BDSM is a variety of usually erotic tactics or roleplaying involving bondage, self-control, dominance and submission, sadomasochism, along with other connected interpersonal dynamics. Supplied the big selection of methods, a number of which can be engaged in by those who will not take into consideration them selves being practising BDSM, inclusion while in the BDSM Local community or subculture usually is said to depend on self-identification and shared experience.

The initialism BDSM is to start with recorded inside of a Usenet article from 1991, and is also interpreted as a combination of the abbreviations B/D (Bondage and Discipline), D/s (Dominance and submission), and S/M (Sadism and Masochism). BDSM has become utilised like a catch-all phrase masking an array of actions, varieties of interpersonal associations, and distinct subcultures. BDSM communities frequently welcome everyone using a non-normative streak who identifies Using the Group; this might consist of cross-dressers, body modification lovers, animal roleplayers, rubber fetishists, and Other individuals.

Activities and associations in BDSM tend to be characterised through the contributors' taking up roles that are complementary and require inequality of energy; So, the concept of educated consent of the two the associates is crucial. The conditions submissive and dominant are frequently made use of to distinguish these roles: the dominant lover ("dom") requires psychological Regulate more than the submissive ("sub"). The phrases top and bottom also are utilized; the highest is the instigator of an motion though the bottom would be the receiver of your action. The two sets of phrases are subtly distinctive: as an example, another person may opt to work as bottom to another particular person, such as, by becoming whipped, purely recreationally, with no implication of staying psychologically dominated, and submissives may be ordered to massage their dominant companions. Even though the base carries out the motion and the best gets it, they have not always switched roles.

The abbreviations sub and dom are usually applied in lieu of submissive and dominant. Occasionally the female-certain conditions mistress, domme, and dominatrix are utilized to explain a dominant girl, in lieu of the sometimes gender-neutral term dom. Individuals who alter in between best/dominant and bottom/submissive roles—no matter whether from romance to romance or inside of a specified marriage—are termed switches. The specific definition of roles and self-identification is a standard subject matter of debate amongst BDSM individuals.