The Kink-sy Scale
Why do people spank, flog, restrain, or erotically dominate each other? Is it nature, or nurture? Are some people born kinky, do some achieve kinkiness, and do others have kink thrust into them? The quick answer is, “who knows,” often followed up by a “who cares, as long as you are having fun?” The longer answer? Well, let’s take a look at it.
Not every person who does kinky stuff shops at Northbound Leather and Mister S, or has a dungeon in their basement; actually, most of them still do normal things like shop at the Gap, drive mini-vans, and play golf every other Saturday. Obviously, trying to get people to respond to surveys about their kinkiness is a challenge, but various studies over the past fifteen years show that anywhere between 5% and 20% of Americans have flown their freak flag, if only in their dreams. We suspect that, if you put everyone’s interest scale on a line—like the Kinsey scale—there are a ton of people that like a touch of the naughty in their sex lives, and very few people who either only have kinky sex, or not a bit of kink in the bedroom. So if we think of kink as a scale, there’s a lot of room between “I swear, I’ve never even thought of tying down my partner!” and “I have to flog a zombie redneck while wearing chaps in order to get off”.
The internet, venerable source of everything naughty, has expanded the discussion about kink—and possibly led to more people giving some thought to trying BDSM play in their own homes. From the old newsgroups of the eighties, to the chat rooms and medieval-flavored websites of the 90’s, and on through the emergence of pragmatic kinky sex information (and sex and kink bloggers) in the new millennium, we’ve been introduced to more and more images and ideas about kinky behavior in the last thirty years than our parents got in their entire lifetimes (which is good, because nobody wants to imagine their mother in a leather teddy smacking around their father with a riding crop). The upside? There’s a ton of info out there. The downside? Much of the information is inaccurate—and some of it is unrealistic, as well, giving readers the impression that to be kinky is to have a full time power exchange relationship, a dungeon in your basement, and a closet full of thousands of dollars worth of leather and metal implements of mass desecration. Trust us when we tell you—that’s totally not the case.
Not every person who does kinky stuff shops at Northbound Leather and Mister S, or has a dungeon in their basement; actually, most of them still do normal things like shop at the Gap, drive mini-vans, and play golf every other Saturday. Obviously, trying to get people to respond to surveys about their kinkiness is a challenge, but various studies over the past fifteen years show that anywhere between 5% and 20% of Americans have flown their freak flag, if only in their dreams. We suspect that, if you put everyone’s interest scale on a line—like the Kinsey scale—there are a ton of people that like a touch of the naughty in their sex lives, and very few people who either only have kinky sex, or not a bit of kink in the bedroom. So if we think of kink as a scale, there’s a lot of room between “I swear, I’ve never even thought of tying down my partner!” and “I have to flog a zombie redneck while wearing chaps in order to get off”.
The internet, venerable source of everything naughty, has expanded the discussion about kink—and possibly led to more people giving some thought to trying BDSM play in their own homes. From the old newsgroups of the eighties, to the chat rooms and medieval-flavored websites of the 90’s, and on through the emergence of pragmatic kinky sex information (and sex and kink bloggers) in the new millennium, we’ve been introduced to more and more images and ideas about kinky behavior in the last thirty years than our parents got in their entire lifetimes (which is good, because nobody wants to imagine their mother in a leather teddy smacking around their father with a riding crop). The upside? There’s a ton of info out there. The downside? Much of the information is inaccurate—and some of it is unrealistic, as well, giving readers the impression that to be kinky is to have a full time power exchange relationship, a dungeon in your basement, and a closet full of thousands of dollars worth of leather and metal implements of mass desecration. Trust us when we tell you—that’s totally not the case.
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