April 27, 2018

Grounded in an empirical mixed-methods study of the retrospective life histories of 292 kinky adults from 29 countries, this talk will describe a new model of the development of kink identity which has broad applications to both clinical and non-clinical contexts while attending to the substantial diversity of identity development experiences held by kinky individuals. In particular, the talk will showcase participants’ diverse stories that highlight the inability of kinky people’s lives to be boiled down to single, simplistic narratives. Topics touched on by these stories will include media experiences, childhood play, differences in the search for a label to describe one’s kink desires, kink community involvement, religious communities, kinky/vanilla relationships, kink as a source of healing from trauma, and the complex role of capitalism in shaping kink identity.