GENDER AND SEXUAL ORIENTATION
So, you are thinking that if you identify as a female, your role-play alter egos have to be female, too? Absolutely not. Do you want to be a little girl, an adult male, a gender-transitioning youth, a gender-nonconforming person, or an androgynous teen? Your physical body does not have to match the gender you want to role-play. You can have a penis and be a woman, have breasts and be a boy—you decide. I identify as a trans genderqueer person. In my play, I have been a seven-year-old girl seductress, a 20-year-old sexually assaultive jock, a dirty old man who is 80, a 30-year-old incestuous Daddi, and a feminine, sexually inappropriate boy who is 10.
The same goes for sexual orientation or behavior. You may have been born male and identify as such but in play you could be a lesbian or simply a woman who gets fucked by other women. You can also be a little girl who likes little boys, a teenage boy coming of age with other teenage boys, or a dirty mother who fucks her son and daughter. Remember, this is play and you and your partners can navigate it anyway you want. You can be queer, lesbian, heterosexual, bisexual, gay, asexual, fluid, or pansexual.
POWER DYNAMIC
It doesn’t matter how old you are in the role play—you can still decide whether you are a top, bottom, or switch in the scenario. For example, my seven-year-old girl seductress waited until Daddy was asleep, then crawled into bed with him and sucked him off. When he realized what was happening and wanted to stop it, I threatened to tell. Age does not dictate the power you have in your role play. Your great-uncle on his deathbed could be the top in your role play scenario. He can determine that when he passes on, you get all of his inheritance—but for a detailed sexual price. You could have a student who holds all the cards when she reveals to you she has sexually incriminating evidence of your raunchy sex life. She’ll keep her mouth shut for a passing grade and a good fuck. The bad guys can be the tops in a child abduction, rape, and torture scenario. The babysitter can be the top when she spanks the youngsters she’s babysitting for wetting the bed. It’s all up to you. Have fun with it.
RELATIONSHIP AND CONNECTION
What connection do the players have? Do you know each other, live together, or have you never met each other? There are many exciting ways to relate to one another in age play; with each type of connection, you can explore trust, love, friendship, fear, or resiliency. Perhaps you are members of the same family: parents, grandparents, guardians, uncles, aunts, children, siblings, nieces and nephews. There are many scenes involving young people and adult authority figures such as teachers, tutors, priests, babysitters, neighbors, school counselors, coaches, ballet instructors. Less well known adult authority figures include doctor, camp counselor, corner store clerk, postal worker, and bus driver. A stranger might be part of your age play—perhaps a hitchhiker, a kidnapper, or the person passing you on the street. Whether the connection you create is a brief encounter with the bus driver or an ongoing relationship with your brother, each connection can spark an array of creative scenarios to explore.
PUBLIC/PRIVATE
Where will you set the stage for your encounter? Will your interactions take place at home, at a public kink event, or among the general public? If you are dipping your toes into the pool of age play, a more private location is suggested. Private play is more intimate: you don’t have to factor in uncontrolled input from the outside world, so it can feel safer. At a kink party or conference, there may be special activities or space reserved for regressive age players (often called “kidz” or “littles”). In these kinky spaces, you can meet and interact with other age players, feel acknowledged as your alter ego, play, compare notes, etc.
FREQUENCY
Is this something you’re curious about and you’d like to try once? Do you want to do it on occasion to spice up your sex life? Or is it play that you want to develop and do on a regular basis? Do you want to incorporate age play into your 24/7 D/s dynamic? You don’t have to know the answers right away; these are lifestyle options to consider. Play can happen once or sporadically. A scenario can incorporate the same characters or different ones. Scenarios don’t necessarily have to mature. And long-term investment in the role play is not essential. I have done one-time scenes as well as created continuing characters who reappear again and again. I have been developing one of my little personas for years. Creating a continuing character has helped me tap into the psyche of the character and develop her more fully: she has a name, a birth date, a family history, and memories. I have invested time, money, and emotions in her, and this makes for a richer, more complex experience when I embody her in a scene. She has grown and changed over the years, and so have I.
PROPS, COSTUMES, SCENE ELEMENTS
When it comes to role playing, our imaginations can take us to faraway, wonderful places. Props and costumes can help propel the imagination, but keep in mind that you don’t need to spend a lot of money to get into the perfect head space. Shopping at secondhand stores or getting hand-me-downs from friends are a great way to obtain a variety of clothes and props to play with. A coloring book, a box of cereal, Grandpa’s cane, Daddy’s pipe, Mama’s purse, diapers, or a stuffed animal are all exciting elements you can add to your play. These items allow us to fall deeper into our roles—make us connect to what our alter egos like, do, use, or need. I have a second pair of glasses I call my “girl” glasses. When those glasses rest on my face, I am transformed. Do you fantasize about sucking on a pacifier? Does a lollipop bring out your inner toddler? Think about items that connect you to your character, embrace them, and have some fun.
NEGOTIATION
In the process of making your own laboratory list, think about what your particular role means to you and work on verbalizing it to your play partners. Simply saying that you are interested in embodying a “dirty older brother” is not enough. Different roles, especially familial ones, can be interpreted in different ways and will often reflect your background, race, culture, ethnicity, or religion. You want to make sure that you and your role-paying partners are on the same page. If not, the scene may go in the wrong direction or can even be triggering. The same goes for a player who asks her partner to play a specific character. You can say you want a daddy, but what does Daddy mean to you? Is he stern and punishing, gentle and caring, or something else altogether? Finding clarity about characters can be difficult—we must dig deep, examine, and name what turns us on. The outcome of this internal work can be rewarding.
There are various precautions you and your partner(s) should also discuss when negotiating. You have to take proactive as well as possibly reactive measures. If there’s anything the BDSM scene prepares you for, it is that anything can happen. I think that’s the sheer beauty of it. When you role-play, you imagine and create new worlds, new temporary realities, and those realities can be both good and bad.
Just as a top asks a bottom about past injuries in order to assess areas of the body to avoid hitting, the players in age play should talk about past emotional traumas and triggers. For example, I had a fuck buddy who role-played a teenager who was raped by her neighbor, played by me. When negotiating the terms of our play, she revealed that she was once assaulted and during the assault she was choked. She told me that anything around her neck would trigger her, so we agreed that choking or using a collar was a no-no. Another play partner let me know that I should not address her as “honey.” She had been sexually harassed and the perpetrator consistently used that endearment to minimize her.