This is a glossary for adults. Each entry says what the term usually means in kink, what a negotiation has to include, and where the common injury is. It is not a menu, and it is not a set of instructions for the acts that maim people. Where an older version of this page disagreed with the hazard, follow the hazard.
Letters without a standard term are omitted. Filling them with jokes produces bad advice. Age play, pet play, and every other role here are between adults. Minors are not players and not an audience.
Before you use the list
- A definition is not a yes. Each act still needs its own agreement, including how either person stops it.
- Age-play terms refer to adults. A younger role does not change anyone's real age.
- Chest electricity, blades, needles, and fire are named so you know not to learn them from a page.
- Consensual non-consent still has a stop that works. If the stop does not work, the scene is not consensual.
- Do one new act on a given night. Do not treat the alphabet as a plan.
Age play
Age play is roleplay in which an adult acts younger or older than they are, or takes a caregiving role toward another adult. Caregiver, Daddy, Mommy, and little are titles inside that agreement. Sex is a separate yes. The youngest age you are willing to perform is a limit you set in ordinary adult speech, and sex does not move it.
The failure mode is treating the role as consent, or playing it where a minor can see, hear, or later find a recording. Regression, a coping state in which someone feels younger because they are distressed, is not a scene and is not a sexual invitation. The full limits are in Age Play 101.
Bondage
Bondage is restraint: cuffs, rope, tape, or a wrap that limits movement. The person tying or locking is responsible for circulation, breathing, and a way out that does not depend on a knot they cannot reach. You should be able to slide a finger under a chest or limb wrap. The bound person must be able to take a full breath. Numb, cold, or pale tissue means the restraint comes off. Safety shears stay in the room. Nobody is left alone in a tie they cannot release.
Costume handcuffs are a poor restraint. They tighten under struggle and they injure wrists. Do not put duct tape on skin. Zip ties are not bondage equipment. They have no quick release, they cut, and in a panic they are sawed off in an emergency room. Rope that puts body weight on the chest or suspends someone is a further skill, taught in person, not a subset of "we own cuffs."
Consensual non-consent
Consensual non-consent is a scene in which adults agree, ahead of time, to act out resistance. The agreement is the consent. The acting is not. A fantasy of force is not permission to do the act, a point made at more length in why a rape fantasy is not a request.
If you do this, the plan names the acts that are included, the acts that are excluded, and the word or signal that ends it. You rehearse the signal while nobody is aroused. You do not spring the scene as a surprise. You do not stage it where a neighbor can mistake it for an attack. Either person can end it, including the person in the aggressive role. Alcohol and drugs are a reason to cancel, because the stop has to be reliable. More of the boundary is in Masochism 301.
Dominance, submission, and discipline
Dominance and submission are an authority agreement. The dominant makes a defined set of decisions. The submissive accepts that set. The set has edges: money, work, other relationships, and medical care are outside it unless you foolishly put them inside it, which you should not. Discipline is a consequence for a broken rule. The consequence is written before it is used. A surprise punishment is not discipline. It is someone inventing harm and calling it structure.
A safeword is not a broken rule. Punishing someone for using it ends the legitimacy of the dynamic. Spanking, if it is the consequence, follows impact rules: agreed area, no spine, no kidneys, no neck, stop when asked. Service, protocol, and titles are optional layers. They are explained as roles in BDSM roles and play styles.
Electrical play
Electrical play uses current for sensation, through gear made for sex or, less appropriately, through medical stimulators people repurpose. The hazard that matters is the heart. Current run from one nipple to the other, or from one side of the chest to the other, crosses the area where the heart sits. Do not do that. Do not put drugstore muscle-stim pads, homemade boxes, or anything powered from a wall outlet on the chest. A pacemaker, heart disease, or pregnancy rules the whole category out.
This glossary will not tell you where to put electrodes. People who want the skill take a class and use equipment built for erotic use, with an instructor who will stop them. Below the waist, with purpose-built gear, is a different risk profile from a path across the chest, and it is still not a project for a first night or for a device you do not understand.
