Roleplay can be a fun and hot way to spice up your sex life, but there’s nothing sexy about tired tropes and well-worn territory. If you’re looking to get steamy while avoiding tired clichés, then use these tips to incorporate a little play-acting into the boudoir without indulging platitudinous plotlines or obvious stock characters.
Take time to create psychologically nuanced backstories for your characters.
If nothing gets you hotter than a sexy librarian or a businessman in town for one night, that’s okay! You have to listen to your desires, but that doesn’t mean you have to be a goddamn hack. Avoid two-dimensional characterization by creating out-of-the-box backstories for the roles you and your partner will be playing. How does the librarian interpellate her desire? Is all roleplay a performance of a performance? While you bend over a desk in front of your partner, read some Althusser to bring a meta-awareness to your fuck-fuck time.
Use Heads Up to generate scenarios.
If you want to truly reduce the odds of trite setups, ditch your sexual fantasies altogether, and simply use an iPhone Heads Up app to pick roles. Kermit the Frog and Frida Kahlo getting freaky at a drive-in? Why not. At best, you might discover a new dimension to your sexuality, but at the very least you won’t have to feel ashamed for getting off to something as basic as a stern professor spanking fantasy.
Do the exact opposite of your instincts.
Let your desire permeate every inch of your body and mind, then go in the exact opposite direction of wherever it’s taking you. Do you like feeling like you’ve been bad and need to be punished? Roleplay as an authority figure! Want to feel like you’re saving or protecting someone in distress? Roleplay as a sexy little cat in a tree and make your partner come rescue you. These setups may not be original in and of themselves, but the fact that you have no interest in them will lend a subversive and textually rich quality to the play. Just don’t expect to be turned on!
We all want to explore our desires and plumb the depths of our sexuality, but not at the cost of being tropey! So use these tips for confusing, intellectually challenging roleplay instead. Then once you’re ready for sex, just make out for a while and use plenty of lube!
