I have in the past thought it kind of funny that girls would ask me to tell them what to wear. My feminist/analytical brain would pipe in with interpretations of beauty, insecurity, self-worth - but I really don’t see it that way anymore.

I see it as part of the larger conversation of gender as a fetish, as a performance, as a subversive display of sexualized gender presentation. And I see it as a very specific toppy/bottomy play, more specifically butchtop/femmebottom play.

It has also at times made me uncomfortable when girls wear things - or buy things - specifically for my tastes. I do have a couple particular enjoyments when it comes to femme clothes & shoes, and it is quite a gift when girls work to dress up for me.

I’m not sure why it’s hard to accept. Possibly because it’s hard for me to accept gifts in general, that giving is easier for me than receiving (I am resisting the connection here to my top identity, though I’m sure you already went there). Possibly also it is hard for my desires, and for me, to really be seen, heard, witnessed, acknowledged, because if I never let you know what I really want, you can never withhold it from me.

But my heart is more open than that old wound and lesson, generally. I like to practice revealing myself. I like to practice being vulnerable, I do find great strength and connection there.

And lately, I’ve had much better language, palette, for my particular desires. This website has helped that tremendously, as has playing with multiple girls over the past two years. I’ve been actually trying to notice and articulate when I find myself aroused into a state of desire; to be mindful of when my internal butch cock stirs and to ask why, to take note of the answer.

So when a girl asks me what kind of femininity display I like, I try to tell her. I explain - without pressure or expectation - what really does it for me, what gets me going, turns my crank. Underlying this conversation is also both of our acknowledgment that femininity - and indeed masculinity - is performed for the purpose of attracting and turning on your partner/lover/date.

And taking it a step farther by telling her what to wear is a step saying, this is how to turn me on. This is how to drive me wild all night. This is how our clothes are tools for flirting, this is how gender is subtle cues and clues and a language for sexuality.

It is a top/bottom game, if looked at this way, and I see it as very empowering to a bottom (you know, assuming being told what to wear is a game she likes playing, and doesn’t feel like it is controlling or patronizing or condescending behavior).

So, where is a bottom’s power? At least in these two places: 1) in enticing desire, and 2) to (actively) giving her power over to her top. In enticing desire, she turns on her top to the point of excruciation, to the point of bottomless desire and power. And when she gives over of her power, she places her power on a silver platter and presents it to her lover on her knees.

(This is why power play is deliberate: the bottom gives her power to the top, the top does not take it without permission. Unless, you know, that’s part of the scene, in which case there is still some sort of underlying permission, some level of giving freely.)

So: I (as a butch top) tell you (as a femme bottom) what to wear on our date (a short skirt, bare legs, strappy sandals, something white). You give power to me by giving up your own choice in what you wear, by obeying a request of mine (something that always turns me on), and by wearing something enticing that follows an aesthetic I particularly enjoy.

This is perhaps where power and surrender for the top and/or bottom gets blurred. Who has the power here? She does - the bottom - because all night I am uncomfortable and turned on because I got what I wanted, writhing at the sight of her in those lovely clothes, turned on by our gender and power foreplay. And then comes a turning point in the night where I stop feeling so reactive and (have to) surrender to the power she’s giving me, to the power and sexual energy I feel building. I give over to it, let it flow through me, let this be a way to tap into my particular well of it.

I love these kinds of power exchanges. I love the push-pull, giving in, giving back, empowering each other to feel sexy, desired, wanted, powerful, beautiful.

[ What I'm really trying to say here is: I have a blind date with a girl who sent me a wonderful photo of her in strappy sandals, and this was my complicated reaction. ]

Oh, yeah, I had a date last Tuesday. A week ago now.I showed up, six-pack in hand, at her apartment on Tuesday night. She answered the door in a black tanktop and tiny skirt, very short, kind of an army-green color, which was quite lovely for her light blonde hair and fair skin. Bare legs, bare feet. Have I mentioned this girl is beautiful? Fantastic legs. Wonderfully curvy body, still toned and slender but not very angular. Soft, still strong.

She made chili, and cornbread, which was more savory than sweet, and delicious. We ate, chatted on the couch about our days, drank a few beers. I said a few stupid things and noticed myself getting more & more flustered and un-suave. She tucked her feet up onto the couch and fingered the hair on her neck. Sexy.

We were talking about our days at work, and I said a couple things (that I won’t relay here) that made me sound kinda like an idiot, which I immediately regretted. I attempted to shift the conversation to something better, namely, sex, dating, and being picked up by her.

