Role Play 101: From Cringe to Craving

97% of adults have sexual fantasies. Less than a third ever act on them. The fear is almost never accurate — and in this episode, we're closing the gap between what you want and what you actually do.

I'll be honest: role play has always given me the ick. So I brought in Emma Velicski — romance author and founder of Saturday Box, the company turning kink and role play into a game you can actually play with your partner — to figure out why so many of us freeze, and how to finally get started.

We get into:

• What role play actually is (it's broader than you think)
• The real reason couples who want to try it never do
• Why it feels like a performance — and how to turn it back into play
• The "cheap knockoff" fear nobody names out loud
• Exactly how to start tonight, no costume required

Find Emma and Saturday Box at https://saturdaybox.com/ 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

I'm Annette Benedetti, host of the podcast formerly known as Locker Room Talk and Shots. The show has a new name, Talk Sex with Annette. But at its core, this is still your locker room. It's where we strip away shame, get curious, and speak the unspoken about sex, pink dating, pleasure, and desire. Around here, nothing's off limits. These are the kinds of conversations we save for our boldest group chat, our most trusted friends, and of course, the women's locker room. Think raw, honest, and sometimes unapologetically raunchy. Welcome to my podcast where desire meets disruption and pleasure becomes power. Let's talk about sex. Cheers.

New Name And No Shame

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Today's Talk Sex with a Net Topic is Role Play 101, a guide to getting started. 97% of adults have sexual fantasies. 79% want to act on them, and less than a third ever do. Let that sit for a second. We are a species absolutely drowning in desire. We never say out loud. Today we are talking about role play, what it actually is, why most couples never try it, even when they desperately want to, and what it takes to finally go there. Because here's the thing: 92% of people who act on a fantasy say it

Why Fantasies Stay Unspoken

SPEAKER_00 1:27

went well or better than they imagined. The fear is almost never accurate. The fantasy almost always delivers. My guest today is Emma Volicki, romance author, founder and CEO of Saturday Box, and the woman who turned kink and roleplay into a game you can actually play with your partner. She built Saturday Box with her husband, who is also her co-founder. After spending years quietly carrying her own fantasies inside a community that never once gave her permission to want them, she left Microsoft, she left the church, and she started the company. Emma, welcome to Talk Sex with Annette. Before we dive in and before I hand the mic over to Emma, I just have to remind y'all that I'm over on OnlyFans and there I'm sharing my sex and intimacy demos, how to use an audio guided self-pleasure meditation. You can find me there and on Substack under my handle at TalkSexWithanet. And you can find both Emma and I, wherever you'd like to find us, by scrolling down to the notes section below and clicking on the lead. Emma, can you tell my listeners just a little bit more about you?

SPEAKER_01 2:38

Yeah, absolutely. So everything about me right now is Saturday box and kink and role play, but that wasn't always the case. I went to Dartmouth for computer science and I came out to Seattle thinking my big girl job, maybe do like a corporate career, start start a tech startup, get into politics, but I absolutely hated it. I think there's so much that kind of keeps us back when in the digital world from connecting with each other. I don't love how that company is run. And so I was going down the creative route. I was doing writing romance novels, I was helping do a romance mobile game, but still,

Emma’s Story From Tech To Kink

SPEAKER_01 3:14

even there's that digital divide. I realized what I wanted to do was to help people connect in person. And I wanted to help them with this specific thing that's been my life's journey, which is getting started with tank and roleplay, bringing that into the relationship. So your fantasies don't have to stay fantasies.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

I love that. And what a great way to start this conversation. We are going to teach you in this episode how to take your fantasy out of the fantasy world and bring it into your bedroom, your house, or wherever you want to do it. And I'm excited about this conversation in particular, because if you are a longtime listener, you know that I suck at role play. I have a really hard time with role play, which surprises a lot of people. But so I am going to learn alongside y'all about role play, what it is, how to initiate it, maybe how to get out of that awkward place in your head and body when you have a partner that wants to do it. I'm very excited. Thank you for joining me. Let's get ready to talk about roleplay, how to bring your fantasies into reality. Cheers. All right. So, first of all, can we just start by defining role play? It encompasses a lot. Yeah. And I know you are an expert in this definition. So will you explain to my listeners what role play is and what it can encompass? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

So we say kink and roleplay. Those terms in a lot of ways are separate and they're also interleased. So I'm gonna give you four definitions, but we're gonna do it fast, okay? So kink. Basic, basic definition of kink is any sexual desire that's considered out of the norm. But really, when we expect kink, we mean something that has to do with power

