I wonder, how common are AroAces with kinks?

[anonymous peacock]

I'm kind of curious, how common are Aro-Aces with kinks? and how do such dynamics work? 

[EmeraldIce]

I'm not exactly sure what you mean when you ask how such dynamics work, but how I think of it is that kinks and fetishes are things or ideas that get a sexual reaction out of someone. For some aces, it can be a way (in conjunction with masturbation) to enhance and satisfy their libido in a way that companionship and sex do not. For sexual people, satisfying an asexual partner's kink or fetish can give them a sense of satisfying their partner sexually in a way that sex with them does not. Asexuals with kinks and fetishes usually aren't into the people involved but more into the scenario and ideas that accompany their kink.

[Destranix]

I'd say that there are a lot of asexuals with fetishes or kinks and that there are many asexuals where those fetishes/kinks are similiar to allosexuals and act in a very similiar way.

But I don't know wheter there's any statistical data regarding your question.

[Destranix]

7 hours ago, EmeraldIce said:

Asexuals with kinks and fetishes usually aren't into the people involved but more into the scenario and ideas that accompany their kink.

I wouldn't say so, no. Asexuals can consider persons attractive and can be aroused by them, that's not much different fromn what allosexuals experience.

Though I cannot estimate how much asexuals to experience such arousal.

[Guest]

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[Destranix]

33 minutes ago, Notaradish said:

Dominance and submission can include life guidance and domestic service. Doing chores and giving/following orders. None of which need to be sexual.

So is it like people do powerplay without being aroused? Then what is the feeling called that makes them live that kink/fetish?

What if people just don't notice, that it's arousing, cause they don't like the feeling sexual and so don't sort it into the right context?

 

[Guest]

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[Destranix]

2 hours ago, Notaradish said:

Dominance and submission can be calming and stabilizing. Gives needed structure and control to a chaotic life.

Yeah...eh, no... or?

People don't do fetish stuff just because that stabilizes or calms down, cause it usually does. Nearly nobody wants to be someone others slave, except if they something, like arousal or connected stuff, makes them want it.

 

For dominance it's the same. It doesn't work without that special feeling, except if one is a really insane person and like to torture others for fun or something like that or one is desprated for control or influence, cause they usually don't got it.
But that brings me more near to understanding what you mean, I know that I used to think of dominant people being asexual in my phantasies, I guess because I considered it as some sort of power not to need arousal or such things.

 

So what I guess I actually just wanted to say is, that there must be some sort of feeling, that makes people like their fetish, but I'm not sure how to name that feeling (maybe some sort of libido then? But I'm not sure wheter others would agree with my definition of libido, so it's hard to compare it).
How would you call that feeling?

[anonymous peacock]

6 hours ago, Notaradish said:

Idk how common we are. I'm a kinky aroace and kink isn't sexual for me. People tend to be oblivous to the fact that kink isn't always sexual. Not even for allos. Yes for many it will be a way of arousal, be they ace or allo, but it's not like that for everyone and one can have certain kinks be sexual and other kinks be nonsexual at the same time.

 

Petplay and ageplay for example, I frequently see these be nonsexual for some aces and allos.

 

Dominance and submission can include life guidance and domestic service. Doing chores and giving/following orders. None of which need to be sexual.

 

Causing/receiving pain can be pleasing without causing arousal.

 

Bondage and sensory play can just feel nice and comforting. Let you zone out for a while or create nice aesthetic effects.

 

It depends on the type of kink and type of people participating in it. Typically the kink and it's effects are the same, you just take the sex and/or arousal out of it. And if it's sexual, then, well, add those parts back in. Whether that arousal is directed at others or if one is willing engage in sexual acts for a sexual partner depends on that individual's orientations and sex tolerances.

That's quite interesting! I can imagine kinks being quite sensual instead of sexual, like cuddling under bondage, and such. I guess in the context of non-romantic or sexual kinks, it kinda is just that sorta stuff but with close friends? How would you define a kink?

[EmeraldIce]

9 hours ago, Notaradish said:

People tend to be oblivous to the fact that kink isn't always sexual.

Kinks aren't inherently linked to sex, but I wouldn't consider it a kink if there's no sexual response whatever. For example, I'm into spanking. I don't like the idea that it's associated with sexuality. I find images, videos, and scenarios that make it into a sexual thing somewhat repulsive. And I don't see spanking as foreplay to sex unless there's a practical reason for having sex in which case it makes the experience more comfortable. This being said, my physical response to spanking is still sexual in nature even though I don't mentally like to associate it with sex and sexuality. But I've liked the idea of spanking since I was a kid, and I wouldn't have considered it a kink until I was in my teens and actually had a sexual response to it. Similarly, power play and dressing up can be enjoyable experiences, but without any sexual element to the experience, it's not really a kink. It's playing pretend.