She said something about being silly or bold or drunk enough to pick someone (me) up in a bar and make them take her home with them, at which point I said, “well, clearly, I wasn’t going to do it,” which … uh, oops … as soon as it came out of my mouth, I realized it sounds not at all as I meant. What I meant was, I didn’t have the guts to attempt to fuck her. It barely even occured to me that it was a possibility, she seems out of my league.

And it was supposed to be funny, like, god, it was so clear and exasperating to her that I wasn’t going to be The Butch in the situation and make a move toward the physical, so she had to do it, but that’s not at all how it sounded. It sounded like, pshaw, I wasn’t going to pick you up, so you were gonna have to throw yourself at me. Guh.

But in this moment, my head just prickled and tied itself in knots and I realized what I’d said and tried to cover my face and my embarrassment with my hand while grinning like an idiot, stupid me, god, what the fuck. She says, “Oh, yeah, well, that cute smile is buying you some time, but you better come up with somethin’ good to say,” at which point I stumbled, said something about her being out of my league, until she was nodding, saying “uh-huh, sure,” and I gave up trying to explain and shifted my body wait above her, and said, “Alright, shit. I’m going to kiss you now.”

“About time,” she muttered, and we kissed. She is a good at kissing. Soft, smooth, slow, sensual. Simple, even, though not in a way where anything’s missing. Just - clear.

It didn’t take long for us to both realize it was clear we wanted to, and were going to, fuck. We moved to the bed. She altered the lighting and the music to set the mood. I tore her shirt off. Tore her skirt off to find a dark pink satin thong.

She doesn’t let me stay clothed. As soon as her clothes start coming off, she starts on mine. It’s okay, but I’m not used to it. With previous lovers, unless I took my clothes off, often they didn’t even come off. (This is, perhaps, an indication of topping tendencies?) I don’t mind being naked, really, though, so it’s not a big deal. It just puts me in a slightly more vulnerable position than I am used to, from the beginning.

Clothes get strewn. I’m touching her, fingers inside her, kissing, holding her down on the bed, taking more control than I have in our past encounters. Perhaps I need a lot of explicit permission to let my toppiness come out. “Don’t hold my wrists,” she whispers. “Hold my hands instead.” No problem.

Eventually, we break apart, she goes to the bathroom, I get up to get my cock out of my bag. “The good news is,” I say when she gets back, “I brought my bigger cock. The bad news is, I brought the wrong harness, so I can’t strap it on.”

She shrugs, eyes my cock, slides her slender fingers around it. “I have a harness.”

She opens the bottom drawer of her bureau and rustles around. Toys and equipment go flying as she searches for her harness: vibrators, attachments, little bundles of rope, cocks, feather ticklers.

I laugh. “I guess that answers the kink question.”

“What kink question?”

“You know. The Kink Question.”

“Ah. Yes.”

She found the harness. I strapped on. It’s still a little uncomfortable to have something that large dangling from my clit & hips. I get shy, embarrassed at the way I love its weight between my legs.

Lube and fingers and she was wanting, took that big cock all the way. I loved the way she gasped under me, the way her legs gripped my waist. Scratched at my shoulderblades and gasped in my ear.

I fucked her, hard, like this, for a while. Quite close to coming, myself, when we paused again, caught our breath, heads together on the pillow.

I said, “So tell me about sex, Joy,” and we talked. I asked her about kink. Likes, dislikes? At the top of my list, which I relayed, are spanking, rope bondage, and flogging. She got shy.

I said, “My sister would laugh so hard at me right now. Look, I’ve got this gorgeous girl, in bed, naked, next to me, and I’m saying ‘let’s talk.’ Sometimes I am such a capital-L Lesbian.”

She got more comfortable. Said she has four hard no’s: bestiality, children, human waste, and extreme pain/humiliation. She’s willing to explore most everything else. I am pretty much with her there, although there is a bit of a blurry line there for me with some age role-play (dangerous, to me, but can be cathartic and hot), and pain. I like pain. I would like to play with that more. So, we talked about that a bit.

Later, we talked about kink again. What’s the difference between kink and preference? I’m not sure I have an answer to that, I’m still kicking that idea around.

She brought up topping & bottoming, or maybe I did, to say I was sorry to have decided she was a top so vehemently. “It bugged me for a couple days,” she admitted, “but then I realized that I didn’t really even know what you meant, and if I didn’t really know what it was, but somebody else recognized me as such, that meant I could be doing it wrong.”

Ahh yes, I do understand that feeling. But certainly I shouldn’t impose my judgements about identity on anyone else, & I said so. I tried my best to describe what I mean using the terms “topping” and “bottoming,” but they’re really hard to define. (Post on that to come.)

