Kink & BDSM

Chronic Sex > Resources > Kink & BDSM

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The Basics

a person stands ready to be flogged while another holds out the flogger

What does BDSM stand for?

Bondage and Discipline, Dominance and Submission, Sadism and Masochism.

  • Bondage: a form of restricting someone’s movement via tools (e.g., rope)
  • Discipline: a series of agreed-upon rules, punishments, and protocols; usually utilized in D/s situations, but not always
  • Dominance: the act of dominating a partner, whether sexually or not; the control the dominant person has can be occasional, regular, during sex only, without sex, or even up to 24/7
  • Submission: the act of submitting to a partner, whether sexually or not; the submission this person gives can be occasional, regular, during sex only, without sex, or even up to 24/7
  • Sadism: pleasure from inflicting pain
  • Masochism: pleasure from receiving pain
    • “Receiving pain isn’t as much about D/s for me as it is about sharpening sensation so I can get out of my head and be present in the moment,” wrote one gay woman. “It feels like turning off my brain, and grounding myself, via my body.” (link)
  • Sadomasochism: those who enjoy giving and receiving pain (link)

Please note: The majority of books links shared are Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn commissions from qualifying purchases made through links in this post at no additional cost to you.

Some You May Know

Bondage

General

Specific

  • Merinthophilia: being turned on by tying someone up or being tied up
  • Mummification: one participant is wrapped in a material like plastic wrap or duct tape, either partially or fully
  • Suspension: bondage that also involves being hung from the ceiling or another object by bondage
  • Vincilagnia: aroused by bondage, whether seeing it, being tied, or tying

Breeding and Other Cum-Centric Kinks

  • Impregnation fetish: aroused by the thought of pregnancy, enjoying unprotected sex due to risk
  • Maiesiophilia: sexual interest in a pregnant person or someone who looks pregnant
  • Creampie: love of cumming inside of your partner or receiving cum inside from your partner
  • Cuckolding: usually focused on cishet couples where the man enjoys watching his partner be fucked by another man; sometimes may include eating the cum out of her vagina or fucking her using the other man’s cum as lube
  • Cumslut: someone who loves cum; they might like to be cum on, filled with cum, or use it in other ways

Communication

Dirty Talk: using explicit words to talk about sexual activity

Gag: putting a device in or over someone’s mouth to stop them speaking; can be cloth or a ball gag

Control

Orgasm Control: taking control over when, how, and even if someone will have an orgasm

Femdom: sometimes known as a dominatrix, a woman who is in the top or dominating position

Pain

Faceslapping: being turned on by being slapped or slapping someone else in the face

Impact Play

General

Flogging: hitting someone with an instrument such as a whip or flogger; also known as flagellation but not commonly

SM and Impact Play

Caning: hitting someone with a cane, rod, or switch

Spanking: hitting a bum with a hand or other instruments

Role Play

Sensation Play

Sensation Play is a way of stimulating the body senses to heighten gratification; tools that might be used include feathers, blindfolds, ice, oils, etc.

  • Temperature play: playing with items of various temperatures such as ice (ice play)
  • Sensory Deprivation: removing body senses (e.g., using a blindfold)

Wax Play: a type of sensation play involving using hot wax.

Watching

Worship

Others

  • Fisting: penetrating an ass or vagina with a hand
  • Double Penetration: the act of someone with a vagina being penetrated anally and vaginally at the same time by any mix of partners and/or toys
    • Double Vaginal Penetration (DVP): inserting two penises and/or objects into the vagina

Others You May (or may not) Know

Age Play

Age play is "a form of roleplay and/or power exchange between consenting adults, in which one or both participants play as an age different than their biological age. AgePlay can be sexual or non-sexual. AgePlay usually involves an individual pretending to be younger than they are, though that is not always the case." (link)

Age play does NOT involve harming minors in any way.

