This chapter is concerned not with the morality of STAs but with their psychological impact. How do we cope, psychologically, with the moral freedoms afforded by acts of play, particularly those involving STAs? When we play at X (to borrow Howe's phrase), where X involves some form of STA, how do we manage the reality of this hypothetical? Put another way: how do I cope with the fact that I am enacting this taboo, be it assault, murder, torture, rape or paedophilia? In addition, how do we manage the transition across spaces with potentially different, perhaps incommensurate, moral freedoms; in other words, with the fact that we are able to move in and out of realms in which what is permitted to be done and, importantly, what I do can be radically different?

In playing at being X, Howe holds the intuitive view that we do not become X, necessarily; however, there is also a sense in which the possibility of becoming X is not negated by the fact that what one does, initially at least, is merely play at being X. In not negating this possibility, one is left to consider who might be more vulnerable to becoming X, through the act of play, where becoming X involves being the sort of person who would enjoy the activities represented by STAs: namely, POTAs.