Maybe that’s what others think, but I don’t agree. Lots of abusive relationships are consensual yet shameful, imo.
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I don’t think an abusive relationship counts as a kink. But if two people enjoy pretending to be in an abusive relationship, I really don’t care. The boundaries need watching, obviously, or I don’t think it’d be too long before you got “Leave us alone, she identifies as a battered spouse” but I don’t think they’re at all counter-intuitive. You more or less know abuse when you see it.
I guess we need to define “kink” then. If we just say “kinks” are “things that are fine,” then it’s not a very interesting statement.
pedophilia is not a kink.
Is this a kink?
I realize this says something about me, but I am attracted to the idea of someone intelligent but naive who I can educate and make a better person. It makes me feel like I am contributing something to the relationship because, let’s be clear, I doubt that sex with me is that awesome.
No. That’s a relationship dynamic preference.
Like so much about humans, the lines can get blurry at the edges.
I knew about Sharkboy & Lavagirl because I lived in Austin when they were being made there and everything Robert Rodriguez does gets coverage in the local press. Same reason I know about the Spy Kids franchise. But I’ve never seen any of the movies.
That’s a pretty meandering article, but helpful. Kink is very specific, then, and a lot of the sex-shaming that gets called out in the name of “no kink shaming” should actually be fine. Or I guess it could be bad for other reasons but not because it is kink shaming.
Nothing in the word kink inherently implies something harmful to others. I could see where it could be expanded to include those things in some people’s definition, hence grasping the assumed context of “don’t kink shame” is important.
But even if you remove the stuff that harms others from “kinks”, there’s still a whole other world of stuff like just being gay which has been massively shamed at times, and stuff like wearing a diaper or eating poop which is still shamed in a lot of circles.
I mean it’s a question of category; ‘relationships’ aren’t the same as ‘kinks’. So NBZ’s preferred relationship isn’t a kink in itself, though I imagine there are role-play scenarios similar to it that would.
Would you say that the relationship NBZ described is bad in and of itself, or do you just think a strong preference for it reflects poorly on him? I think that as a preference, it’s just too broad to be considered ‘a kink’.
There’s often, if not always, something faintly ridiculous about sex and sexual preferences. Tittering at something can’t really be called ‘shaming’ it, imo. And context matters, too. If we can’t laugh at a family-values televangelist being found in a motel room with a male sex worker, what’s even the point of living?
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My worry is that kinks don’t disallow this behavior. Clovis’s article gives this definition:
kink: “engaging in behaviors that generate a certain power dynamic, experiencing attraction towards acts with a certain power dynamic, and adopting an identity that conveys a certain power dynamic.”
It later adds that consent is a necessary condition (seems like this would have been useful in the original definition!!).
So we end up with kink = consensual sexual behavior that involves a power dynamic.
This rules out pedophilia because kids can’t consent.
But it doesn’t rule out abusive consensual relationships, which was my initial beef. Maybe that guy from the article continues to add to his definition as he goes on, but I didn’t read more than that article. .
There are lots of relationships with unhealthy power dynamics. Boss employee, teacher student etc, They can even be consensual.
Think of kink as not about the relationship but about sex itself. Another way to think about it is people with kinks NEED the kink to experience enjoyable sex. It’s hardwired.
When someone says don’t kink shame, it always assumes consent. What they are saying is don’t judge others for their sex lives because, no matter how odd they seem to you, they don’t effect others and ultimately bring joy.
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I never understood it this narrowly. Instead I thought of it as a word that is synonymous with fetish but does not carry the negative connotations.
This is what I want the definition of kink to include, but it doesn’t (or at least your linked article doesn’t define it this way).
Oh man, that article:
“Kink is often so fundamental to our sexual identities that it has to be, at least in some cases, an orientation … Our orientation is so deeply rooted that many of us feel we were born with it. For us, kink mixes language, ritual, trust, power, pleasure, pain, and identity in a way that can’t be captured by a stereotype … If you accept this definition, then my kink is my sexual orientation. It’s not my choice. It’s not my illness. And it’s definitely not my hobby.”
I change my vote, shame the fuck out of specifically that asshole.
Yeah it seems like it’s being used as a term of art there rather than as a broad description. I don’t see the power dynamic created by fishnet stockings and would have assumed anyone would agree that liking them is ‘a kink’.
The mother of all Karens:
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That seems like a misrepresentation of what I said.
I don’t believe in ethical hedonism.