Race play is when a dominant and submissive take part in BDSM play that involves role play with race. People take on roles of power and submission of different races to create a power dynamic that is historically or contemporarily accurate. For example, a scene of race play could be an African-American woman role-playing the role of a slave with a White dominant.
Contribute
Get Yourself a Toy and Join the Fun Today!
Having spent a lot of my life writing about sex, and exploring all the millions of ways in which people have sex, I can say that very little has ever shocked me. For the uninitiated, race play is a subset of BDSM where the focus of the imbalance in the role play stems from the races of the people in question. In practice this often presents as people of colour role playing as slaves, or people of Jewish heritage role playing as prisoners. On the kinky dating site and forum Fetlife, the fetish has hundreds of groups dedicated to it and thousands of users who openly subscribe to being a fan.
Navigation menu
It can be enacted in various tropey forms: a black servant being denigrated by a bitchy white woman. A Latino man being tied up and called names by a white man. Race play is a subset of BDSM where the power imbalance in question is rooted in the races of the people participating. Typically this presents as people of color role playing as slaves with white people role playing as masters, or Jewish people playing prisoners, for example. Although the idea that someone on either end of the role play equation might derive sexual pleasure from such reenactments which their very own ancestors often endured in real life , is understandably confounding to many. But even in the fetish scene itself
How far is too far? Where do we draw the line between what we consider freedom of expression and hate speech? Race play gives me the opportunity to explore this within the safer context of a controlled environment, and see where my mind and heart takes me. Njaila Rhee , a popular sex-positive blogger who also works in adult entertainment, has a different opinion. My spirit feels galvanized and my fear is mitigated.
