Top, bottom, who's on first: of brass tacks and getting down to them...
All right. Brass tacks and getting down to them. I have very few fandom pet peeves. Misuse of real world terminology in fandom is one of them.
First things first. "Canon". Last night, I said to just_katarin, "OMG. It's CANON. Sam behind Dean." I was kidding. Most people are, and I get that. I mean, we all know that NBC is not writing a show where Nathan and his brother are fucking. Yis? They are writing a show in which Nathan and Peter love each other like brothers and their relationship scans as USTy and subtexty and weirdly incestuous.
But fandom is a funny place. You wander in off the streets and you find that OMGIAMHOME with other fangirls and fanboys. They throw around words like "canon" and then you start using them without knowing what they mean. Hey, I know I did it with things like "LOL" or "how we roll" or any number of things I just sort of picked up. [I learned tonight that "How we roll" comes from hip-hop, according to ethrosdemon who kindly read this for me.]
Thing is, "canon" actually means something. It comes from Greek kanon via Latin and Old English to Middle English and to us. kanon (with its appropriate accents but I'm lazy) means measuring rod, or rule. It comes to fandom by way of literary criticism, probably, in which it means "any comprehensive list of books within a field" (see dictionary.com). But it also takes on overtones of the additional meaning: "the body of rules, principles, or standards accepted as axiomatic and universally binding in a field of study or art". That's kind of where we, in fandom, get tangled. [ethrosdemon reminded me that "canon" comes to literary criticism via clergy and ecclesiastical conventions and many people associate it with that.]
So, really, "canon" simply means "text". It's what we actually have in the way of episodes to watch or books to read and what can be known from them. Ie: it is canon that the monster in "Tall Tales" was a trickster. It's also canon that Sam and Dean drive an Impala, or that Nathan can fly. It's canon that Sam kissed Sarah and Dean watched. It's canon that Peter slept with Simone.
But if it requires interpretation? It's not canon.
That one's not such a big deal, really. I figure most people know it. My current major pet peeve has to do with people mixing up these words: top, bottom, dominant, submissive, Dom, sub.
[ETA: Per my asking, I've been informed that the capitalization of "Dom" and lack thereof with "sub" is mostly confined to cyber-play and scene-newbies. I see it constantly in BDSM fiction, which leads me to the rather unsurprising supposition that most BDSM writers aren't participants in the scene. OTOH, I do imagine that there's more fluidity to the whys and wherefores of the usage than this would make it seem. I've elected to leave the capitalization because it's graphically useful in this case.]
I know, I know, I know none of this is new to fandom. But I've seen it a lot lately, and as both an erotic romance writer and an erotic romance publisher, I deal with these designations all day every day and it grates on my nerves, so I'm just going to say this and get it out of my system.
Let me start with Dom and sub, because they're the least confusing and least often misused. In the BDSM lifestyle and fiction about that, a Dom is the partner who directs the action. A sub is the partner who takes the direction. Who is the Dom and who is the sub MAY be continuous with who gets tied up or beaten or fucked, and it may not.
Viz, a Dom may shove a plug up her sub's butt and leave him sitting in a corner for several hours to stew. Or she may order her sub to fuck her, to tie her, to suck her tits until she screams.
Further, the sub does, in many ways, control the scene. The Dom can never do something the sub has not agreed to - unless what is agreed to is that the Dom may do whatever s/he wants. So the sub definitely controls the limits of the scene.
Dom and sub are lifestyle specific terms used for BDSM. They're not interchangeable with other words or even with the terms from which they're derived. So, unless you're writing BDSM, it's not appropriate to talk about Dom or sub.
(God, I feel like a French academy scholar insisting on the purity of language. *facepalm*)
All right, onwards to "Dominant" and "submissive." Tricky tricky TRICKY words. Because the correct usage/meaning depends on, yes, this is annoying and arcane, what part of speech they are when you use them.
If you use Dominant or submissive as a noun (also note the capitalization of Dom and Dominant; that's a convention in writing but not an absolute must as far as I know - people with more experience here please correct me?)[ETA: See discussion in comments.], you're talking about BDSM still. If I say I'm a Dominant, that means that I'm involved in the BDSM scene and I take the role of the person directing the scene. If I say I'm a submissive…then the inverse.