What Role Play Really Means

SPEAKER_01 5:03

dynamics. So kind of same thing with role play, where role play, basic, basic definition, is anytime you're adding this imaginative element to sex where what is going on is not exactly what might be going on in your mind to any degree. But realistically, when we talk about role play, we usually mean some kind of pairing. One partner is this person, one partner is this person, it's boss and secretary, it's spy, it's interrogator, it's fairy hunter. There's a kind of a matchup and sort of what's the interaction that's going to happen, what's the sexual experience that's going to happen is the matchup between these two characters. So when we talk about these things, right, everyone has a different definition of what it means to them. And I think a lot of our conversation is going to be how you can expand that definition to work for you, to work for your relationship. Because I think having shared context is great for the discussions, like discussions we have today. So we can kind of be talking about the same thing. But when it comes to your personal life, it's whatever is gonna help you get the satisfaction you want, right? It doesn't matter if it's an internet perfect definition that somebody's gonna go, well, actually, it doesn't matter, right? It's what's gonna work for you.

SPEAKER_00 6:12

Most couples who want to try roleplay never do. Was actually stopping them. And because we know it's not they don't have time. What are the barriers to couples, people, partners trying roleplay?

SPEAKER_01 6:31

Yeah, so I would say that I really appreciated your lead-in. I'm from a religious community, and in that community, there's so much shame around sex in general, and there's so much shame around premarital sex. So to go all the way to kink and roleplay is really the third rail because people may be struggling with how they feel just doing what are considered the normal

The Biggest Barriers To Trying

SPEAKER_01 6:52

vanilla sex act. So there's an element of shame. But I would also say that I think as a culture, we have luckily been starting to move a little bit beyond that. And I don't know that that is even the primary blocker at this point for a lot of couples. I have spoken to a lot of friends who I know there's so many, and as the data shows, there's so many couples that they're saying, hey, we're looking to spice things up, or we've been trying to spice things up. And you ask them, hey, how's it going? Spice things up. Three years later, same place, right? And so for those couples, it's somewhat normalized within the relationship context to discuss that desire to add something new. Okay, so there's not quite enough shame that they feel like they can't do it. So what's stopping those couples? And I think that that's really the biggest group. And what I think it comes down to is really, and that's what we hear from our customers, it's really not knowing where to start. Because it's not as simple as someone telling you, do this, and then you're good, right? It is the the steps of figuring out, okay, what do I want? How do I break that down? How do I have the emotional bandwidth to start doing it? Right. It's like they have physical time, or as as much as time can be physical. But it takes that energy to say, well, what do I want to do? Now, if I like, I want to do a fairy thing. Well, do you have to get an outfit? Okay, so you have to take some time to get an outfit. Do I have to get an outfit? What do we do once the outfits are on? And I think a lot of the education around kink specifically is very technical. That's like, how to tie X knot or basic tips to starting montage? But what we find is people really need the container around it. That's what they're interested in. Is that it's not so much like the part they're getting stuck on is okay, I'm gonna attach a silky restraint to my partner's wrist. It's like, when do I do that? When do I bring it out and it's not awkward? When is it not weird? So I would say that to me is really why couples are not getting started. There a lot of times it's like both people are interested and they don't know where to start. Now, this the last category, I would say, which is a pretty significant thing, is what you also alluded to, where one partner is much more interested in it, or at least they perceive that they are, and they sense a hesitance or a reluctance from the other partner. So combined with number two of not knowing what you would gonna ask this person to do, you don't want to burden them. And if you're the reality is a lot of discussion around kink is for people who are single, who are going to munches, who are like having it out on the town. But the reality for most people who are in these monogamous, often married relationships, there's a real fear that I'm gonna bring something into this relationship that is not good or this is gonna make my partner feel uncomfortable or think badly of me. And I don't get to take it back, I don't get to move on to the next person and practice my approach. This is my husband, this is my wife, this is our relationship. I'm not unhappy with them sexually. I don't want to make them feel inadequate. And so I think it can be a very delicate thing because whenever you're bringing up something you want to do, there's that feeling of loss or grief if it's not achieved. And that's the fear, that's the fear side. So there's the three things we can talk about. They kind of can merge together. There's different ways to handle those things, but I think it's important to acknowledge there are different, there are different blockers that people can experience.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

I want to talk about me. That's what I want to do here. Absolutely. Because I have a big block. I have definitely had partners ask, oh, what if we did sexy school teacher? What if we did, and I can just feel myself go, oh dear God. Yeah, you're closing up because please don't make me oh, I have this internal eye roll, which is weird because one thing I am, I think, pretty good at is putting on my my Dom persona in the bedroom. For some reason, in my mind, I don't think of that as role play