[EmeraldIce]

4 hours ago, Destranix said:

Nearly nobody wants to be someone others slave, except if they something, like arousal or connected stuff, makes them want it.

I've been into that type of stuff even before sexual arousal played a role. Ever since I was a kid, I've liked the idea of being tormented at the hand of someone else because I liked to imagine myself as the altruistic person who can treat even those who treat me horribly with kindness and respect. It's like people's horribleness would make my own awesomeness stand out or something, and I've always wanted to be awesome. The only caveat is that I have to know and trust that I'm safe if I were to be in that scenario in real life, and that in real life I would also be really upset facing someone with infuriating prejudices.

 

This being said, even though I've had those dreams and fantasies since I was probably 7 years old, I wouldn't call it a kink until it turned into something that did cause sexual arousal, when I was about 16. Not sure how it happened, as I don't mentally like to link this preference to sex, but it did.

[Guest]

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[Guest]

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[Janus the Fox]

To me its quite a bit of an interest, having the furry/mobian kink and whichever add-on kink that's attached to it.  It used to be a strong libido reaction, now I don't, there's no humans involved.  Now while there's no libido reaction, I still like to participate in it but more write and take pictures, myself being within a virtual space like second life.  Me and the BF share the same, and have a bit of a collar and leash thing going on, even though I don't particularity support 100% his particular cartoon kink.  We both Aro Aces.

[EmeraldIce]

3 hours ago, Notaradish said:

They're both very clearly diaper lovers, which is a kink, but for one it's nonsexual and for the other it is. And I have seen people fitting both those descriptions enjoying it with and without arousal. The nonsexual is not "pretending", their unconventional attraction is very obviously real. I see absolutely no reason to disqualify all that same unconventional attraction and behavior just because they…happen to not respond sexually to it? That makes no sense to me whatsoever.

I meant pretend as in you're engaging in some sort of a scenario, not in the sense that you're faking the interest. But kink by definition is sexual, so an interest that falls outside that spectrum wouldn't be called a kink, even if it overlaps in content with a kink.

[Destranix]

12 hours ago, EmeraldIce said:

Ever since I was a kid, I've liked the idea of being tormented at the hand of someone else because I liked to imagine myself as the altruistic person who can treat even those who treat me horribly with kindness and respect. It's like people's horribleness would make my own awesomeness stand out or something, and I've always wanted to be awesome.

Thats...weird (cause it seems to be very uncommon that way and has a little touch of insanity...sorry). But I'd not call it a fetish or kink then, more like something resulting from the want of being awesome. (What though makes me wonder is, that this developed when you were a child? Is this linked to mistreatment or did this just arise out of nowhere? So I'm really wondering, if it's more the later, then that could be even mroe interesting as it already is.)

 

Or maybe I somehow misunderstood this or it got confused in you mind? I remember, that I had some sort of fetish/kink stuff before I linked that sexually. I played strange games with my friends, that were about one doiung like they sleep and the other one dresses them with femal cloths...what's very probable a successor of the forced feminization fetish I had as child later.
Unfortunatly I don't remember much of it, nothing about my thoughts or why I did that or if my sexuality was already existing when we dird that first. Also the fact that I played that with male firends (although I'm definitly not attracted by males) makes this thing a little more weird.

 

Those things are probably interesting when investigating, how sexuality and/or fetishes/kinks develop. Unfortunatly it does not seem like anyone is doing research in that direction.

 

 

[Destranix]

11 hours ago, Notaradish said:

If you always feel arousal when you engage in your own kinks and have no interest when you're not aroused then you will have a hard time contemplating how someone can do kink nonsexually. And you may never be able to.

I hope I'll be able. Cause I'm very curious ;-)

 

11 hours ago, Notaradish said:

Healthy consensual sadists/doms, be they sexual or nonsexual, are not insane, broken or monsters because they like to hurt or control others who consent. Both find it "fun", the nonsexual one just doesn't find it arousing.

And the "fun" part is then probaly that feeling I was talking about?

Cause just having fun tourturing others is not that healthy, although of cause the extent of this might be important, but I'd be critical around those persons, not considering that attribute a part of their personality, but a slight problem, that it would be nice to fix.
If there though is a situational feeling, that makes them want to tourture persons, that's something different. It's limited to a context then and the attribute is easy to differentiate from their self, with low danger of this affecting oter situations outside the context.

