A plain-language kink and BDSM glossary

How to use this

Nobody uses all of these, and local usage varies. If someone uses a word you don't know, asking is normal and nobody will think less of you for it. That is true at every level of experience.

The basics

• BDSM — an umbrella made of three overlapping pairs: bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, sadism and masochism. Most people are interested in some of it, not all of it.
• Kink — anything outside what a given person considers conventional. Broader than BDSM and less loaded.
• Vanilla — not kinky. Descriptive, not an insult.
• Scene — two meanings. A single session of play, and the local community as a whole.
• Play — doing the thing, whatever the thing is. Often involves no sex.
• Munch — a casual social meetup in a public place, clothes on. Usually where people start.

Roles

• Top and bottom — who is doing and who is receiving, in this scene. Says nothing about anyone's life outside it.
• Dominant and submissive — a power dynamic rather than an activity, sometimes lasting beyond a scene.
• Switch — someone who does both, depending on mood and partner.
• Service — doing things for someone as the point, rather than as a means to something else.
• Little, middle, caregiver — age-play roles. A common source of misunderstanding: it is about headspace, and adults only.

Consent and safety

• Negotiation — the conversation before play about what will happen, what won't, and how to stop.
• Safeword — a word that stops everything. Red and yellow are the common pair: red stops, yellow slows down or checks in.
• Limits — hard limits are never, soft limits are not today or not yet.
• Aftercare — what you do for each other once play is over. Water, warmth, quiet, food, a message the next day.
• Drop — the low that can follow a strong experience, hours or days later. It happens to tops as well as bottoms.
• RACK and SSC — two frameworks people cite. Risk-aware consensual kink and safe, sane and consensual. Different emphases, same goal.

Things you will see at a party

• Shibari and kinbaku — Japanese rope styles. Often taught as classes of their own.
• Impact — anything that hits. Hands, floggers, canes, paddles.
• Sensation play — temperature, texture, sharpness, without the intensity of impact.
• Dungeon monitor (DM) — the volunteer watching the room at a party.
• Scene space and social space — parties separate the two on purpose. Conversation belongs in the social space.