•BDSM gives us permission to act in ways that are unacceptable in the outside world - to be dependent and clingy, passive and boundaryless, manipulative and covert, bossy and cruel

•If you're a top, think What rewards do you experience from your play? What do you need from your bottom to make sure you get those rewards?

•So when you bottom, you may want to experience emotions like...

• anger

• helplessness

• martyrdom

• rebelliousness • objectification • victimhood

• redemption

• neediness

• innocence

• lust

• abandonment

• belonging

• pathos

• humiliation

• loss of control

• fear

• passivity

• forgiveness

• resentment

• sadness

• "smallness"

•serving

• being nurtured

• humility

• power

• shame

• catharsis

• competence

You can experience these emotions while enacting a variety of roles, too. Maybe you want to be a...

• victim

• brat

• baby

• saint

• good girl/boy

• fixer

• cherished possession

• object

• target

• scapegoat

• drama queen

• captive

• rebel

• orphan

• sex object

• servant

• whore

• animal

• sissy

• pleasure slave

• nothing

• child

• prisoner

• criminal

• bad girl/boy

• martyr

• wild thing

•Bottom power comes from the gut-level realization that you deserve respect for your vulnerability

•those items that you feel you NEED, in the sense that without these things the scene is not worth doing