These are fifty roles and play styles adults actually negotiate. A role is a description of who acts, who receives, or who holds a defined authority. It is not a diagnosis. Titles do not create a legal status. Master, slave, owner, and property are words in an agreement between adults. They do not make anyone chattel, they do not remove the right to leave, and they do not authorize harm past what was agreed. Any role that uses a younger age is still between adults. Minors are not players and not an audience.
How to read a title
- Top and bottom say who performs a technique and who receives it. Dominant and submissive say who holds authority. Those are different questions, and the same person can answer them differently on different nights.
- A title grants nothing by itself. The agreement grants a scope, a duration, and a way to stop. Either adult can end the agreement.
- Party jobs at the end of this list are jobs. A monitor, an educator, or a photographer is not a sexual identity.
- If you cannot explain your title in two sentences, do not use it with a new partner.
- Age-play titles refer to adults only. The limits are in Age Play 101.
Who acts, and who decides
1. Top
The top performs the technique. They tie, strike, restrain, or run the physical part of the scene. Nothing in the word says they control the relationship, the money, or the next morning. A top can be following the bottom's instructions the entire time. The failure mode is assuming that technical control is the same as authority. Ask which one you are being offered.
2. Bottom
The bottom receives the technique. They are tied, struck, or restrained. They can be the person who designed the scene and hired the skill. An experienced bottom is not a beginner and is not automatically submissive. Their job in the scene is to report numbness, breathing trouble, and a stop. A top who treats those reports as interruptions is misusing the role.
3. Dominant
A dominant holds agreed authority. The scope is the negotiation: which decisions, in which rooms, for how long, and what is excluded. Sex may be included. Pain may be absent. A dominant who never tops is a coherent arrangement if the authority is service, protocol, or schedule rather than toys. "You are in charge" without a scope lets them invent rules and call disagreement disrespect. Write the scope down.
4. Submissive
A submissive gives agreed authority. The gift has edges. Work, medical care, other relationships, and the right to leave are outside the gift unless someone foolishly put them inside it. Submission is not a mood that removes a safeword. A submissive who bottoms for nothing and still keeps a protocol at home is using the word correctly. A person who only wants to be tied once is a bottom, not a submissive, until they say otherwise.
5. Switch
A switch takes more than one of these positions, with one partner or with several. They might top tonight and bottom tomorrow, or submit to one person and dominate another. The word does not mean they will do anything, and it does not mean the choice belongs to whoever asks first. State which direction is available with this partner. A switch who bottoms for rope and will not submit is describing a limit, not a contradiction.
Formal authority
6. Master or Mistress
Master and Mistress are gendered titles for a formal dominant in a power exchange that usually outlasts one scene. Speech, service, schedule, or sexual protocol are the usual contents. One household's version is a short list of manners. Another's covers most domestic decisions. Outsiders cannot tell which from the noun. The title does not outrank a safeword, and it does not survive a decision to leave. If the title is being used to cut someone off from friends, money, or a doctor, that is control of a life, not a protocol.
7. Slave
Slave is the formal submissive-side title in that same kind of exchange. It often implies stricter obedience and a longer term than the word submissive. It is still a negotiated role. It creates no property right a court will enforce. Ending the relationship is allowed. A scene inside the dynamic still stops on the agreed signal. People who want the sound of the word for one night, and no rules after, should say bottom or submissive so they do not inherit a structure they did not mean.
8. Owner
Owner is the dominant-side title when the agreement uses the language of possession. The ethical content, when the arrangement is legitimate, is a heavy duty of care: limits, health constraints, and an off-ramp the owner does not get to delete. The word is not a deed. Payment is not required for the title, and payment does not create it either. A professional session is a different role, listed later.
9. Property
Property is the other side of an owner agreement. It overlaps with slave and is not identical. Slave often emphasizes obedience and ritual. Property emphasizes the possession language and the owner's responsibility for the person wearing the title. Neither word authorizes a new sex act, a new partner, or a mark that was not already on the list. A no to a new act is still a no. Renegotiate in ordinary speech, outside any ritual that makes refusal look disobedient.
