# What a switch is, and how switching works

> What is a switch in BDSM? A person who holds both the dominant and the submissive roles, leading at some times and yielding at others. It is a settled taste for both sides of power exchange, not indecision, and neither diagnostic manual names it as a disorder. In Martinez's 2018 survey of 202 practitioners, 22.3 percent identified this way.

Published 2026-09-20. 5 min read. KINKSpec, https://www.kinkspec.com/blog/what-is-a-switch

Most of the vocabulary of power exchange names a side. Dominant and submissive mark the two poles, *top* and *bottom* the two positions, and each person takes the word that fits. *Switch* breaks the pattern: it names movement between the poles rather than a pole, and it belongs to people who hold each role whole, one at a time.

The catalog estimates [switching](https://www.kinkspec.com/entry/switching) at 12 percent of adults, at rank 36 of 486 with an index of 65. That sits below the fixed roles it moves between. [Dominance and submission](https://www.kinkspec.com/entry/dominance-submission) holds rank 1 with an estimated 45 percent, [submission](https://www.kinkspec.com/entry/submission) rank 2, [bondage](https://www.kinkspec.com/entry/bondage) rank 3 with 16 percent, [dominance](https://www.kinkspec.com/entry/dominance) rank 4 with 25 percent. **A label that asks for experience of both sides draws from a smaller pool than either side alone.**

## The role between the roles

**A switch leads at some times and yields at others, and each role is held whole.** The word works as a noun, a verb and a profile field, and it describes a disposition rather than an act. Patterns differ. One person is dominant with one partner and submissive with another and never mixes the two. Another leads one scene and yields the next with the same partner. A deliberate handover in the middle of a single encounter is recognised but least common.

The role sits inside the wider D/s landscape as one stance among several. [Dominance](https://www.kinkspec.com/entry/dominance) is the leading role and [submission](https://www.kinkspec.com/entry/submission) the yielding one, and their pairing, [dominance and submission](https://www.kinkspec.com/entry/dominance-submission), is the exchange itself. A switch occupies both halves of that exchange across time. Switching appears in neither the DSM-5-TR nor the ICD-11 under any name, and both manuals treat consensual power exchange between adults as a normative variation rather than anything to diagnose.

## Switches in the survey samples

The studies that asked practitioners to name a role put switches at roughly one in five. Martinez's 2018 study in the *Journal of Homosexuality*, a mixed-methods survey of 202 respondents with 25 follow-up interviews, reported 41.1 percent in submissive, slave or bottom roles, 28.2 percent in dominant, master or sadist roles, and 22.3 percent as switches. Women and queer or pansexual respondents used switch identities to step outside the dominant-or-submissive binary. The paper is indexed on [PubMed](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28854056/).

Population surveys supply the pool such switching draws from. Lehmiller's 2018 survey of 4,175 American adults, reported in [*Tell Me What You Want*](https://www.sexandpsychology.com/tell-me-what-you-want/), found BDSM fantasy close to universal, with only 4 to 7 percent saying they had never had one. [Joyal, Cossette and Lapierre's 2015 study](https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/abstract/MED/25359122) of 1,516 Quebec adults found fantasies of dominance and submission widespread in both sexes, with at least one adult in five reporting tying up or being tied up and around 30 percent reporting spanking. [Holvoet and colleagues](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28781214/), in a 2017 study of 1,027 Belgian adults, found 46.8 percent had performed at least one BDSM-related activity and 12.5 percent did so regularly.

The catalog's index lands where those findings point. Its most-read role entries form a staircase from the exchange down to the fluid stance.

| Entry | Rank of 486 | Estimated prevalence |
|---|---|---|
| [Dominance and submission](https://www.kinkspec.com/entry/dominance-submission) | 1 | 45% |
| [Submission](https://www.kinkspec.com/entry/submission) | 2 | 45% |
| [Dominance](https://www.kinkspec.com/entry/dominance) | 4 | 25% |
| [Switching](https://www.kinkspec.com/entry/switching) | 36 | 12% |

The yielding side outnumbers the leading side at every step. [Masochism](https://www.kinkspec.com/entry/masochism) sits at rank 22 with 23 percent against [sadism](https://www.kinkspec.com/entry/sadism) at rank 63 with 5 percent, and the fluid stance trails both fixed roles, which fits a label that asks for experience of each side before it can be claimed.

## Neighbouring labels and false friends

Four nearby labels get mistaken for switching, and each misses it in a different direction. A [service top](https://www.kinkspec.com/entry/service-top) takes the physically active role while following the bottom's direction, which inverts the usual agenda without crossing between authority roles. [Brat play](https://www.kinkspec.com/entry/brat-play) stages resistance inside submission: the yielding is real and comes out as teasing. In gay male usage *versatile* describes physical position, who penetrates or receives or both, while *switch* describes the authority axis, who leads or yields, and one person can hold any combination of the two.