These conversations interspersed in our sex play were quite short, really, generally during which I would keep my hand on her body somewhere, or she would keep her hand on mine, and when she gave me a bit more of a reaction with her body I would increase pressure, frequency, and build the energy again until starting to fuck her again.

I like the way she comes. On her back, fingers flicking over her clit for a while, swirling, she likes the figure 8s, increasing pressure, until she gasps, eyes roll back, hands grip my arm and her body contracts and releases until she opens her eyes and demands fuck me, now, hard and I do, fingers inside her, more, more fingers, two, three, harder, and that ring of PC muscles grip my fingers hard and she groans, cries out, whimpers into quietness. After, I hold her. Sometimes we find I’ve opened something gaping in her and she gets tender, sore, exposed, and I cover her body with mine, sew it up with my fingers on her skin, until she’s contained again.

I like her in these moments. This is perhaps why I am a top. I adore seeing women - especially powerful, put-together, coiffed, impenetratable femmes - in this state. I love creating it, causing it, contributing to it, holding her through it. I love the breakdown behind her eyes, the way her voice changes, softens. I love when she cries after she comes.

I cut her off twice after that, times when she began touching my hips or stomach, making moves to get me off again. I was satisfied. I didn’t want more. It was hard to ask her not to, but it’s what I wanted. I could’ve kept fucking her, though; that, I am not tired of.

Joy asked me to stay the night, I declined. She walked me to the subway, said it was hard to see me go. It was sweet, but I was - and am - worried that she wants more than sex from me. We haven’t quite had that conversation yet, it is definitely on the agenda for our date on Saturday.

I have a date with Joy tonight. The exchange went like this:Subject: if I may be so bold

Sinclair to Joy

morning, gorgeous. … what does your tuesday night look like? … that’s tomorrow, I realize. if I may be so bold, I might invite myself to your place with a six-pack. perhaps get some take-out? I think I may want to bring along a different cock, too.

Joy to Sinclair

Hiya, handsome - [...] Six-pack and takeout sounds marvelous. Or, I can cook. Is there anything you don’t like/don’t eat? Do you eat fish, eggs, dairy?[...] And wow, that’s a tease. Now I’m going to spend between then and now wondering what constitutes “different”. Don’t tell me. More fun to guess …

Sinclair to Joy

it’s a date. what time will you be ready for me? [...] no need to cook - I can think of other things I’d rather you were doing with your hands. seriously. though you did say you enjoy cooking, so I won’t fight too hard if you would insist. I eat just about everything that isn’t meat or mushrooms… I do eat dairy & occasionally fish.

Joy to Sinclair

Working from home tomorrow, so just let me know when to be ready for you. The sooner the better, as far as I’m concerned. (Shameless!) [...] I’ll be scantily clad and cooking. Come prepared, and with an appetite.

Sinclair to Joy

damn. can’t wait. I’ll come right from work. you sure know how to whet a girl’s appetite.

Joy cooking dinner for me is a little more than I expected or wanted for our third (!) date, but I like the comfortability of being at her place, and the privacy. Here’s what I’m thinking:We’ve seen each other twice so far, and clearly would like to continue to do so. On my end, I don’t feel any pressure or heavy emotion, and I like that, I prefer to keep it in a more physical-friendship realm.

But, I did have a vision last night of having to say to her, “I like you, but I just can’t handle an intense emotional realtionship right now, blah blah blah …” and it makes me want to gag. Ugh. I do not want to have that conversation with somebody, so I need to be upfront about what is going on with me, and where I’m at, at the beginning. I could be wrong, but I think she’s on the same page as I am here. And if I am wrong, boy, I’d like to know now.

Also, clearly we are enjoying each other’s company. I think there’s more to explore sexually. So I am going to up the ante (as I’ve been saying) and attempt to have That Kink Conversation, asking her what she likes, what she’s into, what she’s never done, what she wants to do. I’m hoping that this will be a lead-in conversation to topping and bottoming, considering that a lot of kink activities usually involve some sort of trust and submission and dominance. At the top of my list of things I’d like to explore are flogging and rope bondage, so I will ask her about those.

Yes, I want a bottom. Yes, this will be a short-term thing with Joy. I am still unsure how much I want to invest with her, I want to lay out our interests on the table and look through them, see what we’re dealing with here.

Considering what we’ve already done - fisting, blow jobs, packing, strap-on sex - and we’re on the third date - I think she’ll be open and interested in the conversation, though whether her particular flavor of kink(s) matches mine. I have a feeling she hasn’t explored much, although that is purely based on that she hasn’t explored the butch/femme gender politics dynamic very elaborately, and yes I do know that those things are different.

Meanwhile, I packed my biggest cock to bring on the date tonight, and after work I’m picking up beer and heading to her place, prepared, and with an appetite.