This glossary of BDSM—bondage, discipline, domination, submission, sadism, and masochism—defines terms people actually use in the kink community. Activities are often called play. The list below keeps the working vocabulary of power exchange, risk frameworks, roles, and common practices without pretending every local dungeon uses the words the same way.
Where the acronyms came from
BDSM-style abbreviations grew out of classified personal ads, where euphemisms for paraphilic or socially disapproved practices helped dodge editors, censors, and obscenity law. BDSM is a portmanteau covering bondage and discipline (B&D or B/D), dominance and submission (D&S or D/s—including Master/slave role-play and ongoing structures), and sadism and masochism (S&M or S/M). Community speakers still say “the lifestyle,” “the scene,” or “kink” as looser umbrellas; BDSM remains the most portable acronym for mixed bondage, power exchange, and SM.
Some people capitalize dominant terms (Top, Master, Dom, Domme) and lowercase submissive ones (bottom, slave, sub), even against ordinary grammar—e.g. “D/s” for Dom/sub, or Master Rob’s slave linda calling him Sir and herself “i” or “this slave.” Others dismiss that “slashy speak” as affectation. Both styles appear in real communities. Honorifics (Sir, Mistress, Owner) and third-person self-reference are protocol tools, not universal requirements—negotiate them the way you negotiate toys.
Roles, power exchange, and relationship frames
Top is the person doing the action; bottom receives sensation. A top is not automatically dominant. Dominant / Dom (often male-coded but used for any gender) exercises control; Domme is a female dominant (see also Dominatrix). Submissive (“sub”) gives up control for a scene or longer—not always the same as bottom or slave. Switch is dominant and submissive by context, partner, or activity. Slave consensually cedes control of major life areas to a Master/Owner; Master/slave dynamics emphasize service and obedience and may include a collaring ceremony. TPE (Total Power Exchange) means the dominant holds broad authority over the submissive’s life. 24/7 means protocols run continuously, not only in scenes. Service submission centers on performing service in a sexual or BDSM frame. Training is the dominant teaching preferred behavior, short-term or ongoing.
Collared means a submissive or slave is “owned” (often in an intimate bond; a dominant may collar more than one person); in pup play it can distinguish a claimed pup from a “stray.” Collaring is formal acceptance of service—sometimes as ceremonial as a wedding-like contract. ProDom / ProDomme are professional dominants who exchange money or goods for BDSM services.
Brat / bratting is a sub who is mischievously disobedient by agreement, often opposite a “brat tamer.” Topping from the bottom is a derogatory label for directing the top outside negotiated play; bratting is the consented exception. DDlg (Daddy Dom / little girl) and MDLB (Mommy Domme / little boy) are caregiver-style D/s frames—not always sexual, centered on trust and care, sometimes overlapping ageplay. Adult baby/diaper lover (ABDL) combines infant role-play and/or diaper fetish; the two paraphilias often co-occur. Gorean lifestyle draws on John Norman’s fictional slavery (often male-dominant, female “kajira”) and is frequently treated as distinct from broader BDSM culture. Vanilla means non-kink people or non-BDSM sex. WIITWD (“What It Is That We Do”) is a catch-all for alternative sexuality. High protocol vs low protocol describes how strictly roles and etiquette are enforced. TNG (The Next Generation) tags groups aimed at younger adults, roughly 18–35.
Consent, limits, risk, and aftercare
Consent is mutual agreement to the terms of a scene or relationship. Hard limits are absolute no-gos; soft limits are hesitant edges that may be tried carefully if negotiated. Safeword is a pre-agreed word, phrase, or gesture to slow or stop play—commonly “Yellow” to ease off and “Red” (or “Safeword”) for full stop; non-verbal signals (fist, dropped object) matter when speech is blocked. Consensual non-consent (CNC) is advance agreement to act as if consent is waived for defined play, with the dominant continuing even after in-scene protests—still built on real prior consent. SSC (Safe, Sane and Consensual) is a classic community slogan stressing safety, capacity, and explicit consent. RACK (Risk Aware Consensual Kink) stresses informed risk rather than a fixed idea of “safe.” PRICK (Personal Responsibility, Informed, Consensual Kink) blends shared responsibility with SSC/RACK ideas. Edgeplay means higher physical or emotional risk (bloodplay, breath play, gunplay, etc.—subjective per players). Aftercare is post-scene wind-down: talk, comfort, food, water, return to ordinary headspace. Sub drop (and top drop) is delayed physical/emotional crash—flu-like symptoms, shame, mood swings lasting minutes to days; aftercare mitigates but does not always prevent it. Subspace is the bottom’s “natural high” of letting go—time distortion, disconnection; tops must monitor because communication may fail. Domspace is the dominant’s parallel intensified focus or euphoria. Squick is personal revulsion or “not for me” without moral condemnation (“squick” ≈ squirm + icky). Blackmail in kink usually means consensual blackmail: compromising material held as CNC leverage. Dungeon monitor (DM) enforces house rules at play parties—bouncer plus basic care (water, etc.). Munch is a non-sexual, vanilla-venue meetup for networking and education, not cruising. Play party is a multi-person event with social, changing, and play areas. Dungeon is a room or venue stocked for scenes. Scene is a discrete BDSM encounter and its setting. Kinky sex is unconventional sexual activity broadly.
