6_Qubed said:
OH BOY I AM... actually, now it's my turn to not get the appeal. What's the point of pretending to be someone else? Like, the "sexy librarian" thing for example. To my reckoning, the appeal there would be having your little adventure in a library. Or maybe I'm just projecting my public fantasies. And more generally, the conventional fantasy roles all strike me as some form of Domination/submission or another, with the role changing the relationship. And if D/s is your aim, why bother with the roleplaying?
Sexy librarian? Pfft. Boring.
No, see, my spouse and I are avid gamers (I'm posting on the Escapist, so there's a bit of 'duh' there I realize), particularly table top gamers (like D&D/Pathfinder). In addition to weekly games with friends, we also run solo games for one another that are often more character focused. I'm a big fan of romance novels, so a year and a half ago my spouse ran a game for me based on my favorite romance novel series. Or, more famously on this site, my spouse loved Mass Effect 2, but unlike me didn't have the patience to play ME1 on a PC. Therefore, I worked up a table top system and ran Mass Effect 1 from start to finish with my spouse playing Shepard. During that game, Shepard romanced Tali (because like so many fans, my spouse was attracted to her early on). I'm pretty good at imitating voices, so I pulled off a good facsimile of Tali's voice.
So yeah, when I talk about roleplaying as bedroom play, I mean people like Tali'zora vas Normandy or Korin (the party healer from our current game) sleeping with Commander Shepard or the Chosen of Susaku.
My spouse and I are very method in our acting. We really get into our gaming characters. And no, there are no dice in the bedroom - just us playing our characters.
And, to answer your question, no, D/s isn't the goal. Except that time with the Devil Brothel, I don't think domination and submission has ever come into it. S&M does sometimes, but that has more to do with a couple of my spouse's characters liking pain than anything else.
Mostly it's just fun. We're both writers, so getting into our character's heads is fun. Plus, while most games have to stop at the bedroom door, this lets us explore another side to our characters - be they original or not.