Kinks Can Be Contagious

People often talk about kinks like they’re set in stone, but they’re really not. It’s actually not unusual to acquire a kink from a partner (play or otherwise), almost as if they’re contagious 🙂

First, the obligatory disclaimer:

Absolutely none of this should be considered in any way licence to pressure anyone to try something they’re not comfortable with. If a kinky activity turns you off, scares you, or just doesn’t feel right, you have absolutely no obligation to ‘be a good sport’ and try it. I’m strictly talking about things that you’ve never really thought about, or are puzzled by, or tried once with someone else and are willing to try again even though they didn’t do much for you the first time.

There are three main ways that ‘catching’ a kink from someone else tends to work.

1. If someone you like really enjoys something, and you like seeing them happy, doing the things that they like so much can set up an association in your mind between that thing and happy fun times. I think this is especially powerful with sexual kinks, but I’m sure it can happen with non-sexual things too.

2. It’s a particularly intimate form of explaining what it is that a particular kink does for a person. If a kink doesn’t make sense to you, of course you’re not going to be interested in it. But if someone can explain it to you and you can see how they react to it, a kink can suddenly become much more interesting.

3. Making a connection between the new kink and something that already does it for you. This is pretty closely related to seeing what it does for somebody else, but slightly different. Some people kink on specific things just for themselves, but sometimes people also kink on things because of what they represent. Rope bondage, for example, can be about the aesthetics of it and it can also be about having someone completely at your mercy. If it’s about the latter, then handcuffs or mummification might also do it for you.

I never used to have any idea why people were interested in chastity devices. Most of them are still just weird looking to me, and not being super into delayed gratification I don’t tend to like strange contraptions getting between me and what I want. What changed for me was a former play partner who really, really liked chastity play and finding a device that didn’t totally turn me off. For me, metal = sexy while plastic = ‘meh’.

Seeing somebody enjoy chastity play made the whole thing make a lot more sense to me. Anything that turns someone on so intensely gives me power, and what’s not fun about power? Plus, it ties into one of my core kinks, helplessness. If someone desperately wants something and can’t have it, I am all over that.

Basically, if you don’t know if you’ll like something, give it a shot, you might end up loving it.

13 thoughts on “Kinks Can Be Contagious

  1. Chastity devices are a good example. They’re a major fetish of mine (whether on men or women), but didn’t do anything for Jalan. Until she saw what she could to me using one . . . It’s spread the other direction, too. She’s more likely to order denial than to use the physical device, and I’ve “acquired” that kink.

    It’s about finding what pushes your and your partner’s buttons.

  2. I had a very similar thing happen to me a few months back. I was exploring the potential with a woman who was very into chastity and cuckolding, neither of which I kink on at all. As we moved forward, I found myself excited and rapidly reading/researching all I could about both kinks, for reasons 1 & 2. She obviously had a huge interest in them and was able to successful explain to me *why* she was into them.

    Now, with the relationship not working out, however, they have both gone back onto the ‘not really my thing’ shelf and will likely stay there until (if and when) I find myself in a relationship with someone how kinks on them.

  3. It can work the other way too.

    Kinks that seemed to be all-important can be abandoned because they do nothing for the Other, or actually turn them off. For example, what happens if you have a latex fetish and it turns out that the dom of your dreams has a latex allergy?

    The important thing to realise is that most kinks and fetishes are actually just signifiers or at best optional extras on the road to what you allude to in your conclusion:

    ” Anything that turns someone on so intensely gives me power, and what’s not fun about power?”

    Exactly. The bottom line is transcendence. Doms get there through the eroticisation of power. Subs get there through the eroticisation of helplessness.

    • Kinks that seemed to be all-important can be abandoned because they do nothing for the Other, or actually turn them off.

      I never thought of that, but it makes sense. Given the the choice of fantasizing about one thing or actually doing another thing that my partner really likes, I know which way I’d go. I imagine I’d still fantasize now and then, but I’d put a lot more energy into the thing I can share with my partner.

  4. Those of us with rarer, edgier, more involved, or harder to learn kinks or fetishes eventually learn that we have to become “missionaries” for them, in a manner of speaking, if we’re ever going to find play partners.

      • It’s all a matter of perspective. It can also be all kinds of fun introducing people you like to something awesome and new and seeing them light up if and when it finally “clicks” for them why this particular thing that they may have never thought of before is hot and exciting.

  5. So very true, chastity doesn’t appeal to me, but if it did to my partner, that would be a whole other story. I love being turned on, and turning on another, and any hard limits that I thought I had I am now wise enough to admit they are all gray areas.

  6. For me, it’s also ‘transmittable’ from good erotic literature. An image or a film clip of an act might not impact me in the least, but a well written story on the same subject can often open the door to exploration.

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