Fetish
A fetish is a specific stimulus that carries a disproportionate amount of the sexual interest: a material, a body part, an object, a garment. Kink is the broader set of practices, including power and pain, that may not depend on one stimulus. Someone can have a latex fetish and no interest in dominance. Someone can want impact and have no fetish object at all. Treating the words as synonyms makes negotiations vague.
The practical question is whether the stimulus is necessary or only welcome. Necessary means sex without it is uninteresting to that person. Welcome means it can be included and can also be left out. Partners need the accurate version. A necessary fetish hidden until after a relationship is exclusive is a compatibility fact, not a surprise you are entitled to spring.
Gags
A gag occupies the mouth. It can quiet speech, produce drool, and make a safeword impossible to say. Those are the points, and they are also the injuries. The person has to breathe through the nose, and they have to have a stop that does not require words. Dropping an object is the usual signal. A gag that locks, or that you cannot pull free in one motion, does not belong in an early scene.
Vomiting with a gag in place is an airway emergency. Do not gag someone who is drunk, nauseated, or congested. Do not combine a gag with anything else that already removes a stop, such as a hood they cannot remove and wrists they cannot free, until each of those restraints is familiar and the nonverbal signal has been practiced. If breathing changes, the gag comes out first. You do not finish the scene.
Humiliation
Humiliation is the use of shame as a sexual or power technique: names, tasks, exposure to an audience that agreed to be an audience. The content is a list. Words that are allowed and words that are forbidden are written down before the role starts. A word can look acceptable on paper and fail out loud. Try a line on a mild night before you attach it to pain or to sex.
Real insecurities, real traumas, and slurs the person did not offer are not a more advanced form of the same game. They are misses. When the scene ends, the vocabulary ends. Continuing the insult as a joke means the scene did not end. Non-consenting people, including anyone who might be a minor, are not an audience.
Impact
Impact is striking: hands, floggers, paddles, straps, canes, whips. Beginners use an open hand on the buttocks or the fleshy part of the thighs, with a number they will not pass and a word that stops the count. The spine, kidneys, neck, head, face, belly, tailbone, joints, and the backs of the knees are not targets. Narrow tools concentrate force and split skin. They are not the second night.
Warm the skin. Increase only while the person is still answering. A missed strike is a reason to stop and reset your aim, not a reason to swing harder. Bruises can appear the next day and last one to two weeks. Marks are a separate yes. The sequence from hand to tool is in Masochism 101 and Masochism 201.
Japanese rope
Shibari and kinbaku are Japanese rope traditions. In English-speaking kink they often mean decorative or restrictive chest and limb ties, sometimes suspension. The aesthetic reputation is how people get hurt. A tie that looks correct in a photograph can still compress a nerve or prevent a full breath. Numb hands, cold fingers, and a color change past pink are signs to cut or untie, not signs that the tie is "tight in a good way."
Learn chest ties and any suspension from a person who will watch you and correct you. Shears are part of the kit. This page does not teach knots. A general bondage rule still applies: no necks, no one left alone, no face-down compression of the chest.
Knife play
Knife play uses a blade for fear, for the feel of cold metal, or, in a much smaller and bloodier practice, for cutting. The ordinary failure is a flinch. A person who agreed to the flat of a blade moves, the edge turns, and the cut is real. Sterile technique, a plan for blood, and the skill to stop a bleed are the minimum for anyone who cuts on purpose. They are taught in person.
This glossary will not tell you how to hold a knife on a partner. Do not practice on someone from a description or a video. If a cut happens by accident, pressure and medical care outrank the scene. A "dulled" knife that has not actually been dulled is a common lie people tell themselves.
Latex and leather
Latex and rubber are worn for the feel, the look, and the smell. They trap heat. A tight hood or a catsuit can overheat a person who cannot unzip it alone, and latex allergy is common enough to ask about before a suit touches skin. Chlorinated or powdered latex, and a plan to get the suit off, belong in the negotiation. Do not leave someone sealed in rubber in a hot room.
