The trials and tribulations of being a service top

"Am I a service top or am I just a people pleaser?", to the tune of Chappell Roan's 'The Giver'.

ICYMI: Chappell Roan’s ‘The Giver’ is currently No.2 on the UK Charts (kept off the top spot by a TikToker, how very 2025!). With a campy rollout campaign seeing the singer cosplay as a plumber, lawyer, construction worker – and more, talk about the second shift – and lines like “So take it like a taker, ’cause, baby, I’m a giver/ Ain’t no need to hurry, ’cause, baby, I deliver” and, ofc, frequent assurances that “I get the job done”.

I’m not a huge Chappell fan (sorry!) but I do love to see this campy, tongue-in-cheek exploration of sex in pop. Similar to Ms Sabrina Carpenter, whose on-stage demonstration of the Eiffel Tower position currently has the internet’s pants in a twist, there’s a sense of whimsy, of fun and a fervent embrace of pleasure.

So much of the discourse around sex is, well, negative. But as someone who used to write about sex positions for a living, I know that it doesn’t always have to be so serious – the contortions we get into in order to feel the body, the weight of another person and mutually receive and give pleasure are both ridiculous and liberating.

That’s not to say we can’t dig a little deeper into what sex means to us, though. Returning to ‘The Giver’, the song has prompted a fair few explainers on what exactly a service top is – a sexual preference wherein getting someone else off gets you off.

Service tops are pretty closely associated with dyke and BDSM cultures so, given the queer and kinky skew of my modest IG audience, I decided to quiz my Instagram followers about the pros and cons of service topdom.

Behold, my very scientific table:

~Analysing the data~ we can see that the pros have a lot to do with the exchange of pleasure, whereas the cons are mostly logistical.

Personally, all the discussion around service tops has prompted me to turn inwards for a fair bit of reflecting and questioning. I have written elsewhere about fem tops and, ofc, being able to play that role myself. How I describe my sexual preferences or role tends to vary, but the concept of ‘service’ is a recurring theme. See, you don’t just get service tops but service bottoms and service subs, too – all roles I have slipped into. Whether you are topping or bottoming, or attending to your domme’s needs, the focus is on your partner’s desire and fulfilment as a route into your own.

The idea of wanting to please someone, of their tangible pleasure and enjoyment being the biggest aphrodisiac, is hugely resonant across my sexual history. In the main, I can’t complain. After all, it’s hugely gratifying to bring pleasure to others. But there’s also the worry: what if I’m not really a ‘service’ anything? What if I’m just a people pleaser in bed?

See, I would say that I am not the most likeable person in the world. I’m shy, not great in social situations, and often come across as standoffish – or as a (lesbian) ex once charmingly put it, “cold, rude, and a bitch”. Sometimes, it feels like the only place I can effectively communicate is in bed.

By “effectively communicate” I do not mean asking for what I want. Instead, I’m talking about listening to a partner’s body, following their directions, giving them what they want. I’m non-judgemental, relatively efficient and always keen to take feedback. If they were giving out awards, it would be for “best effort”.

Admittedly, I do struggle to feel any arousal without a partner clearly, definitively wanting me (stacking up the evidence that ‘service’ is a major part of my sexual ethic). But I worry that my focus on other people’s desires estranges me from my own – constricts my libido into a space where my desire is always reflexive, always refracting off of someone else and not held within me.

Is this a femme thing? An introvert one? Or is it not that deep? After all, in a world where sexual selfishness is the norm, maybe a service kink isn’t such a bad thing…