People take their cultural assumptions into bed with them. I think it's useful to examine those assumptions and be aware of which ones one's taking in.
Sure. My original post was a "moment of the obvious", as dpolicar likes to describe them. I do emjoy posting them as both a note to self as if in a paper diary, and to spark comment on my LJ.
Having said all of that, I think you're right; the things I'm alluding to are more subtle. I'm not sure they're narrower in scope, and in fact they may be wider in scope, because issues of gender are pervasive.
What are the adjustments you had to make regarding top/bottom labels? And did they differ from the related dom/sub labels? I've been thinking about those, myself.
The same kind of adjustments one makes with the sexual labels I alluded to above; let's say you're gay, then you move to a country where gay means something different. I think you'd end up both reanalyzing your own identity in terms of the culture you find yourself in, as well as doing mental translation where things didn't fit.
When there isn't a good term in the target language for what you want to say, you can use a term that isn't what you want, substitute an explanatory passage for a single word, or not say what you wanted to.
My first relationship had a lot of complex power dynamics both in and out of bed, tidal forces that shot back and forth. It never occurred to me that people would have relationships with mostly fixed roles.
the terminology difference (dom/sub vs. top/bottom) seems to be one more of connotation than clear definition. If someone says "Oh, I was domming" to me that's pretty much the same as "I was topping". But it gets tricky when you get away from b&d situations, because the simple physical boundaries aren't there; I think to me dom/sub says more to me about personality and top/bottom says more about physical activities, but I can't think of any situation in which substituting one for the other would be wrong, just the shades of meaning would be slightly different.
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Date: 2007-06-15 07:27 pm (UTC)Having said all of that, I think you're right; the things I'm alluding to are more subtle. I'm not sure they're narrower in scope, and in fact they may be wider in scope, because issues of gender are pervasive.
What are the adjustments you had to make regarding top/bottom labels? And did they differ from the related dom/sub labels? I've been thinking about those, myself.
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Date: 2007-06-20 07:16 pm (UTC)When there isn't a good term in the target language for what you want to say, you can use a term that isn't what you want, substitute an explanatory passage for a single word, or not say what you wanted to.
My first relationship had a lot of complex power dynamics both in and out of bed, tidal forces that shot back and forth. It never occurred to me that people would have relationships with mostly fixed roles.
the terminology difference (dom/sub vs. top/bottom) seems to be one more of connotation than clear definition. If someone says "Oh, I was domming" to me that's pretty much the same as "I was topping". But it gets tricky when you get away from b&d situations, because the simple physical boundaries aren't there; I think to me dom/sub says more to me about personality and top/bottom says more about physical activities, but I can't think of any situation in which substituting one for the other would be wrong, just the shades of meaning would be slightly different.