LillyBoPeep
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(Note: This post is really long. =p I was trying to organize my thoughts, and kept typing and didn't realize what it had become. =p Feel free to skip over it. =p)
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Maybe it depends on how you think of the word "role." I don't think people are delusional or something else like that just because they have a different interpretation of it.
You can say, obviously, that we all take on different roles throughout our lives. I have a role as my grandma's granddaughter, my dog's owner/caretaker, my boss's employee, blah blah blah. Those are all part of who I am all the time, but parts that get emphasized or de-emphasized based on who is there. If I'm with my grandma, it doesn't make sense to treat her like my dog or my boss, so you assume a different role and standard of behavior and expectations. In my own vernacular, I think of those more as facets of the whole, rather than different and distinct roles -- they are all part of me, and informed by the basic "me."
If you look at an emerald, and then turn it to see another facet, you're still looking at an emerald, not a diamond.
Or a role is something that's not real, as in a role in script. Most people use the term "role play" to describe acting out a storyline or script with fictional characters -- that's just the conventional way the term is used, and people can't be faulted for using it that way, even if the OP is not. I think that's the way many people are relating to it, instead of the way Akasha is -- I actually think Akasha is talking about the first version, and not the second.
It's a slight difference, and maybe to some it's all semantics, but to me, it's a key difference, no matter how slight.
A person can have a facet that is heartless, sadistic, and unforgiving, while also having a facet that is compassionate and loves fiercely and whole-heartedly -- they can exist together and it isn't necessary to treat one as more real, while the other is an act or a delusion. And to me, those aren't "roles" if they are authentically a part of who someone is. I think that's a difference that's getting muddled up -- it's difficult for someone who can't genuinely feel those things to "play" at them.
If I could "play" at those, then maybe I could get over myself and Top someone, right? Your actress friend doesn't get every role she auditions for, does she? Some she probably loses because her interpretation isn't what the director wants -- there's someone who can access something that she can't, and generate an interpretation that's closer to the director's vision.
I have a secret little sadist, but she comes out if I "middle" with someone else. I have a difficult time directing other elements that seem crucial to me, because I lack the facets to interpret those elements to my own satisfaction. =p
And I have a difficult time playing around with pain with someone who doesn't inspire me to take it. If I could roleplay my way through it, without feeling the energy I need to feel to do it, then I could probably sail through it, but I can't.
The Dude would "play" with me when he was angry or frustrated (which I understand some people might've frowned on, but that's not the point), or he'd whack me with a strap or clamp me and slap me until I was crying and falling over -- what he wanted was what he wanted, but in spite of it, I always knew that he loved me and cared about me, even if it felt like he didn't care what I was feeling at the time.
I could trust him because he had remarkable self-control which made it easier to give in and emphasize facets of myself that other people didn't get to see. He could most certainly be something that I interpreted as cruel. =p But it was a real part of him that was getting to come out of the dark and play. When he put it away, it was on the backburner -- something that was real, that he had to maintain control of, but that he could de-emphasize.
Humans are fantabulous in their ability to be contradictory and truthful at the same time. =p He was the most intense and passionate person I knew, and he loved me like no one else.
I don't think it's necessary for me to always feel that I'm safe. I "like" fear, in that crazy, fragmented way that masochists "like" things that scare or hurt. I could teeter on the brink and it was all okay in the end. He tied me up once and left me in the dark (knowing that I have this semi-fear of the dark) and made me think he'd left the house. All he did was leave my immediate vicinity but he could keep tabs on me. I didn't feel safe. =p All of my nerves were on end. I trusted that he would eventually come back, certainly he had to come back, right? My brain went spinning with what could be out there, or what I'd do if someone came and it wasn't him, and I was tied up. I was skidding across ice in my head, but he had enough of an "idea" about me to come back at the right time. =p
But the way I read Akasha's post (which could most certainly be wrong, one person's interpretation may not have anything to do with anyone else's) is that she wants the person to act within the guidelines, regardless of what the person is feeling. The emotional gymnastics there are pretty interesting, I'm sure. She does say that the pain and suffering are real, but that she wants him to experience it through a different emotional filter -- but to me, she doesn't quite explain what that is. To me, they're all part of the same thing.
I can suffer for someone else, and also "enjoy" it, because I'm embracing being contradictory and truthful. I don't feel like I have to change my emotional filter at all, I can just use the one I have. I don't have to act as someone else to feel real emotions (which is sort of what I'm understanding from your actress-sub reference, and again, I may be wrong), I just feel my own, and I'm honest about my own. Yeah, while on some level, I "want" to be used up, there's no denying that it terrifies me and that letting someone else drive can take me to the realm of "bad pain," blah blah blah. But I don't feel like I have to change filters (at least when I'm with someone who I am compatible with in this way) because he'll push me there if that's what he wants.
I've never tried to "play it up" for someone, or been in a situation with someone who wanted me to -- honestly, to me it's horribly distracting when someone suggests that I feel something I don't. Like some Tops like to whisper things like "ohh I know that hurts" which just gets a response of "well... not really" -- I don't say it outloud, obviously, but playing around there without it being something real -- that's distracting to me. I pretty much just stick to playing with my friend these days because he doesn't do things like this, and we have a lot of fun together without trying to make it into something it's not, but just letting it "be."
If someone is going to try to get into my head, it doesn't work for me if it's incongruous with what I feel from them. One person's brand of sadism or dominance might not work for someone else -- it's not a value judgment on who is better than who, who is more real than who, or who is delusional, just differences in who is compatible with who.
If someone asks me to beg when I don't feel it, it's HARD for me to do it. When someone doesn't ask, but chooses to just take, and take, and take until begging is all that makes sense, then it all flies out and it's real and powerful, and there's no pretend, and no mental block.
To me, roleplaying is assuming a character, like if you role-play a teacher/student scenario or something like that. And to make it different, you assume traits that you feel are appropriate for the character, but you filter it through yourself. The character is not more real than you are. The character can exist 100 different ways depending on who's reading/acting, because the reality lies with the person interpreting, not the character. Many actors access their own memories or their own experiences, in order to find something authentic to drive them. If the character has a traumatic past, the actor tries to empathize with that and filter it through the self -- that's what makes it real.
< Message edited by LillyBoPeep -- 11/21/2011 5:43:20 AM >
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Midwestern Girl
"Obey your Master." Metallica
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RE: Sadism, Masochism, and "roleplaying." - 
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I don't contemplate what I am going to do to her but if she was mine as well as his I would probably spend the best part of the day contemplating what I am going to do when she arrives, as I think Steve does now. I would be thinking out scenarios and not just doing things off the cuff as I do with Steve and as I do with her when I suddenly see her in a vulnerable state. 
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