Blurb:

Chapter 4 introduces the concept of play as the core activity of BDSM; it is not a single thing but a process of combining many different activities into unique scenes. Beginning with participants’ understandings of the imperfect term ‘play’, and the ideas that are communicated by it, the chapter outlines the intimate, relational and dynamic processes of play. Through the actions of the players a cycle of sensation and response is created, carving out a space that feels qualitatively different from ‘ordinary’ or ‘everyday’ spaces and is therefore experienced as distinct. The fact that the lifestyle couples among my research participants also engage in play and experience it in this qualitatively different way is significant and helps shape an understanding of play as ‘an Experience’ – a set of events, sensations etc. around which a line can be drawn to mark them off from the flow of everyday experiences. Play can be seen as performing aspects of the self and relationship explicitly that might at other times be suppressed, hidden or simply less overt.