Sexual roleplay

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A bondage scenario using period costumes.

Sexual roleplay is an erotic form of roleplay: it is a sexual behaviour 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.

Cybersex

The popularity of the internet has also allowed for online sexual encounters, known as cybersex, which may involve roleplay.

BDSM

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 position, 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.

Sexologist Gloria Brame lists a number of types of scenario:-

• 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.
• 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 or a human toilet.

References

• Addington, Deborah (1993). Fantasy Made Flesh: The Essential Guide to Erotic Roleplay, 1st, Greenery Press.

• Scott, Gini Graham (1994). "7" The power of fantasy: illusion and eroticism in everyday life, 1st, Carol Publishing Group.