Input:
1. Q: Who holds the copyright for the book?
A: Dossie Easton and Janet W. Hardy hold the copyright for the book.
2. Q: When was the copyright for the book obtained?
A: The copyright for the book was obtained in 2003.
3. Q: What rights are reserved by the copyright holders?
A: All rights are reserved by the copyright holders, including the right to reproduce the book in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher.
4. Q: Are there any exceptions to the restrictions on reproducing the book?
A: Yes, brief passages of the book may be quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or Internet reviews.
5. Q: Who designed the cover of the book?
A: DesignTribe designed the cover of the book.
6. Q: Who created the illustration on the cover of the book?
A: The illustration on the cover of the book is by Fish.
7. Q: Who is the publisher of the book?
A: Greenery Press is the publisher of the book.
8. Q: Where is the publisher located?
A: The publisher is located in Eugene, OR.
9. Q: What is the website of the publisher?
A: The website of the publisher is [www.greenerypress.com](http://www.greenerypress.com).
10. Q: Who distributes the book?
A: SCB Distributors distribute the book.
11. Q: Where is the distributor located?
A: The distributor is located in Gardena, CA.
12. Q: What is the nature of the book?
A: The book is about BDSM and includes guidelines for minimizing potential physical and emotional risks associated with these activities.
13. Q: What is the risk associated with BDSM activities?
A: BDSM activities carry an inherent risk of physical and/or emotional injury.
14. Q: What is the responsibility of the reader when engaging in BDSM activities described in the book?
A: The reader is encouraged to be aware of the potential risks associated with BDSM activities and to accept personal responsibility for those risks.
15. Q: What is the responsibility of the authors, publisher, and anyone else associated with the book when the reader engages in BDSM activities described in the book?
A: Neither the authors, the publisher, nor anyone else associated with the creation or sale of the book is responsible for any damage sustained by the reader when engaging in BDSM activities described in the book.
16. Q: What is the reader agreeing to when acting on the information in the book?
A: When acting on the information in the book, the reader agrees to accept that information as is and with all faults.

Response:
> > > > > © 2003 by Dossie Easton and Janet W. Hardy

> All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio, television or Internet reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording or by information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.

> Cover design: DesignTribe

> Cover illustration: Fish

> Published in the United States by Greenery Press, P.O. Box 5280, Eugene, OR 97405, www.greenerypress.com.

> Distributed by SCB Distributors, Gardena, CA.

> > > > Readers should be aware that BDSM, like all sexual activities, carries an inherent risk of physical and/or emotional injury. While we believe that following the guidelines set forth in this book will minimize that potential, the writers and publisher encourage you to be aware that you are taking some risk when you decide to engage in these activities, and to accept personal responsibility for that risk. In acting on the information in this book, you agree to accept that information as is and with all faults. Neither the authors, the publisher, nor anyone else associated with the creation or sale of this book is responsible for any damage sustained.


Input:
 1. Q: What is the title of the section?
A: The title of the section is "Contents".
2. Q: What is the first item listed in the section?
A: The first item listed in the section is the "Foreword: Re-Visioning".
3. Q: What is the second item listed in the section?
A: The second item listed in the section is "1. Hello Again!".
4. Q: What is the third item listed in the section?
A: The third item listed in the section is "2. What Is It About Topping, Anyway?".
5. Q: What is the fourth item listed in the section?
A: The fourth item listed in the section is "3. What Do Tops Do?".
6. Q: What comes after the third item listed in the section?
A: An interlude comes after the third item listed in the section.
7. Q: What is the title of the first interlude?
A: The title of the first interlude is not provided.
8. Q: What is the fifth item listed in the section?
A: The fifth item listed in the section is "4. Rights and Responsibilities".
9. Q: What is the sixth item listed in the section?
A: The sixth item listed in the section is "5. How Do You Learn To Do This Stuff?".
10. Q: What comes after the fifth item listed in the section?
A: An interlude comes after the fifth item listed in the section.
11. Q: What is the title of the second interlude?
A: The title of the second interlude is not provided.
12. Q: What is the seventh item listed in the section?
A: The seventh item listed in the section is "6. Soaring Higher".
13. Q: What is the eighth item listed in the section?
A: The eighth item listed in the section is "7. BDSM Ethics".
14. Q: What is the ninth item listed in the section?
A: The ninth item listed in the section is "8. On Your Mark… Get Set…".
15. Q: What comes after the eighth item listed in the section?
A: An interlude comes after the eighth item listed in the section.
16. Q: What is the title of the third interlude?
A: The title of the third interlude is not provided.
17. Q: What is the tenth item listed in the section?
A: The tenth item listed in the section is "9. Go!".
18. Q: What is the eleventh item listed in the section?
A: The eleventh item listed in the section is "10. And If It Doesn't Go the Way You Planned?".
19. Q: What is the twelfth item listed in the section?
A: The twelfth item listed in the section is "11. Toys for Tops".
20. Q: What comes after the eleventh item listed in the section?
A: An interlude comes after the eleventh item listed in the section.
21. Q: What is the title of the fourth interlude?
A: The title of the fourth interlude is not provided.
22. Q: What is the thirteenth item listed in the section?
A: The thirteenth item listed in the section is "12. Finding Others".
23. Q: What is the fourteenth item listed in the section?
A: The fourteenth item listed in the section is "13. Special Cases".
24. Q: What is the fifteenth item listed in the section?
A: The fifteenth item listed in the section is "14. Full-Time D/S".
25. Q: What is the sixteenth item listed in the section?
A: The sixteenth item listed in the section is "15. Shadow Play: Darkside S/M".
26. Q: What is the seventeenth item listed in the section?
A: The seventeenth item listed in the section is "16. S/M Spirituality: From the Top".
27. Q: What is the eighteenth item listed in the section?
A: The eighteenth item listed in the section is "17. The Light That Shines In the Darkness".
28. Q: What is the nineteenth item listed in the section?
A: The nineteenth item listed in the section is "Resource Guide".
29. Q: What is the twentieth item listed in the section?
A: The twentieth item listed in the section is "Poem: Scream".