 

11 hours ago, Notaradish said:

No different than liking certain types of animals or colors, getting a craving for a certain food, feeling like watching a certain TV series you're engulfed in, or challenging yourself to draw something new and express yourself.

So they are like fascinated of hurtung people? Sorry, but that definitly sounds insane and dangerous.

I mean it's already problematic when people are facinated of wars or battles in stories. But there it's just phantasie, clear cut non-phantasie people, clear cut from really hurting people.
I don't belive, that it's the same for many people out there having kinks.

 

11 hours ago, Notaradish said:

Our interactions are real, our feelings are real. And it's an unconventional attraction

That does more sound like what I thought about.

[Ksenia]

17 hours ago, Destranix said:

Thats...weird (cause it seems to be very uncommon that way and has a little touch of insanity...sorry). But I'd not call it a fetish or kink then, more like something resulting from the want of being awesome. (What though makes me wonder is, that this developed when you were a child? Is this linked to mistreatment or did this just arise out of nowhere? So I'm really wondering, if it's more the later, then that could be even mroe interesting as it already is.)

The point is that kink\fetish\paraphilias can be learned, but in order to be learned it must be consolidated, and this consolidation can  happen only if fetish corresponds  to the personality somehow. It is like integration of driver to the core of the operating system. You can do it only if the driver corresponds to the operating system, so you can't install random software  on your system. The same principle works with sexuality. You can't "install" random fetish into your system, you can't become randomly sadist, masochist or something else, there should be something in your system (brain, personality, genes, etc) which makes learning of such sexual interest pattern possible. And sometimes it is possible to pinpoint your peculiarities of personality before it's full fledged development and before sexual learning with masturbation and orgasms. Also I think it is productive to think about sexual orientations in terms of constraints on conditioning and sexual learning. Heterosexual can't learn to like gay sex due to constraints related to his personality, brain, genes, etc, but he can learn new sexual interests within his constraints, he can learn fetishes (foot fetish, shoe fetish, etc) which signal and predict  heterosexual encounter. Homosexual can learn  fetishes, kinks which lead to homosexual relationships. For ace people fetishes and kinks don't signal particular sexual encounters, they exist in isolation,  outside of the context of particular  sexual behavioral system. 

[Destranix]

6 hours ago, Ksenia said:

The point is that kink\fetish\paraphilias can be learned, but in order to be learned it must be consolidated, and this consolidation can  happen only if fetish corresponds  to the personality somehow.

That's like you are saying that ones sexuality can change, what's mostly said to be nearly not possible ? Or do you restrict this to development phase like just saying (what's quite trivial), that sexuality results from both congenital factors and later experienced factors?

6 hours ago, Ksenia said:

there should be something in your system (brain, personality, genes, etc) which makes learning of such sexual interest pattern possible.

I'd exclude "personality", as it's quite obvious, that kinks/fetishes/paraphilias do not neccessarily correlate with a persons personality and also a persons personality might change, while fetishes/kinks/paraphilias usually are very persistent.

6 hours ago, Ksenia said:

And sometimes it is possible to pinpoint your peculiarities of personality before it's full fledged development and before sexual learning with masturbation and orgasms.

This sentence therefore does not make much sense.
It's true though, that a persons kink/fetish/paraphilia might show up somehow before it's fully developed.

 

6 hours ago, Ksenia said:

Also I think it is productive to think about sexual orientations in terms of constraints on conditioning and sexual learning.

In development phase maybe a strange kind of conditioning not yet researched. I wouldn't call it that way, also not sexual learning.

What might happen is a non-trivial sexual imprinting, later maybe with some kind of reinforcment of that. But it's not compareable with classical learning theories, otherwise we'd already understand how sexualities develop.

 

6 hours ago, Ksenia said:

Heterosexual can't learn to like gay sex due to constraints related to his personality, brain, genes, etc, but he can learn new sexual interests within his constraints, he can learn fetishes (foot fetish, shoe fetish, etc) which signal and predict  heterosexual encounter.

Yeah, that's again the theories, that parts of ones sexuality are congenital, others are based on experience. Personality though is not only (or not even partially?) congenital, so I'd definitly not name it at the congenital part.
I'm though not sure wheter gender preferences are a congenital part of sexuality, actually there's not enough research verifing this.

6 hours ago, Ksenia said:

For ace people fetishes and kinks don't signal particular sexual encounters, they exist in isolation,  outside of the context of particular  sexual behavioral system. 