The Ick And The Performance Trap

SPEAKER_00 10:47

because I can be a little dominant in real life, but it is a role for sure. But when people want me to step into this full pretend, be a damsel in distress or whatever it is, I feel my body inside my body just gets awkward instantly. And like when I try and make the words they want to be, the person, like it feels weird coming out of my mouth, which once again, when I teach people how to use incorporate sex talk or praise kink into their sex lives, I teach them how to practice scripts until the language becomes natural. But the idea for me of having to get dressed up, find something that actually makes me feel sexy. I'm gonna be honest with you, I don't even like themed parties where we have to Yeah, I'm getting that from stressful. It's feel stressful to me. I've got to find an outfit, I've gotta learn how to act, I have to bring it into the bedroom. Now I've got a script and a persona, and then I've got to translate that to making someone get off. That's where I struggle. But I also can see there's with role play, if I could figure it out, it opens up a thousand doors of fun, right? When we were young, when I was little, I didn't have a problem throwing on some ugly rag my mom had thrown out and calling it a princess dress and feeling beautiful in it, right? It's kind to me, it's kind of trying to bring that childhood, that childhood skill of play into your sexual setting. So what's wrong with me? What's going on with me? Because I have to assume if it's if this is my block, that that's what a lot of other people are struggling with.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

So how yeah, and that's and that's solidly in the two category of what is this thing. And I would say so. There's there's two elements to what you the first one is I'm here, almost a little bit of shame from you about not being able to perform this thing. And I think there's obviously the classic shame of doing these sex things makes me feel uncomfortable. But I think for people like us who are in the space, there's the opposite one too. And I'm sure for a lot of more enlightened, liberated women, there's that. I shouldn't feel ashamed. Like, why am I feeling that's so weird? This is my specialty. I know what I'm doing. And I think what I really say is it's like the middle ground of listen to the ick, right? Which is when you hear, it's like you don't have to say, I have an ick. I'm never gonna do this, I never do anything that's outside of my comfort zone. I mean, if you if that's where you draw your line, like that's fine. But you can like when you listen to the ick, you have to say, what is my natural disgust reaction here? What is that coming from? And then can I eliminate those parts? And can that be something right for my partner? And then the second element of that is that what's gonna work for the partner, right? I think that people have a lot of trouble performing in front of other people, acting. I mean, like, I'm actually not a great actress. I did take like acting classes, but I was like not that good at it. But the acting classes were really, really helpful. And this is a principle I really incorporated into Saturday box in the company, in terms of like it's they say like it's acting is really about reacting. And you really don't want to be performing as much as you want to be responding to the situation. And so I think from my take, if I am diagnosing like sort of what's going wrong here, and just in general with people with role play, is if you have to feel like you're doing a performance to your partner, how are you gonna get to the level of relaxation you need to receive to experience pleasure? I think that's really the crux of the issue. And so our approach and my approach just in my personal life, with with my background in game design and my husband's extensive background in game design, is that idea that kind of combines the acting concept with the game design, which is like, what can you be doing to make this play for you? And so, like I would say, in your very specific situation, like if you wanted to do this girl girl, right, you want to trawl through that and say, okay, what's what's triggering me here? What can I take away? What can I add? But more importantly, for the what to do and what not to do is what is the activity that can kind of be propelling this role play? So it's not this guy says the line, you say the line, this guy says the line, you say the line. I mean, if people, if people feel good in that, I think it's amazing, but I that's not the way I could operate. So it's really, okay, if the idea is about correction, am I gonna do some kind of assignment? Am I gonna write out some silly lines and then he's gonna correct that? And then I'm just gonna respond to him correcting me. Is it about doing some kind of process where, you know, I'm putting on the outfit and he's inspecting the outfit? Again, we have to get into what you want to do, what he wants to do. But if you have tasks, if you have actions to do, if you can focus on the action, it's not about you embodying the perfect, amazing, school, best schoolgirl performance ever. It's about can I do these actions? Can he do these actions? And that level of structure we really find is enough to let people relax in this thing that's very uncomfortable to them. And then, of course, like with anything, it's a skill. As you do these things, you can add more elements. You can say, Oh, I really like this, or you know what, I'd like to add this in. But starting with some kind of basis, that's how you can get when you're a kid feeling like you're a princess wearing a dish, great, because you're focused on the thing that you're doing. So for adult, we just need a little bit more structure, I think.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

