How do you talk about kink and fetish with a partner?
Let’s take a closer look at polyamory and kink, and healthy ways to reveal and discuss your own kinks and fetishes.
The Connection between Polyamory and Kink
You might assume that polyamorous lovers are by nature open minded, or even kinky individuals. And it might be true that people in poly lifestyles are more adventurous or less bound by convention and tradition than others.
But not all polyamorous people are kinky. And not all polyamorous people appreciate the idea that polyamory is kinky in and of itself. After all, non-monogamy is totally natural. Wearing vampire fangs or asking for mummification restraint are not, by definition, “natural.”
Now, you’re not likely to raise the eyebrows of a woman who has numerous boyfriends and a full-time wife by telling her that you love her feet in high heels or chubby bisexual action. But what if your thing is hardcore humiliation or sissification? What if you are into spanking, or want her to urinate on you?
Sharing your kink can be liberating, exciting, and bonding. It can be a rewarding form of intimacy in and of itself, to communicate your deepest fantasies with each other.
It can also be disastrous. One man’s fetish is another person’s laughingstock. What if she is disgusted?
Is it always necessary to share your kinks? What if she’s not into them? What if she doesn’t accept you? What if her fantasies and fetishes are miles away from your turn-ons, and you’re the one who can’t handle the big reveal?
6 Tips for Talking about Your Kinks
1. Only You Can Decide When and If
Lots of people are “out” as kinky not just to new lovers or long-term ones, but to their parents, neighbors, and anyone they happen to meet on the bus. When you see someone at the shopping mall on all fours, on a leash, with a latex-clad dominatrix, everyone looking for sock sales or eco-friendly detergent knows their business. Maybe you have a friend who wears his leather wherever he goes. Maybe your sister has a double woman symbol tattooed on her bicep.
Others prefer to share their sexual proclivities on a need-to-know basis. Their penchant for jacking off over trashed sneakers and cute toes isn’t really newsworthy until sussing out sexual compatibility.
You might want to share with everyone you date, or only serious lovers.
There are many variables. Just because you have a fetish doesn’t mean you’ll enjoy it with every lover. Some people are wired that way and others are flexible.
Some people never tell another living soul. Some tell everyone. It’s a good idea to weigh in every once in a while on this issue to see where you’re at. Maybe you told everyone you’re a submissive or love wearing diapers when you were young and cocky, but now you are more settled. Or maybe you’ve been too secretive, and it’s not fulfilling to live so closed. You decide.
Still looking to meet kinky partners?
Read: 4 Places to Meet Kinky Women
2. Respect the Person You Are Divulging To
Don’t unload your fetishes on an unsuspecting date for shock value, or coerce them into something they don’t want, or be pushy or act superior if your taste doesn’t float their boat. Don’t tell her she’s narrow minded if she’s not into adult babies or confinement fantasies. Don’t share just to titillate yourself but because you respect her and she needs to know, and because you respect yourself and your desires.
How your date or partner responds is out of your hands, but if you are sharing salacious information with an ulterior motive, you’ll get your just desserts.
Read: How to Introduce Your Fetish to a Lover
3. Give Your Lover Space to Process
Expect your date or lover to respect you and your sexuality. If she’s controlling and shaming you after you simply confess to a thing for redheads or lacy brassieres, she’s got serious toxicity problems.
But remember that people who don’t share your kink might need some time to come to terms with it, learn more, get used to it—all before the possibility of participation. Even the most GGG lovers had to start somewhere. I remember being quite disturbed when a guy asked me to cane his backside while he jerked off. Now this very scene holds a great deal of excitement for me.
4. Listen to Her Fantasies and Desires
It’s not all about you. Yes, your desires are important and you want your partner to participate in them, ideally. But if you are lovers, you will also have to get intimate with her needs and flavors. You can set the scene for successful kink swapping, hot lovemaking, and tears-free tell-alls if you just listen and pay attention and prioritize her feelings and needs.
If you dismiss her kinks or put her down for not being kinky enough, she’s not going to feel all that adventurous with you.
Read: Polyamorous with Kinky AND Vanilla Partners
5. Give Her Tools and Ideas for How to Play
If you just drop it in her lap that you want to lock her up and whip her black and blue, she’s not going to call you back, EVEN if that idea excites her!
Start slowly and ease into things. Give her specific requests and directions so that she can visualize what’s involved—the layers of it, how to do it. Only then can she decide if she’s not only consenting, but how interested she is. By wading in to a kink or fetish, we see if it turns us on or if we can learn to do it well to please our partner.
Read: 10 Ideas for Kinky Quickies
6. Be the Man She Can Trust
Polyamory is so much about honesty and ethics that we don’t even call it “ethical polyamory.” The “ethical” is implied when we use “polyamory.” Of course there are exceptions, and there are errors and human weakness, but ethical is important in both polyamory and kink.
We aren’t players, we aren’t dishonest, we aren’t pushy. The same is expected in the “kink community,” but not everyone kinky is in the kink community and not all people with kinks are any different from those without.
So if you want her to feel comfortable with your darkest desires, show her that you are a man of your word, that you respect her boundaries, and that you are gentle, reliable, and prioritize her needs. A woman to whom you pay attention and respect will often be happy to reciprocate in ways that give you pleasure.
Read: Kinky Sex: 10 Surprising Benefits
How do polyamory and kink mix in your life?
Tell us what you think