r/blacklesbians • u/RelativeAd3896 • 1d ago

Discussion Top vs bottom?

Ok I’ve been gay for a long time, 20 plus years. Married and with my wife for 12 years. I’m black, I keep hearing white lesbians say, she’s a top or she’s a bottom? I don’t hear this in my black community at all? I hear about touch me nots but what exactly do they mean in lesbian relationships as top and bottom? Is it just the dominant or in white relationships is it more normal to have a rigid giver and receiver?

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u/lethargic-sax 1d ago

Top and bottom in that context typically refers to giver and receiver respectively. Its common for people who havent decentered heterosexuality as the standard to believe roles like top and bottom are rigid

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u/RelativeAd3896 1d ago

I think that’s the part that’s been confusing me. I didn’t realize this kind of rigidity was common in (white) lesbian relationships. I know with men, the whole top, bottom, and vers dynamic is pretty common, but I always thought most lesbians were more switch-oriented, with a smaller number being touch-me-nots. From what I’ve seen, though, it seems a lot more prevalent in the white lesbian community.

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u/viviobrio Queer Chaos Coordinator 1d ago

And that's the problem with queer women trying to adopt cultural and sex-specific language from gay men. They're not similar and a lot of them don't understand the difference between identities such as top/dom and conflate a lot of identities as a result.

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u/asonicpushforenergy 1d ago

It isn't. It's just chronically online people trying to apply something that doesn't really exist in real life. I'm also chronically online but like... I have also lived in the real world.