A couple things that really struck me. First of all, I love that you brought up the ick. I guess that's the thing. I get the ick when I think about role-playing, not other people doing their own thing, but me trying to do it. And I'm like, is it it's not that I get the ick with the person who brings it up. It's the idea that gives me the ick. And that was exactly the phrase I had thought of in my head. And I'm like, is it that I'm afraid that I'm going to give them the ick? Is it what, but there's something about that. So I think really getting curious about that is important. And then what really hit home for me, because I think so much of the work that women in particular have to do to undo what's problematic, is the performative side. You're bringing performance into the bedroom. And I hadn't even thought about the fact that maybe that was part of why I instantly feel overwhelmed and I instantly feel like now this is work for me, right? Is that because it is a performance, I'm not looking at it as play. I'm looking at it at it as more of a performance or a job. And the reason why I'm highlighting this in this conversation for my listeners is this I think in couples, what happens oftentimes is you have one person who is like, I really want to role play, or I have this fantasy, can we act it out? And then you have an the other person who is the one who puts the brakes on it or keeps the couple from moving forward with living out the fantasies, like I said in the intro, because there's a huge amount of people who aren't doing it. And I'm imagining the partner that's putting the brake on it is very much like me. I'm definitely, I'm definitely guilty, folks. I'm definitely guilty here. And so I think it's important if you are a listener who also gets the ick, or also is, dear God, don't make me be the whatever, the the barmaid. Don't make me be the barmaid. Just calm down for a minute, investigate the ick. I've done that with so many things in sex that I thought I didn't like. And by really getting into it and going, why don't I like it? And investigating it, I've been able to undo that. And now obviously, my array of sexual things that I can do and want to do has have grown. But also, I think it's important to figure it out for your partner. And if it's a performance thing, like how do I convert the feeling of having to perform to the feeling of playing, right? Yeah.

unknown 19:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

I mean, that's the big thing. And I think it's also we have cultural scripts, and that's so entangled in the fantasies that we want, right? It's like, why on earth does someone want to do a schoolgirl role play? Right. And they also need to investigate that on their end, and in a way that's, hey, what are the elements about this that appeal to you? Like when you see what things have you seen that you really like, if there was this element of, say, domination, but not this element of like the youthfulness element, right? Would that be okay for you? And I think that's sort of like where you get to the negotiating place for

Negotiating What You Both Want

SPEAKER_01 19:55

partners. Because ideally, I think it's it's totally okay for an experience to be more for one person than the other person. You just want that second person to feel comfortable enough and okay and it's a gift to their partner. But ideally, you're gonna have at least a little bit of something for everyone, right? And so some of that is avoiding icks, and some of that is, hey, for me, I'm maybe like, so let's say, okay, I'm less into the role-play element, but I really do like bondage. And so if we could have an element where maybe that's like where the scene is escalating to, where I'm getting punished, and then maybe you're like right, adding that element to bondage. So it's like, how can we create a new cultural script for what we use? Because I think there's also a fear that comes into play when you say when your partner says, I have this fantasy for, I think for a lot of women, they're thinking like he has this dream girl that he sees doing X and Y with. And then I feel like I'm like a cheap annotation. Where from the research you were reading, another thing that's covered is it is the number one person that people are fantasizing about doing things, is usually their partner. It's not celebrities, it's not cornstars. I'm not saying that's not a part of it, but really people are fantasizing about their partner. And if you can think about it in that realm, if you can bring it down to the level of what's gonna be, this is where my fantasy is. That's great. That's the starting point. What's what's the relationship gonna be between you? What's the fantasy that you're going to create? What's the experience? Because once you do these things, it can help generate future fantasies because then the person is not thinking about, I mean, maybe they're maybe they are, but they're they're not only thinking about the really hot porn that they've seen, right? They're thinking about, ooh, remember that time we did this. And it will feel increasingly easier to live up to the idea of said dream girl when said dream girl was like you two months ago. So I think that that also helps to break it down a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 21:50

All right. So lots of aha moments here. That really strikes me that maybe one of the things that also stops you. Well, first of all, the schoolgirl fantasy is so common. For me, an ick with that is youth. I'm that is it gives me the biggest ick, right? To to think about that. But even more than that, it's maybe it is the idea that, oh, you want me to pretend to be this ideal woman that someone other than me and and and it I'm the the cheap knockoff. What an aha moment for me. And I bet you that that's very common for a lot of people, whether regardless of gender, right? Just that idea of, oh, you want me to be something that I'm not, right? And realizing going through the work of, okay, maybe that's not the reality here, right? This is fantasy. Again, of course, you're not going to be. In my case, what let's play out some Game of Thrones. I want to someone on the night watch, right? Obviously, in real life, that's not somebody who's ideal for me, but I want you to pretend this scene, and it's you because I'm attracted to you. You're not Jon Snow, and it's okay. Maybe you are a cheap, cheap knockoff, but I love you still. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:20