Leather is both a material fetish and an older club culture with its own manners. Desire for the jacket does not tell you whether someone is dominant. Care of the hide is maintenance. It is not a measure of anyone's seriousness.
Medical play
Medical play is roleplay of clinical authority: exams, gloves, steel, the language of a procedure. It can stay theatrical. It becomes dangerous when the objects enter the body. Sounds and other urethral toys cause infection and trauma, and they are not a beginner's prop. Enemas and temperature in the rectum cause injury when people improvise with household equipment. Anything that breaks skin needs sterile instruments and a plan for blood, which puts it with needle play, not with a costume stethoscope.
Negotiate which acts are theater and which enter the body. Stop for sharp pain, bleeding you did not agree to, or dizziness. A role that says the patient cannot refuse is still CNC, and it still needs a stop that works.
Needle play
Needle play pierces skin temporarily for sensation or for a pattern. The risks are infection, nerve injury, bleeding, and a fainting response. The standard is new sterile needles, gloves, skin prep, and a container for used sharps that will not go in a household trash bag loose. People who teach this do it in person because a written description does not show you depth, angle, or when to stop.
Do not practice on a partner from an article. Do not reuse needles. Do not play through a latex allergy to the gloves, a bleeding disorder, or skin that is already infected. If you feel faint, you are done, and you sit down before you fall.
Orgasm control
Orgasm control covers edging, which is bringing someone close and backing off, denial, which is refusing orgasm for an agreed period, and forced orgasm, which is continued stimulation after they have come or after they have asked, in the scene, to be made to come again. All three are sex acts with a stop. "Forced" in the title does not cancel the stop. Pain in the genitals that is cramping, numbness, or a color change is a reason to stop, not a sign of success.
Rings and straps that hold an erection, or that constrict genital tissue, come off if the tissue is cold, numb, blue, or more painful than the sensation you agreed to. Do not sleep in one. A solid metal ring that cannot open or be cut is how swelling becomes an emergency. Use something you can remove, and keep a way to cut it in the room if the design requires cutting. Do not use the genitals as an impact target because someone liked a spank. That tissue fails differently.
Pet play
Pet play is an adult in an animal role, often a puppy, kitten, or pony, with a handler giving commands. It can be sexual or not. Gear that locks, hoods that block air, and mitts that remove the hands need a nonverbal stop and a handler who treats that stop as immediate. Pony gait and any harness that asks someone to pull weight load the joints. Untrained trotting and carting are how people sprain things they thought were only a costume.
Public animal roleplay belongs at events that allow it. A sidewalk is not an event. Collars that can choke if pulled or caught on furniture are a hazard even at home. The role does not remove the right to speak as a person and end the scene.
Queening and facesitting
Queening, or facesitting, is one person sitting on another's face, usually so the person underneath gives oral sex. The hazard is the airway. Weight on the nose and mouth, or on the neck, kills the ability to breathe and to say a word. The person underneath needs a signal that does not require speech, usually a tap, and the person on top has to get off the airway the moment that signal happens. Not after the next second. The moment it happens.
Do not do this drunk. Do not combine it with a gag, a hood, or bound hands that cannot tap. Do not put weight on the throat. If you are not sure you can move quickly, do not sit fully over the airway. A position they can breathe in is the position. Anything else is breath restriction, which this site does not teach, because restricting air or blood to the brain can cause brain injury and death.
Risk models
SSC and RACK are two ways people describe responsibility. Safe, sane, and consensual was the older slogan. It is still useful as a refusal of coercion, and it is weak as a description of acts that are not safe in any ordinary sense, such as heavy impact. Risk-aware consensual kink says the accurate thing: name the risk, agree to that risk, and do not pretend the agreement removed it. Neither slogan replaces a safeword, shears, or the decision to stop.
