BDSM is a range of generally erotic tactics or roleplaying involving bondage, discipline, dominance and submission, sadomasochism, together with other linked interpersonal dynamics. Supplied the big selection of techniques, several of which may be engaged in by those who will not look at by themselves to get practising BDSM, inclusion inside the BDSM Neighborhood or subculture frequently is said to count on self-identification and shared working experience.

The initialism BDSM is to start with recorded in a very Usenet put up from 1991, and is also interpreted as a combination of the abbreviations B/D (Bondage and Willpower), D/s (Dominance and submission), and S/M (Sadism and Masochism). BDSM has become utilised like a capture-all phrase masking an array of actions, varieties of interpersonal associations, and distinct subcultures. BDSM communities generally welcome everyone by using a non-normative streak who identifies With all the Group; this will likely contain cross-dressers, body modification lovers, animal roleplayers, rubber fetishists, and Other individuals.

Activities and interactions in BDSM are frequently characterised with the participants' taking up roles which are complementary and require inequality of electrical power; So, the concept of educated consent of the two the associates is important. The conditions submissive and dominant are frequently made use of to tell apart these roles: the dominant husband or wife ("dom") will take psychological Command above the submissive ("sub"). The conditions leading and base are employed; the best will be the instigator of the motion while the bottom could be the receiver from the action. The 2 sets of conditions are subtly various: by way of example, someone could opt to work as base to another particular person, one example is, by being whipped, purely recreationally, without any implication of currently being psychologically dominated, and submissives may very well be ordered to massage their dominant companions. Although the base carries out the motion and the best gets it, they have not necessarily switched roles.

The abbreviations sub and dom are regularly utilised in lieu of submissive and dominant. Sometimes the female-certain phrases mistress, domme, and dominatrix are utilised to explain a dominant girl, in place of the in some cases gender-neutral term dom. People who change in between best/dominant and bottom/submissive roles—no matter whether from romance to marriage or inside of a specified marriage—are called switches. The specific definition of roles and self-identification is a standard subject matter of discussion amid BDSM members.