discussion Why do we like the kinks we like? Help uncover possible connections by taking an anonymous survey

[degenmans]

will any results that come out of this be posted back here?

 

[doctorpinch]

I love the fact that this is generating so much discussion.

Many of those kinks are heavily dependent on my particular mood or under specific conditions. For example, NTR is usually a turn-off, but I'll go through very temporary phases where it turns me on (usually when I'm already angry about something unrelated). Watersports, for example, is something I am indifferent to, unless it is between dominant and submissive lesbians.

I'm not turned on by big butt or large breasts (because they usually make the woman appear obese to me), but if she has the right proportions then breast size doesn't really matter to me. I still lean heavily towards the sleek petite body types, but reasonably large breasts are good too.

Obviously, even my strongest kinks are still on a spectrum. I like male domination, but only in moderation. I also love incest, unless it's rape-incest. To me, the kinks are mainly coming from what a girl is willing to do or what she can be convinced to do. Anything that takes away her ability to make a choice in the matter usually turns me off. Choices made in duress or blackmail are a grey area for me; sometimes I like it in fantasy, but usually I don't.

As far as gay sex goes, nope. I only tolerate penis in porn, but two guys is still a huge turn off. I tried to have a threesome with an ex and male friend, on two different occasions, in the past and both times I was so turned off that my dick became an innie. I've never been more shriveled in my life. Needless to say, those threesomes didn't play out. However, the few FFM threesomes I've had, I was the energizer bunny all night.

Encassion - I think this is a fair comment. But if I'm going to try to establish that there are heritable elements to some of these kinks, then I actually want to force people to say "yes" or "no", rather than "it depends". I think it's probably true of all of our kinks that they are mood dependent. But I want to know if you feel like you fall on the yes or no side of the distribution curve. Not to get too technical (more on this in reply to Private Captain's question about women responders, and still more in reply to BoooB) but essentially I'm going to hypothesize that males fall into a bimodal distribution of sexual preference with each individual falling somewhere on distribution curve but having his sexual preferences essentially fixed. By contrast, I'm going to hypothesize that females fall into a multimodal distribution depending not on the specific individual but instead on age. So I can't really leave wiggle room for "sometimes". Just pick what you feel like is the right answer for you and go for it. With any luck, if I get hundreds of responses, that'll all map out onto a reasonable curve, even though some individuals will have been forced to take a side they didn't really want to. (Incidentally, this is why I have a five choice scale rather than a 3 choice scale. You can say I'm kind-of into it or kind-of turned-off by it. (More on gay sex as well. But not until I've got a good foundation of answered surveys.)

Nope. Not going to provide any demographic information about myself.

Also, it seems like no effort was put into making this a survey for women as well as men.

So, the reason I need demographic information is related to the answer above. I'm going to hypothesize that there are two different kinds of males with two different sets of sexual preferences. But I'm going to propose that those preferences remain relatively fixed over ones sexually active lifetime. By contrast, I'm going to hypothesize that females sexual preferences vary over time, starting out one way at puberty and evolving over time until they become relatively fixed at maybe 30 or so. Wikipedia's entry on sexual fluidity has several citations to papers suggesting that female sexual fluidity is greater than male sexual fluidity. These effects aren't huge, but are statistically significant. See also this report (

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) of a 2019 study, showing significantly greater sexual variability in women than men, and that variability changing over time (age).

So all that said, I need the answers to male/female and age bands. I've asked for ethnicity identity as well, in the hope that that will turn up something interesting, but those questions are optional.

Finally, as far as no effort being put into making the survey for women as well as men, I hope that isn't true and doesn't come across that way. I've tried to be very careful to identify attraction to opposite sex vs. same sex rather than attraction to women vs men. If I've messed up in some of the questions, please point them out.

As far as kinks go, I really just listed all the significant kink tags on the site. I didn't make any effort to distinguish between men's and women's kinks because I'm trying to stick to the site's use of tags. But I'm happy to consider what should be added.

I wanted to ad things. But @encassion described it fairly good.
Often I had to choose something, cause I had no other choice. I don´t feel represented by my choices...