Response:
CONTENTS

> Foreword: Re-Visioning

1\. Hello Again!

2\. What Is It About Topping, Anyway?

3\. What Do Tops Do?

> interlude 1

4\. Rights and Responsibilities

5\. How Do You Learn To Do This Stuff?

> interlude 2

6\. Soaring Higher

7\. BDSM Ethics

8\. On Your Mark… Get Set…

> interlude 3

9\. Go!

10\. And If It Doesn't Go the Way You Planned?

11\. Toys for Tops

> interlude 4

12\. Finding Others

13\. Special Cases

14\. Full-Time D/S

15\. Shadow Play: Darkside S/M

16\. S/M Spirituality: From the Top

17\. The Light That Shines In the Darkness

> Resource Guide

> Poem: Scream


Input:
  1. Q: What is the title of the section?
A: The title of the section is "ACKNOWLEDGMENTS".
2. Q: What is the first line of text in the section?
A: The first line of text in the section is "Our deepest thanks go to the following wonderful people, who have bottomed to us, topped us, given us wonderful ideas and just plain been our friends:".
3. Q: What is the format of the list that follows the first line of text?
A: The list that follows the first line of text is formatted with names on the left and, in some cases, additional names or titles on the right, separated by a vertical bar.
4. Q: What is the first name on the left side of the list?
A: The first name on the left side of the list is "Akasha".
5. Q: What is the first name or title on the right side of the list?
A: The first name on the right side of the list is "Goddess Lakshimi".
6. Q: What is the second name on the left side of the list?
A: The second name on the left side of the list is "Mic Bergen".
7. Q: What is the second name on the right side of the list?
A: The second name on the right side of the list is "Tom B.".
8. Q: What is the third name on the left side of the list?
A: The third name on the left side of the list is "Bill Brent".
9. Q: What is the third name on the right side of the list?
A: There is no third name on the right side of the list.
10. Q: What is the fourth name on the left side of the list?
A: The fourth name on the left side of the list is "Amy Marie".
11. Q: What is the fourth name on the right side of the list?
A: The fourth name on the right side of the list is "Meek".
12. Q: What is the fifth name on the left side of the list?
A: The fifth name on the left side of the list is "Kaye Buckley".
13. Q: What is the fifth name on the right side of the list?
A: The fifth name on the right side of the list is "Midori".
14. Q: What is the sixth name on the left side of the list?
A: The sixth name on the left side of the list is "Lady Cassandra".
15. Q: What is the sixth name on the right side of the list?
A: The sixth name on the right side of the list is "Mo".
16. Q: What is the seventh name on the left side of the list?
A: The seventh name on the left side of the list is "BC Cliver".
17. Q: What is the seventh name on the right side of the list?
A: The seventh name on the right side of the list is "Paul Romano".
18. Q: What is the eighth name on the left side of the list?
A: The eighth name on the left side of the list is "Derek".
19. Q: What is the eighth name on the right side of the list?
A: There is no eighth name on the right side of the list.
20. Q: What is the ninth name on the left side of the list?
A: The ninth name on the left side of the list is "Francesca Guido".
21. Q: What is the ninth name on the right side of the list?
A: The ninth name on the right side of the list is "Jay Wiseman".
22. Q: What is the tenth name on the left side of the list?
A: The tenth name on the left side of the list is "Irwin Kane".
23. Q: What is the tenth name on the right side of the list?
A: The tenth name on the right side of the list is "Joi Wolfwomyn".

Response:
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Our deepest thanks go to the following wonderful people, who have bottomed to us, topped us, given us wonderful ideas and just plain been our friends:

> Akasha  | Goddess Lakshimi
> ---|---
> Mic Bergen Tom B.  | Ruth Marks Master Max
> Bill Brent  | Amy Marie Meek
> Kaye Buckley | Midori
> Lady Cassandra | Mo
> BC Cliver | Paul Romano
> Derek | Snow White
> Francesca Guido | Jay Wiseman
> Irwin Kane | Joi Wolfwomyn


