Power & role glossary

Explore each term in this topic, then open its full explanation for context, sources and related reading.

Bondage
The consensual use or representation of restraint and restricted movement between adults for aesthetic, psychological, sensory or role-based meaning. Bondage ranges from symbolic imagery to technically complex restraint; it is distinct from detention, coercion or preventing someone from leaving without agreement.
Brat and brat-tamer dynamic
A consensual adult power dynamic in which negotiated cheekiness, provocation, testing or playful resistance invites an agreed response from a brat-tamer or other partner.
Chastity play
A consensual dynamic in which access to sexual touch or release is symbolically or practically restricted for an agreed period. It may centre on anticipation, ritual, control or commitment rather than continuous device wear.
Collaring
The consensual use or exchange of a collar as clothing, scene equipment or a symbol of role, commitment, belonging, protection, protocol or relationship meaning.
Consensual degradation
Negotiated psychological play using lowered status, language or ritual to create intensity. It overlaps with humiliation but may focus more on role and identity language than embarrassment.
Consensual humiliation
A negotiated form of psychological play in which embarrassment, teasing or status difference is used for intensity. Because language can have lasting effects, participants often define subjects and words that remain off-limits.
Consensual objectification
Role-play in which a person is temporarily treated as a symbolic object, display or function under agreed conditions. The person’s real autonomy and right to stop remain intact throughout.
Discipline
A negotiated structure of rules, expectations, feedback and consequences used by consenting adults within a kink or power-exchange dynamic. It may be playful, ritualised or formal, and it does not require physical punishment or permanent authority.
Dominance and submission
A consensual adult scene, relationship structure or identity in which authority is deliberately distributed unequally within negotiated limits. The scope may be brief, recurring or woven into daily life, but it remains revisable and never creates literal ownership or unlimited control.
Feederism
A consensual adult interest involving feeding, being fed, indulgence, fullness, weight-change fantasy or feeder-and-feedee roles, with wide variation in goals and conduct. A fantasy does not establish a real-world health goal, and each person retains control of food, treatment and bodily choices.
Financial domination
A power-exchange interest in which money, gifts or financial control carry symbolic or erotic meaning. Consent does not remove the potential for financial harm, coercion or fraud, so firm budgets and independent control of essentials are important boundaries.
Findom financial boundaries
The agreed limits, safeguards and stopping routes used when adults discuss money-themed power exchange. Boundaries should protect choice, privacy and essential financial security.
Findom tributes and financial submission
Terms used in some financial-domination communities for agreed payments, spending or money-themed roles between adults. They never legitimise debt, fraud, threats or control over another person's essential finances.
Leash play
A consensual adult dynamic using a leash or lead for symbolism, guidance, pet play, ritual or controlled movement without treating the neck as a safe load-bearing point.
Master/slave dynamic
A consensual adult power-exchange structure using Master, Mistress or slave language and a deliberately pronounced authority distinction whose actual scope is negotiated by the participants.
Orgasm control
A consensual practice in which timing, permission or anticipation around climax becomes part of play. It can be solo or shared and may involve repeated pauses or an agreed power-exchange role.
Pet play
Adult role-play built around stylised animal identities or handler-and-pet dynamics. It can be social, playful, relational or erotic; no actual animals are involved.
Praise kink
An interest in affirmation, approval or being told one has performed well, often within a negotiated role or intimacy dynamic. The appeal may be emotional, erotic, reassuring or all three. The wording, speaker, setting and freedom to decline remain individual choices rather than assumptions attached to the label.
Protocol
An agreed pattern of behaviour, communication, presentation or ritual used by consenting adults to express a kink or power-exchange role. Protocol can be informal, occasional or highly structured, but it never overrides present consent, capacity, accessibility or ordinary legal rights.
Rigger and rope bottom
Activity-role terms for the person applying or directing rope and the person receiving it; neither role automatically establishes dominance, submission, expertise or relationship status.
Role-play
The consensual adoption of fictional roles, settings or scripts to explore identity, authority, vulnerability or fantasy. Participants remain responsible for agreeing boundaries even when the story itself imagines resistance or unequal power.
Sadism and masochism
In consensual adult kink, sadism and masochism describe interests in creating or receiving agreed physical sensation, discomfort or psychological intensity. The terms do not by themselves imply cruelty, abuse, self-harm or a clinical disorder, and they never include causing suffering without consent.
Service
A consensual adult dynamic in which practical care, assistance, attention or completed tasks carry relational, symbolic or erotic meaning. The actions may be ordinary; what makes them service is the meaning the adults agree to give them, not an automatic duty owed by a submissive person.
Switch
A switch is an adult who may enjoy more than one BDSM role, such as dominant and submissive or top and bottom, depending on the partner, activity or occasion.
Top and bottom
Activity-role terms commonly describing who gives, performs or directs an agreed action and who receives or experiences it; they do not automatically establish authority or identity.
Total power exchange
A consensual adult relationship model aspiring to broad delegated authority across multiple areas of life, while remaining limited by law, capacity, continuing personhood and the ability to leave.