VND - can you elaborate on what questions you mean where you wanted to add other choices? I do have an option to add an "other" field. But I get the feeling that's not what you're referring to. Do you mean that the tag descriptions weren't clear (which is Malaficus's point)?

I know what you mean.
For example the prostitution question.
Do they want to know if i would hire or whore or like to be a pimp.
The former is a no but the latter is a fuck yeah.

Malaficus - I actually agree. Humiliation is another one. Does the tag mean "Humiliation (protagonist)" or "Humiliation (others)". I'm a big no to the first and a moderate yes to the second. I was trying to just stick to the tags as they are on site (Search tags). But maybe I should clarify. I don't think I need the prostitution kink, but the humiliation kink might be relevant.

Done.

Sometimes (like age groups to like) multiple choiche answer would be better, I think.

NumNeg - I have the age groups to like question as a multiple choice question, so I'm not sure what you mean. How would you change it?

 

[doctorpinch]

Ok, I'm a bit confused.

Feels like so many variables are missing.
If you want to prove your theory that it is evolutionary. Don't you also have to disprove the current psychological consensus that kink/fetishes are created by the environment we grow up in from around age of 8 to around age of 16. And that strong fetishes is a way for the mind and body to process childhood traumas?
Also, the current theory that sexuality is a spectrum, and we as a society were repressed to believing that straightness and monogamy is the "norm" via the crusades and through-out the dark ages.

So I'm missing a lot of question about parents, upbringing, abuse, trauma, role models, schooling, home status, when we started having sexual interest/thoughts, masturbation, first sexual experiences and so forth.

I find it hard to see if this proves anything besides commonality amongst kinks, preferences and personality with us perverts.

BoooB - the reason I think that common distribution of kinks among different groups of males (see my answer above to Encassion and Private Captain) will go some way towards countering a "childhood trauma/experience" explanation is that if different kinks are responses to different childhood experiences, then the distribution of kinks among individuals should be relatively random. Every child/adolescent has different experiences. (For example, only a few of us lived across the street from Mrs. H. in my hometown, who used to come out and wander around in a tiny yellow bikini (as I recall). Whatever kink that experience is going to develop in me, it did. Or it would have. Whatever. Shit. Still gives me a boner 50 years later....) But my point is that a clearly bimodal distribution of the relevant kinks, especially if they're tied to other demographic information, would seem to point to a heritable element to sexual preference.

That said, experience is always a factor in the development of any trait, sexual or otherwise. The best discussion of this that I've found is RoberT Sapolsky's "Behave - The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst". He explains (in great detail) how heritable predispositions (particularly towards violence) can be triggered by childhood trauma. But he also explains how the same trauma experienced by different people will have different outcomes, depending on their inhereted predispositions towards whatever the behavior is. So one abused kid may turn into an introverted recluse, another may turn out perfectly normal, and a third might turn into a horible serial killer. All experiencing essentially the same abuse in childhood, but all having different genetic makeups.

So if this study shows a heritable component to particular kinks or suite of kinks, that's going to tend to show that it's not exclusevely the environment, which is all I'm trying to show. Clearly, there's going to be lots of "noise" in the data. There's nothing anyone can do about that. Not everyone will have experienced an appropriate trigger to set off a love of anal sex. (there's Mrs. H. again....) but the clearer the bimodal distribution, the more heritable the trait is suggested to be, and the less dependent it would be on environmental triggers.

I hope that's a partial answer to the question about why there are no questions about parents, upbringing, abuse, etc. I'm getting that the survey's too long as it is. And people don't want to provide the limited demographic info I'm already asking for. Can you imagine...?

 

[doctorpinch]

Figuring out the evolutionary basis of our kinks is a deep rabbit hole to dive into.

I'll list some stray thoughts.
Homosexuality: I think this has stuck around because the norm and pressure has always been to get a mate and procreate. Historically, we haven't had much choice, family/clan/whatever made it happen, because survival. And as a young man, you can get it up for anything.
As to why it persists, there are several reasons for children of gay guys having higher survival odds. There are several psychiatric comorbidities with homosexuality. Think about the overrepresentation among serial killers. A controlled ruthlessness is often a survival plus though. Also, gays seem to be on average more intelligent I think.