Input:
 1. Q: What is the title of the section?
A: The title of the section is "foreword".
2. Q: What is the first line of text in the section?
A: The first line of text in the section is "Welcome to The New Topping Book. About ten years ago, we published a small volume called The Bottoming Book, which took the revolutionary stance that bottoming was as high an art as topping and that skilled and ethical bottoms were integral to hot play. No sooner had it come out than we started hearing from tops who wanted to know when we were going to do the same thing for topping. Hence The Topping Book, originally published in 1994."
3. Q: What is the second paragraph of text in the section?
A: The second paragraph of text in the section is "But in the last eight years we've seen huge and important changes in BDSM culture (including the popularization of the very word BDSM!). Our communities have grown tremendously – largely due to the Internet, which was in its toddlerhood at our last writing – and become much more visible. And we, your authors, are proud to have been part of this evolution. So: The New Topping Book."
4. Q: What is the third paragraph of text in the section?
A: The third paragraph of text in the section is "WHAT'S CHANGED?"
5. Q: What is the fourth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The fourth paragraph of text in the section is "As we wrote in The New Bottoming Book:"
6. Q: What is the fifth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The fifth paragraph of text in the section is "S/M culture has massively emerged from the closet. There are dozens of books, endless information on the Internet, national and international conferences publicly held in major hotels, support groups everywhere – we are no longer the ghettoized subculture that we used to be. More people are connecting to S/M, finding others like themselves, and realizing that they are very much not alone with their kinky fantasies."
7. Q: What is the sixth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The sixth paragraph of text in the section is "THE INTERNET. The 'Net has become a major player in the BDSM scene. Along with providing lots of information about kink and connection to like-minded people, the Internet is also exerting a major influence on the content of BDSM. Many things can be done in virtual play that would be difficult to manifest in reality: for instance, we know individuals who are engaged in ownership relationships with people they have never met in person. And so new ways of playing are being devised, and participants are engaging in ever deeper explorations of the psychological aspects of S/M, including extensive dialogue about how our fantasies can inform us about ourselves. The challenge of interacting with people all over the world, people that you've never seen face to face, has created a whole universe of possibilities for relationships, interactions and new knowledge. We'll discuss the 'Net and its ramifications at much greater length later in this book"
8. Q: What is the seventh paragraph of text in the section?
A: The seventh paragraph of text in the section is "D&S. Over the last ten years, we have also seen rapid growth and evolution of the dominance and submission aspect of BDSM, with extensive discussion of how the relationship dynamic between two or more persons can be expanded, intensified and eroticized by a conscious and consensual shift in the workings of power and control. We've included a lot more information about D&S in its various forms in this book."
9. Q: What is the eighth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The eighth paragraph of text in the section is "MORE OF US. Meanwhile, as the scene has become more accessible, more and more new people are joining. This growth in population has made its own changes to the scene, and there is increased market for products and services, which offers much more support for the teachers, artists and craftspeople of our community."
10. Q: What is the ninth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The ninth paragraph of text in the section is "For us this growth has offered an expanded opportunity in the form of a much wider audience for our writing. When we wrote the initial Bottoming Book, publishing in this area was so economically constrained that we had to keep the book under 120 pages because if it got bigger than that we couldn't afford to print it. How's that for basic? We are proud to announce that our books are now widely distributed, our publisher well established, and we can afford to speak our minds at whatever length we choose."
11. Q: What is the tenth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The tenth paragraph of text in the section is "LANGUAGE. One thing we learned in writing and selling The Bottoming Book and The Topping Book was that many potential readers were overlooking the books, feeling that the terms "dominant" and "submissive" were a closer fit for their experience of BDSM. We certainly never intended that, nor do we think it appropriate. Semantics vary widely throughout the kinky world, from one region to the next, one sexual orientation to the next, one playstyle to the next. The way we learned the terms when we first came out into this wonderful and varied world, "top" is an umbrella term that includes people who like to play on the giving end of sensation and pain, bondage, control and discipline and all the other activities that make up the universe of BDSM. And "bottom," of course, is the umbrella term for all those who like to be the lucky recipients of such attention."
12. Q: What is the eleventh paragraph of text in the section?
A: The eleventh paragraph of text in the section is "Indeed, as more and more people want to talk about kink both in the cyber- and real worlds, we are constantly evolving new language and terminology to describe our experiences. And do we all agree on what these new terms mean? Of course not! A definition can be visualized as a way to make a fence around a word so that we can clearly distinguish what is inside and what is outside the meaning of the word. This works great for science and mathematics, but can be a problem when we are describing our physical, sexual and emotional experience – especially the experience between two or more of us."
13. Q: What is the twelfth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The twelfth paragraph of text in the section is "So our approach to language in this book is to assume inclusive rather than exclusive meanings for all the words we use. Furthermore, we acknowledge more than two genders, and also that many of us explore more than one sense of gender. Common language usage has very few ways to denote the full range of gender expression. In the first edition of Topping Book we wrote "s/he" in an attempt to include everybody. In our later books, we alternated using he or she, mostly by paragraphs, which seemed to read more smoothly and provide interesting opportunities to challenge gender stereotyping, so we have rearranged this edition accordingly."
14. Q: What is the thirteenth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The thirteenth paragraph of text in the section is "On another linguistic front, here is much public discussion and dissent about what to call what we do. Variously our activities have been described as: BDSM, perversion, sadomasochism, S/M, dominance and submission, D/S, altsex, bondage and discipline, B/D, leathersex, kink, erotic power exchange, fetishism, wiitwd (what it is that we do), powerplay, shadowplay, topping and bottoming, sex magic and radical perversion."
15. Q: What is the fourteenth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The fourteenth paragraph of text in the section is "Similarly, the people who do these things are known as: perverts, tops, bottoms, masters, mistresses, slaves, dominants, submissives, daddies, mommies, pitchers, catchers, boys, bois, girls, babies, pets, ponies, puppies, sissies, leatherpeople, players and more."
16. Q: What is the fifteenth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The fifteenth paragraph of text in the section is "All these words have slightly different meanings, and you will definitely meet people who choose one of these terms and not the others because that is what best describes their desire. We, however, enjoy all of these aspects of our play, and would be very distressed to have to choose only one category. Thus, as we see it, pigeonholing limits our experience, and we are explorative girls who always want more. So in this edition, we will use all of these terms to describe the whole world of S/M play, except when we are focusing on one particular aspect of play, and we will use these terms, as we do the gender pronouns, interchangeably throughout the text."
17. Q: What is the sixteenth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The sixteenth paragraph of text in the section is "THE INTERLUDES. Since no amount of abstract instruction carries the same weight as the stuff that happens in the real world, throughout this book we've included a few stories of wonderful scenes we've done, watched or heard about, just to give you an idea of the wide range of activities that can be included under the umbrella term "topping."
18. Q: What is the seventeenth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The seventeenth paragraph of text in the section is "Please don't take these scenes as blueprints, or even as ideals of "perfect" scenes. They're just representative of a few different playstyles, ways of building energy and connecting and having hot sexy fun together."
19. Q: What is the eighteenth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The eighteenth paragraph of text in the section is "WE'VE CHANGED TOO. The two of us have matured, which we hope would happen for any of you in ten years. Our children are no longer children, our careers have ripened, our bodies have aged."
20. Q: What is the nineteenth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The nineteenth paragraph of text in the section is "In fact, one of us has changed so much that even her name has changed. The one of us who wrote the first Topping Book as "Catherine A. Liszt" did so under a pseudonym, because at the time she had minor children whose boundaries she wanted to protect. Now that her children have grown to adulthood, "Catherine" is now writing and publishing under her real name, Janet W. Hardy."
21. Q: What is the twentieth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The twentieth paragraph of text in the section is "And we know more than we used to. So the final reason to make a new edition of The Topping Book is to share with you everything new that we have learned in the last nine years about our beloved world of BDSM."

Response:
foreword

RE-VISIONING

Welcome to The New Topping Book. About ten years ago, we published a small volume called The Bottoming Book, which took the revolutionary stance that bottoming was as high an art as topping and that skilled and ethical bottoms were integral to hot play. No sooner had it come out than we started hearing from tops who wanted to know when we were going to do the same thing for topping. Hence The Topping Book, originally published in 1994.

