I’ve always struggled with claiming space as a rigger.  For reasons like: I don’t tie as frequently as many, therefore I’m not as experienced as a rigger; I bottom far more frequently than I top so I tend to identify with bottoming related topics and issues more.

When we teach, I’m usually in a bottoming role in classes so people look to me as a bottom in those spaces (and sometimes seem confused when I give suggestions to attendees regarding rigging).  When Secondfloor and I attend classes, we usually switch so that we both get to experience what something feels like to be tied in and to tie. I feel incomplete in my knowledge and experience if I’m unable to feel both sides of a tie.

But I still feel like I constantly have to remind myself that my rope is valid. My perspective is valid.  I think part of my issue is that the terminology is so limiting.  I don’t relate to a lot of the descriptors that are commonly used to refer to top-types and riggers.  I’m not a sadist.  I don’t FEEL dominant even when I’m in control of a scene.  And beyond that, I don’t leave the my bottoming experiences at the door when I tie.  When I tie, I’m doing so with the viewpoints and preferences and experiences of someone who also likes to be IN rope.  And when I bottom, I do so as a person who has also tied other people.  Those aspects of myself inform my choices on both sides of the rope and contribute to who I am as both a bottom and rigger.  I don’t cease to be one thing or the other just because I happen to be the one in the ropes or the one tying the ropes.  So maybe I just need to start using different terminology.  Perhaps something like “person being tied” and “person tying”.  Rigger and bottom just seem so singular and limiting to me.  And switch feels to me like someone who fluctuates between the two identities.  You flick a switch and you are a top.  Flick it off and you are bottom.  I’m saying that I can be both, simultaneously.  Whether I am currently in rope or not.

This isn’t to say you can’t cultivate specific top or bottom headspaces or mindsets.  I just think that my headspace as a “person being tied” can encompass my knowledge, experiences, and preferences gleaned from rigging as well as bottoming.

Featured image is of cat (aka tiedupcat) tied by gaping_lotus and shot by Secondfloor