This is a text adaptation of an audio message I posted on my OnlyFans on August 9, 2023.

I get messages, on a fairly regular basis, from men who’ve been in the kink scene a while and are known and respected as Tops… but they also secretly switch, meaning they also like to bottom sometimes, or are curious about bottoming, and—”Hey, perfect, Miz Darling, you’re a professional Domme and maybe I can try exploring that side of myself privately with you and not risk my reputation.”

I personally love getting these kinds of messages, and I’m always excited when someone takes the leap and tries exploring a new part of their sexuality, but I do want to address this issue of the “secret switch,” and the stigma and shame that’s built in there.

Let’s pause a minute and go over these terms for any new people who might not know. In the kink/BDSM scene, a “Top” is the person who does things, mainly unpleasant things, to someone or controls the power in a situation. The “bottom” is the person who has unpleasant things done to them, or who is out of control in a situation. Now, these are roles, but they are also often identities. A person might introduce themselves as a Top or a Dominant, or as a bottom or submissive, in which case they’re signalling that that’s primarily or always the role they take in any kink scene they participate in. However, there are also Switches, people who enjoy taking both the Top and bottom role in different scenes, who enjoy switching back and forth between roles.

For as much as things have changed a lot over the years, and it’s now very common to see female Tops and male bottoms in the kink scene in a way it might not have been ten and twenty years ago, there is still a bit of a stigma or societal baggage attached to these things. It’s very common for women to enter the kink scene as bottoms, and explore their “toppy side” later on, and the opposite for men, to enter as Tops and maybe explore bottoming down the line. And it’s all the same bullshit societal messages at work here, telling women we can’t be too tall or strong or take-charge, or men won’t find us attractive; or telling men you’ aren’t not a “real man” if you enjoy surrendering control, if you show vulnerability or weakness, if you’re the person on the receiving end or the person being objectified, etc.

And I think we all know, in our heads, that these messages are bullshit, but it’s one thing to know something in an intellectual, theoretical way and another thing to really fully believe it on an emotional level. It’s one thing to say, “Sure, it’s totally fine for a man to want to be dominated by a woman,” but another thing to actually feel safe putting yourself in that position.

In some ways it’s harder for switches than pure bottoms, because people want to put you in a box and they want you to stay there. If you’re a super subby male bottom, great, that’s your box—we’re comfortable with that. We can all understand that. But if you’re a big, tough, super masculine guy who likes to be dominant most of the time, but every once in a while you want to feel like a naughty little boy getting spanked by Mommy—we don’t know what to do with that. 

The sad thing is, secret switches keep it a secret for a very valid reason. Some bottoms cling to the fantasy of the “true Top” and won’t bottom to a switch because they perceive them as being less dominant, or they worry a switch will pressure them to try switching as well. And it’s complete nonsense, because so many of these supposed “true Tops” have alternate online profiles for their bottoming side, or they’re messaging me, asking me to dominate them in secret, and the bottoms they play with are generally none the wiser.

The truth is, like many female Tops, I originally started out in the kink community as a bottom. I myself am a switch, so let me tell you: all of us have the capacity to be both dominant and submissive. Not everyone enjoys exploring both sides, and not everyone develops both sides, and that’s perfectly fine—I don’t think switches are “superior” or more evolved than people who only take on the role of Top or bottom—I think people should do what brings them joy and feels true to them. But I do often find, when I do a scene with someone who knows I’m a switch, I get little tiny hints that they doubt me as a Top, like they’re not really sure if I’m going to be able to take control or deal out the intensity they want. I feel like I have something to prove. And actually, that can be kind of fun for me, because nothing flicks on my sadistic side like when I feel like I’ve got something to prove. But the larger context of the situation still sucks.

And it’s a damn shame, because in my experience, switches are really fun to play with, and tend to be ahead of the curve on certain things. We have a very intimate knowledge of the implements we own, because we’ve experienced them as a bottom as well as a Top. We know which ones look scary but aren’t really that painful, or vice-versa, or which ones tend to land harder at the end, all that stuff. And as bottoms, we tend to be great communicators, because we understand the kind of feedback that’s most useful for Tops to know, like describing what our pain response looks like so the Top knows what reaction is normal and not mistakenly think they’re going too hard or too easy. 

When I went to the Texas All-State Spanking Party in June, I met a pro switch, which was really cool, and I asked her whether she came across many people who didn’t want to book sessions with her, because they couldn’t romanticize her as either purely the meek, subby bottom or purely the strong, powerful Femme Domme. She just shrugged and said, “Fuck ‘em. If you can’t grow up and handle reality, move along. I can find plenty of other people to play with.”

That sounds plenty toppy to me!

So this is my official PSA on this issue: it is okay for people of all genders to be either Tops or bottoms, either dominant or submissive, and it’s also perfectly okay for one person to have BOTH of those sides that come out at different times. Grow the fuck up.