But in the last eight years we've seen huge and important changes in BDSM culture (including the popularization of the very word BDSM!). Our communities have grown tremendously – largely due to the Internet, which was in its toddlerhood at our last writing – and become much more visible. And we, your authors, are proud to have been part of this evolution. So: The New Topping Book.

WHAT'S CHANGED?

> As we wrote in The New Bottoming Book:

> S/M culture has massively emerged from the closet. There are dozens of books, endless information on the Internet, national and international conferences publicly held in major hotels, support groups everywhere – we are no longer the ghettoized subculture that we used to be. More people are connecting to S/M, finding others like themselves, and realizing that they are very much not alone with their kinky fantasies.

THE INTERNET. The 'Net has become a major player in the BDSM scene. Along with providing lots of information about kink and connection to like-minded people, the Internet is also exerting a major influence on the content of BDSM. Many things can be done in virtual play that would be difficult to manifest in reality: for instance, we know individuals who are engaged in ownership relationships with people they have never met in person. And so new ways of playing are being devised, and participants are engaging in ever deeper explorations of the psychological aspects of S/M, including extensive dialogue about how our fantasies can inform us about ourselves. The challenge of interacting with people all over the world, people that you've never seen face to face, has created a whole universe of possibilities for relationships, interactions and new knowledge. We'll discuss the 'Net and its ramifications at much greater length later in this book

D&S. Over the last ten years, we have also seen rapid growth and evolution of the dominance and submission aspect of BDSM, with extensive discussion of how the relationship dynamic between two or more persons can be expanded, intensified and eroticized by a conscious and consensual shift in the workings of power and control. We've included a lot more information about D&S in its various forms in this book.

MORE OF US. Meanwhile, as the scene has become more accessible, more and more new people are joining. This growth in population has made its own changes to the scene, and there is increased market for products and services, which offers much more support for the teachers, artists and craftspeople of our community.

For us this growth has offered an expanded opportunity in the form of a much wider audience for our writing. When we wrote the initial Bottoming Book, publishing in this area was so economically constrained that we had to keep the book under 120 pages because if it got bigger than that we couldn't afford to print it. How's that for basic? We are proud to announce that our books are now widely distributed, our publisher well established, and we can afford to speak our minds at whatever length we choose.

LANGUAGE. One thing we learned in writing and selling The Bottoming Book and The Topping Book was that many potential readers were overlooking the books, feeling that the terms "dominant" and "submissive" were a closer fit for their experience of BDSM. We certainly never intended that, nor do we think it appropriate. Semantics vary widely throughout the kinky world, from one region to the next, one sexual orientation to the next, one playstyle to the next. The way we learned the terms when we first came out into this wonderful and varied world, "top" is an umbrella term that includes people who like to play on the giving end of sensation and pain, bondage, control and discipline and all the other activities that make up the universe of BDSM. And "bottom," of course, is the umbrella term for all those who like to be the lucky recipients of such attention. Whether you consider yourself a master or mistress, an owner or trainer, a dominant, a sadist, a daddy or mommy, or any other terminology that fits your community and your life, you'll find something for you in this book.

Indeed, as more and more people want to talk about kink both in the cyber- and real worlds, we are constantly evolving new language and terminology to describe our experiences. And do we all agree on what these new terms mean? Of course not! A definition can be visualized as a way to make a fence around a word so that we can clearly distinguish what is inside and what is outside the meaning of the word. This works great for science and mathematics, but can be a problem when we are describing our physical, sexual and emotional experience – especially the experience between two or more of us. (See? We can't even assume that a relationship means only two people.)

So our approach to language in this book is to assume inclusive rather than exclusive meanings for all the words we use. Furthermore, we acknowledge more than two genders, and also that many of us explore more than one sense of gender. Common language usage has very few ways to denote the full range of gender expression. In the first edition of Topping Book we wrote "s/he" in an attempt to include everybody. In our later books, we alternated using he or she, mostly by paragraphs, which seemed to read more smoothly and provide interesting opportunities to challenge gender stereotyping, so we have rearranged this edition accordingly.

On another linguistic front, here is much public discussion and dissent about what to call what we do. Variously our activities have been described as: BDSM, perversion, sadomasochism, S/M, dominance and submission, D/S, altsex, bondage and discipline, B/D, leathersex, kink, erotic power exchange, fetishism, wiitwd (what it is that we do), powerplay, shadowplay, topping and bottoming, sex magic and radical perversion. Similarly, the people who do these things are known as: perverts, tops, bottoms, masters, mistresses, slaves, dominants, submissives, daddies, mommies, pitchers, catchers, boys, bois, girls, babies, pets, ponies, puppies, sissies, leatherpeople, players and more.

All these words have slightly different meanings, and you will definitely meet people who choose one of these terms and not the others because that is what best describes their desire. We, however, enjoy all of these aspects of our play, and would be very distressed to have to choose only one category. Thus, as we see it, pigeonholing limits our experience, and we are explorative girls who always want more. So in this edition, we will use all of these terms to describe the whole world of S/M play, except when we are focusing on one particular aspect of play, and we will use these terms, as we do the gender pronouns, interchangeably throughout the text.

THE INTERLUDES. Since no amount of abstract instruction carries the same weight as the stuff that happens in the real world, throughout this book we've included a few stories of wonderful scenes we've done, watched or heard about, just to give you an idea of the wide range of activities that can be included under the umbrella term "topping."

Please don't take these scenes as blueprints, or even as ideals of "perfect" scenes. They're just representative of a few different playstyles, ways of building energy and connecting and having hot sexy fun together.

WE'VE CHANGED TOO. The two of us have matured, which we hope would happen for any of you in ten years. Our children are no longer children, our careers have ripened, our bodies have aged.

In fact, one of us has changed so much that even her name has changed. The one of us who wrote the first Topping Book as "Catherine A. Liszt" did so under a pseudonym, because at the time she had minor children whose boundaries she wanted to protect. Now that her children have grown to adulthood, "Catherine" is now writing and publishing under her real name, Janet W. Hardy.