I mean, I think the to say it really clearly, I think that the true appeal of roleplay is not that you've incarnated your bind's eye fantasy perfectly in the room with you. The true appeal of role play is having a partner that loves you enough and that you love enough that you feel like you can be that most vulnerable self with them, that they feel like they'll do anything, especially in the bedroom, right? To support you and to make you feel loved and desired. That is why you're not a cheap knockoff. It's because that is not something that they're gonna be able to get from Jon Snow, right? Because Jon Snow does not care about that's essentially the thing, right? If you have to look at it as it's this baby between what someone's fantasy is and where you where you are in the relationship. And that's the thing that you're going for with role play. You're not going for the I mean, you can be trying to get as many realistic elements if you wind up really liking it. I'm not saying that that's a bad way to go about it, but the the goal is really the synthesis of the thing that you're doing with your partner. So that is a way to not feel like a cheap knockoff, but I will totally tell you the youth can be a big issue because it's a thing where you're not young enough for a school developer, but you're like, there are people that, and then that gets into all the things of children. So I mean, that can be more complicated. So that's where it's looking at, hey, what are the other elements there? Was it a thing when you were growing up that there was like a certain thing with that? Because when you're a kid, that's your society. So it's it's a thing where you have, if you're young, you have crushes with the kids on TV, and that's normal because you're a kid. So sometimes it's interrogating what are the elements there. I mean, that's common with DDLG, which is daddy dom little girl. Some people really love that. Some people really hate it if they have weird relationships with their dad. If they have good relationships with their dad, there are people that hate it. There are people who have bad and good relationships that love it. So it's really about finding the ways that you can address those needs without kind of stopping other people's shit.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

Absolutely, absolutely. And I would like to second, I have been in partnerships where the things we've done together have been so hot and sexy that I was like, oh, I don't, I don't, I don't need to look at porn. My porn is replaying the nights we had together and then creating fantasy off of that. But what could we do next time? Which is so much hotter when the fantasy that you're relying on to self-pleasure is what you've done with your partner. And then you're like, what are we gonna do next weekend when we get together? Whether it's the two of us in the bedroom or the two of us going out to get into, well, in my life, into some naughty trouble together, right? That's really exciting because it's more, it's in my life and it's possible. So if you're bringing role play into your bedroom life, that's a way of creating your own scenes that you can replay in your head or record on uh on a video player and watch again as your own homemade porn if you want to. I just came up with that right now. So I'm sure that it's probably something that happens. All right. So we've talked about the blocks. You guys know what role play is now. I think Emma's done a great job of defining it for us in multiple ways. We've talked a little bit about overcoming those blocks. Don't worry, we will flesh this out in your takeaways. Let's talk about getting started. What are the things that we need to put in place to launch into role play and have a successful experience?

SPEAKER_01 27:08

Yeah, so I mean, I think obviously the first step is communication, right? And being able to communicate those fantasies. And I think that that can be like really want to encourage people to do that. But it is something that you do want to take a little bit of caution. If you're a couple that is not talking about this a lot, right? If you had great communication skills and you say whatever comes to your brain, which is what I do, and I just blurt everything out. So there's

How To Start Small Tonight

SPEAKER_01 27:30

not too much that could throw my husband. But if you're a couple where it's like, hey, this is the big talk we have around sex, right? You want to think a little bit about what you might say because there are those cultural scripts. So I think something that I would recommend for people is to think about, okay, so what's one fantasy that I really want to do? What's one thing? And then can I think of where it comes from culture, or like ideally, if you're like, here's like a movie or like a visual identity or something that you can use as a reference point when you're telling this to your partner. And the reason that I say that is because if you say school girl, your partner is gonna come into that with everything that they think about this thing already. And as someone who does not fantasize about it, then may not on they may not understand what you really want there. So it can be very intimidating. So the closer you can say, the closer in terms of, hey, I have this fantasy. I sort of like this one movie, that part was this part in the movie was really hot to me. The more that you can break it down and make it feel less intimidating, the more they can start to leave their preconceptions and kind of come to the table. So I would say that's kind of where you want to start with conversation, if this is like a big thing. If it's not, you can just say what you feel, be open to questions, be open to reception. And then I think really just the internal work that you really want to be doing is understanding that people's reactions are not perfect. They don't always scroll their reactions. It may be like shocking to them. It if you're a woman coming to a man, I'm gonna be honest, I don't think that I've really had that much shock in my experiences when I've said things. But if you're a man coming to a woman, yeah, there may there may be like a little more shock. Giving your partner that time to process and then really being clear in your own mind about what your expectations for something like that might be, right? In terms of like sharing with your partner, is it that you really just want to kind of do something in that thing, have one element, because then you guys can focus around that. So that's the communication part. We could talk more about that. But moving on to the communication part, I would say when you identify what that thing you want to try is, it could be, hey, I just am I'm a very visual person. I would like to see my partner in this kind of outfit. So we have to obtain an outfit, and then we're gonna have normal sex. And that might be exciting to me, right? I think it's really about saying, hey, what's the capacity? Starting small if you need to, have most okay, no outfits. Another thing you can do have sex, talk to each other about not in not in character, you don't even have to be in character. And just while you're having sex, you can say, oh, man, it would be really hot if this was going on.

