Telling Significant Other About Kinks

leatherleaf

Experienced
Joined
Nov 15, 2013
Posts
71
So I'm relatively new here but apparently there is a steady stream of people coming in who have nearly no idea how to communicate their kinks to their significant other. So as a student of human psychology I figured it would be a good idea and a positive influence on new people to delve into the subject further.

Two sets of questions.

My SO does NOT know about my kinks.
1. How long have you been hiding them?
2. Why won't you tell (fear of rejection, etc.)?
3. Do you ever plan to reveal yourself?

My SO DOES know about my kinks.
1. How long did you wait to tell them?
2. How did you tell them?
3. Their reaction short term and long term?
 
I'll go first.

My SO DOES know.
1. Less than a year.
2. We talk best in bed (not in sexual settings) with the lights off.
3. Short term she jumped me right then and there (positive sign). Medium term she blew me off. Long term I restated the importance and she read a book with me, made her lists and has participated.
 
Both of my SOs know

For my husband:

1) Almost as long as I have know them. We have always shared our fantasies with each other. As I have begun to understand my kinks I have talked to him about them.
2) By sharing fantasies. But it has been gradual. We rarely surprised the other with something drastically earth shattering different.

3) He's very open minded. He has tried to share many of them with me, and those he is not into at all he has been ok with me having another SO.

There have been at various times when one or the other of us have discovered a new kink or sexual interest and brought it up to the other. For both of us there are kinks that he likes that turned me off or down right squicked me out right away and vis versa but we are both open enough to learn more and give things a try.

for my dominant:

1) Yes he knows. Slowly as we got to know each other. We met on-line but not on a BDSM site.

2) I shared fantasies with him. He told me to read The Story of O and then discuss it with him. After that he told me he was a dominant.

3) He was thrilled :)
 
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Spouse does know:

1. Told him around the time of my join date. I didn't wait very long after I had a name associated with what I'd wanted.
2. Via chat. We're LD, so most revelations happen when we're not together.
3. It was sort of an "oh! okay... what now?". Several years later and I'd say we're still heavily in the beginning stages.

I told a previous person I was emotionally/romantically? intimate with prior, and they literally stopped talking to me afterward. Almost right after. (It was over chat too.) I think he blocked me too because I never saw him online again after that.

Talk about being fucked over.

ETA: Didn't read the first question right :V
 
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My SO DOES know

1) I've only known for sure less than a year. Before that, I didn't fully understand what I wanted. I told myself the fucked up porn I liked so much was my brain confusing disgust and eroticism. So for years I was in denial about my own kinks.

2) Turns out, while being in denial I dropped hints and did things that were very much inline with my kink. I slowly leaked the information and then one night I made a request for kinkier sex.

3) Mister's reaction to this day makes me feel stupid I even tried to hide it. He was so nonchalant, like: "oh, that's all? Yeah, we can do that." So we started slow. I figured the best way for it to work out was if I gave him the tamest stuff first and slowly worked up to other things. We're steadily making progress and he's even telling me things he'd like to try now.

On a side note, before I told him I was sure in my mind he'd think I was crazy or weird. I almost convinced myself that he wouldn't like it and if I told him he'd freak out. I'm so happy I worked up the courage.
 
I can't even answer those questions anymore. Shit gets complicated. it's hard to seperate my sexual changes from the other aspects of my person that change at the same time.

But me and my SO have been separated for two years now. It's been a relief.
 
figured it would be a good idea and a positive influence on new people to delve into the subject further.


My SO DOES know about my kinks.
1. How long did you wait to tell them?
2. How did you tell them?
3. Their reaction short term and long term?

