Yes/no/maybe list

What is a yes/no/maybe list?

A yes/no/maybe list (Dutch: ja-nee-misschien-lijst) is a list of sexual acts where, for each line, you pick from three answers: yes, no, or maybe. The name points to the answer scale, not the subject, and that third column is the whole point. Within the scene the same form is called a kinklist.

Why there is a maybe column

Because leaving it out does not make the answers sharper, it makes them more random.

In their chapter on questionnaire design, Jon Krosnick and Stanley Presser review what has been measured about middle options like this. The main result comes from O’Muircheartaigh, Krosnick, and Helic: adding a midpoint improved both the reliability and the validity of the answers, and modeling of the error structure showed that without that midpoint people randomly ticked one of the nearest points. So whoever cuts the maybe column gets no clearer yes and no back, only noise.

That research is about attitude scales, not about sex. The form of the question is the same, though, and the authors’ conclusion is unconditional: offering middle options is desirable.

What that third column gives you

Room to be honest without having to say yes.

• For the one filling it in, a maybe is the only place doubt can go. Without that column, doubt turns into a no, or worse, a yes.
• For the one reading along, the maybe column is the most interesting part of the sheet, because it holds what can still move.
• For the two of you together, it decides the length of the conversation. The yeses and the noes are covered in five minutes; the rest of the evening is about the rest.

A maybe with no condition attached is worth nothing. As long as it does not say what would turn the maybe into a yes, it is just a no with a friendlier face.

Why this particular name traveled the furthest

Because it contains no scene word at all.

The encyclopedia entry establishes that lists like this are common in BDSM circles and, separately from that, popular with sexologists who give them to clients. A name that mentions only the three answers travels along to the consulting room and to sex education; the word kinklist does not. Dutch has put nothing up against it: in the newspaper archive of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek the term yields one hit, and that turns out to be a chance OCR match in a 1981 theater listing.

Where this fits on this site

If you came here because you found a list like this and don’t know what to put in that middle column, that is exactly the right problem to have. The page about the BDSM date shows how the conversation goes where those maybes get taken apart.

Sources

• Question and Questionnaire Design. Jon A. Krosnick & Stanley Presser, chapter 9 in Handbook of Survey Research, second edition, Emerald Group Publishing, 263-313, 2010 (ISBN 978-1-84855-224-1; full text read). Supplies the summary of the research on middle options: that O’Muircheartaigh, Krosnick, and Helic found that adding midpoints improved the reliability and the validity of ratings, that modeling of the error structure showed that leaving out the middle option led respondents to randomly pick one of the nearest scale points, and the conclusion that offering midpoints is desirable. Also supplies the nuance that the appeal of middle options is unrelated to education level and that the evidence for the satisficing explanation is mixed.
• Yes no maybe list. Wikipedia. Used here only for the name and the spread of the tool outside the scene: that lists like this are common in BDSM circles and, separately from that, popular with sexologists who give them to clients, that they exist in paper, guided, and digital form, and that the digital forms let partners answer separately and then compare.
• Newspaper archive of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (Delpher). Queried through the SRU service, collection DDD_artikel, on 2026-08-10. Supplies the negative finding that yes no maybe appears once in Dutch newspapers, in a listing notice from De Lawei in 1981, and therefore not once in this meaning.

Related terms

A yes/no/maybe list is the general form of the kinklist; what that page says about the practice applies here too.

• Kinklist. The same list under its scene name, with a worked-out example and the code for filling it in.
• Sub list. The Dutch form that circulates, which has no maybe column at all.
• Dom list. The same questions filled in by whoever takes the lead.
• Boundary. What a maybe often turns out to be once you say the condition out loud.
• Checklist. The name that emphasizes ticking off, with the origin of the word alongside.
• Choice list. The name that emphasizes choosing, and what the length of such a list does.