BDSM is many different typically erotic techniques or roleplaying involving bondage, willpower, dominance and submission, sadomasochism, as well as other connected interpersonal dynamics. Provided the wide selection of procedures, a few of which may be engaged in by people that usually do not contemplate on their own to become practising BDSM, inclusion within the BDSM community or subculture often is alleged to rely upon self-identification and shared practical experience.

The initialism BDSM is initially recorded in the Usenet submit from 1991, and it is interpreted as a combination of the abbreviations B/D (Bondage and Willpower), D/s (Dominance and submission), and S/M (Sadism and Masochism). BDSM is currently employed as being a capture-all phrase masking an array of actions, varieties of interpersonal interactions, and distinctive subcultures. BDSM communities normally welcome any person with a non-normative streak who identifies While using the Local community; this will include cross-dressers, overall body modification fanatics, animal roleplayers, rubber fetishists, and others.

Functions and associations in BDSM are often characterised from the contributors' taking on roles which have been complementary and entail inequality of power; Consequently, the idea of educated consent of each the associates is crucial. The conditions submissive and dominant tend to be made use of to distinguish these roles: the dominant lover ("dom") requires psychological Regulate more than the submissive ("sub"). The phrases top and bottom are employed; the highest is the instigator of an motion while the bottom could be the receiver of the action. The 2 sets of conditions are subtly various: by way of example, someone could opt to work as bottom to another man or woman, such as, by becoming whipped, purely recreationally, with no implication of staying psychologically dominated, and submissives may be ordered to massage their dominant companions. Even though the base carries out the motion and the best receives it, they've not always switched roles.

The abbreviations sub and dom are usually applied instead of submissive and dominant. Occasionally the female-certain phrases mistress, domme, and dominatrix are utilised to explain a dominant girl, in lieu of the sometimes gender-neutral term dom. Individuals who alter among best/dominant and bottom/submissive roles—no matter whether from romance to marriage or inside of a given relationship—are called switches. The precise definition of roles and self-identification is a standard issue of discussion between BDSM members.