BDSM is a Roleplaying Game

Have you ever been LARPing? For the uninitiated that’s Live Action Role Playing – a meatspace version of Dungeons & Dragons wherein you strap on an elf costume and go down to your nearest patch of woodland to fight one another with rubber swords. That’s not the sexiest description of it, I’ll admit, but I stand by it. LARPing is inherently absurd, but also a hell of a lot of fun.

I’m not a current LARPer, by the way, but I went through several phases where I played on a semi-regular basis. I regret nothing. While it did feel like I might actually die of embarrassment if anyone saw me, I had more fun that I thought possible. It’s hard not to have fun when LARPing. Especially once you get your hands on a crossbow.

It occurred to me then, and it occurs to me now, LARP and BDSM have a lot in common.

Both activities require a fertile imagination, and the ability to lose yourself in a fantasy world. Both can be enjoyed with nothing more than your imagination, but get significantly more fun once you introduce equipment. And both, sometimes, see you co-operating with your fellow players to build and maintain a fantasy scenario.

But there’s something that LARPers talk about a lot, which BDSM folk rarely ever mention. That thing is immersion.

Immersion matters. Immersion is what helps you forget that you’re wearing a costume instead of actual armour. It’s what allows you to say ridiculous, pornographic, filthy things with a completely straight face. It’s what allows you to take what you’re doing seriously, even if it’s inherently absurd.

In the kink scene there are bids for immersion. Kinky parties like Torture Garden insist on costumes that would likely get you kicked out of any normal nightclub. Most parties have rules about not interrupting people in the middle of a scene, or make a deliberate effort to separate social areas from play areas. There’s a bias towards atmospheric venues, even if they can be some of the most awkward.

These are structural things – ways in which venues and organisers attempt to create immersion. They’re designed to encourage people to participate in creating the consensual illusion of a dungeon, or a party, or an orgy. But whether people engage with that is beyond the control of any organiser or venue. That stuff is down to the individual.

If you’re at a kinky party (whether or not you’re actively playing with someone) you’re still a character in a whole bunch of stories. Take it seriously. Don’t stroll around in jeans and a t-shirt. Don’t talk loudly about banal things near where people are playing. Get in the headspace, and you and everyone else will enjoy yourselves a whole lot more.

It’s always within your power to take the thing that you’re doing seriously. To treat it as though it’s real. Even if you’re playing in the privacy of your own home. Particularly at the start of a scene, particularly if you’re role playing, particularly if you’re doing something weird… the urge to laugh at yourself can be overwhelming. But resist it. Push through. Don’t, as the LARPers would say, break character. I guarantee the awkwardness will abate sooner or later.

And, once it has, you can have some real fucked-up fun.