America's Next Top Sir

I've been feeling reflective lately on just how to define my sexual identity.

There's no doubt in my mind that I am an aggressive, dominant partner. While this hasn't been how I've operated in relationships my entire life, it is assuredly where I identify right now. It has taken me a while to get to this point, and it has taken a great amount of self-analysis.

For a while, I struggled to reconcile this feeling of dominance with my attempts to further myself with the patriarchy. Let's face facts: I'm a white male in America. Without even contributing to a fucked system, I benefit from it. I want to benefit less from it, and I do try, but the fact of the matter is that I will. Probably for the rest of my life.

So as far as the term "Master" goes, I tend to shy away from it. It carries a sort of connotation of ownership and superiority, and while my Lady and I do engage in a relationship similar to most Master/slave dynamics, I really don't like it. For people of color and for women, I feel like the term "Master" has a history that I'm just plain uncomfortable with.

"Dominant" is one that I dont mind, but it seems rather clinical. Dont get me wrong, I can be a clinical bastard when I want to be, but I feel like "dominant" means so many other things, so I shouldnt use it.

"Sir" is odd to me. I like it when it's used, which my Lady does often. It does carry a sort of air of authority, which ironically enough I dont mind.

The one that I struggle the most with is "Top." It's a term that the homosexual community pretty much invented, and I feel like if I use it I'm sort of stealing it. I've read other writers who have utilized the term in the S&M community, so I understand that I'm not the only one who likes to use it, but still. On the other hand, I like it the most as an identifier: It's concise, it has a bit of mystery to it, and it doesnt really have any kind of nasty patriarichal connotation.

There's of course the possibility that I dont need to worry about this too much. But self-analysis is an important fact of anyone's life, so long as they hope to be fulffilled.