And we know more than we used to. So the final reason to make a new edition of The Topping Book is to share with you everything new that we have learned in the last nine years about our beloved world of BDSM.


Input:
  1. Q: What is the title of the section?
A: The title of the section is "1: HELLO AGAIN!".
2. Q: What is the first line of text in the section?
A: The first line of text in the section is "We love tops."
3. Q: What is the second paragraph of text in the section?
A: The second paragraph of text in the section is "We love top daddies and top mommies, top nurses and top interrogators, sweetheart sadists and control queens, nurturing dominants and mean mistresses, nasty kids and mad scientists."
4. Q: What is the third paragraph of text in the section?
A: The third paragraph of text in the section is "We love tops so much that we're writing a book to help make sure there are more good ones: tops who glow with the pure white light of control, power, intimacy and love; tops who are skilled at their craft and passionate about their art; tops who pour themselves into their bottoms, beat well, and create a dish as fiery as curry or as sweet as pie."
5. Q: What is the fourth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The fourth paragraph of text in the section is "YES, IT'S US AGAIN. Hello. We're Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy. Some of you met us in our earlier books, The New Bottoming Book, The Ethical Slut and When Someone You Love Is Kinky."
6. Q: What is the fifth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The fifth paragraph of text in the section is "Dossie is a three-decade veteran of S/M play who identifies as a dyke queer bottom, but who tops beautifully: as of this writing, Janet has the cane marks to prove it. She works as a therapist in San Francisco. A poet, teacher and performer, Dossie was one of the first members of the Society of Janus in San Francisco, and has been a leader in the S/M spirituality community."
7. Q: What is the sixth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The sixth paragraph of text in the section is "Janet started doing S/M about 15 years ago, exclusively as a heterosexual top. Today, she identifies as a bisexual switch, playing both as a top and as a bottom, and with both men and women. Under her pen name "Lady Green," she wrote several how-to manuals for beginning players and has published many articles on S/M practice and philosophy."
8. Q: What is the seventh paragraph of text in the section?
A: The seventh paragraph of text in the section is "Both of us have spoken and taught, individually and together, at dozens if not hundreds of conferences, gatherings and workshops."
9. Q: What is the eighth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The eighth paragraph of text in the section is "WHY WE'RE WRITING THIS."
10. Q: What is the ninth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The ninth paragraph of text in the section is "In The New Bottoming Book, we did our best to explain what makes people decide to try bottoming in a BDSM interaction, and the attitudes and techniques that make up a brilliant bottom. We looked at matters of the body, the emotions, the intuition and the spirit."
11. Q: What is the tenth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The tenth paragraph of text in the section is "In this book we will do the same for tops. In some ways, we expect this to be a trickier task. While outsiders often assume that any player in his right mind would be a top – "Wow, you mean people will do anything you want them to? Cool!" – the reality is that the joys of topping are often more abstract than those of bottoming, and that its responsibilities and burdens are great."
12. Q: What is the eleventh paragraph of text in the section?
A: The eleventh paragraph of text in the section is "The New Bottoming Book was, as we wrote in the introduction, "an unabashedly bottom-centrist book." We expected howls of protest from tops over our insistence that bottoms are powerful, beautiful and irreplaceable… and we heard back from a whole bunch of tops saying "Well, it's about time.""
13. Q: What is the twelfth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The twelfth paragraph of text in the section is "So The New Topping Book will be a top-centrist book. While we will, of course, expect responsible behavior from all you tops and wannabe-tops who are reading this, we honor and applaud your willingness to venture out on the thin, scary ice of taking control of another's sensations, emotions and spirit. In this book, we'll encourage you to insist on being recognized for your humanness as well as for your toppiness, to demand the nurturance and support you deserve, and to find ways to get your sexual needs met. We'll do our best to hold your hand during the scary parts of your top journey, and to wave an encouraging bye-bye as you venture out into that wide, welcoming world of eager bottoms."
14. Q: What is the thirteenth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The thirteenth paragraph of text in the section is "THIS IS NOT A TECHNICAL MANUAL."
15. Q: What is the fourteenth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The fourteenth paragraph of text in the section is "We're not going to spend a lot of time in this book teaching you bondage knots or clamp placement or the technical nuts and bolts of topping. We think there are several other good books out there that teach such things, and we've listed them in our Resource Guide. Please read at least one of them before you play."
16. Q: What is the fifteenth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The fifteenth paragraph of text in the section is "HOW WE VIEW BDSM"
17. Q: What is the sixteenth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The sixteenth paragraph of text in the section is "If you turned to this section hoping to find the ultimate incontestable answer to the question "What is BDSM?" we're afraid we're going to disappoint you. We don't know, either."
18. Q: What is the seventeenth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The seventeenth paragraph of text in the section is "We do believe that consensual, ethical kink has a valid place on the continuum of human sexual behavior – that it's not an expression of pathology. We also do not see S/M players as a distinct sexual minority, somehow different from other folk; we think S/M may be further along one road of sexual exploration, but that many if not most people play with some forms of S/M energy."
19. Q: What is the eighteenth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The eighteenth paragraph of text in the section is "S/M is sex that involves all of our faculties: minds and bodies, imagination and intellect, hearts and souls. To those who call what we do "unnatural," we like to point out that we do what comes naturally: nature gave us opposable thumbs, so we use tools."
20. Q: What is the nineteenth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The nineteenth paragraph of text in the section is "As we said in The New Bottoming Book: "S/M is play, theater, communication, intimacy, sexuality. It combines the child's urge for make-believe with the adult's ability to take responsibility and the adult's privilege of sexual reward. S/M at its best represents a remarkable convergence of civilized agreements and primitive urges. We believe it to be a very high achievement of the human body, mind and spirit.""
21. Q: What is the twentieth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The twentieth paragraph of text in the section is "YES, BUT WHAT IS IT? We argued for hours as we worked on this book, and we weren't able to come up with a definition that we thought accurately encompassed all of what we know as BDSM. Here, though, are some of the definitions we and our friends use and like."
22. Q: What is the twenty-first paragraph of text in the section?
A: The twenty-first paragraph of text in the section is "A lot of folks use the phrase "consensual power exchange" to define S/M. We're not entirely happy with this phrase – we think using the word "power," that so often means nonconsensual force and coercion, can be misleading. In fact, what we do in S/M is that we act as though we were giving up or taking real-world power, while retaining the ability to keep as much power as we need to feel safe, or to take no more than we feel OK about having."
23. Q: What is the twenty-second paragraph of text in the section?
A: The twenty-second paragraph of text in the section is "Another way of looking at BDSM – which unfortunately has many of the same problems – is to call it "negotiated codependence," in which we can enjoy the pleasures of nurturance and control without harming ourselves or our bottoms."
24. Q: What is the twenty-third paragraph of text in the section?
A: The twenty-third paragraph of text in the section is "Janet's working definition of what we do is:"
25. Q: What is the twenty-fourth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The twenty-fourth paragraph of text in the section is "> An activity in which the participants eroticize sensations or emotions that would be unpleasant in a non-erotic context."
