
Once you have a good sense of the kinds of things she likes, and the things her body easily takes and enjoys, then you can go after the good stuff: what YOU like. Because yeah, it’s play, and you’re both pretending that you are using her for your pleasure, because of course it is for the pleasure both of you. But it would be even more awesome if the thing you were pretending was for your pleasure had some authentic pleasure in it for you.
So what of those things would be oh so delicious for you?
What do you want the scene to accomplish? Do you want it to be all about your orgasm? Do you want to push her body through lots of sensation and stimulation? Would it give you a thrill to control her orgasms, not allow her to come, or bark commands for her to come right now? Do you want to toss her around physically, moving her body with your body (or with your voice) into positions or placements (either comfortable or uncomfortable) so you can more easily get to the parts of her body you want to exploit, stimulate, pinch, torture, play with, pleasure?
So if you are starting to get an idea (or two or four or a dozen) of what you’d like to do (or maybe you already had a whole bunch of ideas and that wasn’t the hard part), here’s how you start to implement them.
If you worry that you might do “something wrong” …
If you have any worry that you’d be going too far or doing too much or not doing something that she’d like, tell her about your plan. Say, “Hey, so that bossing you around in bed thing? I’ve been thinking about it. And I think I’d like to tie you to the bed, get you all worked up with my mouth and that toy you really like inside of you, then get up and go sit on your face and ride your mouth until you make me come. Would you be into that?”
Or, “I love the idea of bossing you around in bed, I have been thinking about it since we talked about it. I think I want to make it all about me getting off, so you wouldn’t be allowed to. I come best when I’m strapped on and fucking you, so I’d want to strip you down, bend you over the bed, and just go at your hole until I come. So um can we have a date to do that soon?”
(You can do this via text or gchat or email or snapchat or whatever newfangled technology you kids are using these days. It doesn’t have to be in person, if you are too nervous to say those words out loud.)
Getting her “Oh my god fuck yes please!” face in response will help you feel more bold and less shy, and figure out how exactly to go about it.
(Shoving your hand down her pants right then, just to check, you know, if she liked that idea, is not a bad idea either—assuming you have that kind of relationship where she’d be turned on by that and not triggered. Use your best judgment and smarts about what would be sexyhotfun for you and your beloved.)
You could also share some fantasies back and forth, asking her to tell you what she was envisioning, then telling her some of what you were visioning. Just to, you know, do some research. Brainstorming. Consider your options. (Getting all turned on by the ideas and having some wild sexting or actual sex right then is a bonus.)
Or, if you get stuck when it’s actually business time …
If it’s the actual bedroom time that is holding you back from going about it, consider putting it into a fantasy context. Doing some pretty simple role play scenarios (with lots and lots of dirty talk, and very minimal props and costumes) (for me growing up a theater kid, role play often seemed like way too much work because I thought it had to be theater, but I’ve found that a choice phrase here or there is more than enough to set the scene) has been an excellent way to alleviate some of my own internal nervousness about throwing someone around and topping for my pleasure. Because then, see, it’s not me doing those dirty dirty things, it’s my job as this particular character to do them, and then when it stops, I come back and get us ice cream and aftercare. Plus, a role play scenario usually should be agreed upon by both people in order to work best, so that means you and she would come up with a scenario that you would then both consent to, and all you’d have to do would be show up for your role.
For example: You’re paying her to use her for what you want, so you get to do anything. She really wants a better grade on that test, professor, and will do anything you ask to get it. You just found her getting off and are now going to punish her for it, and since you know she’s a slut already you know she’ll do whatever you want (though you might have to make her, a little bit).
You could push role play into consensual non-consent realms, too, or coercion, but that might be too much, especially for starting out.
If role play isn’t for you, you could also take a look at The Three Minute Game and consider doing it as a warm up—just three minutes of action for your pleasure. It’s excellent practice for longer scenes.
If I had to boil it down to just two things, I’d say:
- Communicate – tell her what you want to do, ask her what she wants to do, work out a vague rough plan on what you want to do together, and then
- Experiment – Do the plan, reflect with each other what went well and what didn’t go so well, brainstorm and make some suggestions for what you could do to improve it or if you want to toss it out and never do that again, and experiment some more.
I hope that gives you lots of places to start. If you’re still stuck, remember, I do one-on-one coaching sessions, and I would be very happy to help you through whatever might be in the way of getting to this particular fantasy, or fleshing out the scene in your mind, or actually drafting the email, or just talking it through. Contact me for more information and pricing.
