Saturday 29 November 2008

Role-playing?

I'm too tired to say much about this, but (as I said over there):

On tons of anti-SM websites, posts, and blogs, I run into this idea that SM is about "role-playing," that people who are into SM really get into acting out corny roles.

Honestly, as an eight-year veteran of the Scene, I find this rather odd, and I wonder where it comes from. I tend to see a lot more of people just straightforwardly doing stuff than I see setting up elaborate role-playing.

So, uh... where's this idea that we're all "role-playing" come from exactly? It doesn't seem to me to quite square with reality, tbh.

Really, "the sexual equivalent of Renaissance faires?" Where on earth am I supposed to get that kind of free time?

ETA: Also, didn't we do this already back in '06?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Agreed.

And also, I was pretty offended by the general characterisation by 9-2 of renaissance/medieval/dark ages dressing up, since a number of my friends are into that scene and are absolutely not the way 9-2 seems to think they are. Even if she does claim in comments to have been to one or two events.

Trinity said...

Yeah. I've gone to ren faires myself and had fun, though I have to say that sort of thing was a lot more fun when I was in high school.

(Which is not to say I think it's for immature people, but rather that, well, back when it was new to me it was exciting; now it's fairly dull. Perhaps if I found more interesting friends to go with...)

I certainly am not of the opinion that enjoying such things makes one unintelligent or unable to handle reality, though. I don't understand that line of thinking at all.

But then, I'm a gamer, so I've probably just destroyed my own credibility in these folks' eyes now anyway.

If I had any.

:)

Dw3t-Hthr said...

Responded to the whole dealie at my place, in part because damn, I need to post occasionally, sheesh.

Anonymous said...

SM has never been about role play for me either. Though it is interesting how people automatically link role play with sm. But I think in part this is perpetuated by the community itself.

I remember a BJ post from ages ago where she talked about how kinksters tend to overstate the consensuality of SM. Maybe this is the same sort of thing at work - a huge emphasis is placed on the role playing aspect as a way of reassuring people on the outside that none of it is "real".

In reality though, people who engage regularly in serious role play - with costumes, characterisations, scenarios etc - tend to be in the minority. At least from what I've encountered in the scene.

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