vulcan boys

this is a page about transmasc tops experiencing direct stimulation during penetrative sex.

Read on for suggestions!

or click for to read the preamble

it's fascinating how having choices around experiencing sensation changes the social meaning of penetrative sex. You move, culturally, from penetration being a (mostly) top-oriented pleasure to an (overwhelmingly) bottom-oriented pleasure. Sometimes it feels a little weird to have transitioned from a straight woman to a top man, between two contexts where penetrative sex isn't about me feeling good; but in other ways, it feels very, very healing to re-code penetration as a bottom-centric activity, to have no sensory distractions to being totally present with the other person's body and consequently, as present as you can be with their comfort and experience - something i've always craved and never experienced from people with fleshy bodies. It's so nice to have that as an option, and to have it as the default option.

but topping in a way that the pleasures are both indirect and underarticulated imposes a power dynamic on your other half. We implicitly code it as a role for those turned on by acts of service. I don't like the term service top in any sense. It locates the pleasure in servicing someone and being serviced, which is fine if you're into it, but it's kinky - a power exchange. It also has an unavoidable tone of resentment to it, and i think something about all this discourages people from exploring if they want to top - especially in casual contexts (who wants to service someone you don't even like?).

Noah Zazanis' unforgettable phrase, on hating men (and becoming one anyway) speaks to the anxieties post-women experience on taking on the persona of the people who have hurt them. Being phallic is such a loaded political image in queerfeminism, and recoding sex and BDSM as bottom-centric (the sub is really in control) attempts to control for this and rebalance things. This is a cop out: a refusal to wrestle with, for example, if you do like walloping people for your own pleasure, what then? For transmasc people, it leaves some of the people most self-aware and sensitive to it carrying the burden of patriarchal sexual violence as part of their cocktail of complicated pressures, that also contains social pressure to not transition at all (to not live as a different gender, change your erotic behaviours, or seek healthcare) while also being some of society's socially marginalised around dick status. it's a lot to manage when you're at your most vulnerable (naked with somebody you fancy).

alas, life has left its icky residue all over my psyche. It's a work in progress to feel like topping is not inherently violent; to be in trans communities is to wallow in a hot-tub of hungry bottoms, and yet the feeling persists. Betty Martin conceptualised the Wheel of Consent as two axes, breaking down two of the common meanings of top/bottom into four combinations:

giving/recieving
doing/done-to

but the idea of doing something to someone, and also it's for me, and its this - it feels like a dark place. The little worries have put up their feet and are flicking through the Radio Times.

but i want to advocate for the possibility of mutual pleasure. i find talking about topping so revealing and generative for how people are thinking about politics, sexuality and the world, so i ask people about their experiences of topping as often as i can. Recently, while discussing our mutual dislike of the term service top, a friend shared a feeling like transmasc topping wasn't all-encompassing, and that thought has stuck with me. Notionally, at least, fleshy topping is a pair of different but simultaneous, direct experiences. It changes the rhythm quite a bit if you sense, or suspect, your partner is less engaged in experiencing you than you are them. The inherently servicey nature of it is a flaw if a bottom's pleasure comes, in part, from feeling your direct enjoyment of them - a mutual feedback loop of pleasure.

but on checking in it was ok to quote, i had misinterpreted. the observation was not how weird it is to try and bottom for a quiet, disconnected top; but of how disconnecting topping is when you feel nothing and you want to, the kinds of performance anxiety that come with providing a service in contrast to the present-in-your-own-pleasure of bottoming, and how all that takes one out of a feeling of togetherness. That's not my experience - feeling someone's pleasure reflected through me is a magnificent, holy thing - but of course it's also true. Is it possible for us to experience toppy self-loss, as we feel our way inside another body?

and that's what this page is all about - possibilities to re-center and re-include top pleasure. A cultural practice that's, by tradition, complimentary sensations for two, interpreted as best we can as sensations for one - makes it all kinds of weird, rewrites the entire script of it, in ways that do not always work with one's learned desires. Notfeeling is dysphoria inducing, it's kinky, and it imposes a dynamic not everybody gels with. But celebrating top pleasure can help resolve weirdness around the body; it enables you to play around with, say, fucking someone for your own enjoyment, if that's the mood that works for you and a friend, or exploring sensations of submission with a power bottom, or in some way queering what penetration means - to deconstruct that messaging one snog at a time. And hopefully it changes our community conversations, too, with more people finding a kind of topping that works for them.