Thank you Aiming to Please for submitting this question, and thank you SO MUCH Sinclair for answering it in the way you did!! I find it interesting the ways I will unconsciously try and “gender” my butch partner into certain power roles that have no business being in our relationship. Your “before we go any further” applied to me completely, and stopping to think about it helped me be more receptive to the advice that came afterward. Its important to know what kind of standard programming we are carrying around with us if we are ever going to have any luck in rewiring the system. :)
Thank you Claire—for the thanks and for the mention of the “before we go any further.”
I’ll add one more little note about gender & power:
It certain could be that some of the individual person’s preferences are specific when it comes to their gender identity—like for example, topping a butch or boi who was really into strapping on would mean that you’d probably want them to strap-on their cock at some point (before you start playing, or in the foreplay) and then you’d have that to play with (tie up, torture, slap, bite) too. Or, you could deliberately deny it to them, and do a little bit of cock humiliation (if that fits your dynamic). Some butches or MOC folks don’t like being penetrated, for example, so maybe that’d play a part.
So, of course, it’s way more about what the individual likes than what the stereotype of their gender likes, but I have found that butches are more likely to want to have a cock on and less likely to be all about receiving penetration. BUT OF COURSE those are stereotypes and your milage may vary and your individual situations SHOULD be felt out, regardless of gender. Some femmes are way more cockcentric than some butches. Some trans men are way more cock-hungry bottomy sluts than some trans women. Some genderqueer folks are really into their cocks, or their holes, or their nipples, or their armpits! Some femmes are really into getting their dick sucked! Gender doesn’t necessarily line up to socialization/identity alignment expectations, though sometimes of course it does.
Etc etc! This is why talking about what you want is important!
I love this question and answer! This is such a hard topic for me. The first time I used my ex, I didn’t want to. Let me rephrase that, I did want to, in fact, I was desperate for it, but I’d always kept a firm control on my needs because I was afraid of hurting her. She wasn’t just my GF or my bottom. She was my sub – my first sub… the only sub I’ve ever had. The idea of messing up the trust she’d placed in me to take her to some deep and painful places by using her for ME instead of for her… it didn’t seem right, even though she’d asked for it. One night I was in a deep and painful spot. I couldn’t even touch her anymore because I was so close to losing it. I had done things to her, with her, that evening, and I thought she was satiated and comfortable. I couldn’t give up my control like that and that I couldn’t take the chance of hurting her in a non-controlled manner.
Never mind that she’d already told me she wanted this in the past, never mind that this was WHAT SHE HAD BEEN ASKING FOR. She egged me on, though, she pushed against me, begged me, touched me, squirmed. And I gave in. Oh hell, I surrendered. I used her, I hurt her, I fucked her, I rode her. The more I used her, the more she came, the more I hurt her, the more she moaned. She kept whispering things, “Oh god, yes, like that, yes, you know you want it, keep doing it, yes! Bite me harder!” She wanted this as much as I did. She asked for it, and she got what she asked for, and I got what I hadn’t even realized I’d been needing.
However, I had never discussed aftercare with her when it came to ME. I’d always been concerned with taking care of her, making sure she was ok, soothing her hurts, bringing her water and cuddles and sweet whispers of what a good girl she had been and how proud of her I was for taking so much for me. Even though I always felt guilty for what I’d done, I’d pushed it aside because what I thought mattered most was that she be ok. After all, I was the one who’d hurt her.
When I was done using her, though, the guilt almost crippled me. She was bruised (actually bruised less than times when I’d been in control but in different ways and places). I wanted to do something, to make her feel better, but I couldn’t even move. All I could do was apologize. And she soothed me. She whispered about how it had never been so hot, how she’d never felt so good, how she was so happy. If she hadn’t done that and been there for me, I think I might have been broken. I know, I sound dramatic, but it’s true. I honestly don’t think I could have remained her Domme. I don’t know how long it would have taken for me to be able to top another person.
She thanked me for truly making her mine. I hadn’t realized I’d been hurting her by not trusting her enough to know that she’d stop me if I went too far. Oh, I trusted her to let me know if something was wrong, but I also kept myself tightly controlled so that I could track that in case she was too far into herself to notice… or that I’d turn into a crazy lunatic and a rapist ignoring her needs and just losing absolute control of myself and going too far. Which I now know was crazy. Giving in and honestly using her sure as hell didn’t stop me from being a human being.