A third phrase, PRICK, adds personal responsibility: you do not outsource your own limits to a title. Use whichever sentence you can explain to a partner in plain speech. If you cannot explain it, do not put it in a profile as a credential.
Sensory deprivation
Blindfolds, earplugs, hoods, and mitts remove information. The person cannot see a swing, cannot hear a check-in, or cannot use their hands. You replace the missing channel before you add the deprivation. A blindfold requires a voice plan and a stop they can use in the dark. Earplugs require a visual or touch signal you will actually watch. A hood that covers the mouth is a gag plus a blindfold, and it is regulated by the gag rules above.
Panic is a predictable response, not a failure of nerve. If they panic, you remove the deprivation first and ask questions second. Do not add pain, bondage, and a hood on the same night you introduce the hood. One new loss of a sense is enough.
Temperature play
Ice and wax are the temperature acts people can do without turning the room into a fire scene. Ice stays moving, or wrapped in a thin wet cloth. A few seconds on one spot is a sensation. Ice taped in place is a burn. Do not numb skin so you can hurt it more. Numb skin will not report damage.
Wax means a candle sold for skin. Low-melt soy and paraffin made for body use are the relevant types. Beeswax, kitchen candles, and ordinary pillar candles run hotter and burn. Test on your own inner wrist from the height you intend to use. About a foot of drop lets the wax cool. Drip. Do not pour. A pool holds heat. Keep wax off the face and out of the eyes. Peel it after it cools, or loosen it with a little oil. Water-based lubricant does not release wax. Blisters mean you used too hot a candle. Cool water, no peeling of burned skin, and no wax on numb skin, broken skin, or a fresh piercing. Open flame, torches, and alcohol fires are a different practice. They are not taught here.
Uniforms
Uniform fetish is sexual interest in clothes that signal an institution: military, police, medical, school, service staff. The clothes are a costume between adults. They are not permission to impersonate an officer in public, which can be a crime separate from anyone's sex life, and they are not permission to involve anyone who did not agree to the costume. School uniforms and any younger-age framing stay inside the age-play rules. Adults only. No minors present. No recording that a minor could find.
Agree on which insignia are erotic and which are a hard stop. Some people want the outfit and want no authority game. Some people want the authority and do not care about the cloth. Those are different scenes.
Voyeurism and exhibitionism
Voyeurism is wanting to watch. Exhibitionism is wanting to be watched. In kink the watching is consensual on every side: the people in the scene, and the person watching. A club that allows viewing has still not consented each guest to your camera. Venues often ban phones. A badge, a partner's dare, or a crowded room is not a release form.
Do not watch or record anyone who has not agreed, including through a window, a crack in a door, or a livestream they did not know about. That is not a kink variant. It is a violation, and in many places it is a crime. If someone withdraws permission after a photo exists, the question is deletion, not your portfolio.
Watersports
Watersports means urine in a sexual scene. It is a body-fluid practice. Consent has to name where the urine goes: skin, mouth, or neither. Eyes, broken skin, and genitals with a fresh abrasion are poor targets because urine is not sterile and mucous membranes get irritated. Mouth contact is a higher-infection choice than intact skin, and it is a separate yes from "you can pee on my chest."
Do not do this as a surprise, on bedding you cannot wash, or in a pool and hot tub you share with the public. Shower and laundry are part of the plan. Anyone with a urinary infection waits. If your event has a house rule against fluid play, the house rule wins. The same logic covers other body fluids: name the fluid, name the surface, and do not assume a general yes to sex included it.
Zip ties
Zip ties show up in bad bondage because they are cheap and they look restrictive. They ratchet tighter, they have no comfortable release, and the only removal is cutting. People panic, the tie sinks into swelling tissue, and the cut is then next to skin. Use cuffs made for restraint, or rope you know how to untie, with shears that can cut that rope.
If a zip tie is already on and the hands are cold, pale, or numb, cut it now. Do not wait to see whether the color comes back while it is still on. After it is off, if sensation does not return, that is a medical visit, not a bruise to watch overnight.