Janus/A View on SadoMasochism. By Don Miesen This essay is copyrighted by Don Miesen and is reproduced here with permission by the Society of Janus.
It is divided into several sections, which can be read sequentially: Forward This essay attempts an introduction to SM, or Sadomasochism. Kink resources in many languages and kinky fiction. BDSM, Dominants, Switches, and Submissives all explained by Domina. Switch. So much of the BDSM world is defined by and individual’s label — Dominant, Submissive, Fetishist, Slave, Bottom or Top.
These tags, titles, or definitions help members of the BDSM community to relate appropriately to their counterparts. Although some individuals present as either naturally dominant or naturally submissive, others lean more towards both or neither, switching roles according to whim. To give an idea of the comparative popularity of switching, FetLife.com boasts a switches’ group of more than 6,000 members worldwide, compared with more than 13,000 in the biggest dominant group and more than 8,000 in the biggest submissive group. For this article’s purposes, a “switch” will refer to someone who participates in BDSM activities sometimes as a top and other times as a bottom or in the case of dominance and submission sometimes as a dominant and other times as a submissive. Still, that basic definition takes in a variety of situations. BDSM: What's with switching, anyway? BDSM Psychobiology.