10 Surprising (and Real) Benefits to Exploring Role Playing in the Bedroom

While regular sex is great, sometimes you want to try something new, especially in a relationship. You get into the habit or routine of being one person, so why not be someone else? If you're used to being submissive, why not try being dominant and see how you like it? Or, of course, the other way around.

When role playing, both partners are aware that the endeavor is a bit of an "act" so you can feel free to let loose, and be someone who isn't necessarily anything like yourself. Emmalee Brierly is also a marriage and family therapist specializing in sex therapy, and explains why this can be so powerful, saying it is an "opportunity to have an unequal distribution of power in a safe and controlled environment. It allows us to release our inhibitions and to be engulfed in pleasure and a loss, or gain, of control."

Brierly explains why this can be naturally appealing further, "humans appear to have subcortical circuits for both dominance and submission. Most of us display these two sides of us many times within the same day (or hour). A partner who wants to be dominant may have felt or currently feels helpless and weak at different points or within different areas of their lives and is benefiting from feeling control in this area."