BDSM/kink Education

"Kinky"

Have you ever asked yourself, why you're "kinkier" or someone else is more "vanilla" ?

And what do those words even mean ?

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Being "kinky" is simply a way to describe that you like certain sexual acts, that others may not like or are very uncommon.

Being "vanilla" or also called "plain" is just without any kind of "un-normal" pleasures, toys, etc.

But just because you don't tie someone up or use handcuffs, doesn't mean you don't have a kink. Many people actually do have one, just don't see it as that.

A person could be vanilla but likes getting praised a lot. That's not very kinky, but it is a kink.

But there is a neurological explanation for kinky behaviour. There are certain parts of the brain that are dedicated to certain parts of the body.

There is actually a study published in the journal Biological Psychology, where researchers looked specifically at the neuroscience of BDSM.

They had people who were into BDSM to look at “erotic and disgust-inducing” photos.

In both groups, the occipital cortex (responsible for visual perception, including colour, form and motion), hippocampus (complex brain structure embedded deep into temporal lobe. It has a major role in learning and memory.), thalamus (body's information relay station. All information from your body's senses - except smell - must be processed through your thalamus) and amygdala (the integrative center for emotions, emotional behavior, and motivation) were involved in the processing of both “disgusting” and erotic photographs.

Specifically, the study summary notes, the ventral striatum (a subcortical brain region innervated with dopaminergic neurons and involved in tracking the subjective value of stimuli, signaling the presence of/expectation of reward, and encoding errors and outcomes of such predictions. Basically, the striatum contains neuronal activity related to movements, rewards and the conjunction of both movement and reward. Yeah, I know, very confusing and you don't need to know this shiet word by word, thank god...) was activated when sexually arousing photos were shown to the subjects. When talking about doing sexual activities with objects, people can grow attachments to them if they’re used a lot.

Now easier explained:

Imagine you and your partner have used gloves during sex. Just regular gloves that your partner wore with no emotional/sexual reaction in the brain associated with those gloves.

Then you and a partner use those gloves when having sex for a period of time and those silly gloves will become associated with sexual activity.
Now every time you see those gloves without sex, there is a reaction similar to what would be felt during sex. It would be less intense than the sex itself, but still a reaction.

Some people are either just more experienced, like something very much without ever having sex or grow (emotionally and sexually) attached to some things.
Its like you read a book with daddy kink, read more and become more and more interested.

Now two fun facts: 

●Samuel Hughes, who is a psychological researcher at the University of California, Santa Cruz, was interviewed by Psychology Today in May 2018 about his research into the experiences of those who consider themselves “kinky.”
When they asked 'when individuals had their earliest memories of their kinks', most figure it out before the age of 18. He notes the most common age group was between five and 10 years old. However, not everyone with a kink finds out until their adulthood.

●Those who engage in BDSM scored significantly higher on emotional abuse and emotional neglect than those who hadn’t, which showed a study in a dissertation from the Chicago School of Professional Psychology from 2017, where Gautami Polepally Ashok took a look at childhood abuse.

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This was a lot information even for me, but I feel like it's important to know where these kinks even come from and how they're formed :>