Healing and Flourishing Through Kink

 

Some of you may recognize me as one of the helpful and enthusiastic staff members at As You Like It, but when I’m not raving about the benefits of air pulse toys, I am using my doctorate in research psychology and 30+ years of social science research experience to study kink. In 2023, I started volunteering with The Alternative Sexualities Health Research Alliance (TASHRA), a group of dedicated researchers and clinicians from around the country who conduct research related to BDSM/kink. I am the co-principal investigator on TASHRA’s Kink and Flourishing study, and I’m going to share a few interesting findings from this international survey study. 

Why Study BDSM/Kink?

You may be wondering if kink is worthy of scientific study. Between 40% and 70% of people have kink fantasies, and around a quarter of American adults have engaged in kink practices, whether or not they identify as kinky. In addition, 1–3% of folks consider kink to be a core part of their identity and lifestyle. Although kink is common, it often goes unrecognized as a sexual minority and remains stigmatized in many communities and cultures. In fact, many kink practitioners avoid accessing health care for kink-related injuries due to ignorance among healthcare professionals about the differences between abuse and consensual kink. Similarly, kinky folks often are challenged to find kink-affirming mental health care. Studies of therapists have shown that half are uncertain whether kink practitioners are psychologically healthy and two-thirds received no training on BDSM/kink in graduate school at all. 

What little population research has been conducted has demonstrated that kinky folks are pretty similar to vanilla (non-kinky) folks. There are a few interesting differences, however. Although there are no differences in trauma histories between kinksters and the general population, kinksters are more open to new experiences, have higher rejection tolerance, and are less likely to have an anxious attachment style. 

Those of you who have been involved in BDSM/kink have likely heard anecdotes of or experienced how kink can be cathartic and help people process emotional pain. But there are very few large-scale empirical studies of this phenomenon. Our study set out to learn more about the incidence of healing from trauma through kink involvement, who does and does not experience healing, and what activities and conditions are associated with healing experiences. In addition, we wanted to look at flourishing experiences, wherein kink involvement led to some type of life enhancement.

The Kink & Flourishing Study Participants

Our study involved an online survey that was advertised broadly through online and in-person BDSM communities. Our final analytic sample included 672 individuals from most U.S. states and more than 20 other countries. As with most kink research, the majority (83%) of our sample identified as white, and two-thirds were under 40 years old. Eighty percent (80%) self-identified as having a sexuality orientation other than strictly heterosexual, and 30% had a gender identity other than the man/woman gender binary. There were more submissives/bottoms than Dominants/tops in our sample. The sample was not very religious, tended to have completed at least some college, and lived in urban or suburban areas.    

Study Findings About Healing from Trauma Through Kink

When asked if they had ever experienced healing from trauma through involvement in kink, almost half (48.4%) reported having experienced healing. Compared to study participants who did not report healing, those who reported healing had higher levels of trauma symptoms and experienced more adverse events that could lead to trauma. Some additional interesting differences between those who experienced healing and those who did not report any healing from trauma through kink include the following insights. 

• Study participants who did not report healing were more likely than those who did experience healing to engage in kink strictly for fun, connection, and sexual arousal, whereas the group experiencing healing engaged in kink for more reasons, including to manage emotional and/or physiological states or symptoms, experience personal growth, and rewrite past narratives. 

• Participants who reported kink being an important part of their sexual identity were statistically more likely to report healing than those for whom kink was less important to their sexual identity.

• Respondents who identified as queer, pansexual, or bisexual were twice as likely as other sexual identities to report healing from trauma through kink involvement.

Intentionality Matters

In addition to asking survey participants if they had healed from trauma through their involvement in kink, we also asked if they had intentionally used kink to try to heal. This question led to some interesting findings. Intentionality turned out to be an important factor in whether or not people experienced healing through kink. Those respondents who reported intentionally trying to use kink to heal from trauma were 20 times more likely than those without that intention to report having experienced healing from trauma through kink.

In terms of the sources of trauma, respondents most frequently mentioned intentionally trying to heal from incidents of victimization (i.e., unwanted sexual experience and physical or sexual assault). Kink was less often intentionally used to heal from other sources of trauma, such as natural disasters or accidents. 

What Participants Shared About Healing Through Kink

“Kink puts me in a raw vulnerable situation where my emotions get expressed, getting them out there and receiving pleasure from it in a way that helps push the hurt away and rewrite some of the hurt.”

“[Through kink, I] no longer feel unsafe in vulnerable sexual positions like a bottom or submissive role, which I felt after an assault.”

“Feeling pleasure during a scene that was echoing a past event helped me let go of the intense fear I experienced of not understanding why the event initially happened to me. The pleasure during the scene let me connect my body feeling pleasure to an act that had previously been enormously distressing.”

“I can’t pinpoint one exact experience but when engaging in denial play/begging kinks as a Domme, it helps me feel safe and powerful when expressing my sexuality. I have experienced sexual assault so being the person in power in sexual situations and making them beg for what they want or follow my certain rules helps me take back a feeling of power and control in sex that had previously been taken away from me.”

“After that experience, I noticed a significant shift in how I viewed my own sexuality. I felt more confident and comfortable in my own skin, embracing my desires and pleasures without reservation. I no longer felt the need to hide or suppress my sexual urges, instead, I celebrated them openly and unapologetically.” 

“I experienced sexual abuse multiple times as a minor and, combined with a lot of my other experiences growing up … I additionally had experienced kink fantasies from a young age that got more "extreme" and intense as I got older and I held a lot of internalized shame around these, believing that there was something wrong with me. There wasn't necessarily one specific scene or anything within my kink involvement that was a kind of "aha" moment of healing; it was more the gradual experience of having people who respected me and cared about meeting my needs and honoring my boundaries all while openly accepting my wants and desires without shaming me or seeing me as less human because of them…. Over time, this gave me the cumulative experiences and disconfirming evidence to my core beliefs that allowed me to begin to actively challenge those core beliefs for myself and begin doing the inner work to get to a point where I could accept, love, and respect myself. “

Summary

These are just a few of the findings from this large study. The study is confirming what many kinksters have experienced or witnessed: kink can help us overcome negative narratives from our pasts and support our efforts to heal and flourish. The research team is continuing to analyze the survey data and code participants’ write-in answers to the open-ended questions. If you are interested in learning more about the Kink and Flourishing study or are interested in the research articles used in this blog post, please contact me.

Dr. Kristine Chadwick (@drclitorati) is an enthusiastic lifelong learner about the psychology of human sexuality and a fierce advocate for de-stigmatizing BSDM/kink and sexual wellness/pleasure. Kristine earned her PhD in psychology at the University of Rhode Island; she serves as a sex educator for adults with I/DD and conducts international research on kink and healing from trauma. She also is a certified sexual health resource and staff writer at As You Like It. She can be reached @drclitorati or kristine@intimateflourishing.com.