10. Service submissive
Service submission puts the exchange in tasks: cooking, errands, running a party, keeping gear, managing a calendar. The charge is that the task was ordered, done to a known standard, and recognized. It can be sexual. It often is not. Define the standard before you criticize the work. Hours matter. A service submissive with a job and a body still has both. Service that consumes sleep, wages, or medical appointments is a labor problem, not a higher grade of devotion.
11. Service top
A service top performs a technique for the bottom's plan. The classic case is a rope top or an impact top who is skilled and is not in charge of the relationship. They may be paid or unpaid. Their authority is the safety of the technique while it is happening, not the rest of the night. A service top who adds humiliation, sex, or extra force because the bottom is nonverbal has left the role. The plan is the plan. Additions wait for a later yes.
12. Protocol dominant
Protocol is a set of repeatable behaviors: how someone enters a room, what they are called, how a drink is served, where they kneel. A protocol dominant maintains that set. It is optional structure, not a moral rank. Importing a long etiquette manual on the second date is usually someone else's house rules, copied. Write the behaviors, the hours they apply, and the hours they do not. Work, family, and any place a minor is present are off unless the mannerism is private and does not read as sex to anyone else.
13. 24/7 partner
A 24/7 dynamic means the authority agreement is in effect on ordinary days, not only during scenes. It does not mean sex all day, and it does not mean the submissive has lost legal adulthood. Sleep, employment, and a private mental life continue. The practical test is whether both people can name three decisions the dominant does not control. If they cannot, the scope has become a takeover. Shrink it on purpose, in a conversation where the submissive is not being graded.
Pain, rope, and struggle
14. Sadist
A sadist wants to cause pain that the other adult asked for. The want can be sexual or not, and it can be separate from dominance. A sadist who is not a dominant still needs a plan, a stop, and the judgment to quit while the other person is still inside their limit. Enjoying the wince is not a credential. Knowing where bone, kidneys, and nerves are is the credential. Impact that ignores that knowledge is how people get hurt and call it intensity. Start with Masochism 101.
15. Masochist
A masochist wants pain they asked for. They do not owe an increasing tolerance, and they do not owe pain to every partner. The kind of pain matters. Sting and thud are different, and a person can want one and refuse the other. Marks are a separate yes. A masochist who cannot stop, or who asks to be pushed past a stop in order to prove something, is not asking for a better scene. They are asking you to ignore the only safety device the scene has.
16. Rigger
A rigger ties people. The skill is nerve compression, breathing, and a tie they can get off quickly. Suspension, where the body hangs in the rope, is a further specialty. It is not the default meaning of the word. Shears stay in reach. A photograph of a harness is not instruction. Chest ties that look right and still prevent a full breath are the ordinary failure. Learn from a person who will watch you and stop you.
17. Rope bottom
A rope bottom is the person tied. They are not equipment. They report cold hands, numbness, and trouble breathing while they still can speak. They also know their own injuries, joints, and how long they can stay in a position. A bottom who goes silent to be impressive is a hazard to themselves. Agree before the tie what silence means. If you did not agree that silence is fine, silence means stop and get the rope off.
18. Impact top
An impact top specializes in striking: hands, floggers, paddles, and, with more training, canes or whips. The role is aim, warm-up, and knowing when a tool has become too narrow for the target. Ask what they refuse to hit and how they stop. A top who cannot answer is not an expert. They are a risk. Do not accept a cane from a stranger as a first scene because they brought one.
19. Impact bottom
An impact bottom receives strikes and tracks their own limit in real time. The skill is reporting a color before the skin splits, not enduring past it. They should know which areas on their body are injured, numb, or off limits, and they should say so before the warm-up. Wanting a bruise and wanting a scene that leaves no mark are both legitimate. They are negotiated in advance, not discovered by the top at full force.
20. Brat
A brat provokes. The provocation is negotiated: teasing, trivial rule-breaking, delay, argument. It is a game with a dominant or a tamer who agreed to play. It is not a right to ignore a real limit, to insult a real insecurity, or to perform the game in front of people who did not consent to it. A safeword is not bratting. If someone punishes the safeword, the game is over and so is the legitimacy of the dynamic.
