As far as whether you need to tag for who tops and who bottoms I think that depends on how important to the story the sex scenes are and how large a portion of the story they are. If you're writing a PWP, then yes of course tag it; if I'm reading a story for the porn, I want to know what kind of porn I'm getting. But, by contrast, if your 600,000 word opus has one sex scene in it, that you probably could rewrite as a fade to black without too much effort, definitely don't tag who's topping. That thing is already going to have way too many tags without adding ones on that are not really relevant to the prospective reader's understanding of what the story will be like.
Now, given that you need a tag, how it should work is top! And bottom! to denote who takes which position during penetrative intercourse regardless of any power imbalance, or lack therefore of, and dom! and sub! (Of course, if it is meant in a legitimate BDSM sense, there would also be a BDSM tag) for which person is the aggressor, regardless of their positions during the penetrative sex, or lack therefore of. I think it's important to keep these two separate and not to use the term toppy as a substitute for dom (aside from the fact that the only word that sounds stupider than toppy is its rarely (never?) used counterpart, bottomy) is that when you don't, you perpetuate the false stereotype that the penetrative partner is dominant/powerful/masculine and the penetrated partner is submissive/weak/feminine.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
6/17/15 06:13 am (UTC)Now, given that you need a tag, how it should work is top! And bottom! to denote who takes which position during penetrative intercourse regardless of any power imbalance, or lack therefore of, and dom! and sub! (Of course, if it is meant in a legitimate BDSM sense, there would also be a BDSM tag) for which person is the aggressor, regardless of their positions during the penetrative sex, or lack therefore of. I think it's important to keep these two separate and not to use the term toppy as a substitute for dom (aside from the fact that the only word that sounds stupider than toppy is its rarely (never?) used counterpart, bottomy) is that when you don't, you perpetuate the false stereotype that the penetrative partner is dominant/powerful/masculine and the penetrated partner is submissive/weak/feminine.