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“How do you find a long-term partner who is into kink?”; “Having a hard time dating/finding a partner”; “Are respectful, long-term relationships likely or even possible between a dom and a sub?” These are just a few of the many posts on BDSM forums from people who are struggling to find a long-term, monogamous BDSM relationship.
Estimates vary, but according to some studies, nearly 35 percent of adults have engaged in BDSM, and over half have fantasized about it. Further, the vast majority of adults are monogamous. Given these stats, why does it seem to be so difficult for monogamous kinksters to find long-term relationships? One possible reason is that they’re looking in the wrong places.
Don’t Look for Partners in the Public BDSM Scene
If you’re single and kinky, attending kink events might seem like a logical way to find a partner. And this might be true—if you’re poly. As sociologist and kinkster Julie Fennell points out in her book Please Scream Quietly, non-monogamous kinksters far outweigh monogamous ones in the scene. This makes sense if you consider the purpose of the scene: to meet and play with new people. According to Fennell, “non-monogamous people are more motivated to create, organize, and attend parties to meet and play with new people than are monogamous people who are only interested in socializing.”
And the rare monogamous people who do show up often end up feeling pressured or convinced to become non-monogamous because there simply aren’t enough other monogamous people there to meet. While it’s not impossible to find another monogamous needle in a haystack at a kink event (it worked for Vagabond once), the odds make it unlikely.
Maybe Avoid Kinky Dating Sites, Too
Similar to BDSM events, kink-friendly sites such as Feeld and Fetlife also tend to skew heavily toward non-monogamy. Feeld hasn’t released its data on this, but one Redditor has made an attempt to do an informal assessment and found that approximately 75 percent of women on the app practice some form of non-monogamy. It’s probably safe to assume the majority of men do as well.
Fetlife doesn’t release any data about its users, but it’s no secret to anyone who uses the site that non-monogamous people are ubiquitous there. It’s also not a dating site, which some BDSM newbies don’t realize. This doesn’t necessarily prevent people from attempting to use it that way (what woman on there hasn’t gotten creepy unsolicited messages?), but it was designed to be a kinky social media site and is best for finding events, classes, and so on.
Embrace Vanilla Dating Apps
At this point, if you’re a single, monogamous kinkster, you may be wondering where you can possibly meet like-minded people. Don’t despair! Perhaps somewhat counterintuitively, we recommend using conventional, “vanilla” dating apps and going to “vanilla” events or venues. We’re not suggesting you should give up on BDSM and become vanilla, but rather to use these avenues to find other kinky people hiding in plain sight. It worked for us, and it might work for you, too. Why? Because you’re far more likely to find a higher concentration of monogamous people in these spaces than in kinky ones. And given that about a third of adults engage in BDSM and even more might be willing to bring their fantasies about it to life, the odds are decent that you’ll encounter at least some kinky people in “vanilla” spaces.
Drop Kinky Clues (or Look for Them)
Looking for love in these conventional places doesn’t mean you need to hide your kinky proclivities, though, especially on dating apps. If you want to attract other kinksters and weed out vanilla folks, you can signal your BDSM interests in your profile in subtle and not so subtle ways.
Obvious Clues
- Include something pointed yet vague like “kinky,” “sex positive,” “kink positive,” or “kink friendly” in your profile. Vagabond listed “kinky” in his profile along with a bunch of other adjectives that had nothing to do with sex. This was quite effective at attracting kinky women.
- Be sure to list other attributes about yourself that have nothing to do with sex to show that being kinky is just one facet of who you are, not your entire identity.
- Avoid listing specific kinks—this will come across as too sex focused. You can get into specifics later.
- If you’re a male dom, do not, under any circumstances, post faceless photos of your naked torso or photos of sex and kink toys laid out on a bed. This is the epitome of what not to do.
Subtle Clues
- If you want to hint at sexual openness without saying anything about kink directly, you could put “GGG” in your profile. This was coined by Dan Savage and is short for “good, giving, game.” This is what Mimsy had in her dating profile. It’s unclear if it helped, but it didn’t hurt.
- If you want to hint at kink more directly but still fly under the radar a bit, you could say “left side of the slash” if you’re dominant or “right side of the slash” if you’re submissive or simply “vanilla is for ice cream.”
- You could also opt to not indicate anything in your own profile and focus on looking for any of these clues in other people’s profiles. This was largely what Mimsy did, and it worked pretty well.
Unfortunately, your approach may depend on your gender. Women are more likely than men to attract creeps if they overtly advertise their kinkiness. That said, there are other reasons people of any gender may not want to let their freak flag fly in a dating profile, such as the possibility of a work colleague stumbling across your profile. Do whatever you’re comfortable with.
Cut to the Chase in the Chat
Some people advise not mentioning anything related to BDSM or kink until at least a few dates in with a new person. For us, this was a no go. We both knew we were looking for a BDSM relationship, and we wanted to at least know if we were sexually compatible on paper before moving ahead. As soon as we matched on Bumble, Mimsy’s first message to Vagabond was “Kinky caught my eye,” alluding to “kinky” in his profile. This sparked an exchange that revealed we were both looking for a bedroom-only D/s relationship and which side of the slash we were on.
If you’re not comfortable being this direct early on, you can certainly wait to bring up kink later. But if you have a BDSM-related hint in your profile and/or are seeking out hints in others’ profiles, it’s probably safe to assume it will come up early on. Sometimes, people might not know what it means and will ask out of curiosity. If they aren’t interested after they find out, better to know up front, in our view.
Don’t Give Up!
It’s absolutely possible to find a long-term, monogamous BDSM relationship. But you might need to adjust where and how you’ve been looking before you find success. Keep at it, and remember that somewhere between a third and half of adults are interested in kink. Quite a few of those people are probably just as frustrated as you are.