Bodies & What Come Out Of Them

Bodies
  • Acomoclitic: attraction to hairless genitalia
  • Odaxelagnia: turned on by biting or being bitten
  • Partialism: an obsession for a specific part of the body
  • Pygophilia: attraction to bums; can involve stroking, licking, or worshipping
  • Quirofilia: a fetish for hands
  • Stigmatophilia: aroused by tattoos or piercings
  • Trichophilia: obsession with human hair
Fluids, etc.
  • Hematolagnia: arousal from blood
    • Menophilia: menstrual blood
  • Hygrophilia: getting turned on by bodily fluids
  • Olfactophilia: arousal by smells and odors emanating from the body
  • Scatophilia (coprophilia): arousal to feces or poop
  • Watersports (urophilia): piss play, such as golden showers

Clothing & Shoes
  • Altocalciphilia: turn on by high heels
  • Bootblacking: polishing and caring for someone's leather boots or shoes

  • Crossdressing: people who get excited when they or their partner wear clothes typical of the ‘opposite sex’
  • Latex or rubber fetish: gratification from PVC, latex, rubber, etc.
  • Retifism: attraction to shoes or other footwear
  • Thesauromania: obsession with women’s clothing, especially underwear

Edge Play

Acts that are considered more dangerous

  • Breath Play: limiting someone’s ability to breathe; also known as Erotic Asphyxiation
    • Choking: restricting breath by applying pressure to the throat, either using hands or another implement such as a scarf; doing so safely requires focusing not on crushing the windpipe but on restricting the blood flow to the brain via pressure specifically on the carotid arteries
  • Fire play: becoming aroused by fire; can include cupping, burning alcohol off the skin, or more

  • Knife Play: enjoying having knives nearby, having knives run over skin, being threatened with knives (consensually), or being cut

  • Needle Play: scratching or piercing with needles brings on arousal

Fear

  • Hybristophilia: attraction to someone who has committed a horrible crime (looking at you Bundy Babes)
  • Pecattiphilia: arousal from doing something considered sinful by your religion
  • Phobophilia: arousal from fear

Humiliation and Degradation Play

belittling, humiliating, and dirty talk aimed at lowering self-esteem; can also include physical degradation such as pulling someone around

Pain

Pet or Animal Play

Primal Play

Primal Play: a type of play where the dominant person is like a hunter and the sub like their prey; generally involves tapping into your basic primal and animalistic instincts, which can mean forgoing some of the more safety-focused ideas within greater BDSM; often leads to scratches, bruises, bites, etc.

Sensory

  • Amaurophilia: enjoying not being able to see during sexual activity
  • Frotting: rubbing penises or a penis and a clitoris together
  • Knismolagnia: turned on by being tickled
  • Spectrophilia: sexual attraction/relationships/encounters to or with ghosts
  • Tripsolagnophilia: arousal from a massage

Tools

  • Electrostimulation: applying electrical activity, especially to sensitive or erogenous zones
  • Feederism: feeding yourself or another person with the intention of weight gain; can include forced feeding, stuffing
  • Food play: any sexual practice involving food

    • Splooshing or wet and messy (WAM): arousal over wet, slimy, and/or sticky substances on the naked body - either as the person experiencing or viewing
  • Sounding: men enjoy inserting medical glass or metal tubes into the opening end of their penis to intensify sexual pleasure
  • Tentacles: yes, like hentai
  • Yeastiality: baked food risen with yeast such as bread

Used

  • Consensual nonconsent: a mutual agreement where one partner is able to act as if the other has waived all consent; the person in the bottom or sub role can be forced to comply; can include play that is adjacent to sexual assault

  • Face fucking: similar to oral sex, but the person receiving moves versus the giver moving their head

    • Cunnilingus: oral sex on a vagina
    • Fellatio: oral sex on a penis
  • Facesitting: one person sits on another’s face

    • Queening: when a woman sits on her partner’s face for pleasure

Watching, Hearing, or Sharing

  • Agoraphilia: outside sex
  • Agrexophilia: arousal by having other people know your sexual activity

    • Vicarphilia: sexual arousal from hearing about someone’s sexual exploits
  • Group Sex: sexual activity with more than two participants

    • Polyiterophilia: a preference for group sex
    • Triolism: arousal and preference for threesomes
  • Katoptronophilia: arousal from doing a sexual activity in front of a mirror
  • Mixophilia: arousal from (consensually) watching yourself and/or others engage in sexual acts

Others

  • Acrophilia: aroused by heights
  • Agalmatophilia: attraction to dolls
  • Aquaphilia: water, underwater
  • Robotism: attraction to robots, including the idea of fucking a robot
  • Trauma play: get sexually aroused recalling past trauma; can be very healing
  • Zoophilia: arousal over non-human animals; note that this does not involve action, or it would be bestiality

Additional kinks and fetishes can be found here.

