What’s Too Kinky?

Jan 05, 2010 • Books, Culture •

The zeroes flew by, didn’t they? We’re here to give you a recap of books that caught our eyes, captured our hearts and made us think during the noughties.

by Angela Koh

According to Judy Dutton’s How We Do It, 60 percent of adults fantasize about kinky sex.

Why would we rather smell a wet sock than kiss someone’s lips?

Dr. Richard von Krafft-Ebing was the first to publish a list of these paraphilias in Psychopathia Sexualis.

The Latin couldn’t keep readers away from the book:

Formicophilia: attraction to small animals or insects crawling on parts of the body

Chremastistophilia: arousal from being robbed

Telephonicophilia: arousal from making obscene phone calls to strangers

Voraphilia: arousal to the idea of being eaten or swallowed alive

We can’t forget about Japan’s omorashi or the arousal from having a full bladder. There’s even historical relevance to the fetish for gas masks in Great Britain after World War II. Today, Kraft-Ebing’s list of medical problems is simply diagnosed as human preference. Researchers found men who identified as sadists were not closet misogynists. Women with particular SM tastes were also activists in feminist groups.

With no psychologically unhealthy reason for such kinks, it’s become natural to push the envelope in bed. Dutton reports that the SM community has recently included activities of scat (feces arousal) and “ageplay” (enacting adult/child sex) as a part of Living in Leather’s programming.

Some fans argue that the rush of “edgeplay” like using guns and knives is well worth the risks. Angelina Jolie herself is rumored to have a room of ropes and sharp objects for her sexual disposal.

With the STD epidemic and the growing appetite from today’s internet-rampant sex fetishes, at what point must our generation return to question the sanity and safety of kinky sex?

  • Cheikh

    i guess it’s up to the person to question how kinky an act really is. i think it reaches a limit when ones health is at risk

  • Anaiis

    One of my greatest fears has to do with this–but not in the way you might imagine.

    I call it “the event horizon of desire.” Let’s work with SM, since that’s the easiest and most extreme example. You start testing boundaries, getting to know one another. You start pushing the limits. Obviously the interaction is more than the physical aspect, that is, the torture and allotment of pain. But these things play a part, too.

    What happens when it’s no longer enough to be beaten to a pulp? Welts and bruises fade. Broken bones mend. Every time it happens, it’s less intense than the last. Your tolerance for pain, for humiliation, for everything gets higher and higher. And then?

    For me, it’s not a question of risk because I do enjoy the risk, it’s a question of hitting a limit, of doing it all, of never being again being able to feel as intensely as I did the first time I did it. Of having done it all and having nowhere else to go. That is my fear. That’s why I pace myself in my strolls to my land of desire, why I savor everything and relish, and don’t push it. I don’t want to have done it all.

    I would rather die still longing than lukewarm and jaded.

  • http://eunkoh.blogspot.com/ Angela Koh

    Anaiis,

    I believe you have it right. I told another lady when asked about “what’s too kinky” that I certainly believe everything has limits, even in the bed. Moderation is key as anything excessive can overlook the simple details we forget to appreciate (the way our senses numb to heavier SM). It’s kind of like “super-sizing” everything–more is not exactly better.

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