unknown 30:18

Right.

SPEAKER_01 30:18

And you could say, oh, and then what would you do? Right? You can just have the conversation partially during sex. And the reason that I would recommend that is because one, you're starting to see this idea in a sexual context. Two, we know that when you're having sex, disgust the your disgust threshold is lower. And that's so we can handle all those icky sticky fluids, right? And so that's a very good time to start bringing it up and just seeing, okay, this is sort of the part that they're focusing on. You can still be yourself. So you're getting in, you're getting closer to we're talking about it, we're doing it, but you're not being a different person. You're just being you and you're just talking about hypothetical. So that's another element you could go down. Finally, I would say, again, if you're like thinking about the role play, think about what's the action you could take and then work on that action. If it's really say you're doing Boston Secretary, you don't have to transform your whole house into an office. You could do that. You don't have to do that. If it's like, hey, I really at the root of the end of the thing, I just want to spank you with a ruler, right? You can like so when they you do dancing, they have something called market, and it's like you dance at 30%, so you can kind of get the steps. So it's totally possible when you do these kinds of things. You can market around one element, do that element, get comfortable with that element, and then just set your expectations and to know that okay, that may not overall fulfill my 100% fantasy, but it's one step in this journey that I'm going on with this other person. A lot of times it goes great and you feel very gratified by it, but sometimes you feel like honestly, if it's just one element, I'm kind of missing other ones. So it's it's just being open to the possibilities and understanding that you're kind of going on a journey with this person you're figuring out. So that's what I would say in terms of getting started, like the actionable kind of tips.

SPEAKER_00 32:10

I think that those are amazingly doable. For me, here's what I would do after what you've told me with a partner who was like, I really want to try out role play. I'd be like, starting with outfits works for me. Buy me a cute, sexy outfit that I can try on. And if I feel cute in it, we can have sex around that. And you can tell me how hot I am. And we get comfortable with wearing it and and find a couple of outfits, maybe a different roles that I feel good in and not silly in. And then they go in the closet. I get used to doing that. I'm what I've learned for myself in sex and in all things, anything I feel overwhelmed with, if I start with baby steps and they become the norm, then after that I'm like, oh, what can I add? And then from there, it's okay. Now I'm like in the outfit. I like, I always embody my outfits, whether it's everyday outfits or going out outfits or costumes. Then the next step would be like, okay, maybe we make up some fun, sexy names for each other, or take on one of the next steps that you brought up. I love the idea of having it build up to a moment that's hot for me. I really like being domed. So maybe I'm wearing the outfit, I don't know, secretary outfit. If if that's again, I just go back to the the the night's watch. Whatever. And then like it leads up to a dominating experience where I'm being dominated by you know who. That's very those are very actionable steps that you can bring into the bedroom and slowly warm up to that keep it right below that threshold of an ick, right?

SPEAKER_01 34:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:11

And once you're used to each one, you can escalate.

SPEAKER_01 34:15

Yeah, and I think exactly what you're saying, it's not, I think sometimes people think of the skill elements of it's oh, you're like learning this skill. But it's not really that you're learning the skill as much as you're practicing a skill. And the reason there's even this practicing it all, right, is because you're writing what this script is going to be for you and your partner. And that's why, yeah, you wear the outfit. Now you're used to wearing the outfit. Now it's about you wearing the outfit. You're stepping further away from the thing that maybe gives you the ick, from this cookie-cutter version you feel pressured to be, right? You're stepping closer into yourself. And something we've found with the boxes that we have, where we have these toys alongside of the guided adventure. We've heard from people that a lot of times the first time they're doing anything with the box, they're just going and playing with the toys. They're just playing with the outfits. And we we couldn't support that more. It's just taking something that's new and it's slowly osmosis letting it into your lives. You're just getting more comfortable. You're getting in the way that an object, you buy it, it's new. And then it just becomes, oh, it's the mug that I have in my kitchen. That's sort of what you're doing, right? Where it's just becoming more and more about you and less about this ideal that may feel unattainable or may feel undesirable.