NTR: This is easy. As a man you have no way to know if your children are yours, hence the rigorous control of female sexuality that has been present in all societies throughout history. So most men have an instinctive aversion to strange dick around and in their woman. And, conversely, we have an inmate instinct to copulate with (almost) every woman we see.
Gengis Kahn as an example, is the direct ancestor to ~41 million people on the planet today (0.5 %)
For me, I actually feel a stab when I find out a woman I know, even remotely, could just be the regular cashier at Lowes, is pregnant and I'm not responsible for it. I may not even have any desire to sleep with her, and I certainly, 100% do not want any more children to deal with. I can use wifey's statement "I'll rather amputate an arm than have more children".
But, drive of nature is what it is.

Also NTR. Sexual arousal will often manifest itself as a release from reality, so they can go the opposite way from normal life. There's always been brisk business for dominatrixes to beat the ever loving shit out of high powered business, finance and political leaders for example.
So, NTR may be an escape from base instincts.

Invader -

1. On homosexuality - I don't know about gay men being more ruthless than straight men. You'll have to find me a study showing that. I think the more common explanation for the heritable component of male homosexuality if what I call the rich uncle theory. There is clear evidence of at least some percentage of homosexual male expression being related to having multiple older brothers. (

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) (and here's a quick NPR discussion (

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). You can also search for "Fraternal Birth Order Effect". The basic theory is that if you have a large number of older siblings, there may be selection pressure to actually refrain from having children and have your efforts be directed at promoting the reproductive success of your nieces and nephews. Even though your specific genes won't get passed on, you share 50% of your genes with each of your siblings and 25% of your genes with each of your nieces and nephews. So if you have enough nieces and nephews, it may make evolutionary sense to keep you from reproducing and devoting your resources to your own children, and instead diverting those resources to your siblings' children.

As either W.D. Hamilton or J.B.S. Haldane said "I would gladly lay down my life for two brothers or eight cousins". (The quote itself is specious. Neither of them said exactly that, but both of them expressed the same idea, though W.D. Hamilton was more precise (and right) because he specified "more than" two or eight. (

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)

NTR - Yours should be the answer. But one of the things that motivated me to start down this crazy path in the first place is wondering why some people actually find it a turn-on. More on this in due time.

 

[doctorpinch]

will any results that come out of this be posted back here?

I'm not sure that they'll be posted here exactly. I might post them (and an explanation of my theory) on substack. But they will be linked here at a minimum.

 

[FeyMask]

I don't really see much point in this but I also see 0 value in evolutionary psychology. You have my results, do with them whatever you want.

 

[dk84]

and where are the results????? Can I be cured???????

 

[Slurpy]

Survey was very interesting, I think I learned some things about myself as well so thank you for that.

 

[InvaderZim]

Invader -

1. On homosexuality - I don't know about gay men being more ruthless than straight men. You'll have to find me a study showing that. I think the more common explanation for the heritable component of male homosexuality if what I call the rich uncle theory. There is clear evidence of at least some percentage of homosexual male expression being related to having multiple older brothers. (

You must be registered to see links

) (and here's a quick NPR discussion (

You must be registered to see links

). You can also search for "Fraternal Birth Order Effect". The basic theory is that if you have a large number of older siblings, there may be selection pressure to actually refrain from having children and have your efforts be directed at promoting the reproductive success of your nieces and nephews. Even though your specific genes won't get passed on, you share 50% of your genes with each of your siblings and 25% of your genes with each of your nieces and nephews. So if you have enough nieces and nephews, it may make evolutionary sense to keep you from reproducing and devoting your resources to your own children, and instead diverting those resources to your siblings' children.

As either W.D. Hamilton or J.B.S. Haldane said "I would gladly lay down my life for two brothers or eight cousins". (The quote itself is specious. Neither of them said exactly that, but both of them expressed the same idea, though W.D. Hamilton was more precise (and right) because he specified "more than" two or eight. (

You must be registered to see links

)

NTR - Yours should be the answer. But one of the things that motivated me to start down this crazy path in the first place is wondering why some people actually find it a turn-on. More on this in due time.

The more ruthless comment were in relation to other psychological comorbidities. Seems to be a lot of studies on that correlation. The point I then didn't quite elaborate, is that dark triad personality characteristics will thus be more prevalent.

