Common Roles to Play BDSM, scenarios

The role-play I refer to here is not Dungeons & Dragons, LARP, or World of Warcraft, but rather sexual role-play wherein two or more people act out a scenario that they find sexually stimulating. Role-play can be a fun form of foreplay where partners can get lost in “roles” and shed some sexual inhibitions. After a hard day at the orifice (ha!), sometimes this escape from reality is needed. Role-play is not exclusive to BDSM, but it’s an important component in that most often the roles acted out involve a power dynamic like nurse/patient or captive/torturer.

But let your imagination run wild, as role-play gives your creative spirit a chance to shine. In my personal life, I’ve enacted everything from mermaid/fisherman to The Great God Pan/woodland nymph and more. (It helps that I have a lot of costumes.) And that’s just in my personal life.

Professionally, within the course of a few hours, I would play a student being paddled by the principal for smoking, a horny teacher seducing her delinquent pupil, and an aspiring gymnast fending off her pervy coach. There were days when I adopted so many personalities, I felt like Sybil.

If you’re new to role-play, nervous about it, and don’t happen to have crates of costumes at your disposal, don’t worry. Role-play is not about winning an Emmy or studying the Meisner Technique; it’s about letting go. If you aren’t sure where to begin, here are a few fave raves of role-play enthusiasts to get you started.

Common Roles to Play

Master/slave — This is the most basic form of BDSM role-play. A classic, it’s like the Chanel No. 5 of kink. In it, the sub player is treated as the property of the Master or Mistress.

Age-Play — Here, one individual acts and/or treats another as if he or she is a different age. You could be a babysitter and your partner an unhappily married husband and father. (I said “unhappily” to make this less creepy.) Infantilism is an extreme form of age-play wherein one partner pretends to be a baby and the other a “mommy” or “daddy.” They even make adult-sized cribs for those especially dedicated to this one.

Alien/Abductee — I’ll never forget my first day at the dungeon, when I entered the medical room and saw alien masks. “What are those for?” I asked Velocity. “Oh, those are for men who have alien abduction fantasies,” she said nonchalantly. “Doms wear them when they torture them. They probably anally probe them and stuff.”

Animal-Play — This is when one player is treated as an animal such as a dog, kitten, or pony. I actually got to “be” a kitten in one session and it was fun and liberating, meowing and rolling around on the ground. I imagine being a pony is harder since equestrian fetishists often ride around on their ponies. As is the case with having a real dog, being the Master of a sub who wants to be your dog is hard work (as we already covered in the “Can I Just Have a Sandwich?” section).

Torturer/Captive Prisoner — Here, one player is a captor who abuses the other. One need not look further than cult sexploitation movies of the ’70s for inspiration here. Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS comes to mind. (Though many people find it disturbing and Ilsa castrates her captors for the crime of ejaculation in said film. Do not go that far! And no waterboarding!)

Kidnapping Fantasy — There are so many variations here! In this one, the submissive player is bound, possibly gagged, and teased. You could even add a “pirate twist” wherein the Dom is Bluebeard and the sub is the kidnapped wench. If you like Mafia movies, throw that in there. Perhaps your sub is a sultry informant and you got wise and are going to have your way with her. I once did a session where I was a witch and my “captor,” an inquisition leader.

Gender-Play — Here, one or more players take on roles of the opposite sex. I make an extraordinarily ugly man and would be disturbed if anyone wanted anything to do with me whilst I am “Steve-A-Rino,” my male alter ego. However, I get a kick out of putting makeup on men and dressing them up in wigs and gowns. (Straight men are rarely good at caring for wigs. Never lend them a wig they won’t take care of or a dress that doesn’t have a little stretch to it.)

Medical Fantasies — Much like the kidnapping fetish, there are a mind-boggling number of variations here. Old-fashioned nurse’s getups, speculums, enemas (a load of information on them later!), and gynecological tables all fall under this umbrella term for a fetish involving doctors, nurses, and patients.

Perhaps you are the English Patient, totally infirm and bedridden, and a super hot Juliette Binoche-type nurse is caring for you (i.e., blowing you). Or maybe you are a submissive patient and your hot doctor or nurse is a torturer! Maybe he or she asks you to take off all your clothes for a “thorough” examination. (Personally I’d like to role-play having health insurance, but that’s way off subject.)

Uniforms — Uniforms are hot for many reasons. They generally represent authority, discipline, dignity, and power. As many women have pointed out, they also mean the wearer has a job. And not to be sexist, there are plenty of men who find a woman in a uniform sexy. Seeing Beyonce don a cop uniform for the “If I Were a Boy” video, I concur. As a friend recently said to me, “When I see a cop, all I think about is that billy club.” When I asked this friend if security guards did it for him, he said, “That’s for S&M light.”