21. Brat tamer
A brat tamer responds to that provocation inside consequences that were written down. Patience is part of the role. Inventing a punishment because you are actually angry is not. Say which provocations are welcome and which are attacks. Sexual acts that were refused do not become available because the brat "earned" them. The response is one of the listed consequences, or it is a stop and a conversation.
22. Primal hunter
A primal hunter is the chasing, pinning, biting side of a minimally scripted struggle. Growling and wrestling can be the whole scene. The agreement still has a stop signal, a private place, and a list of body parts that are off limits. Roughhousing without that list is how a head meets a table or teeth meet an eye. Do not chase anyone where bystanders can mistake the scene for an assault. Do not start it as a surprise.
23. Primal prey
Primal prey is the other side of that struggle: fleeing, resisting, being caught, inside a plan. Resistance here is not consensual non-consent unless you also negotiated that category, with its own stop. Prey does not mean the person has given up speech. If the struggle is vigorous, agree on a signal that works while someone is pinned, because a word can be hard to hear. Furniture, stairs, and outdoors without a boundary are how this role causes ordinary injuries.
24. Humiliation dominant
A humiliation dominant uses shame on purpose: names, tasks, exposure to an audience that agreed to watch. The content is a list of allowed words and forbidden words, made before the role starts. Real trauma, a real body insecurity, and slurs the person did not offer are not a deeper version of the same role. They are misses. When the scene ends, the vocabulary ends. Continuing the insult as a joke means you did not end the scene.
25. Humiliation bottom
A humiliation bottom wants that shame inside a limit. Their skill is knowing which themes wreck them in a way they do not want, and saying so before they are aroused and less likely to edit the list. They can remove a word later without a debate inside the role. If they cannot tell, afterward, which lines were play, the scene was too broad. Shrink it before you repeat it. Non-consenting people, including any minor, are not the audience for this role.
Care, age, and animals
26. Caregiver
A caregiver holds a nurturing authority: comfort, structure, food, a bedtime, praise. The role can be sexual or not. Sex is a separate yes. Caregiver does not mean therapist, parent, or the person who replaces medical care. If the dynamic is standing in for treatment of trauma, stop and use an actual clinician. The caregiver also gets limits. Constant availability is not owed. Set hours. Outside those hours you use everyday names.
27. Little
A little is an adult in a younger role, receiving care from a caregiver. The role may include comfort, rules, or sex. None of those are the default. The word does not refer to a child, and the scene may not happen where a minor can see, hear, or find a recording. A little can refuse. The role does not reduce their ability to end it, and a de-role phrase should be agreed before anyone shifts voice. Details are in the age-play articles, not in this list.
28. Middle
A middle is an adult whose role sits older than a little and younger than their real age. The tone is often more independent and less infantile. The legal and ethical rule does not change. Everyone in the scene is an adult. You do not lower the performed age in order to make sex more charged, and you do not play a minor's age. Set the floor in ordinary speech before the role starts. School uniforms and similar costumes follow the same rule.
29. Daddy or Mommy
Daddy and Mommy are adult titles for a caregiver, often with an erotic or authority charge the word caregiver does not always carry. They are not names for a parent, and they are not permission for sexual access. Some people use them with no age play at all, as an affectionate dominant title. Ask which meaning you are hearing. Assuming sex, or assuming a younger role, is the failure. Both have to be named.
30. Handler
A handler directs an adult in an animal role: commands, gear, and the line between the game and ordinary speech. The handler watches airways, joints, and heat. Hoods, mitts, and locked collars remove the ability to use a normal safeword, so a nonverbal stop is mandatory before that gear goes on. Public handling belongs only at events that allow it. A park is not that event. The handler does not get to decide that the human in the role is done speaking for the night.
31. Pup
A pup is an adult in a dog role. Gear often includes a hood, mitts, a collar, or a tail. The role can be sexual, social, or competitive, including structured events with rules of their own. Hoods that block air and mitts that remove hands need the nonverbal stop from the handler entry. A collar that can choke if pulled or caught on furniture is a hazard at home, not only in public. The person can end the role in a sentence. Barking is not the only available language.
