Keep Them Coming: How different forms of role-play can help spice up your sex life

Kristen Thomas // Photo by Nicole Bissey

Role-play serves as a gateway between imagination and desire. Your brain is your biggest sex organ, so role-play offers a way to use it to build a highly erotic encounter. Whether you’re in a relationship and you two (or more) work together to formulate a playful time, or you’re single and turning to AI-powered chatbots, erotic role-play is good for your brain and your sex life.

Certified Sexologist Julia Satterlee says, “We often stay stuck in this idea of what sex has to be.” Novelty on a regular basis is good for our sex lives. Taking it a step further and learning to tap into fantasy to build desire and connection helps us have great sex lives.

“Fantasy is part of that creativity and part of that permission we can give ourselves for erotic play, for being different from our normal, responsible adult selves,” Satterlee says. “With consent and communication, we can play out these roles and scenarios that we would never do for real.”

Role-play and fantasy can be very simple, highly scripted, and everything in between. Satterlee says the misconceptions are usually rooted in overthinking. “Clients will say ‘I can’t think what to say’ or ‘I’m not creative,’ even, ‘I can’t stick to a script,’” Satterlee says.

No one is required to flex acting skills they don’t possess to use role-play for a good time, but many people find this to be a welcome opportunity to create a persona or alter ego.

Kansas City-based Faithful Fling—a platform making role-play easy for monogamous couples—offers help simplifying and enhancing role-play experiences. “It provides an opportunity to step away from the everyday, adding novelty, playfulness, and the thrill of fulfilling some classic fantasies,” Co-Founder Katie Runyan says.

The Runyans found necessity-bred innovation. “When my husband and I first explored role-play dates, we really wanted something to help us create scenarios, characters, dialogue ideas, and ways to implement sexy surprises,” Runyan says. “We searched for a resource to help, but we never found it. So we decided to create it ourselves!”

As with anything, a bit of research and preparation will help you before getting into any type of role-play. There are a few fundamentals for beginners to keep in mind. Always start from a place of sane, safe, and consensual.

Next comes levity. “Be silly with it. It is adult play! It should be fun, you should be able to laugh together. Get creative and allow yourself to not have a rigid script,” Satterlee says.

Runyan agrees, stating, “Role-playing allows you to have fun, laugh together, surprise one another, and build anticipation.”

Leave judgment for the nights you watch Drag Race together, not the bedroom. “I like to encourage people to think about what you would be like if shame and embarrassment weren’t a factor,” Satterlee says.

Find your comfort level. This is tricky because you need to try something new, potentially a bit outside your comfort zone, without agreeing to acts that are well past your boundaries. Trying something out of the ordinary that doesn’t violate your boundaries will enable you to be confident during role-play, and confidence is sexy as hell. In fact, Satterlee says perhaps you start from ‘nos.’ “Get them out of the way,” she says. “Now, what’s beyond that? What’s a ‘maybe’ even?”

If there are some roles you’re uncomfortable with, or one of you needs parameters to feel turned on, please discuss what feels comfortable and what doesn’t. Some fantasies aren’t PC, but for a scene to make everyone involved horny and enthusiastic, make adjustments to the scenario if asked. Play with the possibilities of a theme to find the place where the erotic charge is greatest for all involved.

“Many people have fantasies of being overtaken for sex. It doesn’t mean that we want to be actually kidnapped, right? But, that sort of energy, that sort of fantasy of, ‘Oh, this person wants me so desperately they’re being overtaken by desire,’” Satterlee says. “That’s the type of thing that role-play can do where you can bring in fantasies that are just not real things that you want to do or that you want to have happen, and consensually play them out in some type of way where you get that sensation.”

One of the most common role-play scenarios is pretending to be strangers. “Going and meeting up somewhere out of your house and pretending to get to know each other again is easy and sexy,” Satterlee says. “Because you can play someone else entirely, or you can just play a different aspect of yourself that doesn’t get to come out and play all the time.” This scenario requires no costumes or props—only date night clothes.

“We’ve noticed that couples love exploring role-play scenarios that allow them to step into entirely new personas, often different from their usual relationship dynamics,” says Runyan.

There are many classic role-play scenarios, many of which involve a power differential. This is seen in boss/employee, doctor/nurse, and teacher/student dynamics. Other role-play models have partners on more even footing, such as plumber/house spouse or firefighter/someone in distress.

Scenarios can be as simple as you want, especially in the beginning. “Simple everyday things can be fun and easy. Lingerie, a suit, a scarf. A new fly swatter getting used on someone’s bottom,” Saterlee says.

Complexity can be exactly what some couples desire. Perhaps this is where Faithful Fling can come in to provide the tools you need. With over 40 unique role-play dates, a couple logs in separately to see detailed descriptions, including character background, suggested dialogue, and a guide to help you become immersed in your role and set the scene.

You can certainly use tropes from porn, audio erotica, or erotic novels. Take advantage of it being Halloween season by going costume shopping together. Hold up an outfit and ask if they’d like to see it on you. Again, have fun with this! Consider getting or making matching costumes and use the night to embody a persona to extend playtime.

There are some more, let’s say, fringe examples of role-play. This includes consensual non-consensual play, humiliation, degradation, pup or kitten play, and even experiences that involve pain or pushing pain tolerance. Satterlee brought up being hunted.

“Folks that are into primal play might want to go get chased through the woods and hunted down,” she says. “It’s an example of something that sounds kind of horrific. But the folks that are into it are like, ‘Nature and kink together! We’re doing it! Yay!’”

If you want to discuss integrating role-play with your partner but aren’t sure what they will think, Runyan encourages people not to make assumptions. “You never know unless you ask! So start by having an open and honest conversation with your partner. Express your curiosity and willingness to explore what having a role-play date together would look like,” Runyan says.

“Starting that conversation can be so hard if you haven’t opened that communication door yet,” warns Satterlee. “It’s okay if this feels hard and scary. Dip your toe in, start the conversation. ‘I would like to add more fun and novelty, let’s change things up a bit.’ State your intentions, don’t be critical. Start from good, then ask for ways to add to the mix or make things even better.”

You can find Kristen @OpenTheDoorsKC on Twitter or openthedoorscoaching.com. Check out her podcast Keep Them Coming.