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BDSM Dictionary : Roleplay: history
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This entry is part of the BDSM Dictionary hosted by Informed Consent.
This is the version from 3 Jan 06, 3:36 PM. The full history of this entry will show any more recent versions.
Sexual roleplaying is the sexual behavior of playing some kind of character during a sexual encounter, in order to evoke a sexual fantasy in oneself and/or one's partner.
Sexual roles can be very general designations of power position, sometimes abstracted to "top" and "bottom," or very specific, detailed fantasies. Nearly any role could become the base material for an erotic experience, but certain scenarios are typical in pornography and probably in real life as well, though it is difficult to collect empirical data on such things. Many of the most common sexual roleplays, such as Doctor/Nurse, Guard/Prisoner and Teacher/Student, involve a power differential. These roleplays are often, but certainly not always, carried out in the context of a BDSM encounter. See power exchange for more on power relationships and sex.
Often, and especially in cybersex, sexual roleplaying is used to act out a sexual act that would otherwise be taboo or forbidden.
Some common character couplings in sexual roleplaying include:
Sometimes roleplaying may occur where one party remains as "his/herself" while the other takes on the persona of a celebrity or a fictional character:
(This entry in the BDSM Dictionary incorporates text from the Roleplay article in Wipipedia.)
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