To think someone's sexual predilections reflects on their broader character?

Agree with OP, in part. Our kinks are a window into what goes deep inside. But I think being able to keep "play" and "real life" separate is a sign of being well adjusted.

However, I also think some kinks are red flags, like age play, or degrading and humiliation. Or anything too extreme (of course, the line of "extreme" is different for each person).

Ah yes boxing where participants are carefully separated into weight categories to increase safety, wear protective gear, have a referee to ensure fairness along with a clearly defined amount of time to engage in the activity.

Oh-so-similar to feederism where one participant gets a sexual thrill from the other constantly gaining weight, becoming increasingly dependent on their 'caregiver', suffering more and more health issues until potentially bedbound and immobile, and in a situation that is very difficult to leave or get out of.

Tbh I find your comparison so disingenuous that it is clear that you are arguing in bad faith. I won't be replying to any further posts.

I find it frightening because if the move towards kinks and risky sex is normalised, this is the world that our children will go into, and (for girls and women in particular) it is extremely dangerous. Being hit and ‘choked’ in any other situation is abuse. I expect that early sexual encounters (real or what people see/ hear when young and impressionable) will nearly always impact how they feel and experience pleasure/ pain. And social norms, the influence of porn, what is shown in the media, tv, music videos, the internet is changing. Dramatically. That is a fact.
I don’t think it is liberating to what to hurt or humiliate someone, ever, and that includes in the bedroom.
I wonder - how are one night stands different now to 10 or 20 years ago? What is considered normal or acceptable? If that is changing then what happens in the bedroom is not private but is a question of ethics because it spills out across society more broadly, and we can see in real time how what people ‘like’ is changing. It IS frightening, but I don’t think that (for many) it means you are a bad person but rather a cog in the machine that’s being turned/ manipulated/ moulded by social influences, cultural norms etc. We think we have free will but we really don’t, not entirely.

I have to agree with every word of this, you’ve put this perfectly. It’s not to say that all kinks are inherently wrong or that anybody who engages in them is an all out bad person, but they come from somewhere - the same as every single human preference ever.

I knew a man once who told me that although he would never act on it, he had fantasies of rape and used to imagine that when he and his partner were having consensual sex, he was raping her. Could that be considered acceptable? I don’t think so. It shows contempt for women and a fantasy that if rape were legal, he would see no issue. Why is strangling much different? Both are about power.

It’s one thing if your partner asks to be strangled or have pain inflicted during sex, it’s another if the other partner actively fantasises and enjoys carrying it out.

Kinks are mainly just a way for people to explore those sides of their personalities that they can’t show to the rest of the world and it allows them to be released privately and in a more socially acceptable way, I suppose

Of course it does! We are human!

this is why so many feel shame at their odd kinks.

I agree, OP. Everything we do, feel and like builds our character - why is there this bizarre belief that sex is completely in a vacuum and has no impact on how we conduct ourselves and our relationships? How much it does I guess depends on the individual and the kink.

And it’s precisely the nature of ‘transgressing’ that makes something a kink. It wouldn’t be one otherwise. But a lot of the ‘kinks’ being discussed here are examples of paraphilia - voyeurism, sadism, sexual masochism, etc. Calling them terms like ‘choking’ doesn’t lessen what they really are.

I don’t believe any man* who gets off from strangling his partner (even if she begs him to do it) doesn’t have questionable views about women. Even if he’s not shouting them from the rooftops, he still thinks his orgasm is worth more than her health (or potentially life).

*yes, men, because it’s predominantly them who do it and it’s an entirely different ball game with a man causing harm to women (not that I think that’s okay, either) - I’m not sure I know of any deaths or life-long harm to a man from a woman from choking.

…, OK we’ll leave it that way “People in thrall to [their] kink will defend anything, up to an including murder so as to legitimize it.”

It isn’t that long ago that society could recognize that people who get off on strangling others were extremely dangerous people who should be in prison, and who are not anyone you would want a loved one to encounter. To be blunt -it is not just disgusting, it is callous, it is terrifying, it is warped that there are people who like to strangle.
Your kink has made you blind to danger, it has made you lose your moral compass- that says a lot about your character.

There we go, the ol' genital-checking fetish.

You tell on yourselves every time.

To answer op directly- yes I do, I think every like/dislike we have spills over into character. I think it shapes how we think about ourselves and others which then influences our behaviours. However, add on socialisation and its inherent rules, we learn when we can and can’t do certain things. Or at least we should.

I think lately we have seen this social contract shift into one which celebrates, even encourages, free expression which can compromise societal dignity and respect, and ultimately safeguarding. This has lead the way for some people (mainly men) to become vocally and physically hostile. However, I think these men and their sense of entitlements were always there, society has just allowed it to thrive.

What if you like the fact that your partner gets off on being hurt? Like the fetish is DP’s pleasure, but DP is a masochist?

Depends.on the kink.

I have a feeling the poster was being tongue in cheek to make their point - (although clearly not cock in cheek given their stated position… 🫨🍆)

So what, though? Who is being harmed by me being ‘perverted’ for fun with my partner? How is it affecting anyone else? Who is making ‘excuses’? There’s nothing to excuse.

