something you said has been on my mind for a while - "kink is not inherently sexual". good faith! I don't understand that at all, could you explain it a bit?
This post is educational, hooray! Extensive discussion of kink under the cut. Nothing explicitly sexual is described in detail.
Please note that in this post, I use the terms top and Dom/me interchangeably. This is because I personally identify as a "top" and not a Dom. Some communities draw sharp lines between these two terms, and it's useful to make sure that you're using the same definition as other people when you're talking. Some people use "top" solely to refer to the giving or penetrative partner, which is not synonymous with the dominant partner. Topping subs, power bottoms, and all other permutations exist. I just use that term for myself because I don't like being called a Dom. It sounds like a guy's name to me, I don't like it.
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Do you mean like me, or like that people in general should do that?
There should definitely be more kinky romance in the world.
This post helped me make sense of something that has been nagging at me for ages, but I haven't been able to put words to until now!
I consider myself to be a kink positive and sex positive person, but I've had this ongoing issue of finding myself very uncomfortable with what I've come to think of as "kink-adjacent" communities. These are communities that practice a lot of the same things as the kink communities I'm familiar with, but without the sex.
Somehow, even though I'm on the asexual spectrum myself, I have always felt more comfortable interacting with people in the explicitly labeled "kink" communities, while the non-sexual communities that are often labeled "no kink!" make me very uncomfortable.
What I've just realized is that OP is completely right! It's all kink because it's not about the sex. It's about the power exchange and the power dynamics.
Inside kink communities, that's usually all spelled out up front and there is no hiding it. We all know that this is about power dynamics etc. We all know that this is kink.
But in those communities where people are screaming "No kink! SFW only! No sex!" all the stuff about power dynamics and power exchange tends to be obfuscated and/or denied. Maybe this is because I'm neurodivergent and I struggle with ambiguity, but I really dislike this obfuscation!
My perception is that when things are clearly called kink, as they should be, it's easy to define my boundaries around them and let people know what I am and am not comfortable with. But when people won't recognize that something is kink, just because it doesn't include sex, then it feels so much harder to maintain those boundaries. I just want to know what I'm getting into before I show up somewhere (virtual spaces included). It's important for me to be in the right headspace when I'm encountering certain types of power dynamics.
OP, I really hope this doesn't derail your post or I'm not intruding on a larger conversation that I've missed. I'm genuinely so grateful that your insight helped me make sense of something that I've been struggling with.
No, that's a great point, and thank you for making it. A lot of people don't talk clearly about power exchange and boundaries outside of sex, and they should. Kink communities are often good at that in ways that others are not.
Also, acknowledging that non-sexual and non-romantic content can still be KINKY content is important in a fandom sense sometimes, in that if you have a fandom very full of those "SFW only! no sex!" types, you don't get things that I would 100% consider kink appropriately tagged and labelled in fanworks.
I'm adjacent/mildly in a fandom that is RIFE with stuff that is very much kinky content, of various stripes, some of which I don't enjoy at ALL, but none of it's tagged, because the fandom is also very averse to shipping or sexual content. Which gets kind of uncomfortable especially when characters who are minors are caught up in kinky/kink-adjacent dynamics with adults that I personally don't want to read about, but it's okay and doesn't need tagged for because it's a "SFW no sex no shipping" fandom for them. And while the rest of us in the fandom can kind of spot when that stuff's happening and avoid it, we're worried about them leaving this fandom for other fandoms that expect better tagging standards and acknowledgement of kinky content and having a really bad time.
If you can understand and internalize that kink =/= sex or romance, you can better identify when maybe you've written something that is playing with power dynamics in a way that probably needs tagged for, especially if it's a teenager and an adult involved in those dynamics in your fic. Which is so two steps to the side of the OP's point so hopefully this isn't obnoxiously derail-y, but it IS adjacent to both OP and @maemaybe's points so.
Here we are. (lmk if this is too tangential, OP)
This is all very important to talk about, and I appreciate that you did. If these dynamics aren't recognized, they can't be acknowledged and tagged for, either for those who enjoy them or those who want to avoid them.
Tumblr's love of the liege/faithful knight dynamic, for example? Not-necessarily-sexual kink, potentially.
I want to also caution people against forcing a label of kink on other people's writing or activity. Not that I'm saying what's happening above, but that it can be really fucked up to have someone telling you, "your relationship/ship/etc. is non-sexual kink." Telling someone "this makes me uncomfortable because it feels too close to that for me, so can you please tag for it?" is one thing, but saying, "This is that thing" is another.