Sexual roleplay is an erotic form of roleplay: it is a sexual behavior where two or more people act out roles in a sexual fantasy. How seriously this is taken depends on the people involved, and the scenario may be anywhere from simple and makeshift to detailed and elaborate, complete with costumes and a script. Nearly any role could become the base material for an erotic experience, and there is no limit to what objects an individual could consider sexual.

Many of the most common sexual roleplays involve a power differential and form part of the dominance and submission aspect of BDSM. Roles can be general designations of power positions, or very specific, detailed fantasies. Some people, such as those living the Gorean lifestyle make use of an entire imaginary world. The controlling player is often called the top or dominant while the controlled individual is called the bottom or submissive.

There are a number of scenarios revolving around fetishes which may be played out, including:

• Age-play: where one player takes the role of an adult and the other a child.
• Animal-play: where the bottom is treated as a non-human animal such as a dog or pony.
• Master-slave: where the submissive is treated as the property of the master/mistress.
• Torturer/Captive prisoner: where the top is a captor who abuses the bottom.
• Caught and punished: where the bottom is "caught" doing something wrong.
• Authority figure/Misbehaving Adult:where an authority figure threatens the bottom with exposure of a secret.
• Gender-play: where one or more players take on roles of the opposite sex.
• Goddess worship: where a woman is seen as a pagan deity.
• Hospital fantasies: involving doctors, nurses and patients.
• Owner/Inanimate object: such as the bottom being human furniture.

Fetishism is described by the Webster dictionary as “the compulsive use of some object, or part of the body, as a stimulus in the course of attaining sexual gratification, as a shoe, a lock of hair, or underclothes”. There are many types of fetishes, including: lesbian fetish, rubber fetish, and pregnant fetish to name a few. These fetishes are usually accompanied by a fantasy or imagined scenario. Bondage, discipline, dominance and submission (BDSM) is the most popular fetish group. These types of fetishes involve a key power differential which is often carried out in a role-playing scenario. The desire to be a submissive sexual partner is prevalent among those who work in high power positions. Many psychologists believe this is due to their subconscious guilt of having too much power.

 

BDSM is about deliberate and consenting use of power to enhance relationships. However, within the world of BDSM, we also find a set of themes that can be brought into nearly every relationship; themes that are certainly present in sexually exciting relationships, and extraordinary sexual experiences. By exploring BDSM we can also discover ways to help us navigate all our erotic journeys. There is something to be learned about consent, negotiation, trust, safety, authenticity and creativity for everyone, whether you prefer your erotic treats to maintain a strictly vanilla flavor, or whether you wouldn’t mind a few licks of kinky.

In many fantasies, power dynamics are clear cut. One person is fully in control, the other is clearly not. Our sense of ourselves in our favorite fantasies may center around being primarily directive, aggressive, dominant, and only secondarily receptive, if at all – or it may be just the opposite. You may notice that despite the differences in details, most of your fantasies – or the fantasies that you respond to most strongly when you see them or read them – place you primarily at one end of the act-upon/surrender-to continuum. You’re always dominant. You’re always submissive. Or you might notice that you are flexible, able to pirouette between poles with agility and grace.

When we realize that the heat of most fantasies and the intensity of most erotic experience relies on playing with power dynamics, we can suddenly see that the conservative, traditional, "vanilla" couples, and the most adventuresome kinky couples have a lot more in common than we might have thought. The difference between them is a question of how much they are willing to exaggerate and dramatize power disparities for the sake of arousal and pleasure. How exotic or how ordinary are the practices and the props that they bring into the bedroom? Is there a huge difference, really, between a nipple held tightly between your teeth or that nipple gripped tightly by a clothespin? Is there a huge difference between clamping your hands down on your partner’s wrists during sex to ensure she can’t move, and tying those wrists to the bed with rope? Yes, the devil is in the details – the more demanding the details, the more responsible for your partner’s comfort and safety you will have to be. But, beyond that – which act is "vanilla" and which is kinky? Can you really tell the difference? Which technique is BDSM and which is just "spice?" Which exchange is about power and which is about… power?