32. Kitten
A kitten is an adult in a cat role. It is often quieter than pup play and more focused on laps, scratching, and a narrower set of commands. The safety issues are the same whenever the gear restricts hands, sight, or breathing. Do not assume a kitten role includes pain, sex, or being picked up. Being lifted is a joint and consent question. Ask. Claws, if they are props, are a scratch risk to eyes. Agree whether they are in the scene.
33. Pony
A pony is an adult in a horse role. It is more specific than a general pet. Tack, gait, posture, and sometimes pulling a light cart are part of the practice. Untrained trotting and any harness that asks someone to pull weight load the knees, back, and shoulders. Do not add a cart, a bit that affects breathing, or a long run on the first night. Bits that interfere with speech need a hand signal. This is athletic labor. Water and a time limit belong in the plan.
Materials, money, and chastity
34. Rubber fetishist
A rubber or latex fetishist wants the material: the sound, the smell, the compression, the look. The desire does not place them on the dominant or submissive side. Latex traps heat and can trigger a latex allergy, which you ask about before a suit touches skin. A person who cannot get out of a tight suit or hood alone needs a plan for overheating, a restroom, and a way to be cut out if a zipper fails. Do not leave someone sealed in rubber in a hot room.
35. Leather practitioner
Leather is a material fetish and an older club culture with its own clubs, contests, and manners. Wearing a jacket does not tell you who is dominant. Old Guard is a historical style of formal leather protocol, not a rank you can claim because you bought a harness. Ask what the person means. Care of the hide is maintenance. It is not a measure of seriousness. Public leather at a bar that is not a leather bar is clothing. Do not turn bystanders into an audience.
36. Bootblack
A bootblack shines and conditions leather, often boots, as a skilled service. In leather culture the role can be formal, with a chair, a kit, and a code about what touch is included. Shining a boot is not permission to sexualize the wearer, and sitting in the chair is not permission to ignore a boundary about feet, socks, or how long the service lasts. Hygiene and a clear yes to each pair of boots matter. The role can be unpaid community service or part of a private dynamic. Say which.
37. Financial dominant
A financial dominant, often called a findom, receives money, gifts, or financial control as the sexual or power exchange. The legitimate version is a budget both adults can afford, with a ceiling, a record, and no debt. The abusive version is rent money, secret credit cards, and pressure to send more while aroused. Arousal is a bad time to move money. Set the amount sober, in writing, and do not hide it from a partner who shares the account. This article is not a method for extracting cash.
38. Paypig
Paypig is the crude community name for the person who sends that money. The role is still an adult with bills. A ceiling that protects housing, food, and shared accounts is part of the agreement, not an insult to the dynamic. Sends that happen only when someone is humiliated and unable to check a balance are a warning. Either person can pause the money without owing a punishment. If stopping the payments is treated as betrayal, the arrangement was a drain, not a role.
39. Keyholder
A keyholder controls access to a chastity device the other person wears. The authority is real only for the period you both set. It includes hygiene, circulation, and a way to get the device off in an emergency that does not depend on the keyholder answering the phone. A spare key in a known place, or a device that can be cut, is part of responsible keyholding. Losing the only key and calling that training is negligence. Numbness, cold, or a color change means the device comes off now.
40. Chastity wearer
The chastity wearer agrees to a device that restricts genital access for a defined time. Long-term wear is a hygiene and tissue question, not a contest. Clean the skin on a schedule you can actually keep. Remove the device for numbness, cold, discoloration, pain that is not the sensation you agreed to, or any problem urinating. Do not sleep in a device that you cannot remove yourself unless the emergency plan in the keyholder entry is real. Orgasm denial, if included, still has an end date.
Other partners in the room
41. Cuckold
A cuckold is a man whose partner has sex with someone else, with the humiliation of that fact as part of his erotic role. Everyone involved is an adult who agreed, including the person having the sex and the person they have it with. The third person is not a prop and not a surprise. Safer-sex terms, what the cuckold watches or does not watch, and what is said about him are negotiated before anyone is undressed. A no from any of the three ends that plan.