26. Q: What is the twenty-fifth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The twenty-fifth paragraph of text in the section is "We've heard some objections to the word "eroticize" in this definition – not everybody who does S/M connects their activities to genital sexuality. But we prefer to use the word "erotic" to refer to a wide spectrum of emotions and sensations that are arousing, awakening, enlightening and stimulating – whether or not they make your dick hard or your pussy wet."
27. Q: What is the twenty-sixth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The twenty-sixth paragraph of text in the section is "Our friend Mic says:"
28. Q: What is the twenty-seventh paragraph of text in the section?
A: The twenty-seventh paragraph of text in the section is "> S/M is what happens when the top takes more than the bottom offers, but less than the bottom is willing to give."
29. Q: What is the twenty-eighth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The twenty-eighth paragraph of text in the section is "We think that this thought does a nice job of expressing the tension that often happens in good S/M – the "oh-my-god-this-is-terrible-please-don't-stop" energy that we all know and love."
30. Q: What is the twenty-ninth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The twenty-ninth paragraph of text in the section is "Another good thought we've heard is:"
31. Q: What is the thirtieth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The thirtieth paragraph of text in the section is "S/M takes place when the top trades his or her energy for the bottom's armor."
32. Q: What is the thirty-first paragraph of text in the section?
A: The thirty-first paragraph of text in the section is "All these definitions convey good information, but none of them seems to us adequate or comprehensive."
33. Q: What is the thirty-second paragraph of text in the section?
A: The thirty-second paragraph of text in the section is "One thing we do know is that BDSM play is completely and qualitatively different from abuse. What we do bears the same relationship to abuse that consensual sex does to rape: a photograph of lovemaking might look exactly like a photo of a rape, but what is going on in the hearts and minds of the participants is entirely different. Hence, we say:"
34. Q: What is the thirty-third paragraph of text in the section?
A: The thirty-third paragraph of text in the section is "> In S/M, the participants have one another's wellbeing as their paramount goal."
35. Q: What is the thirty-fourth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The thirty-fourth paragraph of text in the section is "Some folks get confused because the fantasies they use to get turned on are not about consensual play. (Ours certainly aren't!) If you feel disturbed by this seeming contradiction, let us remind you: everyone in your fantasy exists only inside your head. Since they are all aspects of yourself, they have all given their consent to be there. One of the characteristics that defines safe play is a recognition of the boundaries between our fantasies and our realities. A lot of this book will be devoted to helping clarify those boundaries."
36. Q: What is the thirty-fifth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The thirty-fifth paragraph of text in the section is "In general, though, we'd say that if it feels like S/M to you, then it's probably S/M – or at least something close enough that you can learn more about it by reading on."
37. Q: What is the thirty-sixth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The thirty-sixth paragraph of text in the section is "HOW DO YOU KNOW YOU'RE A TOP?"
38. Q: What is the thirty-seventh paragraph of text in the section?
A: The thirty-seventh paragraph of text in the section is "Many tops remember having toppy fantasies for as long as they can remember anything. It's not uncommon for a top to remember talking neighborhood kids into playing cops-and-robbers with lots of bondage, or teacher-and-student with lots of spanking. On the other hand, some people have their first top fantasies at puberty and some during young adulthood. Some excellent tops don't remember ever having had a top fantasy until a partner talked them into trying a light scene – and a whole new world opened up to them."
39. Q: What is the thirty-eighth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The thirty-eighth paragraph of text in the section is "These fantasies may have caused the top lots of pain and worry. One top of our acquaintance recalls having his first bondage fantasy in the late '60s, shortly after the Tate/LaBianca murders – and spending anxious months worrying that he was turning into a mass murderer."
40. Q: What is the thirty-ninth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The thirty-ninth paragraph of text in the section is "Janet remembers:"
41. Q: What is the fortieth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The fortieth paragraph of text in the section is "> I can remember having top fantasies since very early childhood, but I was well into my twenties before I recognized that these diverting thoughts – which were obsessing me to the point of making it difficult for me to function in the real world – were actually sexual in nature. And once I figured that out, it took me even longer to grasp that these marvelous, dirty, nonconsensual stories didn't have to stay fantasies, that there were people out there who would be interested in acting them out consensually with me."
42. Q: What is the forty-first paragraph of text in the section?
A: The forty-first paragraph of text in the section is "So the easiest way to know if you're a top is to take a hard look at your fantasies. Being a dominant person in real life doesn't necessarily mean you're a top – many people who are hard-driving type As prefer to bottom. Nor does being a bit quiet and withdrawn in real life mean that you'll turn into Attila the Hun in scene."
43. Q: What is the forty-second paragraph of text in the section?
A: The forty-second paragraph of text in the section is "On the other hand, if the idea of giving direction, taking control, inflicting strong sensation sends you into a panic, that doesn't necessarily mean you're not a top. Even the most experienced tops suffer from what performers call "flop sweat." The question is: while you're jittering at the very thought of topping, is your dick getting hard or your pussy getting wet?"
44. Q: What is the forty-third paragraph of text in the section?
A: The forty-third paragraph of text in the section is "If you've occasionally dreamed of somehow rendering your partner completely helpless so that you can wreak your wicked will on her… if you find yourself looking speculatively at the belt rack in the department store, and you're not thinking about holding your pants up…. or if the thought of someone kneeling naked at your feet as he serves you a nice cup of tea sounds like it might be, well, your cup of tea… guess what. You may already be a top."
45. Q: What is the forty-fourth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The forty-fourth paragraph of text in the section is "DOES THERE ALWAYS HAVE TO BE A TOP AND A BOTTOM? Well, no."
46. Q: What is the forty-fifth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The forty-fifth paragraph of text in the section is "Some people like to play scenes in which both (or all) players are receiving sensation: "nipple tug-of-war," in which two people both put on nipple clamps with chains running from one person to the other and lean backwards so that both sets of tits get a nice steady pull, is a good example."
47. Q: What is the forty-sixth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The forty-sixth paragraph of text in the section is "Some like scenes that involve power struggles, where nobody knows until someone "wins" who the top will be."
48. Q: What is the forty-seventh paragraph of text in the section?
A: The forty-seventh paragraph of text in the section is "Still others like to switch in mid-scene."
49. Q: What is the forty-eighth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The forty-eighth paragraph of text in the section is "It isn't always easy to tell who's the top and who's the bottom even in one-sided scenes. For example, if Janet orders Dossie to tie her up in a specific position and give her an exact number of cane strokes to the lower half of her butt… who's the top? Who's the bottom?"
50. Q: What is the forty-ninth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The forty-ninth paragraph of text in the section is "Nonetheless, it does seem to be true that the vast majority of BDSM play involves at least one discernible top and one discernible bottom. Outside a given scene, these two individuals may identify as the opposite role (many tops are excellent bottoms, and many bottoms are excellent tops)."
51. Q: What is the fiftieth paragraph of text in the section?
A: The fiftieth paragraph of text in the section is "The important thing to remember is that whether you're an experienced top or a novice, a bottom who'd like to switch or a bottom who'd never dream of switching, or a novice with a head full of tangled fantasies and some uncertainty about which string to pull to unravel them… there's something for you in this book. So read on!"

