It’s lonely at the top…

My brat has written a couple of rather courageous posts recently. And it’s a funny feeling, when you’re communicating on a daily basis (and hopefully communicating well, though that’s always a crapshoot *g*), to discover things you hadn’t known via a blog post.

Fizzy’s basically a good girl (which is why she’s my brat) and a good person (which is why she’s my friend). And I forget sometimes just how much she struggles with that battle to be a good girl. Such as the recent confession about how much she hates confessing. When I told her I didn’t expect to interrogate her about misdeeds when it comes to agreed upon rules, she readily told me she would let me know when she broke them. And for the most part, she does. She usually does so with either a joke (which made me think at first she was taking it lightly…I know better now), or sometimes slips it into conversation and quickly tries to change the subject (this rarely works *g*).

She told me that her previous top enjoyed prying things out of her — he thought it was funny to see her try to wriggle out of things. And I can understand that point of view as well — when you’re playing with your brat any excuse to make her squirm is all part of the game. However if you’re serious about breaking certain habits, or achieving certain goals, then I expect that we would both respect the process. I will put up with some playful evasion as part of interaction between brat and top, and I also understand apprehensive evasion when you know you’ve done wrong. But because of her post, I’m now also aware of the discomfort that comes from anger and impatience at your own shortcomings, and I have a better appreciation of what it costs her to obey what I thought was a simple request.

This got me musing, not for the first time, about how it’s a bit easier to admit to weakness when you’re a bottom/brat. Now I’m not dismissing her courage and openness — it’s admirable when anyone opens up and discusses their feelings publicly. In fact her bravery is what inspires me to post now, even though I’m not sure I can mirror her example.

Let’s face it, tops are supposed to be nearly invincible. Sure, we know intellectually they’re only human. We see messed up tops all the time. We see them making mistakes all the time. But while a brat almost by definition is expected to make mistakes (else why would they need tops to correct them?), a GOOD top is expected to rise above that.

Fizzy has told me she doesn’t expect me to be perfect, and hearing about my imperfections doesn’t make her respect me any less. And I do believe she’s telling me the truth of how she feels. And yet…and yet….

I don’t think I believe it in the very deepest part of me.

A long time ago, when I was still very much a switch, I met a brat who wanted me to top her. She had more experience in the scene than I did, so she did her best to mold me into the kind of top she wanted. Once, we were comparing opinions on a spanking video we’d both liked, and I described how it looked as if the spankee’s bottom was just REACHING for the spanker’s hand. I guess I had put too much empathy into my description, because she emailed me back with a dismayed, “Are you bottoming out on me? What have I ever done to deserve that??”

I was shocked. I didn’t even know what she was talking about. I soon learned it was that my behavior had strayed from the definition of toppiness, and that has stayed in my mind ever since. I’ve also read many blogs, boards, and comments where brats have posted and admitted they don’t ever want to see their top in anything resembling a submissive position. They admit they would lose repect for them. And by “submissive position” they mean everything from bottoming to anyone, to appearing weak or uncertain. True, most of these are women talking about the male tops, so there is that added “men should be men” mentality going on. But it’s true for women tops too.

More recently I had one bottom/brat admit to me that she wanted a top to be a TOP. She was willing, for politeness’ sake, to offer comfort/discipline at times if that’s what her top wanted. But her heart wasn’t really in it. And that stayed with me too. Brats/bottoms might be polite about your weakness to your face, but underneath….don’t they all want a top to be a TOP? After all, that’s what they signed on for, isn’t it?

It might be easier if tops could at least go to other tops to discuss these things. But from what I’ve seen, they tend to keep to themselves — as if showing weakness, even to other tops — is simply not done. Of course, I might be the only one bothered by this. *wry grin* It occurs to me my switch orientation might have me identifying with bottoms in a way that REAL tops aren’t bothered with!

One last thing — I’m not complaining about my lot. I enjoy topping my brat…sometimes I enjoy the hell out of it. *eg* I think I am pretty lucky to have found a brat who’s understanding and mature. I gain satisfaction from being a top in a way I’d never imagined I could. And so far we’ve managed to work out any issues in a way that’s very reassuring.

It’s just…as a top, it’s tough to be the real you, when you know the real you isn’t a perfect top.