Tristan Taormino - The Ultimate Guide to Kink - BDSM, Role Play, and the Erotic Edge

Telling each other sexy and explicit stories about your fantasy scenarios can be a great negotiation tool. Many people enjoy hearing a rollicking raunchy tale, and this may well be the key to your own secret garden. While it is scary to be vulnerable in this way, it definitely increases your chances of seeing your fantasy become a reality.

While it is true that you can use your imagination, and that’s pretty much all you need, it can be exciting to add a layer of verisimilitude to your role playing with costuming, props, and location. Jeans and a T-shirt might work well if you are pretending to be a truck driver waylaid and seduced by a hot hitchhiker, but the Dread Pirate Roberts might not be as believable sweeping his captured prince off his feet in the same garb. As an actor, one of my favorite points in the rehearsal process is when we meet our costumes for the first time. I start to understand something deeper about my character when I feel my body enrobed in what they are wearing. Clothes evoke a whole range of emotions. They can arouse, titillate, confine, release, display, hide, and thrill us in many different ways.

Consider what fabrics excite you. Do silk and satin arouse your skin and your mind? Or does the thick hide of a leather jacket, the smell of it, turn your senses to full-on arousal with every creak? Think about what in you is touched by fabrics, textures, clothing. Think about how you might incorporate a particular item of clothing into your scenario. I’m a pretty kinky chick, and I wear all manner of fetish clothing as a matter of business. But a pair of simple white cotton panties and knee socks can send me into a grinning reverie that’ll keep me hot and bothered all day long.

Find something that works for you, be it gingham, burlap, chiffon, or cashmere. Feel the texture, absorb the sensual nature of it, think about why it arouses you, and then consider ways to bring it into your encounter.

Your clothes convey a message, and you can manipulate your outward appearance in order to manifest yourself or your character in many ways. If being in a suit makes you feel strong and confident, could fucking in a suit bring a new level of power and a frisson of desire to that scene? What happens if the person being taken is naked and vulnerable, while their partner is fully dressed? For some women, wearing high-heeled shoes is a daily occurrence and doesn’t resonate much. But take a person who feels awkward in the shoes, or is acculturated to feel that wearing such footwear is not appropriate for them due to gender roles, and wearing those high-heeled shoes can become a sexually charged transgressive act. Always had short hair? An inexpensive wig ordered online can put you right into the head space of that sexy silver-screen siren you’ve envied your whole life.

Dressing up is fun . Bringing an awareness of what accoutrements turn you on can add to that fun. Even mundane objects can be imbued with a sexy vibe: I had a very intense sexual encounter that was kicked up a notch when my partner and I dared each other to keep our glasses on during the entire fuck. You will not know how difficult it can be to keep your specs on while pounding the headboard until you’ve tried it.

Whether you are a full-on Renaissance Faire devotee or just happen to have an old Halloween costume gathering dust in the closet, you can up the ante by dressing to impress. And dressing to undress.

Make-believe is fantastic and I am all for it. However, we must remember that we aren’t really Superman and Wonder Woman. Hot, spontaneous romps in the hay have their appeal, but issues such as safer sex, emotional health, and physical limitations have to be taken into account.

It can seem like a drag or a bit out of character to have to get that condom in play, or to have those gloves ready to go, but incorporating them into your scene is, for many folks, a must. Some people choose to suspend disbelief for just a moment (if you read books or watch movies or TV you do this all the time, so hop to it!), then they get their safer-sex shtick together and carry on. Some scenarios lend themselves to all sorts of play specific to protection. Think of a medical exam where your gynecologist or proctologist gets a little…overenthusiastic with those palpations, for example. Those gloves and dental dams can be an even more arousing addition to the play. I know more than a few people who even become aroused at the sound of a glove being snapped on!

And this level of play can have a wonderful benefit, too: by making your safer-sex routine a part of your play, you grab it back from the realm of the awkward and mundane and put it firmly where it should be—a place where you show yourself and your partners that you want to stay healthy and let the play go on and on.

While these games can be fun, they can also be strenuous on the body. Cut yourself some slack. If you want to play caveman, go ahead, but if you throw your lover over your shoulder and bellow, “Og take Grog back to cave for bump-bump! ” you might end up with Og on the floor with a herniated disc. Be gentle! Know your body’s limits. The character you are playing might be a superhero, but you still have to take into account stuff like gravity, flexibility, and how often you use that gym membership when you’re getting it on. Be safe. Don’t overdo it while you’re doing it.

It’s also important to know where you are, emotionally. Role playing can be fun and silly, but it can also touch on some serious emotional issues. When negotiating and engaging in role play, be prepared for the chance that you may unearth complex feelings and the play may quickly feel very real. That’s why you have a safeword—don’t be afraid to use it. Don’t be afraid to stop! Stopping because you aren’t sure everything’s OK is a better option than pushing through a situation that might lead to a difficult aftermath. When in doubt, tap out! There is always another day.

So you’ve just done your epic Tarzan and Jane scene, and maybe Cheetah is a bit worn out. Everyone is lying there in a big quivering pile of sweat-soaked bliss. On your average night it might be enough to do an otter roll in the sheets and a round of Rock/Paper/Scissors to see who gets the wet spot. But if you have just been romping about in the borrowed robes of your hot sexy scenario, a bit more consideration might be in order. Sometimes the role play is foreplay, in which case the sex is a denouement, and may be separate from the scene. Or the sex can be the very center of the scene, vital to the story you and your lover, or lovers, are weaving for each other. Whatever the case, think about what you may need in the aftermath. It’s a great way to improve your chances of a safe landing.

Playing can take you to new and exciting places. But afterward? You have to find a way back. Knowing how you tend to react after sex is something you would do well to consider when you are plotting your nefarious role-playing deeds. If one of you tends to fall right asleep and the other turns into Spider-Man and has to be pried off the ceiling after sex, you can run into some issues!

I know my own reaction can vary. Some sex puts me right into “Touch me and die, fool!” mode, while at other times I want to cuddle and snuggle—or jump up and whip up a three-course meal. This unpredictability can be even more challenging when you are coming off channeling a character or unfurling a scenario that was a journey to a very different place.

Stay open and remain compassionate in the time immediately postplay—it’s a good way to come back down to earth and to focus on the most important element in the role play: the people involved. Sure, it is hot to pretend. But at the core of the role play are the players. Acknowledging that you had a great time with your play partner(s) helps reinforce the connection you’ve made with them. And it can help restore their humanity, in case it was compromised by the scene. It can be uncomfortable to feel that you were merely a pawn in another’s fantasy—unless of course, your fantasy is to be someone’s hapless pawn!—so in the reentry phase I like to reconnect, check in, to give reassurance that I am present for them. And I ask the same of them for my well-being.