SPEAKER_00 35:29

Right. Because for me, I'm comfortable with I'm super comfortable with toys. So for me, it's I've got that. I've got plenty that could be worked into role play. But then obviously, costumes have been sort of a stopping point for me. So then you work that in and you get used to it and figure out how to integrate things together. The next step, really, along the way for me, and I think for a lot of people, would be getting into the storyline of it all. Can you give a couple of tips for how do we move this along from your practical, okay, you're gonna come home, I'll have the outfit on, we'll have sex, maybe pull out a couple of toys. Now we want to start to build out the fantasy world that's gonna require some scripting. How can we just dip our toe into the water of that, get used to it so we can expand the script?

SPEAKER_01 36:26

Yeah. Well, I'm I to answer this, I'm I also want to go back to what you touched

Building A Scene With Simple Actions

SPEAKER_01 36:30

on of the relationship between kink and role. And I think that that's very important. You can be someone who likes kink and doesn't like role play, although any kind of domination thing, it is a role because you're not actually doing this to people in your regular everyday life. So there is, there is in some ways, in my mind, no real kink without role play. But there is role play without kink, right? There are people that are just like, hey, we're just strangers, or we're like, I mean, I a lot of the scenarios I can think of even do have a slight power dynamic. But I want to say that for most people, I think that most of the scenarios that they pick do have a power dynamic element. And the reason I bring this up is because I think it helps.

SPEAKER_00 37:08

Well, let me just say to you, one of my very best friends, Russian dominatrix Lucy, always says there are two types of people, kinky and liars.

SPEAKER_01 37:22

I mean, I'll say I don't know that I believe that because I think one, there are some people that have trauma around it. And there are some people that I find that are just so chill that they're just not noticing all of the subtle power dynamics that go around them all day and they're just not influenced by the culture marketing. These are people a lot of times they come from money and they're just very chill. I don't know. I've I have found people that I'm like, you know what? I don't think they're that kinky. I there are, but it's a really small percentage of people. That's truly my belief is we're at 80, 20, 90, 10 in terms of people who are kinky. So the reason I bring this up is because you're looking when people are saying, okay, I have the outfit, I've done the setup. You're looking for what do I do? What do I do now? Right. If I don't want to sit there with my typewriter and come up with the script and you say this line and I say that line, which I don't really recommend for people, it's what are these actions? And so it's to me, it is good to think about it as actions you're stringing along. And the reason it's also good to think about it that way is it's like, what's the duration of the thing that you're going to do? Right. And I would say if you're experienced in this role play, yeah, you can have this whole elaborate thing. It's like, it could be more than hours, it could be days, it could be something you're kind of coming in and out of. But if you're starting out, it could be five minutes. And I think that that's really the key, is that it can be one action, right? In terms of the building blocks getting into this, it's building blocks doing it as well. Right. And you want to say, what is the action? You so it's again, I'm gonna we'll we'll go back to school girl example. We we don't have any schoolgirl stuff. So I hope if people are like, wow, she really knows what I'm schoolgirl. We don't we don't have any of that. I think because for me it's too fraught with the youth stuff. But you know, if we're talking about schoolgirl and we're saying, okay, it's at least for both of us, there's some shared context on the domination. There's some shared context on the punishment or chastisement. Okay, so we're gonna start with it's like you are being called in to this other room, and I'm gonna ask you, but keep keep it brief of what you think you screwed up, and then I'm gonna tell you, and then I'm gonna tell you like how many times I'm gonna hit you on the backside with a ruler. And then I think it's like obviously, I mean, you you could stop there, but I think another thing is it's if you're saying, okay, ultimately we're doing this for sexual gratification and we both like having sex with each other, then you can have sex after, right? It can be that simple. And I think then it's okay, did that go well? Did we feel like you'll feel better if you feel like your partner is very gratified by it? You can add, you can add on. You can say, hey, what's the moment that we're gonna try to do? And what's the action? So there's like an action. There's a this thing has happened or has not happened, because I think there's that uncertainty with role play that like I put on this outfit and then I'm just in this character and I don't know when it starts and I don't know when it stops. You want to say, okay, we've done this. And then for some people, they want to stay in character when they're while they're having the sex as well. But when you're starting out, I think it's okay to kind of like let it let it drift away. And then there's just the outfit. We can be thinking about what it does, we can be thinking about other ways we can dive into it. I think that you really feeling like you have successfully crossed that barrier will lead to more successive trips rather than making it this big giant marathon that you're training up one day to accomplish. That's that's just putting too much on you, I feel.