Uniform role - play can get costly depending on your getup of choice, but if you and your lover are savvy, you’ll have fun rummaging through thrift stores looking for great finds that might inspire whatever is in store later that night. For a few bucks, one can be a cheerleader, an army guy, a cop, a football player, a nun (okay, maybe can’t find that in a thrift store), a Sailor Moon girl, or any number of members of The Village People. As the sub, you can be the arrestee, a shoplifter, or really any sinner of your choosing.

Rape Play or “CAN” — This is where one player feigns being coerced into an unwelcome sex act. Sometimes it is referred to as “consensual nonconsent.” Mr. Hall came up with a new name for it—Consensually Arranged NonConsent or CAN for short. This form of role-play is controversial and rarely written about, probably out of fear that real-life rapists will view it as a “see, she wanted it” excuse. But we are talking about role-play and fantasy.

In fact, rape fantasies are not uncommon in women. For some women who were raised in households where sexuality was a taboo topic, being the sub in a rape fantasy gives them the freedom to be “ravished” and “corrupted” through no fault of their own. If you just now opened this book for the first time and happened to turn to this page, please go back and read the “Safety First” section and make certain, before engaging in CAN, that you and your partner understand the consensual part and that you have pre-negotiated and made arrangements ahead of time.

Role Play example...

I cannot stress pre-planning enough when it comes to CAN. As Mr. Hall said, “The ‘arranged’ part is important for avoiding danger and getting your scene to sing. That is, unless you want to wind up in the hospital after your partner punched you in the face because he or she didn’t know it was you under that ski mask or wind up in jail because you thought public abduction in a tinted van would be hot. It is highly recommended that you arrange a time, place, and a few other details in advance of your CAN.”

Mr. Hall went on to further describe a CAN experience he and his ladylove had where things didn’t go as planned:

“My partner and I had discussed CAN many times. We shared our fantasies and our fears, established our boundaries, and had long ago chosen our safe words. Finally the time had come!

“We agreed that this would occur at her apartment when she arrived home from work that day. I was going to hide inside near the door, grab her and thrust her over the couch, then ravish her while lifting her skirt and tearing off her thong. I’d then hold her down and fuck her senseless as she struggled and protested.

“The first small impediment to our plan was the unplanned early arrival of her little red bastard (slang for ‘menstruation’), so I placed a towel over the couch. Better to lose a touch of the fantasy than to ruin expensive furniture.

She texted to let me know she was almost home and I wrote back, ‘I had to run some errands and might have forgotten to lock the door ;)’ She replied,

‘I’m sure nothing bad will happen ;).’ I was rock hard and ready to pounce when I heard the door start to open.

“Then I saw two large bags of groceries in her hands. Though she would have been fine with the bags, she hadn’t taken into account how retentively clean I tend to be. There was no way I could risk a stained rug or even allow perishables to go un-refrigerated for however long our CAN session might have been.

“After I helped her put away the groceries, it was agreed that the moment was lost. We still fucked each other senseless, but the next time we chose to play CAN, we were a bit more detail-oriented and it was as hot as CAN can be (really, really super hot)!”

Hopefully, these tips have been helpful and Mr. Hall’s story illustrates how important communication is. No matter how excited you are by your kink, you always put being a human first. This, means, among other things, being willing to drop whatever fantasy has you rock hard or soaking wet, for just a moment, to put all the groceries away.

Let’s move onto less controversial role-play scenarios!

Stripper Fantasy — When working as a sex columnist for Nerve, I went “undercover” as a stripper at Wiggles, one of the only all-nude joints left in New York City. For the assignment, Velocity gave me a pair of 6-inch pink Lucite heels and a hot pink baby-doll negligee. These I wore, not only to Wiggles (where I had a very bad attitude as a stripper), but also into the bedroom where I gave my boyfriend at the time a lap dance. Sadly, he put no bills in my thong. In fact, he was kind of a jobless scumbag who was eating me out of house and home at the time (and not in a good way). But we did have many nights of great sex and that evening was particularly steamy. (By many nights, I mean four years. I have since realized there are decent, employed men who eat you out, but leave you with the house and home.)

Librarian Fantasy — Who hasn’t fantasized about a sexy librarian or even a “manbrarian” for that matter? How ’bout one partner be the sub who has a bunch of overdue library books or worse—tries to steal a library book—and one partner be the dominant librarian who delivers punishment for such horrid transgressions? The Dewey Decimal System’s never been hotter! (Side note: I have actually dated a “manbrarian” and he had a huge package and excellent oral skills. He also obtained a copy of Cher’s The First Time for me. Never overlook the shy types!)

