Within dominant/submissive relationships, ageplay can enhance power dynamics, and allow a partner to feel more comfortable with their dominance or submission.
[4] Ageplay is not associated with pedophilia, nor is it related by professional psychologists to any form of sex abuse.
Behaviors may include things such as wearing childish clothes, wearing or using diapers, cuddling with stuffed animals, drinking from a bottle or sucking on a pacifier, and (when done with others) engaging in gentle and nurturing experiences, baby talk, or BDSM power dynamics involving masochism, coercion, punishment or humiliation.
Though distinct, within the kink community paraphilic infantilism is often associated with diaper fetishism under the umbrella term, "adult baby/diaper lover" or "AB/DL".
Some research has aimed to separate ageplay from the pathologized framing of paraphilic infantilism, noting in part that paraphilic infantilism is not listed within the DSM-V.[7] This research also discourages thinking of ageplay as an identity category.