1. It was a long time ago, i may have let it slip (i don't really hide my submissive nature very well) in the six months we were friends before we started going out. Certainly, it was before the first time we had sex.
2. Verbally, probably while we were sitting alone together in Her car one night. At the time, the best word i had for it was 'passive,' so it can't have been a very good explanation. It certainly wasn't a very complete one, because it really only scratched the surface, and i didn't really know, when i was that young and inexperienced, just how deep my kinks went.
3. i don't remember it making much of an impact, initially, it wasn't one of the major problems we grappled with in the early years of our marriage, either, we always got on pretty well, sexually. Longer term though... i asked Her recently about being a Domme, and She said She 'realized what she was' early in our relationship. So in that sense, Her long term reaction was Her own awakening as a Domme. Before, she thought of herself as 'loud' or 'bossy' and 'stubborn' and that these were negative traits that made it hard for her to keep a relationship going, but Her being strong and decisive and assertive - Dominant - made our relationship work.
 
My SO does NOT know about my kinks.
1. How long have you been hiding them?
2. Why won't you tell (fear of rejection, etc.)?
3. Do you ever plan to reveal yourself?

I met my ex-husband at 19; married at 20. I was so innocent and inexperienced when I met him I didn't even know about oral sex, much less kink. About a decade into marriage, my best friends at the time started kinda going... "ya know... you might want to umm... think about a few things..." They gave me a copy of The New Bottoming Book for my birthday that year. LOL

I tried to discuss it with my husband... it didn't go so well (although he was totally okay with claiming he was dominant/ head of household). The marriage didn't last much longer (for multiple reasons).

My SO DOES know about my kinks.
1. How long did you wait to tell them?
2. How did you tell them?
3. Their reaction short term and long term?

Currently, I don't shout it from the mountain tops, but whenever I put a personals ad on a [non-kink] site, I mention it... ish. It's possible to put quite a bit of... attitude... into a well written personals ad, to attract the right sort of person without attracting the wrong sort of person. If I meet someone and we click, I discuss things further, as we get to know one another.
 
My SO DOES know about my kinks.

1. During our first chat ever. We met in a non-kink related chat room and started talking. Got along really well and at some point it just came up.

2. It just came up pretty organically after a joke about safewords. Clearly both of us knew what safewords were, so we got talking about BDSM.

3. Short term: he asked me to come over to see a movie, I went (we were practically neighbors at that time). We never finished the movie. Long term: really, really liked each other, but life happened and we had to be long-distance for a while, then moved in together, and now 7 years later our (well, my) interest in sexual BDSM waxes and wanes but the D/s vibe is there 24/7 and that's the part that's turned out being the most important for me anyways.


In previous relationships (which have not started online) I've never really had to have any major discussions about the kind of sex I'm into, sex has always been kinky and experimential and I've just always asked if my partner would like to try XYZ. For the longest time I honestly thought what I was doing was completely normal and very common, because no one ever hinted there's anything wrong or odd about what I enjoy.

The non-sexual stuff has needed some discussion and it was tough for me at first to admit to myself that it's not just a sex thing for me. After I got things more or less sorted in my head, talking about it hasn't been that difficult with anyone.
 
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My SO DOES know about my kinks.
1. Long.story but we were engaged 8 years ago - he told me his kink and I freaked out, running for the hills due to being so inexperienced. I got married to another in a very vanilla lifestyle and all of these cravings and desires started. Marriage began to fall apart for many reasons and I found myself with my child hood sweetheart again. Was never an issue to tell him anything so straight away.
2. We got talking again online.. he saw how much I had grown and found myself and we decided we were still so attracted to each other after all this time.
3. Short term - we met up and gave in to our cravings. He guided me through all of my wants and needs.
Long term - well he's now my boyfriend and Daddy and we moved in together in October.

We're so compatible in every sense that it's often scary because it's so rare.
 
I can't even answer those questions anymore. Shit gets complicated. it's hard to seperate my sexual changes from the other aspects of my person that change at the same time.

But me and my SO have been separated for two years now. It's been a relief.

Well, just...fuck. :rose:

..................

The SO sorta knows a few things.
1. Lots of years. The number isn't important.
2. Rejection maybe, but really I don't think her heart would be much into anything I'd really like to suggest, besides being really good at missionary, which I ain't.
3. To the SO? "...and you can call me 'sirr' or 'daddy' from now on..." *haha* No. Some of it comes out tangentially I suppose, but it's pretty unrelated to "kink" in any way at that point.
 