Newcomer uncertainty is a third false friend. Being new to kink and unsure which role fits is the absence of a preference, and the word describes a settled taste for both. Time and experience of each side separate the two, and most people settle on the label only after trying both.

Fixed structures form the fourth boundary. A [master/slave](https://www.kinkspec.com/entry/master-slave) bond or [total power exchange](https://www.kinkspec.com/entry/total-power-exchange) rests on a standing asymmetry, so a switch inside one usually holds a fixed role there and switches elsewhere, or the pair sets defined occasions when the usual order pauses. The arrangement works by stating which pattern applies before anything starts, since an unspoken assumption about hierarchy fails both roles at once.

## The history of a flexible label

The behaviour is older than the word by about a century. Richard von Krafft-Ebing coined sadism and masochism in [*Psychopathia Sexualis*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathia_Sexualis) in 1886 as opposed but complementary patterns. Havelock Ellis noted in [*Studies in the Psychology of Sex*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studies_in_the_Psychology_of_Sex) that dominant and submissive impulses frequently co-occur in one person, and Sigmund Freud treated them in his 1905 [*Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Essays_on_the_Theory_of_Sexuality) as two faces of a single drive that can reverse into its opposite.

The vocabulary of roles came from the scenes rather than the clinics. *Top* and *bottom* emerged in the gay leather culture of the 1950s and the sadomasochism scenes of the 1960s, replacing vaguer slang such as active and passive, and *switch* arose alongside for those who alternate. The Eulenspiegel Society, founded in New York in 1971 by Pat Bond and Terry Kolb and documented on [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eulenspiegel_Society), spread the role vocabulary as the first American organisation of its kind. From 1980 onward the [DSM](https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/practice/dsm) and [ICD](https://icd.who.int/browse11) lineage narrowed its diagnoses to cases of distress, harm or non-consent, leaving consensual role play of any fixity a normative variation. The full account of that line sits in the [post on when a kink counts as typical](https://www.kinkspec.com/blog/is-my-kink-normal).

## How the catalog files switching

The catalog files switching under Power, Roles and Scenarios, as a normative variation rather than a paraphilia. It ranks 8th of 66 in that family, surrounded by fixed-role neighbours such as [femdom](https://www.kinkspec.com/entry/femdom) at rank 27 with 6 percent and [praise kink](https://www.kinkspec.com/entry/praise-kink) at rank 43 with 12 percent. Its clinical status field states the position in one line: a role label, not a diagnosis.

The entry belongs to the [BDSM collection](https://www.kinkspec.com/collections/bdsm), the site's largest grouping at 87 entries, and readers who want the whole frame should start with the [post on what BDSM covers](https://www.kinkspec.com/blog/what-is-bdsm). The collection's equipment-heavy interests sit at its rare end while the roles sit at its most-read end. That distribution says what the surveys say: most of BDSM is authority and mild sensation, and the fluid stance between the roles is common enough to rank in the top tenth of the catalog.

## Common questions

### Is a switch the same as being versatile?

No. In most BDSM usage a switch moves between the authority roles of dominant and submissive, while in gay male usage versatile describes physical position during sex. The two axes cross freely: one person can be versatile in position and fixed in role. Casual use still conflates them, so stating which axis is meant avoids the confusion.

### Can two switches be together in one relationship?

Yes, and it is a common pairing. Two switches may trade roles between scenes, alternate by mood, or find that each reliably takes one side with this particular person. The demand matches any power exchange: stating who leads before play starts. The pairing removes the one mismatch a fixed-role couple can hit, where one partner wants a turn the other cannot offer.

### Do switches change roles in the middle of a scene?

Yes, though handover in the middle of a scene is the least common pattern. Most switches move between scenes or between partners, where each role gets its own frame. Those who do hand over mid-scene mark the change with an agreed signal, since ambiguity about who leads is the one thing a scene cannot carry.

### Why is switching absent from the diagnostic manuals?

Because the manuals diagnose distress, harm or non-consent rather than role preferences. The DSM-5-TR lists sexual sadism and sexual masochism disorders, each requiring a non-consenting person or clinically significant distress, and the ICD-11 keeps only coercive sexual sadism disorder. Consensual switching meets none of those tests, so there is nothing in it for either manual to classify.

### How does a switch negotiate a scene with a fixed-role partner?

By stating the roles before anything starts, in the same way any scene is negotiated. The pair agrees who leads, what is wanted, what stays off the table and what stops it, then holds that frame for the scene. Switches who want both sides from one partner alternate across scenes rather than revising the agreement mid-scene.

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Entries this article is about: https://www.kinkspec.com/entry/switching, https://www.kinkspec.com/entry/dominance, https://www.kinkspec.com/entry/submission, https://www.kinkspec.com/entry/dominance-submission, https://www.kinkspec.com/entry/service-top, https://www.kinkspec.com/entry/brat-play, https://www.kinkspec.com/entry/master-slave, https://www.kinkspec.com/entry/total-power-exchange, https://www.kinkspec.com/entry/bondage, https://www.kinkspec.com/entry/masochism