im moved by the spirit of equality i find in 1970s sexual politics, when it was trendy to reject role-playing (masc/fem, top/bottom, dom/sub) in favour of vers androgyny as a kind of microcosm of better worlds to come. Sex magic does not make the revolution, and this imagined equality between women was the same 2nd Wave ideology which neglected working class women and women of colour's distinct demands within the movement, the ways they were not in fact equal to all women in practice. but i think about it often, in our era of twitter jokes about bottom personalities cus there's something pretty groovy to it. We've got to avoid digging in on imagined binaries until they become real.

rejecting the service and the stone thing is important, in ways that are bigger than just getting nicely laid. it wont unmake the world, but to be present in mutual pleasure, is no bad place to start.

You don't like any sensations

the divine thing about this is entering into an experience of whole-body eroticism. No, you can't feel it directly in you cock, but because the experience doesn't have anywhere to Go, instead your focus becomes diffuse, enveloping all of you and beyond, almost like the opposite of dysphoria because it's transcending the specifics of the body. its pretty great.

it also minimises time you spend thinking about and messing about with your junk, which might be essential for some people. and it might be reassuring if your partner is a little wibbly about penetration.

even if you're not adding any other tools to the process, dab of lube on the inside of the harness works with some designs to give you a lil bit of slide and grind.

You like internal sensations

this rather brilliant accessory from Sh gives any dick of your choice attachment points to slide onto the straps of your harness - designed to work with the Sh brand harnesses, but you can make it work with any given some tinkering about. This provides internal sensations for the harness wearer.

the real benefit of this is that you can choose your own ideal length, texture and the like, and the same for your partner, rather than relying on a double-ended product having the right two ends. Plus, it means you're thrusting from your pelvis - the right place - whereas a strapless-double-ended dildo, you're thrusting with the air an inch below your body, which is something of a nightmare.

it's more of a clenchy/grindy sensation than a thrusty one, depending on how tight you set it up.

hey what can't this thing do, i mean i think for twenty quid everyone should have one unless they have a philosophical objection to leather, in which case they should DIY one. You can whip it up into a harness if you know knots. You can strap it to a cushion or a chair or to a thigh, you can put a suction toy in it, i've got one and i keep thinking about what i could do with three.

notionally, you could do this with suction cups placed between two dildos, but I dont think that would position things as well.

i've not tried this, and maybe the positioning is finicky and body dependent, but presumably any product designed to go on someone else's cock while providing you pleasure would also work with a dildo strapped into you by this method.

if you find me a naughty video of someone using one of these and actually looking like they're enjoying it, you may send me a packet of glitter.

i'm pretty dubious about these, primarily because the thrust is from the wrong place - not the whole core strength of your pelvis but some ambiguous spot in mid air; and secondly, because whenever one of you is getting an in-out stroke motion, the other is getting a banging-side-to-side. Plus, you need kegels of steel. Additionally, I've never seen one where I think the shaft shaping is as scrumptious as it could be. it's like they've designed a toy for mutual displeasure. might work better with the mindset of mutual grinding, but i don't think you could rail someone.

the one thing that is good, however, is for alone time - it's a dildo that comes with a handle. That's great for those of us with dodgy wrists. You can clamp the other end between your thighs or feet or wedge it into something.

You like vibration

designed to be worn during het penetrative sex, one leg goes inside you and the other buzzes your dick, and should be held in place in part by the pressure of your harness. Search couples vibrator wherever fancy plastic is sold.

