Kinkster

What is a kinkster?

A kinkster is someone who counts themselves as part of the kink or BDSM world and uses that word as a name for themselves. Kinkster says nothing about role or preference: it is about belonging, not about what you do. The word is self-chosen and meant as a neutral alternative to clinical terms like paraphile.

How someone becomes a kinkster

Rarely all at once, and almost never at the moment you would think.

The road there has been studied. Tanya Bezreh, Thomas Weinberg, and Timothy Edgar interviewed twenty adults with a BDSM interest about telling and staying silent, for the American Journal of Sexuality Education. Most said their interest began before they were fifteen, and that in the absence of reassuring information a period of fear and shame followed. What was missing was not experience but a word.

That word usually comes much later and from outside: from a book, a forum, a conversation where someone uses it about themselves in passing. A typical course: someone has been doing something for years with no name for it, reads along on a private forum, recognizes herself in three sentences from a stranger, and a month later uses the word about herself for the first time. That last step counts.

Why the label is something other than the act

Because it turns doing something into being something.

That phrasing comes from the same research. Bezreh and colleagues cite Weinberg’s earlier work, in which calling a core part of yourself homosexual consists of turning “doing” into “being”: your behavior and your feelings come to stand for who you are at the core. They note honestly that it is unknown whether that process runs the same way for kink.

That conversion has consequences. As long as it is behavior, it can be added or dropped. Once it has a name, it becomes something you talk about and something others belong to. In the research, participants often saw BDSM as an adult as essential to their sexuality, which made telling about it a fixed part of dating. Anyone who keeps it to an act does not have to have that conversation.

Why people call themselves kinkster

To belong, and because it saves explaining.

The pull of the word is not in the content but in the company attached to it. Benjamin Graham and colleagues asked 48 participants across seven workshops, in The Journal of Sex Research, what the BDSM community does in their lives. It produced 133 different answers, grouped into fifteen categories, among them acceptance, sexual expression, friendship, safety, and sharing knowledge.

• For the person who takes on the word, the explaining falls away. In a conversation you no longer have to start from zero, and that saves more than people expect beforehand.
• For a partner, the label makes clear that there is a world behind it with its own agreements, instead of one loose wish.
• For someone just starting out, the community is above all a place to learn: in Graham’s research, participants named safety and knowledge-sharing in the same breath as friendship.

Alongside the positives, participants in that same research also named downsides, among them internal conflict. And the label costs something outside your own circle: Ashley Hansen-Brown and Sabrina Jefferson put judgments to 257 people from the general population and found that BDSM practitioners are stigmatized more strongly than gay and lesbian people, and both groups more strongly than people in an ordinary relationship. So anyone who calls themselves kinkster is also choosing that pushback.

How people enter the scene

Almost always through a table in a café, and not through a club.

The usual first step is a munch: an informal gathering in a restaurant, bar, or coffee shop, where no play happens and where ordinary clothing is the norm. The name comes from Meeting Over Lunch. You come and go when you like, and the aim is to meet people, nothing more.

The second route is digital. On FetLife people put their preferences as a list on a profile, which makes finding others easier and the conversation about it shorter. Bezreh and colleagues saw that some participants date exclusively within kink circles, precisely because it is clear up front then. A fetish party usually comes only after that, and many people never go. A large group keeps everything at home: they do kink and do not call themselves a kinkster.

Misconceptions about kinksters

“Kinkster means you are dominant.” No. The word says nothing about role or direction. A dominant, a bottom, and someone who wants to try everything are all three kinksters.

“You are either a kinkster or vanilla.” There is a broad area in between. Many people do something kinky now and then and never say the word, and that does not make their preference any less real. The label is self-chosen, not assigned.

“Kinkster is the same as kinky.” Kinky is an adjective that characterizes something or someone, often from someone else. Kinkster is a noun you use about yourself. The difference is in who says it.

What I see of it myself

I am Victor, a gigolo, twenty-five years in BDSM and trained as a psychotherapist. I hear the word kinkster more often from people who have just found out than from people who have been doing it for twenty years.

The order is off. People think you first have to have experienced enough before you are allowed to use the word. In practice it goes the other way: the word comes first, the experience after. The women who write to me have often read for years and done nothing yet.

And then the question underneath it that rarely comes out loud: do I actually belong here. Almost everyone who asks that has belonged for ages and is waiting for someone to confirm it.