Informed consent is vital to engaging in BDSM. This is not an optional topic. In fact, BDSM is more grounded in consent, understanding nuances around consent, and power dynamic sharing than most other forms of intimacy.

Consent

Ways to talk about consent

Before Engaging in Play

Negotiation
Limits

A soft limit is an activity that you might not enthusiastically choose to participate in but may be up to try further down the line or with the right partner, etc.

A hard limit is an activity that is absolutely non-negotiable and will not happen consensually.

Pain
Safety
Safewords

A safeword is a word, a phrase, or physical movement that signals to the person you’re playing with that you are not okay. You can also use safewords or codewords to state where you’re at during check-ins (e.g., still green). The most common form of safeword is the traffic light.

Aftercare

Aftercare is the period of time post-scene where you can connect with your partner and may need assistance, such as treating wounds.

The following articles are on Fetlife, meaning you would need a Fetlife account to read them.

Here a quick definition before we dive into roles. It'll help make some of these make more sense.

Brat: “I’m a brat, whether I’m topping or bottoming” (link)

Tops

A 'Top' is a term generally used to refer to the person in charge.

  • Service top: a top that acts according to what pleases their bottom (link)

  • Dom (masc) or Domme (fem): the person who has more control in a D/s relationship

    • Pleasure dom: “Dominating in order to do what you know will make the other person come hard, which is the turn on for myself.” (link)
  • Owner: can refer to a dom who is a master or someone who ‘owns’ a pet or animal
  • Soft/sweet/sensual sadist: someone who enjoys giving some pain, but not too much; may throw in caring things as well
  • Predator: hunts down the prey (primal play)
  • Brat tamer: “the dom who has to deal with the brat and usually punishes them for their disobedience” (link)
  • Daddy: It is a form of domming that incorporates “parental” behaviors: protecting, leading, exerting authority, being nurturing or caretaking, and also delivering scolding and punishments for misbehavior. (link)
  • Mommy: One “little girl” defined “mommy domme” as “where instead of a domme in the masochistic way, the domme takes on a more caring, nurturing role. Gentle femme domme, if you will.” (link)
  • Caregiver: a gender-neutral way to signal a parental role

Domspace: an altered state of mind a dom/me experiences.

Domdrop: all of the extra endorphins that a dom/me can experience have to dissipate sometime. This is what happens when they do.

Bottoms

A 'bottom' is generally the person who is not in charge.

  • Bossy bottom: a dominant role in the receiving position of play (link)
  • Bratty bottom: “ if you want to play with power and control, you’d better be prepared to make me do what you say” (link)
  • Power bottom: being dominant by guiding the scene but doing it from a bottoms perspective. (ie: telling top what to do, where to strike next while receiving the physical aspect of the scene) (link)
  • Service bottom: someone that acts in a way according to what brings their top the most pleasure
  • Pillow princess: someone who receives pleasure during sex but does not actively provide it (link)
  • Pet, animal: property of a master, acting in animalistic ways
  • Prey: is hunted by the predator in primal play
  • Pain slut: someone who enjoys being on the receiving end of pain and can’t get enough
  • Slave: a type of submissive that does not have many (or any) limits within their relationship, giving most (or all) of the control to their partner

  • Little Girl/Boi / Babygirl / Good Girl/Boi / Bad Girl/Boi: Usually described as part of a Daddy/little dynamic. “I identify as a babygirl,” wrote a femme lesbian. “I enjoy feeling cared for and cherished by my girlfriend, who identifies as a daddy. She provides a feeling of safety and security for me when in this role that I have never had with previous partners, and enjoys the feeling of nurturing me when we play.” (link)

Sub: the person giving up control in a D/s relationship

  • Service sub:  “I get pleasure from serving my dom in almost whatever way she wants me to” (link)
  • Subspace or Sub Space: generally refers to a state of mind where submissives experience a variety of feelings (depending on partner and play) including the release of endorphins; there are various levels of subspace that can make someone appear flighty, willing to please, shy, mischievous, less mindful or ‘with it,’ and even feral.

Subdrop, Sub Drop, Sub Rebound: what goes up must come down, right?

Switches

A switch (also known as vers or versatile) is someone who alternates between being a dominant and a submissive/top and a bottom/in charge and not in charge.