But if you use dominant and submissive as adjectives, lions and tigers and bears oh my. Because you might be describing the way people in a BDSM scene act with respect to each other. Or, you might accurately be describing abiding personality traits of non-BDSM participants, or even behavior on a given occasion.
Viz. "She has a very submissive personality" means that "she" tends to take directions from others and doesn't stand up for herself. "He gave a submissive nod" means that "he" let someone else take the lead and nodded agreement to whatever was said. It doesn't mean that "he" is submissive generally. Common sense, right?
Likewise, "She tends to be dominant" means that "she" tends to take control of situations and tell others what to do. "Her tone held a dominant note" means that her tone in that instance was commanding. (Awkward, but it's the best I can do this morning.)
Having a dominant or submissive personality may or may not have anything to do with sexual preferences. I'm sure you've heard of the dominant type-As who like to submit sexually. And I just read Mya's Obedience Training (Loose Id) in which the Omega wolf (bottom of the wolf-pack hierarchy) was a Dom and in fact was sexually dominant over his own Alpha (but I don't want to get into alphabet soup here, as that's another issue all together that has biological and romance writing implications that are not always in tune with each other).
All right, so, that leaves "top" and "bottom." And, GOD these two make my head hurt, because like "dominant" and "submissive" they're both used more than one way and it depends on parts of speech.
In any given sexual scenario (quite apart from the entire relationship or patterns thereof) there may be a "top" and a "bottom".
If I write a PWP in which Peter fucks Nathan (that is, sticks his dick up Nathan's ass, so we're clear; and I know it's hard to believe! ETA: It was when I wrote this. I find it easier and easier to believe after Five Years Gone and the last 1/3 of the season.), Peter is the top in that scenario. In the strictly physical sense. And Nathan is the bottom. In the strictly physical sense.
With me so far? So "top" and "bottom" refer in the first instance to physical positioning [ETA: By convention, in this particular usage, the fucker=top, the fuckee=bottom even if the position is fuckee rides astride. See why this makes my head hurt? *g*] Notice that in this instance, we're talking about adjectival nouns that take the definite article "the". "The top" or "the bottom" in scenario X was Nathan.
Many gay men have a distinct physical preference for either giving or receiving when it comes to anal sex. Some absolutely will not receive, no matter what or from whom. That, as I understand it, is not as common as we in fandom tend to make it, and certainly not as immutable as it seems in yaoi. Some genuinely prefer to receive and don't want to give.
This does not a) make one "more gay" than the other; b) make one "dominant" and the other "submissive"; c) make one a "top" and one a "bottom" except in any particular sexual scenario.
That said, some men are "tops" and others are "bottoms" in a sense that has little to do with sexual positioning preference. If I say "Sam is a top" or "Peter is a bottom", it's confusing. Because I might be referring to their sexual positioning preference. Or I might be referring to something more psychological.
Because when you say someone is "a top" (notice again, adjectival noun, but this time with the indefinite article "a"), what you are really saying is that they tend to be dominant in sexual situations (and maybe social ones). And when you say they are "a bottom" you are really saying that they tend to be less dominant or submissive in sexual (and maybe social) situations.
So if I say "Sam is a top" what I'm really saying is that Sam is dominant. He prefers to give direction than to take it, and people/partners tend to listen to him. If I say "Peter is a bottom", what I'm really saying is that Peter tends to take direction rather than give it, and he seeks out partners and people that will give him that direction.
I am not, actually, attempting to argue about Sam, Dean, Peter, or Nathan at the moment. It's just that they're pairings with which my flist is likely familiar, and there are some fairly set opinions about both pairings. If anyone cares, they're free to observe that I think Sam is a top, Peter is a bottom, Nathan is a top, and Dean is a switch. [ETA: Since writing, my thoughts on Peter and Nathan have blurred and shifted. Peter has become more of a switch, his psychosexual top/bottomness depending on who he's with and the situation.]
When "top" and "bottom" are used as verbs, they might be meant in either the physical or the psycho-sexual sense.
Viz. Suppose you read a story summary: "Dean tops Sam." In this case, you, as a reader, should expect Dean to be the doer in the sex. But Dean can fuck Sam all day long without it making Dean "a top".
Wait, what?
