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

[MonTuesWeds]

Just that really. I feel like I came of age in a time when we were encouraged to believe that someone's 'intimate preferences' were just that, and that they were completely isolated from that persons wider self and personality. I just don't think that's true though. I suppose I'm wondering two things here, firstly if IABU I'm thinking this now but secondly - am I the only one who has felt the pressure not to judge someone on what 'they're into' providing it was always fully consensual.

I don’t think those things are disgusting. They seem pretty harmless to me.

Like a pp has said above , she enjoys a little pain & she has a lovely caring husband ! !

Ahh classic MN

"Disagree? Must be a man"

Tiresome

That doesn't mean it's a kink though

BDSM can and does include non sexual elements which can then be very caring and helpful to the submissive - a dominant essentially forcing them into self care but in the realm of their lifestyle

It says so much that most people against kink are only talking about men hurting women, not the fact many men like getting hurt by women. It doesn't fit their narrative. Just like OP clearly just believes the only acceptable sex is missionary with a life long partner...

Which is then all the issue with making kinks something shameful. Women can't talk about them, can't be open without worrying about shame and shunning. Which means they hide things. Which leaves them vulnerable

Any kinks being acted out should be - safe, sane, consensual. Continued consent is key

If you don't have consent then it's rape. Simple as that. Whatever type of sex it is.

And BTW, there are people who consensually hit each other outside of sex 😒

So what you’re essentially saying is that you believe that unless sex is ‘an expression of love’ it’s disgusting and wrong? And that the only form of sex you believe to be ‘an expression of love’ is someone putting their penis into a woman’s vagina?

Why is having someone’s penis in my vagina an expression of love, but not having someone’s tongue in my vagina? What about gay people? Are two lesbians going down on each other not expressing love? What about two men having anal sex? If someone loves being handcuffed to the bed with a butt-plug in their bum and that brings them immense sexual pleasure, why is their partner not expressing love by providing them with that pleasure?

And also, why does it matter whether it’s about love or not? Why can’t it be about mutual pleasure?

This thread is honestly astonishing. And it’s also full of god-awful sexism and internalised misogyny. People are on here telling women they’re disgusting because their sexual interest goes beyond sweet romantic missionary sex and suggesting that it’s only men who truly want to do anything different. These attitudes are Victorian and so far from anything I recognise as feminism. It’s regressive and depressing.

To all the people on here saying that things other people do are disgusting and harmful - I guarantee you that you will definitely have at least one set of close and much-loved friends, siblings, parents or adult kids who are into the things you think are the sign of a warped and dysfunctional psyche and I guarantee you that a lot of your partners are secretly fantasising about things that would give you a heart attack.

I’ve been a victim of domestic violence at the hands of a terrible, abusive misogynist who was very, very vanilla in the bedroom. Frankly, he’d have been the ideal lover for some of the women on this thread because he shared a lot of your notions of what’s ‘normal’ and ‘healthy’ and ‘loving’ in the bedroom. He was disgusted when I even said certain words in a sexual context; if I’d asked him to spank me or pull my hair or something he’d have shamed me for it just like the women on this thread are shaming people. But he was a violent, controlling abuser who essentially hated women.

I’ve also had relationships with absolutely lovely, kind, sweet and sensitive men who were brilliant feminist allies who were up for anything in bed and totally open-minded and uninhibited and non-judgemental. My DP of 22 years is one of them.

And yet the idea you are a bad person because you watch horror movies is still a common suggestion

Plenty of people cause actual harm to others for money. As I said

And women hurt men in sex too

Yes, in Mumsnet world only men can possibly be imagined to have any sexual interests beyond silent, lights-out missionary. That’s Mumsnet Feminism, which is weirdly close to misogyny.

Yep, I agree OP. If someone enjoys exerting power over others in the bedroom, they are generally like this in other areas of life, or at least they mask their true selves in public and it comes out behind closed doors where they feel safe. It makes complete sense, all our behaviour is interlinked.

I wish you could see that you actually just don’t have a very high opinion of women.

Actually some of them really really do.

It really is worrying sometimes how much MN's ideas about women are actually quite harmful to women

Actually they really really don't

Agree. These threads always go the same way, though.

I'm actually surprised how long it took until someone started calling those who disagreed men tbh

Really? There are no kinks that are in any way suggestive of someone who is maybe a bit dodgy?

Voyeurism isn’t creepy? It’s illegal, and you are here defending it.
Exhibitionism? yes actually forcing non-consenting others to see your sexual activity is grim as fuck.
Trying to normalize pissing and shitting by selling it as an expression of love? ( You don’t have to be Freud to see what’s happening here)
And the perennial favourite of finding strangling women deeply arousing?

I neither know nor care what your kink is- but I do know that you are absolutely in denial.

I think speculating on what people get up to in the privacy of their own homes, or in places specifically designed to accommodate whatever they want to get up to in the privacy of that place, is akin to wanting to know what genitals people possess before they are allowed to urinate or defecate.

But I am beyond excited that Billie Piper is the new doctor.

More like "Sex topic on MN? Blokes must on it."

Are you a bloke?

Voyeurism can be conducted completely consensually.

I've already said MANY times consent is key and said including people who don't consent isn't OK. But again, exhibitionism can be conducted in a way that is consensual.

Because if the voyeurs and the exhibitionists get together they both get what they want with people who can consent

Sexual pleasure doesn't always have to also be about romantic love

And strangling has been addressed many times. It's not disgusting to be into strangling or being strangled so long as you are consenting and are careful. Forcing someone to be strangled isn't the same thing at all

You are confusing using kink as a mask for sexual abuse and rape with actual kink practices

Or just women tired of MN trying to tell them how to women

Want to see my genitals to check? One of those people?

Because that feels like a kink to me tbh

Kink talk aside, why is oral sex not an expression of love?

Yes to you but most of us think otherwise as is our right.

Voyeurism can be conducted completely consensually.

The true voyeur doesn't want to watch an exhibitionist, though. He (and it's almost always a man) wants to watch someone who doesn't want to be watched and who would be horrified to know they were being watched. It's the forbidden nature of it that appeals, the secrecy of it.

Voyeurism is about overriding boundaries, when it comes down to it.

I agree with the OP's general statement that what people are into sexually says something about their wider character. It's not an isolated thing. This seems obvious and is true of most of our preferences in most areas of our lives, surely.

However, I don't think that the correlation between the kink and what it says about the wider character is easy to untangle. Psyches are difficult and complex.

I am amused both by the people who think that a particular way of doing sex is morally superior; and by the people who like a specific type of sex and who think that other ways of doing it are "boring", "vanilla", "missionary in the dark", "closed minded". Just because people don't share your kink doesn't mean what the sex they have is less good.