What you can do yourself

• Use the word about yourself once before you decide whether it fits. It feels different in your mouth than in your head.
• Go to a munch before you go to a party. At a table with coffee you can walk away; at a play party you are in your clothes right away.
• Put your limits on paper before you make a profile. A kinklist is filled in faster than explained during a conversation.
• Weigh who gets to know and why. Bezreh and colleagues’ research shows that participants worried about their work if their interest became known.
• Do not take on the label to belong. Anyone who calls themselves kinkster with nothing behind it finds that out on their own in company.

More reading on kinksters

On this site kink explains the concept itself, and kinky is about when something gets that name. My own story is in how I ended up in BDSM.

Beyond this site, the interview research by Bezreh, Weinberg, and Edgar is free to read and the most honest about what telling costs and brings. Anyone who wants to know what a community concretely does for the people in it will find that at Graham and colleagues.

Where this fits on this site

Becoming a kinkster is not a service I sell, and entering the scene is not required. If you want to experience what you have been reading about for years without a group or a label attached, the page about the BDSM date explains how such an evening is arranged.

Sources

• BDSM Disclosure and Stigma Management: Identifying Opportunities for Sex Education. Tanya Bezreh, Thomas S. Weinberg & Timothy Edgar, American Journal of Sexuality Education 7(1), 37–61, 2012 (DOI 10.1080/15546128.2012.650984). Semi-structured interviews with twenty adults with a BDSM interest. Provides that most participants saw their interest arise before the age of fifteen, with a period of fear and shame in the absence of reassuring information; that they often considered BDSM as an adult essential to their sexuality, which made telling a fixed part of dating; that some date exclusively within BDSM circles; that some feared disclosure would harm their job; and the idea, drawn from Weinberg (1978), that calling yourself this amounts to turning “doing” into “being,” with the note that it is unknown whether that process runs the same way for BDSM.
• Member Perspectives on the Role of BDSM Communities. Benjamin C. Graham, Sarah E. Butler, Ryan McGraw, Shelby Marie Cannes & Joanna Smith, The Journal of Sex Research 53(8), 895–909, 2016 (DOI 10.1080/00224499.2015.1067758). Seven workshops with 48 participants in total who count themselves part of the community. Provides the 133 different terms they named for what the community does in their lives, the fifteen categories those are grouped into, among them acceptance, sexual expression, friendship, safety, and sharing knowledge, and the observation that alongside mostly positive points participants also named downsides, such as internal conflict.
• Perceptions of and stigma toward BDSM practitioners. Ashley A. Hansen-Brown & Sabrina E. Jefferson, Current Psychology 42(23), 19721–19729, 2022 (DOI 10.1007/s12144-022-03112-z). Study among 257 people from the general population. Provides that BDSM practitioners are stigmatized more strongly than gay and lesbian people, and that both groups are stigmatized more strongly than a low-stigma comparison group, namely people in a romantic relationship.
• Munch (BDSM). Wikipedia. Provides the description of a munch as an informal gathering in a restaurant, bar, or coffee shop where most gatherings are “vanilla” and so no play happens, the derivation of the name from Meeting Over Lunch, the come-and-go within the stated hours, the aim of meeting people, and that fetish clothing, unlike at a play party, is discouraged there. This entry carries maintenance banners asking for more sources and flagging original research; it is used here only for the description of the gathering itself, not for its origin history.
• kinkster. Wiktionary. The only lexicographic entry that exists for this word; Green’s Dictionary of Slang has none. Provides the word formation from kink plus the suffix -ster, the “informal” label, the description “one who enjoys kinky erotic activities,” and vanilla as the opposite.

Related terms

• Kink. The concept a kinkster counts themselves part of, with the figures on how common it is.
• Kinky. The adjective someone else says about you, next to which kinkster is the self-chosen noun.
• BDSM. The biggest part of kink, and where most kinksters began.
• FetLife. The network where kinksters write down their preferences as a profile.
• Fetish party. The party that comes after the munch, for anyone who wants to go that far.
• Kinklist. The list where you put what you do and do not want, handy before you fill in a profile.
• Experimentalist. The kinkster who wants to try everything once rather than choose one thing.
• Lifestyler. The other self-chosen label, which is not about belonging but about how much of your life is built around it.
• Mentor. The person who shows you the way before you dare call yourself one.
• Munch. The gathering that is the first step for most people, with the etiquette included.
• Scene. The world a kinkster counts themselves part of, and the word that also means a single session.
• Scene name. The name under which that happens.
• Vanilla. The label on the other side, which almost no one sticks on themselves.