Bondage, restraint, and body-focused practices
Bondage is physical restraint—full body or localized (e.g. breast bondage). Rope bondage includes Western styles and Japanese kinbaku / shibari (“tight binding”; kinbaku-bi = beauty of tight binding). Hogtie binds wrists and ankles together behind the back. Mummification is full-body wrap immobilization. Breast bondage ties breasts flat or bulging; breast torture / tit torture targets breasts or nipples with pain. Inspection is scenario play—often M/s—where a sub must strip and present for body, posture, grooming, and duty checks, then reward or punishment. Handkerchief codes (hanky code) flag interests and top/bottom side, historically in LGBT leather contexts (left = top, right = bottom, color = act).
Impact, sensation, and genital play
Impact play uses whips, crops, paddles, floggers, and similar tools. Sensation play emphasizes physical feeling over pure role psychology. Erotic spanking is spanking for arousal of either party. Abrasion is rough-surface friction, sometimes to sensitize skin. Knife play is careful edge/point sensation, usually without cutting; fear is part of the charge. Needle play places sterile needles for a scene (upper back, buttocks, thighs common); blood risk limits public play. Wax play drips hot wax on the bottom. Contrapolar stimulation is “hurts so good”—pleasure and pain mixed. Good pain / bad pain distinguishes wanted intensity from wrong or harmful pain; safewords manage the line. Pain slut enjoys heavy pain. Masochism / masochist and sadism / sadist name receiving or giving pain/humiliation for pleasure. Cock and ball torture (CBT) and pussy torture / genitorture target genitals. Post-orgasm torture is stimulation right after climax when tissue is hypersensitive. Forced orgasm removes control over climax—or piles orgasms until pleasure turns painful or numb. Erotic sexual denial, chastity (often locked devices), tease and denial, ruination, and edging keep arousal high while blocking or spoiling orgasm. Breath control play restricts oxygen (strangulation, smothering, etc.) to heighten sensation—high risk. Nose torture is a Japanese-associated practice often involving nose hooks.
Toys, penetration, and specialty kinks
Butt plug is an insertable anal toy; some vibrate, lock, or carry pet tails—locking bases raise erotic humiliation by blocking self-removal. Fisting inserts a hand into vagina or rectum. Pegging typically means a woman anally penetrating a man with a strap-on. Figging inserts peeled ginger into anus, vagina, or urethra for burning sensation; rhaphanidosis is the historical radish analogue. Enema play / klismaphilia eroticizes enemas—including for humiliation or discomfort. Golden showers involve urine; scat play involves feces. Erotic humiliation is verbal or physical degradation for arousal (insults, forced display of genitals, watersports, objectification). Financial domination (findom) eroticizes gifts and money from a finsub (“paypig,” “human ATM,” “cash piggy”) to a money Dom/Domme or Mistress/Master. Gunplay brings real or simulated firearms into a scene—classic edgeplay. Pup play / puppy play and ponyboy/ponygirl are animal role-play (bit, tail plug, prancing, collars, handlers). Petplay more broadly uses plugs, collars, and animal headspaces. ABDL overlaps ageplay and diaper fetish; the two paraphilias are distinct but frequently co-occur.
Breath control (strangulation, smothering, rebreathing) can intensify orgasm and fear—also one of the deadliest popular kinks if done wrong. Chastity devices lock genital access for denial dynamics. Forced orgasm and post-orgasm torture flip control of climax; ruination and edging spoil or delay it. Inspection scenes turn grooming and posture into pass/fail service. Handkerchief codes still appear at some leather events as color-and-side signals, though apps and plain speech have partly replaced them.
Quick A–Z leftovers worth knowing
BDSM remains the umbrella acronym for the whole scene. D/s is psychologically based power exchange. A person who is collared, a pain slut, a service sub, or in TPE may still negotiate limits; vocabulary describes structure, not a license to ignore consent. When in doubt, ask how a local community uses a word—glossaries stabilize language, but house rules and personal contracts still win on the dungeon floor.