I find being cuddled by my partner physically pleasurable. I also find having my bum smacked my partner physically pleasurable. Presumably, you don’t have a problem with someone enjoying a cuddle. So why do you have a problem with someone enjoying a slap on the backside? It doesn’t have any impact on your life, any more than my choice of wallpaper or how strong I like my tea has any impact on your life.

Say you were to find out that someone you know and love - someone who has always been kind, generous, supportive towards you and to people in general, has never been anything other than compassionate and works really hard to make other people happy - was into bondage or watersports or going to sex clubs with her ready and willing husband. Would you suddenly think she was an awful person after all, and that the fact she and her husband liked weeing on each other in private for pleasure meant that she was just faking the decades of kindness and support she’d given you?

No need to be rude though is there?

People who are into age play are getting off on the fantasy of crossing the age boundary during sex. Whether that is mainly about sexual desire for children, or sexual desire around trabdgressive and damaging sexual acts, it's really not a good thing.

This is precisely where the OP is right. A person may well find he (or sometimes she) is turned on by these kinds of things. But, knowing how damaging things like sexualizing children are, the response of a person of strong character would be to not do those things.

How will that manifest in the person's life otherwise? Hard to say, but anyone thinking that getting off is more important that respecting sexual boundaries meant to protect children may very well be selfish and have poor judgement about their own satisfaction in other ways too.

Similarly men that like to watch sissy porn and dress as women to get off feeling degraded - yes, this will affect their view of women overall - they think it's fundamentally degrading to be a women, how is that not going to spill into their lives?

I really like having my arse smacked and my hair pulled and I sometimes like sex to hurt a bit. I like being pinned down and I like being called certain things. I find a degree of pain physically pleasurable - always have. If I ask my partner to do that because I love it, how am I ‘honouring men’s sex fetishes’? He’s happy to do it because it brings me pleasure and he likes seeing me excited. Similarly, he has a thing for being bitten and scratched. I’m delighted to do that because he loves it. The thing that brings us pleasure is turning each other on. Neither of us would get pleasure from doing those things to someone who didn’t want them.

Well then it doesn't matter if it's sexual or not does it?

And if your whole perception of someone changed because of something that in no way affects you then you don't really value that relationship

I bet you know at least one person who you would say is a "good person" who has some kinks you would be repulsed by

That's not a gotcha. There are all kinds of things you might not know about a person you consider good, which would make you change your mind if you did know about those things.

For the eight billionth time: there is a difference between a kink shared between consenting adults and acts of sexual abuse. ANY sexual practice or interest is abusive if it’s done without consent. If your favourite sexual thing is kissing, that would be abusive if you went around kissing people without their consent - that doesn’t mean being into kissing is harmful in itself.

Voyeurism is illegal if the person being watched doesn’t consent. Then, it becomes an act of sexual abuse. But there are plenty of ways that people explore voyeurism with other consenting adults. That is harmless.

Exhibitionism is simply enjoying being watched. If people express that through forcing non-consenting people to watch them, then that is an act of sexual abuse. But going to a sex club and having sex in front of a consenting audience is not abuse, and is harmless.

Clearly, there are people who fantasise about scenarios involving non-consent. But the vast majority of those people would never in a million years do the thing they fantasise about, and would be pretty appalled if you suggested they did, because they are fully aware that it would be abusive.

The only circumstance in which someone’s sexual interest becomes harmful to anyone else is when someone commits an act of abuse, in which case it is the abuse that is the problem, not the kink itself.

Stop equating pedophilia with kinks

And stop acting like only men have kinks

I bet you know at least one person who you would say is a "good person" who has some kinks you would be repulsed by

Because the ones who are anti-kink are resorting to insults and abuse...

I’m into bdsm. In my experience guys who are into it have a far better understanding of consent and put far more emphasis on female pleasure and safety than most vanilla guys. You wouldn’t generally guess that they are into it from meeting them and they have all sorts of personalities and careers - I’ve recently “played” with a paramedic, a primary school teacher and a therapist.

There are all sorts of theories about why people might be dominant or submissive in bed. For me it feels innate - in that I have always known I am sexually submissive and that is where I have always gone in fantasy even before having any exposure to porn etc. That is quite a common experience. It probably does say something about who I am and my personality but not in a very obvious way.

And it’s complicated. I think bdsm (both dominance and submission) can be about escapism, getting out your head, sensation, novelty, edginess, occasionally working through trauma.

I would also say that many women like an element of male dominance in bed (evidenced by the popularity of fifty shades) and choking, playing with pain etc are just a continuation of that spectrum. A lot of women have rape fantasies, some want to role play those but essentially no woman actually wants to be raped - there is a world of difference between doing a “rape” scene with a safe word and real rape. If a man has a corresponding fantasy, I wouldn’t infer from that that he actually wants to rape someone.

I agree. Someone who enjoys inflicting pain or humiliation or endangering a sex partner’s life by choking them is not going to be a good person in everyday life. And as PP says, paedophiles can be charming — but that’s a tactic to get close to their victims.

It’s horrific that we’re expected to honour men’s sex fetishes while they do so much harm to women.