 

[doctorpinch]

The more ruthless comment were in relation to other psychological comorbidities. Seems to be a lot of studies on that correlation. The point I then didn't quite elaborate, is that dark triad personality characteristics will thus be more prevalent.

So my only caution to this comment is the term "comorbidities" in relation to homosexuality. The term sweeps homosexuality into a disease/medical condition, which hearkens back to the dark days of eugenics. I doubt homosexuality is actually any more associated with the dark triad of personality traits than heterosexual orientation, but I'd have to dig into the research. To the extent that there's a higher correlation, I suspect it's more likely due to homosexual teens being more at risk of abuse that could trigger dark triad traits.

The rich uncle hypothesis depends on pretty much the opposite characterization of homosexual behavior (i.e., generous and loving).

 

[IFF01]

I didn't like the one question, there was only to choices. sex with no children or children with no sex. I want sex with children

 

[doctorpinch]

I don't really see much point in this but I also see 0 value in evolutionary psychology. You have my results, do with them whatever you want.

I appreciate the responses! and thank you for doing the survey. I have to confess that I love evolutionary biology. If I had it all to do over again, that's the direction I'd go in and after college. But, alas, I can only pretend. I still value your feedback if you see something you disagree with or want to comment on, I'd appreciate everyone's thoughts.

and where are the results????? Can I be cured???????

No soup for you!

We're already up to 39 responses. I figure when the ticker hits 50, I'll post the raw results here for people to do with what they will. (I'm going to have to upgrade to the pro version to get the download of results, but fair enough for what seems to be a very good and simple to use survey tool. I'll pay for a month and then see where we're at.)

As to whether you can be cured, it's just like the old psychologist joke. "How many psychologists does it take to change a light-bulb?" A: "Only one, but the light-bulb has to want to change."

Survey was very interesting, I think I learned some things about myself as well so thank you for that.

I appreciate that comment! It's very nice. I'm learning all sorts of shit about myself that I never knew, so it's two sided. And a two sided thank you.

 

[Deleted member 112555]

NumNeg - I have the age groups to like question as a multiple choice question, so I'm not sure what you mean. How would you change it?

About that.
I could only pick one.
While there where three groups that i find attractive.
You should have the option to pick more then one.

 

[Garbo man]

I am super happy to see people looking at kinks and things of a sexual nature from a scientific/psychological viewpoint. Please let me know if anything comes of this or there are more surveys that spawn from this!

 

[anon670-1]

Complete looking forward to seeing the results

 

[dereguedeixe]

Just trauma

 

[Nastastic]

I responded. Hope it helps.

 

[doctorpinch]

I didn't like the one question, there was only to choices. sex with no children or children with no sex. I want sex with children

I think this is the point of most "would you rather" type questions. They're meant to put you on the horns of a dilemma and force you to pick one or the other. Luckily, we actually live in a world where we can have both.

About that.
I could only pick one.
While there where three groups that i find attractive.
You should have the option to pick more then one.

I see. I'll have to think about that. That approach would be more accurate, but then I'd be filtering you into multiple sets of results. I'm not sure how that would effect whatever meaning I can postulate. However, the truth is that I'm no real scientist. I don't have the statistics background to do real analysis on the data and measure statistical significance of results. That said, if the data set is good, I'm sure there are folks out there who could/would do that kind of analysis.

So I'll consider whether adding that flexibility to the questionnaire is good bang-for-the buck.

I am super happy to see people looking at kinks and things of a sexual nature from a scientific/psychological viewpoint. Please let me know if anything comes of this or there are more surveys that spawn from this!

Hey! Thanks for that feedback! I really appreciate it and I'm going to be sure to post results or links to results here.

Just trauma

I hope that's said tongue-in-cheek, but if not, I'm sorry for the trauma you (and many) have experienced. I hope that this site helps to deal with it. (Hell - I even hope my survey helps to deal with it....)

I responded. Hope it helps.

It does! Thank you for responding. And watch this space for survey results incoming. (Normally, on this site, you'd say in-cuming, but trying to keep it serious here....)

 

[paullieA]

Just filled in the survey. Am curious for the results

 

[joelamasse]

Done. Can't wait the results