Erotic Tarot
The role of tarot in roleplay
Reminder: I’m hosting a 6-day tarot retreat in Italy (June 7-12, 2026). You’ll learn to read intuitively by exploring the elements of tarot through embodiment and time spent in the Tuscan countryside. Learn more here or apply to join.
Hello my post v-day bunnies 💓 🐇
This month’s tarot missive is a bit steamy. If that’s not your vibe, feel free to x out of the newsletter. If it IS your vibe, keep reading for some triple X tarot.
A role by any other name…
We all play roles in life: parent, child, sibling, lover, friend, neighbor, coworker, activist.
Roles are constructs that provide relational context, connecting us to ourselves and others.
Roles hold our multitudes, allowing us to flex and flow between our many parts.
Roles invite experimentation, bridging the gap between the protective ego of today and the self of tomorrow.
Roles can be be runways that deliver us from fear, shame, sadness, and self-doubt into bravery, pride, happiness, and self-belief.
A role can be many things:
Alter ego
Stage name
Shadow self
Pen name
Persona
Avatar
David Bowie had Ziggy Stardust.
Beyoncé has Sasha Fierce.
Diana of Themyscira had Wonder Woman.
RuPaul Andres Charles has RuPaul.
Gloria Jean Watkins had bell hooks.
Dr. Jekyll had Mr. Hyde.
So what do roles have to do with tarot?
The cards shed light on the roles we play in life so we can transmute or embody them more fully in the real world. Today we’re donning our actor’s chapeaus and using tarot to explore the use of roles in sexual roleplay (though LARPers need not be discouraged).
Accessing the roles we want to play in our sexual dynamics can be difficult. We live in a world where desire and erotic expression are profoundly shaped by societal expectations. While some societal realms can be generative, others—purity culture, heteronormativity, gender roles, race politics, and even the romance myth—can place us in boxes before we’ve explored our embodied experience of pleasure.
When the role we want to play doesn’t vibe with the role we’ve been societally assigned, it can be easier to send that self into hiding, to shroud our desire in darkness.
As an occult practice, tarot gives us permission to explore unseen parts of self. It can help us answer the question: what role would I step into if I wasn’t afraid to be witnessed?
Role reversal
So what is roleplay? It is the acting out of a particular character or persona.
But in the bedroom, roleplaying is not about becoming someone different. It’s about embodying parts of ourselves we don’t get to play with in the light.
The BDSM community is built on this principle—personifying parts to connect more deeply with the whole. Like tarot, BDSM contains archetypal frameworks from which roles are developed—top/bottom, dominant/submissive, sadist/masochist, etc. Through informed consent “play partners” step into these roles and build “scenes” to experience sexual fantasies, repair trauma, and unravel staid ideas of how pleasure should look and feel.
Tarot, with its rich scaffolding of characters, imagery, and symbolism, can also help us create new worlds to play with and process our kinky and knotted parts.
Consider how tarot archetypes could be leveraged to construct roles that—
Support your most disempowered self
Bring your shyness out from hiding
Let your “doer” finally be
Free your worry wart from fear
Give your attention seeker the spotlight
Hand your control freak the reigns
Unleash your inner animal to play
Who would you be? How would it feel? In what ways would you transform?
The role you were born to play
Ready to pull back the curtain on your sexual self?
On March 4th from 6pm -7pm EST I’m hosting:
Erotic Tarot—Roleplaying with the Cards
In this workshop, we’ll explore how tarot archetypes can be used to craft erotic personas — energies you can consciously embody in the bedroom and beyond.
You’ll walk away knowing:
How to use tarot as a lens to explore and express aspects of your sexual identity
13 tarot archetypes reframed through sensuality, flirtation, carnality, and kink
How to “tar-hoe-ify” any card in the deck 😜
Which of the 13 archetypes is most alive in this season of your life
Plus you’ll receive:
3 sexy tarot spreads for solo or partnered play
A curated list of sex-positive and gender-expansive tarot decks
Maybe your inner Empress is longing to be nourished.
Maybe your inner Devil wants to play with fire.
Maybe your inner Emperor be ready to take control.
Whatever archetype is stirring — this workshop gives you language, structure, and permission to play.
❤️🔥Join me for a sliding scale $10-$25❤️🔥
See you there, tar-hoes :)
Disrobing your role tarot spread
For a taste of what’s in store, this tarot spread can be used for your personas in the sheets and out in the streets. Slip into (or out of!) something comfortable and have a go.
What role have I kept hidden?
How can I de-robe from self protection?
What will it feel like to let myself be seen?
What will I get to explore as a result of this shedding?
How will I expand as I embody this role?
On a roll
I’m on such a roll about roles that we’ve turned into (dinner) rolls. Here are more ways to unravel the roles you no longer want to play so you can embody the ones you were made for.
How do we step into new roles? By breaking old cycles! March 18th 1-2pm EST I’m hosting a free workshop in partnership with CreativeMorning’s FieldTrips: Working with The Wheel of Fortune: Tarot for Breaking Cycles and Claiming New Beginnings. 💫 SIGN UP 💫
Love in a Fucked Up World: How to Build Relationships, Hook Up, and Raise Hell, Together by Dean Spade. His theories about the romance myth are closely tied to Carlos Yela’s work in La otra cara del amor—mitos, paradojas y problemas, and bring a fresh perspective on the roles we play in love.
XO
ALTARU TAROT