  • Pain switch: turned on by pain — giving it or receiving it; similar to sadomasochist (link)
  • Service switch: “I enjoy being of service as much as I enjoy being served.” (link)

Types of Relationships

Total Power Exchange
Caregiver/Little dynamic

Dominance

Submission

Communication

Handling Issues

Entering the Scene as a New Sub

Collars

The following articles are on Fetlife, meaning you would need a Fetlife account to read them.

Additional Resources

Benefits

Research

Doctor Visits

Race

Disability

Books

If you're purchasing a book (or a few!), consider doing so through Bookshop. As an affiliate with them, I get a little kickback - at no extra cost to you. Plus, they give proceeds to locally-owned bookstores to help them survive!

  • Better Bondage for Every Body by Evie Vane
  • Building the Team: Cooperative Power Dynamic Relationships by Joshua Tenpenny and Raven Kaldera
  • Conquer Me: Girl-to-Girl Wisdom about Fulfilling Your Submissive Desires by Kacie Cunningham
    • This was the best book I have ever read about being submissive. Hands down.
  • Decoding Your Kink: Guide to Explore, Share and Enjoy Your Wildest Sexual Desires by Galen Fous
  • Different Loving: The World of Sexual Dominance and Submission by Gloria and William Brame and Jon Jacobs
  • Enough to Make You Blush: Exploring Erotic Humiliation by Princess Kali
  • How to be a Happy and Healthy Submissive by Kate Kinsey
  • Leading and Supportive Love: The Truth about Dominant and Submissive Relationships by Chris M. Lyon
  • Living M/s: A Book for Masters, slaves and Their Relationships by Dan and Dawn Williams
  • Kinktionary by Ignixia
  • Mastering Mind: Dominants with Mental Illness & Neurological Dysfunction and Broken Toys: Submissives with Mental Illness & Neurological Dysfunction ed. Del Tashlin and Raven Kaldera
  • Paradigms of Power: Styles of Master/Slave Relationships, edited by Raven Caldera
  • Partners in Power: Living in Kinky Relationships by Jack Rinella
  • Playing on the Edge: Sadomasichism, Risk, and Intimacy by Staci Newmahr
  • Playing Well With Others: Your Field Guide to Discovering, Navigating and Exploring the Kink, Leather and BDSM Communities by Lee Harrington
  • Ropes, Bondage, and Power: Power Exchange Books’ Resource Series by Lee Harrington
  • Sacred Kink: The Eightfold Paths of BDSM and Beyond by Lee Harrington
  • Sadomasochism and the BDSM Community in the United States by Stephen K. Stein
  • Sadomasochism: Powerful Pleasures, edited by Peggy J. Kleinplatz and Charles Moser
  • Sexual Outsiders: Understanding BDSM Sexualities and Communities by David M. Ortmann and Richard A. Sprott
  • The Loving Dominant by John Warren
  • The Master’s Manual: A Handbook of Erotic Dominance by Jack Rinella
  • The Seductive Art of Japanese Bondage by Midori
  • The Toybag Guide to Age Play by Lee Harrington
  • The Toybag Guide to Basic Rope Bondage by Jay Wiseman
  • The Toybag Guide to Canes and Caning by Janet Hardy
  • The Toybag Guide to Clips and Clamps by Jack Rinella
  • The Toybag Guide to Dungeon Emergencies and Supplies by Jay Wiseman
  • The Toybag Guide to Erotic Knifeplay by Miranda Austin and Sam Atwood
  • The Toybag Guide To Foot And Shoe Worship by Midori
  • The Toybag Guide to High-Tech Toys by John Warren
  • The Toybag Guide to Hot Wax and Temperature Play by Spectrum
  • The Toybag Guide to Medical Play by Tempest
  • The Toybag Guide to Playing with Taboo by Mollena Williams
  • Thinking Kink: The Collision of BDSM, Feminism and Popular Culture by Catherine Scott
  • Tongue Tied: Untangling Communication in Sex, Kink, and Relationships by Stella Harris
  • Two Knotty Boys Showing You The Ropes: A Step-by-Step, Illustrated Guide for Tying Sensual and Decorative Rope Bondage by Two Knotty Boys
  • Two Knotty Boys: Back on the Ropes by Two Knotty Boys
  • When Someone You Love is Kinky by Dossie Easton and Catherine A. Liszt

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