Right. Who takes and who gives sexually might coincide with their psychological dominance. Or it might not. [ETA: See the comments for questions about "topping from the bottom". That is, I think, a terribly common dynamic or way of slashing, but it's, oh GOD, so confusing and has so many possible permutations. If I get thinky again soon, maybe I will take it on. Until then, there are lots of excellent resources on it. Look it up, in more than one place.]
Suppose you read my meta and I say "Sam is Dean's top". I don't mean that Sam fucks Dean all the time. Or that Sam is Dean's Dom, either. What I mean is: Sam is the leader. He is the one who gives directions in the psycho-sexual sense. And, conversely, Dean being a bottom to Sam does not mean: a) that he's always the fuckee; b) that he is submissive to Sam; or c) that he is a submissive.
[Western] humans tend to think in terms of binaries: top/bottom, Dom/sub, dominant/submissive, white/black, good/evil, strong/weak. The common arrangement of those binaries means further that humans tend to associate all of the things on the right side of the slash with each other and the left side of the slash with each other.
See the problem? Top::Dom::dominant::white::good::strong::male/bottom::sub::submissive::black::evil::weak::female.
And that's just wrong. Leaving aside the metaphysical Good/Evil and the obviously racist White/Black, we still have "strong/weak" and "male/female".
Submission is not weakness. Dominance is not strength. Bottoms are not weak. Tops are not strong. The two items may coincide, but they are not of necessity linked because of either their social positioning or their sexual positioning. We so often see them portrayed as linked that we tend to see causation where there is only correlation. (Causation: because of A, then B; Correlation: both A and B).
Just because a guy is flamboyant, comfortably out, wants to talk about his feelings, or occasionally effeminate, doesn't mean he likes to take it. Or if he does like to take it that he always wants to. Or that he's someone's bottom. Or that he's weak.
It also doesn't mean that he's "the girl" in a relationship, and really calling "the bottom" "the girl" is offensive both in that it means that somehow the fucker is more masculine than the fuckee, and that being a "girl" is somehow a bad thing or a weak thing.
Yeah, we joke around about Sam being a big girl because he's emotional and he acts like the stereotype of a jealous housewife. And yes, Dean is such a stereotypical guy sometimes, it's painful. Sure, Nathan was a Marine and Peter a nurse.
But equating those characteristics we've been taught to associate with the "female" half of the duology with "bottom"/"submissive"/"weak" is as facile as it is insidious. It perpetuates harmful stereotypes of men, gay and straight, and reifies those same stereotypes when applied to women.
[ETA: linaerys and I talk a lot about "coding" a character masculine or feminine. While I have political issues with some of the semiotics, I don't deny their existence. Viz, I have political issues with women being "the weaker sex" and "the fairer sex", but I wouldn't even begin to deny that weak/fair/soft are feminine "coding" -- we're societally conditioned to understand this coding, and it works to convey in iconic fashion certain things about a character. Ie, making Peter a nurse and his power "love" codes him feminine, and it reinforces our idea of him as a nurturer.
My politics hates that, but it's very clear. My politics loves when we use coding merely to explode it. *g* The interaction of semiotics, politics, biology and psychology is the subject of massive feminist debate and would be much more appropriate in a discussion of the things we do when we do genderswap. I'll save it for when I do that.]
So beyond the decidedly less important issues of whether some fictional character likes to receive sexually, is a top generally, or the top in a particular fictional relationship, there's the real world issue of making assumptions about people's sexuality and gendering particular sexual roles or positions.
And, then finally, to bring it back around: as much as we want to, we're never going to be able to establish from canon whether a character prefers to give or receive or is a top or a bottom. We can take clues from canon and make strong arguments about which character is the top in a relationship, or is dominant in the social and psychological sense. We can extrapolate from that to the bedroom politics.
We're never gonna know for sure, but the conversation gets a whole lot muddier when we're not all using the words the same way.
Notes: I don't think this needs saying if you got all the way here, but in case it does: this isn't meant to be directed at anyone. It's an opinion. Mine. YMMV. Take what you learn and apply it yourself however you see fit. I might argue, but when it comes to Sam and Dean or Nathan and Peter or any other media character's sexual preferences, I'm just another fangirl.
So many thanks to poisontaster for reading several successive drafts of this and ethrosdemon for early critical commentary.