Playroom

What is a playroom?

A playroom (rented as a dungeon) is a room fitted out for doing BDSM, at home or for hire. There is usually a cross, a spanking bench and storage for toys. Of the three Dutch words for that room, speelkamer is the most neutral.

Why the word speelkamer sounds so ordinary

Because it is. Speelkamer is a perfectly ordinary Dutch compound, and that is exactly why the scene uses it.

The Algemeen Nederlands Woordenboek lists it as an entry: a common-gender noun, plural speelkamers, diminutive speelkamertje, a compound of the verb spelen (to play) and the noun kamer (room), with no linking sound. A meaning profile is still missing, so the dictionary does say how the word is built and not what it means. The Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal lists it twice, as a subentry under kamer and under spelen, which says the same thing: no concept of its own, just a room in which people play.

The newspapers confirm it. The Royal Library’s newspaper archive gives 10,169 articles with this word, over three hundred times as many as speelfeest, and they are almost always about children. In July 1941 it was even national news: the Dutch Railways opened a playroom at Amsterdam Central, with model trains, and De Tijd of 17 July reported that it had already welcomed its thousandth visitor by the Tuesday after Saturday’s opening (“na haar opening op Zaterdag j.l. reeds Dinsdag haar 1000sten bezoeker”).

Why people say speelkamer instead of kerker

To be able to say it. A kerker calls up a cell and a dungeon sounds like an advertisement; speelkamer is the only one of the three you can use at the kitchen table without the conversation stalling.

That has a practical flip side, and it is worth mentioning: searching this word turns up toy shops and children’s rooms. Anyone who wants to rent a space gets further with the English word, because that is what landlords put their space online under.

So the difference from kerker is in the tone and not in the inventory. The same spanking bench, the same cross, the same suspension points. What shifts is who is allowed to hear it: a speelkamer you can mention to a handyman or a houseguest, and a kerker not. For anyone who has one at home, that is not word play but the reason the word exists.

Where this fits on this site

If you want to experience such a room from the inside once without fitting one out yourself, that can happen during a BDSM date. That page sets out how such an evening is prepared and what we agree beforehand.

Sources

• speelkamer. Algemeen Nederlands Woordenboek, Instituut voor de Nederlandse Taal. Gives that speelkamer is an entry: common-gender noun, common noun, thing noun, plural speelkamers, diminutive speelkamertje, a compound of the verbal left part spelen and the right part kamer with no linking sound, and the note that no meaning profile is attached yet.
• Geïntegreerde Taalbank, WNT. Instituut voor de Nederlandse Taal. Gives the two subentries for speelkamer in the Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal, the one treated under KAMER and the other under SPELEN.
• Royal Library newspaper archive (Delpher). Searched via the SRU service on the DDD_artikel collection. Gives the count of 10,169 articles with the word speelkamer, and the report in De Tijd of 17 July 1941 about the Dutch Railways’ playroom at the Central Station in Amsterdam, which “na haar opening op Zaterdag j.l. reeds Dinsdag haar 1000sten bezoeker” received.

Related terms

• BDSM. The umbrella that a playroom is the room for.
• Dungeon. The same room under the scene word, with the inventory and the renting.
• Kerker. The third word for the same room, with the prison history attached to it.
• St Andrew’s cross. The piece that stands in almost every playroom.
• Play party. The evening such a room is fitted out for.