Using the glossary on a kink site
This vocabulary is a map, not a rulebook. The same collar can mean 24/7 ownership in one relationship and a scene-only fashion piece in another. CNC, blackmail play, breath control, gunplay, and blood-adjacent needle work sit at different risk levels for different bodies; RACK and PRICK exist because “safe” is never absolute. Aftercare, drop, and subspace are physiological and emotional realities for many players—plan for them the way you plan the toys. If you are new, start with consent frameworks (safewords, limits, munches, dungeon monitors), then add gear terms (bondage, impact, gags, chastity) as your practice grows. Related reading on this site includes outlines of BDSM, bondage positions and methods, and lists of equipment—this glossary is the shared language that makes those deeper articles usable.
Capitalization politics, protocol levels, and whether someone says Master, Domme, Handler, or Top are local dialects of the same core ideas: negotiated power, eroticized sensation, and community norms about risk. Keep the definitions, keep the skepticism, and keep the safeword where you can reach it.
More scene terms in practice
Abrasion uses friction from rough surfaces to sensitize skin before other impact or sensation. Aftercare is not optional fluff: partners calm down, debrief reactions, rehydrate, and reconnect after intensity. Blackmail play only stays kink when the “compromising material” and release conditions are pre-consented CNC theater—not real coercion. Bondage ranges from a single cuff to total immobilization; breast bondage and hogties are common specialized forms. Bottom and top describe action direction; submissive and dominant describe power. Confusing those pairs causes endless forum fights.
Brat dynamics need explicit buy-in from the tamer side; otherwise “disobedience” is just topping from the bottom. Breath control and gunplay sit deep in edgeplay—treat them as advanced, high-consequence activities, not starter toys. Butt plugs with locks or tails straddle anal sensation and petplay aesthetics. CBT, pussy torture, and tit torture are genital/breast-focused pain play with circulation and tissue-damage limits. Chastity and erotic sexual denial build anticipatory tension; devices make denial hardware instead of willpower alone.
Collaring can be as casual as a day collar or as formal as a contract ceremony; ask what a given collar means to the people wearing it. CNC is advanced relationship technology—advance consent for in-scene refusal theater—not a blank check to ignore real distress signals outside the agreed frame. Dungeon monitors and house rules exist because public play parties mix strangers, alcohol, and hard toys. Edgeplay is subjective: bloodplay may be green for one couple and a hard limit for another.
Enema play, figging, golden showers, and scat are body-fluid or insertive specialties with hygiene and shame/humiliation overlays. Fisting and pegging are penetration practices that reward patience and lube more than bravado. Financial domination eroticizes money transfer and status; scams outside negotiated findom are just theft. Forced orgasm and post-orgasm torture exploit overstimulation; negotiate overstimulation limits the way you negotiate impact intensity.
Gorean households follow Norman-novel aesthetics and may reject broader BDSM community norms—know the difference before you play across those lines. Impact play covers floggers, paddles, canes, crops, and hands; warm-up, placement, and kidney/spine avoidance are basic safety. Kinbaku/shibari names Japanese rope aesthetics of tight, beautiful binding; Western rope bondage overlaps tools but not always the same artistic lineage. Knife play and needle play use fear and sensation with strict sterility and emergency plans.
Limits (hard/soft), safewords, SSC, RACK, and PRICK are how communities talk about stopping, risk, and responsibility. Masochist and sadist describe pain-preference polarity; many switches hold both. Mummification is extreme immobilization—watch breathing and overheating. Munches are clothed, non-play socials; use them to learn local culture before dungeon nights. Pain slut is affectionate scene slang for heavy-bottom preference, not a clinical diagnosis.
Play parties, dungeons, and scenes structure when and where intensity happens. Pony and pup play animalize movement, gear, and headspace; bits, tails, and collars are common props. ProDomme/ProDom labor is sex work adjacent BDSM service—respect booking, deposits, and boundaries. Sensation play is the umbrella for temperature, texture, impact, and edge toys aimed at feeling rather than pure role narrative. Service submission eroticizes useful labor—protocol, domestic tasks, bootblacking—inside D/s.
Slave and TPE language implies deep authority exchange; healthy versions still have negotiation history and emergency exits. Soft limits are “maybe later / carefully”; they are not free targets. Squick lets you decline without moralizing others’ kinks. Sub drop and subspace (and top-side analogues) are real post-scene and mid-scene states—plan aftercare like you plan the flogger bag. Switch is a valid orientation to power, not indecision. Topping from the bottom is only a problem when it violates the agreed authority structure; bratting is the negotiated loophole.
Training means teaching preferences and protocols, not breaking a person. Vanilla is descriptive, not an insult—unless someone uses it as one. Wax play needs temperature awareness and clean-up plans. WIITWD remains a wry umbrella for everything alternative sexuality includes when “BDSM” feels too narrow. High versus low protocol simply states how much etiquette load a household or party expects. Learn the words, then learn your partners’ meanings—glossaries are shared starting points, not court orders.