You like grindy sensations

many options! From realistic, to fantasy, to abstract. The ones from Odyssey are good cus the have loops to strap them in place. Aside from that, you're hoping you can hold it in position between your body and harness, which is definitely doable with some designs. Supposedly a square of latex, like a dental dam from an actual dentists company, is good for temporarily sticking a silicone pad to a harness, though i havent tried it. Mine was a custom present from a friend that's 1/2" thick at the widest point, it often sits in place without any issue, or when it moves it moves in the right way. Slather with lube!

although their recs are out of date, Queer Mushroom Forest has a lovely page of ideas for getting creative with grindy toys.

top tip: the best position for this is with your partner on top, so gravity is your friend.

several brands now sell suction cups - some designed to work with their own designs - which you can use to attach two grindpads together, or to a dildo. Queer Mushroom Forest also highlights their usefulness as an accessibility aid, giving handles to things that formerly had none.

You like thrusty sensations

Sensation for Hard Packer by Banana Prosthetics

Any Hard Packer from the same company (various sizes)

Self-explanatory how this one works! what a great idea. Banana sells strokers which fit with their dildos, wheareas Axolom has a built in stroker hole.

The Banana range also has a good set of size and shapes, so your partner has options, or you could build up an interchangeable set for all your guests.

in theory, however, you should be able to pop the stroker of your choice into the sheath of your choice, so long as your gamble on measurements pay off. This gives you more options for sizing depending on your growth, but fewer options for your partner's sizing as you have to go big enough on the shaft to slip a toy in. Blissful Creations have a huge huge range of sheath size options.

You like suction

suction toys are a new-ish innovation, providing a different sensation to a regular vibrator that's also penetratable. this brand of suction toy just happens to fit in the harness accessory! Giving it straps you can then attach to yourself, your harness, or your partner. Other brands might also work.

Hands-free suction vibrator by Womanizer

toys are expensive, so the challenge here is to correctly match the diameter of the suction toy to the sheath, something which might take several attempts. I haven't done it so I don't have a pair to recommend. As discussed above, the main issue is that suction toys tend to be quite big so the sheath will have to be even bigger, so best if your partner is adventurous. Blissful Creations are the sheath specialists, with many options.

You like direct, skin-to-skin contact

with a bit of imagination, anything you can put inside some kind of orifice is penetrative - including french kissing, hand-holding and full-body hugs. Fisting is a magnificent thing! Don't be misled by the name, it's tender otherworldly, like holding someone's entire beating heart in your hand.

these things are great experiences in-and-of themselves, but you can also trick your brain and body into it feeling phallic, because brains are so easily flummoxed like that. it's a wonderful thing.

if you really want to feel someone from the inside, then you might have a desire for lower surgery, a desire you can fulfil.

it's hard to get good information about lower surgery from people in your community. Getting there is such a marathon, one tends to get it at the end of transition, at the point where hanging around early-stage-transition people can lose relevance; and because it's hard to access, it tends to be confined to those who really desperately need it, and there's a correlation there with the kinds of men who are stealth and disappear. Does anyone know any transmascs over 40 anyway? _{uhhh if you do can i have their number 👉👈}

trans people who trash-talk lower surgery are often doing so from a place of defensive envy: they aren't ready to engage with their own desire for it and are rightly intimidated by the barriers to accessing it, and are behaving abominably. when i were a lad, they also did this about hormones, top surgery, and identifying as a man. That era seems to have passed, thank the goddess, and with time so shall this.

here's some phalloplasty facts!

The risk of losing your current level of sensation in your junk is essentially nil
The odds of developing sensation (touch, temperature, pressure) in at least some of your dick is high depending on technique
The odds of developing erotic sensation in your dick, either due to nerves or to your brain-body connection, are also pretty decent
You can choose from a variety of erectile devices as part of your surgery, but there are also community hacks for getting hard without this.
transition does not need to be motivated by a do-or-die despair. it can also be the pursuit of euphoria. you do not need to identify a certain way or experience a particular level of misery to access lower surgeries: you have a right to joy.

the second pathway for lower surgery is called metoidioplasty. This releases your current junk a bit, repositions and maybe reveals a little extra length. If you're lucky with your growth & with the way your body curves around your partners, you might be able to penetrate a bit. However, this isn't a given and generally, if what you want is more length, you need phallo. Nontheless, a meta can open up more options than no surgery at all, and some of the ideas above might be easier due to the more-phallic shape and released structure as well as a greater sense of inner comfort.

it's here for you! It might be what you want! Go after it x

several of the above simultaneously

Boom!

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