I'd like to start off with, I'm 19 and I haven't had sex yet, but I'm pretty definitely sure I'm a sub (or "bottom") because just the idea of me being dominant during sex is a major turnoff for me. I have a boyfriend who's 17 and we only know each other online (though we've been together for at least two years now and I trust him a lot; we just haven't met up because he lives in Britain and I live in the USA), and a person with whom there's acknowledged mutual sexual attraction and an interest in exploring it, also only known online (he's 27 which is something I'm like, proceed with caution, y'know?). (And both of them know about the other, we're all non-monogamous.) Anyway, I'm rambling, just that, I know from my interactions with them that I definitely feel like I want to be submissive with them.
The thing is, the way a lot of like... horny internet culture is, I often feel like I don't relate to when people joke about being bottoms or whatever, or characterize a character as a bottom, specifically because of the thing where just the idea of... honestly having any kind of sex where I'm not at least 75% submissive can range from "turn off" to "acute discomfort". I think it has to do a lot with my trauma (I was never sexually abused, unless I'm seriously repressing it somehow) but trying to explain how would make this post into a novel, so I'm gonna refrain for now. So on one hand, I feel like representation of submissive people isn't very accurate at all to my experience, and that people who'd find out I'm submissive would have a lot of preconceived notions about me that are false. On the other hand, I worry that being submissive makes me selfish, as I stated in the subject of this post. My specific brand of submissive includes being the one who is having things done to them, not me doing things to others, or even to myself - I can't even really enjoy masturbating. The idea of the focus not being on me is just, distressing - but that's the very thing that makes me feel selfish. I was raised Roman Catholic, so I had it drilled into me from childhood that being selfish is the worst possible thing to be. And honestly, this probably extends to other stuff beyond the sexual - I feel very uncomfortable whenever the focus shifts away from me even in conversation, which worsens the feeling of "I'm selfish". I think it has to do with how my needs were so often ignored as a kid. But it's hard to negotiate with my self-hatred with only the reasoning of "I'm traumatized".
I'm rambling again. My point is, I don't want to feel selfish for what I want to do in the bedroom, because in my head I know that that's silly, everyone has different sexual preferences. I'd rather feel that my submissiveness is appealing to dominant people, instead of being something that's completely self-serving.