42. Cuckquean
A cuckquean is the same role with a woman in the position of the partner who is not the one having the outside sex, or who is sexualized through watching her partner with someone else. The structure matches the cuckold entry. Humiliation is optional and must be listed. Compersion, pleasure in a partner's pleasure, is a different feeling and a different role, covered under stag and vixen. Do not assume a woman who likes her partner to have other sex wants to be degraded for it.
43. Stag or vixen
A stag is a man, and a vixen the woman partner, in a hotwife-style agreement: she has other sexual partners, and the dynamic is built on pride or compersion rather than humiliation. The labels are conventional and not mandatory. What matters is the rule set. Who she can see, whether he watches, whether he participates, condoms, and what is reported afterward are the agreement. Jealousy that shows up anyway is a reason to pause, not a reason to invent a humiliation scene nobody asked for.
44. Bull
A bull is the third adult who has sex with one partner while the other partner's role is cuckold, cuckquean, or stag. The bull does not get to rewrite the couple's rules in the room. Safer sex, recording, and whether the bull speaks to the partner who is watching are agreed by all three before the meeting. A bull who treats the watching partner as furniture, or who removes a condom that was required, has left the role and committed a violation. Screen for that before you invite someone.
Work at events and for pay
45. Professional dominant
A professional dominant is paid for BDSM sessions. The scope is their menu: acts, time, fee, and the screening they require. Payment does not remove consent. Either party can stop. Whether the work includes sexual contact depends on that person and on the law where they work. Laws on commercial sex vary. This list is not a legal opinion and not a business plan. A client who treats payment as ownership is a client to refuse. A professional who treats payment as a reason to ignore a stop is not doing the job they sold.
46. Professional submissive
A professional submissive is paid to bottom or to submit within a stated menu. The same rules apply. They can refuse clients, acts, and marks. They are not available for whatever the payer invents after the door closes. Screening, a deposit, a check-in person who knows the appointment exists, and a stop that the client has been told about are ordinary safety, not an insult to the client's dominance. Jurisdiction and sexual-contact law are their problem to know, not a detail for this article to settle.
47. Dungeon monitor
A dungeon monitor watches a play space for the venue's rules. The work is to see that a negotiation is not being overridden, to interrupt play that has become unsafe, to know who calls for medical help, and to apply the house rules when the people involved are popular. It is not a license to join scenes, to coach technique that was not requested, or to cruise people who are tied. If you are playing and a monitor stops you, you stop. Argue the rule after the hazard is gone.
48. Educator
An educator teaches a skill or a consent practice, in a class or as a mentor. The standard is whether the student can do the thing without injury, not whether the student owes the teacher play, sex, or loyalty. Mentorship that slides into dating the newest person in the room, or into "I will not teach you unless you submit," mixes roles that should stay separate. Decline one of them. A class that never mentions how the technique fails is advertising, not education.
49. Photographer
A photographer at a kink event records what they were given permission to record. Permission is specific: which people, which acts, whether faces are in frame, and where the image may appear. A badge is not consent. Many venues ban or limit phones. If someone withdraws consent after a shot, the professional question is deletion, under whatever terms you agreed. Do not post first and negotiate later. Do not shoot people who are too impaired to agree, or anyone who might be a minor. The second case is not a gray area.
50. Event organizer
An organizer runs the event: venue, staff, admissions, and the rules guests accept when they enter. The role is logistics and a duty of care. It is not a claim on guests' scenes, and it is not a status that exempts the organizer's own play from the rules they wrote. Staffing a monitor, publishing the risks, and removing a guest who ignores a stop are the job. Collecting authority over attendees' private dynamics is not.
Using one of these words
Pick the smallest word that tells a new partner what you want. "I bottom for rope and I do not submit" is more useful than a stack of titles. If you want authority, name the decisions and the term. If you want a title because it arouses you, say that, and do not pretend the title already settled the rules.
Retire a word when the relationship changes. A title that fit a weekend can become a constraint in a shared apartment. You can drop it without a ceremony. If the other person treats that as betrayal, the word had started to do work you did not agree to. Have that conversation before the next scene. After a heavy scene under any of these titles, plan for the comedown in sub drop, top drop, and event drop.