Response:
1

HELLO AGAIN!

We love tops.

We love tops who are vicious and nasty and turn their bottoms into cringing mounds of adoring submission. We love tops who are nurturing and sweet while they inflict the most amazing agonies. We love tops whose aura of command is so straightforward and matter-of-fact that their bottoms can completely forget, for a little while, that the world is a complicated place.

We love top daddies and top mommies, top nurses and top interrogators, sweetheart sadists and control queens, nurturing dominants and mean mistresses, nasty kids and mad scientists.

We love tops so much that we're writing a book to help make sure there are more good ones: tops who glow with the pure white light of control, power, intimacy and love; tops who are skilled at their craft and passionate about their art; tops who pour themselves into their bottoms, beat well, and create a dish as fiery as curry or as sweet as pie.

YES, IT'S US AGAIN. Hello. We're Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy. Some of you met us in our earlier books, The New Bottoming Book, The Ethical Slut and When Someone You Love Is Kinky.

Dossie is a three-decade veteran of S/M play who identifies as a dyke queer bottom, but who tops beautifully: as of this writing, Janet has the cane marks to prove it. She works as a therapist in San Francisco. A poet, teacher and performer, Dossie was one of the first members of the Society of Janus in San Francisco, and has been a leader in the S/M spirituality community.

Janet started doing S/M about 15 years ago, exclusively as a heterosexual top. Today, she identifies as a bisexual switch, playing both as a top and as a bottom, and with both men and women. Under her pen name "Lady Green," she wrote several how-to manuals for beginning players and has published many articles on S/M practice and philosophy.

Both of us have spoken and taught, individually and together, at dozens if not hundreds of conferences, gatherings and workshops.

WHY WE'RE WRITING THIS. In The New Bottoming Book, we did our best to explain what makes people decide to try bottoming in a BDSM interaction, and the attitudes and techniques that make up a brilliant bottom. We looked at matters of the body, the emotions, the intuition and the spirit.

In this book we will do the same for tops. In some ways, we expect this to be a trickier task. While outsiders often assume that any player in his right mind would be a top – "Wow, you mean people will do anything you want them to? Cool!" – the reality is that the joys of topping are often more abstract than those of bottoming, and that its responsibilities and burdens are great. The New Bottoming Book was, as we wrote in the introduction, "an unabashedly bottom-centrist book." We expected howls of protest from tops over our insistence that bottoms are powerful, beautiful and irreplaceable… and we heard back from a whole bunch of tops saying "Well, it's about time."

So The New Topping Book will be a top-centrist book. While we will, of course, expect responsible behavior from all you tops and wannabe-tops who are reading this, we honor and applaud your willingness to venture out on the thin, scary ice of taking control of another's sensations, emotions and spirit. In this book, we'll encourage you to insist on being recognized for your humanness as well as for your toppiness, to demand the nurturance and support you deserve, and to find ways to get your sexual needs met. We'll do our best to hold your hand during the scary parts of your top journey, and to wave an encouraging bye-bye as you venture out into that wide, welcoming world of eager bottoms.

THIS IS NOT A TECHNICAL MANUAL. We're not going to spend a lot of time in this book teaching you bondage knots or clamp placement or the technical nuts and bolts of topping. We think there are several other good books out there that teach such things, and we've listed them in our Resource Guide. Please read at least one of them before you play.

HOW WE VIEW BDSM

If you turned to this section hoping to find the ultimate incontestable answer to the question "What is BDSM?" we're afraid we're going to disappoint you. We don't know, either.

We do believe that consensual, ethical kink has a valid place on the continuum of human sexual behavior – that it's not an expression of pathology. We also do not see S/M players as a distinct sexual minority, somehow different from other folk; we think S/M may be further along one road of sexual exploration, but that many if not most people play with some forms of S/M energy.

