# Switch > A switch is someone who wants both roles, giving and receiving. Rarely in equal measure, rarely with the same people, and usually not a phase before choosing. - Canonical URL: https://consensualspanking.co.uk/glossary/switch/ - Section: A–Z - Updated: August 2026 (2026-08-01) - Audience: consenting adults over 18 only. Everything on this site concerns consenting adults over 18. Someone who wants both sides. I switch, so this is one of the entries I can write from the inside. The main thing to know is that it is not a waiting room you sit in until you work out where you belong. --- ## In short - A switch wants both roles, though rarely equally. Eighty-twenty is far more common than fifty-fifty. - The ratio drifts over years, which is normal rather than a sign anything was wrong before. - Experience on one side supplies calibration for the other, and no technique whatsoever. - Switching costs one extra conversation in every negotiation, because nobody can assume which role you are in. Everything on this page concerns consenting adults over 18. There is a longer piece on [what a switch result means](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/why/kink-test-results/switch/). ## What it means A switch takes either side. Tops sometimes, bottoms sometimes, and wants both for their own reasons rather than as substitutes for each other. Almost nobody is evenly split. Most switches I know are weighted heavily one way, and the smaller share is a specific and occasional interest rather than a diluted version of the larger one. My own ratio has moved twice without my planning it. ## In practice The practical cost is one extra conversation, and it comes before all the others. Who is doing what tonight. Whether that is fixed for the evening. Whether either of you would want it to change, and if so, whether that happens now or another time. My rule, arrived at the hard way, is that roles are settled before anything starts and do not move mid-scene. Handing the implement over halfway through produces a muddle in which nobody is running anything and both people are being polite about it. Say it early, too. Mentioning three dates in that you also top is not a revelation anyone needs managing through, and leaving it that long is what makes it feel like one. Two switches together is either the best version of this or a slow standoff. It works when one person says plainly what they want tonight. It stalls when both keep deferring, which is a very switch failure mode and one I have been on both sides of. ## Where the confusion comes from That the two sides teach each other. They do not. Having been caned tells you what a caning feels like, which is useful information and nothing like sufficient. Aim, force control and reading a body have to be learned separately. If you are crossing over for the first time, treat yourself as a beginner even though you know all the vocabulary. That switching means indecision. The question "but which one are you really" is malformed. There is no hidden true answer underneath, and I have never once found the two halves in conflict. And underestimating the social friction, which nobody warns you about. Profiles have one field for role. Events read you by what you did last time. Somebody who has topped you once is occasionally put out to learn that you also top, as though you had withheld something. It is tiresome rather than serious, and worth expecting so that it does not read as a personal failure. ## Read next - [Your result said switch](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/why/kink-test-results/switch/) - [Role](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/glossary/role/) - [Top](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/glossary/top/) - [Negotiation](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/negotiation/) ## Common questions ### What is a switch in BDSM? Someone who genuinely wants both roles, giving and receiving. Not necessarily in equal amounts, not necessarily with the same person, and not necessarily on the same evening. It is a settled preference for many people rather than a stage on the way to picking a side. ### Does switching mean you have not decided yet? Usually not. Some people do pass through it early on while they work out what they want, but plenty have been switching for a decade with no unresolved question at all. Both sides are wanted, for different reasons, and there is no obligation to resolve that into one answer.