When I met my SO years ago there was an underlying feeling of roles-he is dominant in many areas of life and I guess deep down its one of the things that attracted me to him (and my submissive nature at times for him). I'm quite a direct person and don't believe in beating around the bush and I am not backwards at coming forwards. I basically had some 'kit' in a bag shoved to the back of my wardrobe-handcuffs, a crop etc etc. One night after a few drinks together, I put the bag on my bed, told him to take a look and he would see what I am about, then I left the room. He came downstairs grinning and we never looked back :D
 
My SO DOES know

1) I've only known for sure less than a year. Before that, I didn't fully understand what I wanted. I told myself the fucked up porn I liked so much was my brain confusing disgust and eroticism. So for years I was in denial about my own kinks.

2) Turns out, while being in denial I dropped hints and did things that were very much inline with my kink. I slowly leaked the information and then one night I made a request for kinkier sex.

3) Mister's reaction to this day makes me feel stupid I even tried to hide it. He was so nonchalant, like: "oh, that's all? Yeah, we can do that." So we started slow. I figured the best way for it to work out was if I gave him the tamest stuff first and slowly worked up to other things. We're steadily making progress and he's even telling me things he'd like to try now.

On a side note, before I told him I was sure in my mind he'd think I was crazy or weird. I almost convinced myself that he wouldn't like it and if I told him he'd freak out. I'm so happy I worked up the courage.

Pretty much exactly this except we had been playing with light bondage since the beginning of our relationship. Every relationship I have been in I've let one kinky activity slip in the hopes that my partner would somehow magically see this as the tip of the iceberg. No one did. It took me 5 years to finally spill all the beans to him - he'd suspected as much all along and was waiting for me to bring it up. :rolleyes:
 
When I told my first S.O. the mildest of my kinks, he left me the following day :(
 
I'm in the latter group.

1. We met at an event FOR kink, so I had to break it down even more. It's not just me-spank-you-like. I decided I had to really break things down immediately. Sexual compatibility is not all there is in a relationship, but I had come out of the flaming wreck of a relationship with everything BUT sexual compatibility. I wasn't going to put myself or anyone else through that ever again.

2.Second date. Immediately. Directly. We'd done "checklists" on the first date, because that was kind of the point of going where we went to meet. But my needs went beyond the checklist stuff, and I didn't expect to have them met, so I had nothing to lose.

"Look, I'm bi, I'm poly, I'm seeing someone, it's an older dude, and while it's never going to be riding off into the sunset, I don't plan on stopping either, and that's how it is, so you're great and we can be friends and all, but that's what you're getting into if you want to be more." I was willing to walk - and I had this conversation WHEN I was willing to walk. If you're not willing to walk, you're already addressing this stuff past the point of expiration, IME.

3. Short term reaction, his eyes lit up like he hit the jackpot. "Actually I'm bi and I like older men myself quite a bit. " The long term picture is that life has chilled us out a bit, but knowing that you live on the same planet as your partner, even when you're not having as much insane rubber clad electro-sounds crisco sex, will go FAR for you as a couple.
 
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3. Short term reaction, his eyes lit up like he hit the jackpot. "Actually I'm bi and I like older men myself quite a bit. " The long term picture is that life has chilled us out a bit, but knowing that you live on the same planet as your partner, even when you're not having as much insane rubber clad electro-sounds crisco sex, will go FAR for you as a couple.

This reminds me of "30 Rock"s Jenna and Paul, if you watched that show? Especially this episode
http://youtu.be/U5qutHb0BUE
 
My SO DOES know about my kinks.
1. How long did you wait to tell them?
2. How did you tell them?
3. Their reaction short term and long term?

My husband and I started talking about our kinks, just about a month into our relationship. It started off slow and kind of mild :) but we have since covered the gamut, from mild fetishes to those most keep hidden from the world. I actually have Lit to thank for our openness. It has provided us with an outlet for conversation and a source of inspiration to explore things we hadn't even thought of yet. His reaction, both short and long term, has been nothing but acceptance. Our ability to share these kinks with each other has created such a strong bond that we have no real secrets from one another and hold an eminence amount of trust with each other.
 
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