S/M is sex that involves all of our faculties: minds and bodies, imagination and intellect, hearts and souls. To those who call what we do "unnatural," we like to point out that we do what comes naturally: nature gave us opposable thumbs, so we use tools.

As we said in The New Bottoming Book: "S/M is play, theater, communication, intimacy, sexuality. It combines the child's urge for make-believe with the adult's ability to take responsibility and the adult's privilege of sexual reward. S/M at its best represents a remarkable convergence of civilized agreements and primitive urges. We believe it to be a very high achievement of the human body, mind and spirit."

YES, BUT WHAT IS IT? We argued for hours as we worked on this book, and we weren't able to come up with a definition that we thought accurately encompassed all of what we know as BDSM. Here, though, are some of the definitions we and our friends use and like.

A lot of folks use the phrase "consensual power exchange" to define S/M. We're not entirely happy with this phrase – we think using the word "power," that so often means nonconsensual force and coercion, can be misleading. In fact, what we do in S/M is that we act as though we were giving up or taking real-world power, while retaining the ability to keep as much power as we need to feel safe, or to take no more than we feel OK about having.

Another way of looking at BDSM – which unfortunately has many of the same problems – is to call it "negotiated codependence," in which we can enjoy the pleasures of nurturance and control without harming ourselves or our bottoms.

Janet's working definition of what we do is:

> An activity in which the participants eroticize sensations or emotions that would be unpleasant in a non-erotic context.

We've heard some objections to the word "eroticize" in this definition – not everybody who does S/M connects their activities to genital sexuality. But we prefer to use the word "erotic" to refer to a wide spectrum of emotions and sensations that are arousing, awakening, enlightening and stimulating – whether or not they make your dick hard or your pussy wet.

Our friend Mic says:

> S/M is what happens when the top takes more than the bottom offers, but less than the bottom is willing to give.

We think that this thought does a nice job of expressing the tension that often happens in good S/M – the "oh-my-god-this-is-terrible-please-don't-stop" energy that we all know and love.

Another good thought we've heard is:

S/M takes place when the top trades his or her energy for the bottom's armor.

All these definitions convey good information, but none of them seems to us adequate or comprehensive.

One thing we do know is that BDSM play is completely and qualitatively different from abuse. What we do bears the same relationship to abuse that consensual sex does to rape: a photograph of lovemaking might look exactly like a photo of a rape, but what is going on in the hearts and minds of the participants is entirely different. Hence, we say:

> In S/M, the participants have one another's wellbeing as their paramount goal.

Some folks get confused because the fantasies they use to get turned on are not about consensual play. (Ours certainly aren't!) If you feel disturbed by this seeming contradiction, let us remind you: everyone in your fantasy exists only inside your head. Since they are all aspects of yourself, they have all given their consent to be there. One of the characteristics that defines safe play is a recognition of the boundaries between our fantasies and our realities. A lot of this book will be devoted to helping clarify those boundaries.

In general, though, we'd say that if it feels like S/M to you, then it's probably S/M – or at least something close enough that you can learn more about it by reading on.

HOW DO YOU KNOW YOU'RE A TOP?

Many tops remember having toppy fantasies for as long as they can remember anything. It's not uncommon for a top to remember talking neighborhood kids into playing cops-and-robbers with lots of bondage, or teacher-and-student with lots of spanking. On the other hand, some people have their first top fantasies at puberty and some during young adulthood. Some excellent tops don't remember ever having had a top fantasy until a partner talked them into trying a light scene – and a whole new world opened up to them.

These fantasies may have caused the top lots of pain and worry. One top of our acquaintance recalls having his first bondage fantasy in the late '60s, shortly after the Tate/LaBianca murders – and spending anxious months worrying that he was turning into a mass murderer.

Janet remembers:

> I can remember having top fantasies since very early childhood, but I was well into my twenties before I recognized that these diverting thoughts – which were obsessing me to the point of making it difficult for me to function in the real world – were actually sexual in nature. And once I figured that out, it took me even longer to grasp that these marvelous, dirty, nonconsensual stories didn't have to stay fantasies, that there were people out there who would be interested in acting them out consensually with me.

So the easiest way to know if you're a top is to take a hard look at your fantasies. Being a dominant person in real life doesn't necessarily mean you're a top – many people who are hard-driving type As prefer to bottom. Nor does being a bit quiet and withdrawn in real life mean that you'll turn into Attila the Hun in scene.

On the other hand, if the idea of giving direction, taking control, inflicting strong sensation sends you into a panic, that doesn't necessarily mean you're not a top. Even the most experienced tops suffer from what performers call "flop sweat." The question is: while you're jittering at the very thought of topping, is your dick getting hard or your pussy getting wet?

If you've occasionally dreamed of somehow rendering your partner completely helpless so that you can wreak your wicked will on her… if you find yourself looking speculatively at the belt rack in the department store, and you're not thinking about holding your pants up…. or if the thought of someone kneeling naked at your feet as he serves you a nice cup of tea sounds like it might be, well, your cup of tea… guess what. You may already be a top.

DOES THERE ALWAYS HAVE TO BE A TOP AND A BOTTOM? Well, no. Some people like to play scenes in which both (or all) players are receiving sensation: "nipple tug-of-war," in which two people both put on nipple clamps with chains running from one person to the other and lean backwards so that both sets of tits get a nice steady pull, is a good example. Some like scenes that involve power struggles, where nobody knows until someone "wins" who the top will be. Still others like to switch in mid-scene.

It isn't always easy to tell who's the top and who's the bottom even in one-sided scenes. For example, if Janet orders Dossie to tie her up in a specific position and give her an exact number of cane strokes to the lower half of her butt… who's the top? Who's the bottom?

Nonetheless, it does seem to be true that the vast majority of BDSM play involves at least one discernible top and one discernible bottom. Outside a given scene, these two individuals may identify as the opposite role (many tops are excellent bottoms, and many bottoms are excellent tops).

The important thing to remember is that whether you're an experienced top or a novice, a bottom who'd like to switch or a bottom who'd never dream of switching, or a novice with a head full of tangled fantasies and some uncertainty about which string to pull to unravel them… there's something for you in this book. So read on!