Me!
Roleplay. It’s not a kink I know a lot about or tend to indulge in. Not because I have anything against it but because it just doesn’t really push any of my hot buttons. Why not? Well, I’m kind of inclined to think that because it’s taken so long to get to the point where I’m comfortable with the kinks that do rev my engine, I don’t want to pretend.
I want to just be me.
Raw.
As I am.
In fact, the things that I tend to find the most powerful in a D/s context involve being stripped back to nothing, all ‘other’ gone, both mentally and physically.
We once attended an impact play class that, unexpectedly, included a small roleplay element and, of all the things my other half and I have tried and done together over the years, adopting alternate personas proved to be one of the most difficult and challenging. Discussing the merits of a wooden paddle in front of ten others? No problem. Pretending to be a helpless stowaway on a bad-ass pirate ship? Well, let’s just say I got pretty desperate for him to make me walk the plank and put us both out of our misery. Tongues became tied, faces red, and all of a sudden we weren’t quite sure what to do with one another. Quite simply, roleplaying threw us.
Is it, perhaps, a personality thing? Maybe. I was never the kid who auditioned for the school drama production; playing another person just doesn’t come naturally to me and I think the need to be myself overrules everything else, no matter how titillating or deliciously debauched the scenario. Says Mollena Williams, who wrote a really fabulous piece on roleplaying in Tristan Taormino’s The Ultimate Guide to Kink:
‘I am, among many things, an actor and a performer, and I have been practicing my craft professionally since I was about four years old. But even for me, with a lifetime of formal training and experience under my belt, turning up the heat in bed by playing make-believe games can sometimes feel awkward, vulnerable, or difficult.’
This sums it up perfectly. There’s a certain vulnerability to roleplaying and I just don’t think I’m fearless enough to put myself out there like that. Yep, I’m a scaredy cat.
Do I think that engaging in D/s is a form of roleplay? I can’t answer for others but for me it’s most definitely not. I don’t step into another personality or adopt a character that isn’t already a part of me. I simply let another side of my regular self loose.
Having said all this, though, I should make it clear that I absolutely have fantasies; things and situations that I imagine or dream about. Some of which will remain in my head as lovely dark secrets and others, less fanciful, that will, perhaps, see the light of day. But all of these imaginings tend to involve me being, well, me – faults, flaws and all.
Title image: Th. van den Brink (Beeld en Geluidwiki – Gallery: Pipo de clown)
Fantastic point about D/s not being role play in and of itself! I don’t necessarily play a part it simply is a piece of who I am.
Yet I have done role play but upon a little reflection I’m like a bad action movie star. You can change the clothes, the lines, the scenario, and the person I’m playing with but its still just me doing the same thing in different clothes while someone else imagination gets to play.
You summed up quite nicely some of my own feelings about role play. I think I can imagine what people get out of it but the idea of doing it myself just really holds no appeal. I really have a definite preference for the real. Lovely post.
~nodding~ “True” role play, acting out a character in a set scenario, “playacting,” is just so hard for me to get into – as you said, maybe it is about not being willing to let myself be that vulnerable – to be mocked or made to feel silly. The BDSM role I adopt does not feel that way to me though, not even when I call W “Boss” on Sexretary Days. That just feels…like me/us.
Being happy being you with a person you enjoy is the ultimate in good sex. RP is just a fun situation on occasion for me but when my other half and I connect on a level as we are that is most satisfying of all.
Talking about the impact class with the small roleplay element immediately had me thinking about my bachelor studies and communication classes, where I always clammed up with simple communication roleplay elements. I hated those. I never knew what to say, what to do. Oh no, roleplay is not for me at all.
Great clear piece of writing
Rebel xox
Great points! While I enjoy acting, I prefer predefined roles to improv, so I totally empathise.
~Kazi xxx