"being a good lover means giving skillfully, especially if you are a woman" -- > this is also a BIG trap one can fall in if tending toppy. The idea of a skill, and the objective being creating an experience for the bottom, is pretty big in Top Lore, I think reinforced both by the fact that "skillful lover giving experiences" is the Standard Male Good Lover Model, AND that much "skilled femdom" is realised as sex work by pro dommes. So to be able to enjoy creating experiences WITHOUT falling into the service top spiral might be the biggest challenge for toppy women, and it requires some good instincts or purposeful handling from the bottom/sub to avoid.
Interesting what you say about declarations of love being a vanilla toggle. Not much experience in that, but intuitively, I'd say that *declarations of love that expect (never mind demand) reciprocity* will toggle on vanilla (or resentment ;-p). But declarations of love that explicitly DO NOT expect or demand reciprocal declaration feel fine to me, precisely because they break the script of Standard Vanilla. And I'm not saying that the dom shouldn't love the sub. I'm saying that not having to perform "I love you too" feels both freeing and empowering to me, in both d/s and vanilla dynamics. I will allow that I might be weird.
Lots of good stuff here.
"being a good lover means giving skillfully, especially if you are a woman" -- > this is also a BIG trap one can fall in if tending toppy. The idea of a skill, and the objective being creating an experience for the bottom, is pretty big in Top Lore, I think reinforced both by the fact that "skillful lover giving experiences" is the Standard Male Good Lover Model, AND that much "skilled femdom" is realised as sex work by pro dommes. So to be able to enjoy creating experiences WITHOUT falling into the service top spiral might be the biggest challenge for toppy women, and it requires some good instincts or purposeful handling from the bottom/sub to avoid.
Interesting what you say about declarations of love being a vanilla toggle. Not much experience in that, but intuitively, I'd say that *declarations of love that expect (never mind demand) reciprocity* will toggle on vanilla (or resentment ;-p). But declarations of love that explicitly DO NOT expect or demand reciprocal declaration feel fine to me, precisely because they break the script of Standard Vanilla. And I'm not saying that the dom shouldn't love the sub. I'm saying that not having to perform "I love you too" feels both freeing and empowering to me, in both d/s and vanilla dynamics. I will allow that I might be weird.