See, all of my theatre groups got very good at scheduling after-parties the next day. You go home, you sleep, you crash, then you drink. Worked perfectly.

I recognize the similar dynamic in some of my experiences. And then, in both scene scenarios and theatrical ones I’ve seen the “post show buzz” last for several days. The crash after such a long up period seems to be much harder.

In theatre (less so in film production), there is a recognizable depression which seizes the full cast following a performance. It does not matter if the performance is every night, or once in a blue moon. Energy is pushed out, and following that considerable effort, there follows a total crash.

There are less after-performance parties than many people realize.

Top Drop, as I have watched it among various Dommes, has precisely the same symptoms, responses and lapse time.

Curiously, I hear way, way more about top-drop than I do about bottom drop. I think that this may be because I’m personal friends with a couple of tops who regularly drop, so I get their experiences relayed back to me often.
It bothers me that so much oof the positive emotional development that BDSM can provide for people is cut out of the ‘top’ part of the relationship. And I can see how, as a sub who’s specifically aware of aspects like that one, you’d be bothered by it.

I’m surpirsed more subs *aren’t* bothered by it, actually. It doesn’t seem to occur to a lot of people that those kinds of transformative experiences should be had on both sides. Ugh. Why are we here, then? Just as tools to be objectified by bottoms?

Mistress 160-
That was a great article!
My “research” about this topic wasn’t research, but rather the gradual identification of a specific need. I never specifically went out and tried to find resources to give me the asnwer, as I didn’t exactly know what I was asking.

Sierra -
I think a lot of this comes back to encoded communication within roles. The “role” that tops are taught to play is so incredibly narrow in places that communication of one’s own needs just doesn’t get addressed. Again with the objectification thing; w’ere not expected to be human, we’re not expected to need aftercare, we’re not expected to have needs at all.
Ugh.

And the “bigger, badder, scarier” thing? Absolutely part of a common top mentality. Exactly the same mentality that leads people to set up scenes around competitive safewording. Like it’s bad to have limits. Like your scene identity is determined not by how you choose to play mentally, but by who can make bigger flames or louder cracks or more blood.
Ugh again.

Devestatingly-
I think you hit the nail on the head with your comment on “not an everyday tool.” If you’re still trying really hard to avoid using it, and still trying to take conscious responsibility, then the scene is probably still in your control. I would use a safeword if after I consciously *tried* to get myself back on track, I could not. If something was out of control in a way I didn’t feel comfortable with. There’s a touch of pride in that – we feel like we should be able to take on all that reasponsibility. But the reality is, sometimes it’s more responsibly to simply say “I’m not in control any more.”
I liked your post. I will posssibly hop over there and comment.

Longest comment evar. Woosh.

“Are doms afraid that if they think or talk about a safe word that their friends will think them weak or a poor dominant? Are they afraid of that their submissive will find them lacking as a dom if they should say a safe word?“

Not being one myself, I can only speak to my observations, but I would say that this is exactly what happens a lot of the time. Especially in male-dom circles, every stupid male dom is so busy trying to win their fucking pissing contest that they forget the fundamental reason why they’re doing anything at all. They might as well all just go back to the lonely corners from whence they came, if it were up to me.

But it’s not up to me, is it? I’m a bottom, after all. Control is in the hands of the top, isn’t it? *sigh*

That’s not really different from what Eileen said (“Call me crazy, but pulling abruptly out of a scene without explaining to my bottom that I’m having a problem, abandoning them in a sobbing, bleeding mess, is irresponsible.”) But it would still color my responses.

Of course, we’re talking about safewords, right? They’re not meant to be an everyday tool.

I wrote my own general response here.

Safe word to me is just really another term for communicate.

Control is something that a dominant certainly needs, but sometimes even dominants can get in to a scene just as deep as the submissive. That’s a wonderful thing to have happen when a scene clicks like that, but sometimes it can lead to bad places emotionally, physically for the dominant just as easily as it can the submissive and sometimes being in control just isn’t enough to stop it from happening.

None of the books I read when I first started out in D/s said a dominant could have a safe word. No one I talked to that had more experience than me said that a dominant could use a safe word. It was always stated, and repeatedly, that the dominant had control, control, control!

I have to wonder though if it’s not a peer pressure kind of thing that keeps dominants from being taught or at least told that they can have safe words.

Are doms afraid that if they think or talk about a safe word that their friends will think them weak or a poor dominant? Are they afraid of that their submissive will find them lacking as a dom if they should say a safe word?

As a dominant I have used a safe word. I never thought less of myself or lacking in anyway for using it. I felt smarter, and actually, more in control of what was happening around me and what I was thinking and feeling during the scene.

I find this links in to the research I did for the article I wrote on aftercare for dominants. I hit the same brick wall as you: dominants don’t need aftercare, dominants don’t need safewords. Excuse me, but we need both, and both are linked, lol!

Ms160
Ms160s Abode
FetishLore

The author I found complaining about this actually had someone tell him, in response to, “What about topping as a transformative experience”, “For that, you should bottom.” Where I come from, we call this Not Useful.

“a certain amount of this notion that the whole point of the kink thing is to create some sort of change or transformation in the bottom, which the top facilitates.”

Agreed. That is very typical “old guard” mentality. And, frankly, isn’t always applicable. I get where people are coming from with the thought that, once I’ve bottomed, I’ll want to top (a la, traditional leather subculture mentality). However, while that may be where they want to go, I don’t have the same destination in mind.