Owner/Inanimate object — Once again, I’ll bring up the “Can I Just Have a Sandwich?” type of relationship. Though this fantasy does not have to entail the 24/7 lifestyle, it does, for the sub, involve being an “owned inanimate object,” such as a desk your Dom might write a letter on. If you are hyperactive like me, being human furniture or even sitting still for a few minutes (unless I’m tied up) is nearly impossible. In fact, this might be the least active form of role-play there is.

The “correct” term for human furniture (a person getting off on pretending to be furniture and someone else getting off) is forniphilia. I have found examples in art, in magazines, and online of men and women “being” table lamps, coffee tables, bookshelves, hat and key racks, and more. The web site House of Gord (www.houseofgord.com) offers supreme examples of this, ranging from a “human rooster weather vane” atop a barn to a “human garden swing.”

Because forniphilia is an extreme form of bondage wherein one partner is usually bound and expected to stay immobile for a prolonged period, frequent checks of the submissive should be done to make sure your beloved table, chair, or hat rack is A-OK. Since we’re on the subject of forniphilia, a forniphilic gag is a type of gag that has the primary purpose of objectifying and/or humiliating the wearer. It is usually a mounting point for a tool or other device, which allows subs to perform tasks or services for their Doms. When using the gag, the slave’s hands are usually bound behind the sub so he or she has no other option than to control the tool with the gag, be the tool a toilet brush, ashtray, dildo, or vibrator.

Prison Fetish — As someone whose loving boyfriend just gave her a 3-DVD box set of Linda Blair “Women in Prison” movies, I can attest to the hotness of this role-play scenario. (Prison films are one of my favorite genres of cheese so I am something of an expert here.) While it might seem “prison fantasies” could only be something enacted between same-sex couples, I have discovered via Chained Heat, Barbed Wire Dolls, Reform School Girls, Hellhole Women, and more that there are many options. You could be seduced, degraded, or taken against your will (thus incorporating CAN) by a wicked guard, or you could reverse those roles and play a cunning prisoner who seduces the guard so that he/she will help you escape. Or you could play the court-appointed evil psychiatrist who seduces a prisoner. Or maybe enact an episode of Scared Straight where one of you is a juvie who gets “straightened out” by a hardened prisoner (thus working in age-play). The possibilities are limitless!

Client/Escort — Have you ever heard the saying “Men pay prostitutes to leave?” I’ve never really bought that one. I think men pay prostitutes to be prostitutes, to be the opposite of what “good girls” are. And as a woman who kind of looks like the girl next door (or the rapidly aging sleep-deprived forty-year-old next door), I know firsthand how sexy switching gears from “Mary Ann” to “Ginger” or “Sandy at the beginning of Grease” to “Sandy at the end of Grease” can feel. It’s liberating to be a whore! (I should know.)

This is a fun scenario to act out at a cheap hotel if given the chance. If not acted out at a hotel, the partner who is the “escort” should get ready elsewhere and “arrive” at the location for authenticity’s sake, even if it means getting ready in the house’s bathroom, going out the backdoor, and then ringing the doorbell at the front door.

Of course, you first have to decide who is going to be the escort. Maybe he’s an American Gigolo. Maybe she is a streetwalker. Maybe she’s high-end. Maybe you are a same-sex couple and one of you is a powerful politician whose life would ostensibly be ruined if anyone were to find out. Either way, figure out a detailed scenario and an escort name. (Mine is “Trinity.”)

Dress-up and dirty talk are both a big part of this one, so get gussied up and let your filthy mouth reign free. “Negotiate” what the client wants and what it’ll cost him or her. Embrace the role even if it’s awkward at first. You are taking on the world’s two oldest professions—prostitution and acting!

These are some of the more popular scenarios. Researching the topic online, I found many creative people had suggested a whole lot more. A few are listed in this column.

As with so many activities mentioned in this book, the only limits are your imagination, you and your partner’s boundaries, and legality. (As in ... something involving public nudity might seem fun, but could land you both in jail—not fun!)

And let’s not rule out three-ways. A good three-way only increases the amount of role-play scenarios one can enjoy since you have more “actors.” Horny married couple/nymphet, queen and her servants, two cheerleaders and a quarterback, and so on. But beware with three-ways: Everyone has got to be on the same page. Most three-ways I’ve engaged in have been wonderful, but a few have ended in tears and disappointment because one party felt like a third wheel. In a three-way, everyone needs equal attention, and if the three-way happens to involve intercourse and your boyfriend or husband, make damn sure that when he comes, it’s while he’s fucking you. Condoms generally don’t break when used properly, but the last thing you want is to watch a condom break while your boyfriend is fucking the waitress you both picked up at In-N-Out Burger. (Not that I speak from experience or anything... .)

Suffice to say, role-play is fun when played properly. Planning is key, and so is a willingness on behalf of both partners to go at it with total sincerity. It’s a great way to “let go” and drop the tedium that reality too often provides.