SPEAKER_00 40:56

Also acknowledging if in the middle of it you start laughing or giggling or whatever, it's okay. You can let that happen. And that's part of sex. It's fun, it's part of intimacy. It's fun, it's funny, it's awkward, it's messy, and allowing that to be and then moving on. Yeah. I think you have built a fantastic container for getting started. I would like you now is the time that we're gonna give my listeners some takeaways. So I would like for you to put together just a little package of takeaways. My listeners have been along for this ride and they want to do some role play tonight. They don't have anything at home. I mean, they can get on and order some things after they give it a try, but what are three things they can do right after they're done with this episode to start initiating this with their partners starting tonight?

unknown 41:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:54

I mean, I think a great conversation starter is asking your partner what they find sexy. Because if you can

Three Takeaways And Where To Find Saturday Box

SPEAKER_01 42:01

ask them what they find sexy, then you can start saying, okay, well, how can I apply that to my fantasy? How can I work that in to the thing that I'm gonna propose to do with them? Right. So you can kind of take off some of that emotional loads. I'd say that's number one. Number two is I would say create and schedule some time for you two to explore this together, even if that needs if there is a little bit of Google searching of things you want to get, if there is a little just showing them, oh, this movie that I saw as a kid, it just really stuck with having that time to share. Number three is I would just say get started. Get started, have I would say if you have no time and Amazon is not gonna deliver, do the thing that I recommended where when you have sex, just talk about a little what you talked about earlier. Get that into the bedroom because that is already you bring me into the bedroom. And that's already helping your partner understand sort of the parts you're interested in, starting to help them feel sexy around it, help it, starting to help them understand that it's them in that role you want. When you're saying, oh, if you were this thing and it was you, I think even that language, that you language helps people to understand, no, it's me that they want. It's not that I'm that cheap knockoff that we talked about. So I would guess that's those are like the three things. I would say asking your partner what they want and looking how to incorporate it, looking at kind of media references or costumes, just give them some kind of idea and then start that kind of dirty talk conversation during sex to bring it into the bedroom. So I would say if you want to do this when you get home, you can do that.

SPEAKER_00 43:32

Now I want you to tell everybody where they can find out more about you, where they can find out more about Saturday Box, if you could give us just a quick snap about what that is and how people can get started with you.

SPEAKER_01 43:46

Yeah. So you can go to Saturdaybox.com. It's just like a day of the week because we want it to feel as easy as a day of the week. We also have an Instagram and TikTok that's at Saturday underscore box, but it's mostly just like me doing silly stuff. So go on our website. And yeah, we sell these box kits, these box adventures that you can just start playing from home. And we give you the pairing matchups that are exciting. We have Fairy Hunter, we have Master Slave, we have Spy Interrogator, we have Boss Secretary, we have a murder mystery coming out soon. Not as scene as I'd like because we've been having little production problems with that. And it really is all about giving you those actions, giving you that structure so that you can freely play with your partner. So we have great storytelling and game design woven throughout these printed cards. We have amazing art, but we have physical stuff. So you don't have to separately cobble together an outfit. You don't have to be on the CD websites, so you can just take out your box and get started. And you can really treat it the same way we talked about in this episode of doing it one time, just wearing an outfit, trying one of the main mechanics, searching for runes, hiding it from a fairy. You can just bring whatever energy you want. And then this is like a replayable box. So you can come back to it as you grow.

SPEAKER_00 45:00

That's fantastic. Thank you so much for being here. I love this conversation. I had a bunch of aha moments in it. I really appreciated your insight into role-playing some of the blocks and how to get started. Folks, our fantasies should not go without being lived out. There's no reason for it. If you have a partner, or even if you don't, there are ways to enjoy your fantasies in your own life. So if you have some role-playing fantasies, get started and start having those conversations. Address your own icks. I'm gonna do that. Look at actionable steps to move forward. Rewatch this from the beginning again and again. Take some notes because this was a great 101. Thank you so much for being here with me today, Emma. Oh, thank you. It's such a pleasure. And to my listeners, until next time, I'll see you in the locker room. Cheers. Cheers.