Not sure, what you mean with "particular sexual encounters". Maybe that's a true thing or maybe not.
So for me my fetishes arn't linked to sex (actually they partially even are about not having orgams, what's quite unpleausrable in fact, cause I don't come to an end that is consistend with the fetish and often I spent a long time before, till I finally decide to finish), but when seeing a person I consider aesthetic I am sometimes or often clearly attracted to sex-specific areas or their body (although only if they are not naked), but attraction stops if I go a step further.

 

[Janus the Fox]

I’ve studied somewhere that a lot of kinks and fetishes are imprinted onto the mind of a child through development.  This goes for some fetishes, for example experiences of kinks like diapers, bodily matter, BDSM could have been through normal childhood experiences.  The brain itself wires up these experiences and connect sexual and pleasure connections in the brain upon puberty.

 

I think this book worked from frudian theories.  It went into detail of the more truly strange fetishes, like gaining sexual pleasure from looking at very ordinary objects and dived into criminology. 

[Destranix]

@Janus the Fox

I'd say it's even more interesting. The fact, that some fetishes are very common, like especially BDSM, makes it not unpropable, that they might largly be based on some congenital factors.

Other fetishes, like e.g. diaper fetish, is definitly imprinted (or something like that. some fetishes seem to often occur in combination with other fetishes, what might hide differences to other fetishes maybe revelaing, that the fetish actually isn't a real fetish but just a special version of the other fetish), cause diapers are not natural.

[anonymous peacock]

Hm, all of this is very interesting information!

[Guest]

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[Destranix]

13 hours ago, Notaradish said:

Idk, we're talking about a personal mental thing, we can't read each other's minds, and you said you always feel arousal with your kinks, so I won't be able to tell if we're actually on the same page.

I know it's difficult ;-) That I cannot read your mind probably is a major reason for me asking this questions, combined with the complexity of the topic and self-analysis, which probably also makes it hard for me to understand how you feel.

Maybe my question should be interpreted as a request for more elaboration on how you'd describe that feeling/mindstate.

13 hours ago, Notaradish said:

I'm referring to sadism in the context of fantasy or consensual kinkplay only. And I'm going to use "hurt" to refer to good consensual pain in s/m kinkplay and "harm" to refer to bad pain, non-consent, and causing actual damage that people don't want.

I assumed that.

I though extrapolated this, as it's motivation seems to be different from what I'd summarize under fethis/kink based actions like that.

 

13 hours ago, Notaradish said:

Whether someone gets aroused with their kinks shouldn't be a determining factor to if they're unhealthy or untrustworthy.

Depends on the definition of arousal, but I'd aggree with that point.
What makes it unhealty is, when the only reason for doing is fun.

13 hours ago, Notaradish said:

arousal doesn't prevent one from harming people.

That's true. That point made it difficult for me to formulate my text, as I had to somehow find out, why then I consider fun as the only reason a problem. I guess in the end it's about the torture being part of ones personality and/or ones conscious existence, ones true self.

 

13 hours ago, Notaradish said:

And it doesn't matter if someone else thinks it'd "be nice" to change it because it personally bothers them.

If hurting other peoples is part of ones personality, then that's definitly a problem seen from my subjective point of view, as then that persons underlying true goals do include things that go agains my underlying true goals. And also agains the underlying true goals of most of humans, as far I see it (people usually nor wanna get hurt, neither wanna get other peoples hurt).

But you are right, that changing the personality is not a solution, as it's ethically very complicated. That would only work if the person agrees with that changes, but in fact thats somehow killing that person or a part of it, what requires higher ethical standards than just the current will of the person involved.

 

13 hours ago, Notaradish said:

But that doesn't mean others should be pressured to change themselves when no harm is being done.

That's true. Actually I'd even go as far to assume, that hurting other people is not part of a humans personality, except it's proven in a way that I don't even know about at the moment.

[Guest]

I am aroace and technically I have a kink but it is kind of I guess very “mild” for lack of a better word and also it has nothing to do with other people and I don’t engage with other people when exploring it I tried to a few times because I thought that is what you are supposed to do but didn’t like it (I mean granted it was all online chat type stuff no video of course because I was not interested is seeing anyone else visually) but yeah I much prefer to engage in it alone. Anyway arousal or no arousal it is completely possible to be aro ace and still have a kink the 2 things are not mutually exclusive. 

[Guest]

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[Destranix]

8 minutes ago, Notaradish said:

I am always referring to sexual arousal when I use that term here unless I state otherwise. Physical, mental, whether it's oriented towards others or not, just sexual arousal.

Yeah, I also do. Though sexual arousal is a wide sprecturm of feelings.

10 minutes ago, Notaradish said:

You have to prove to me that something causes harm, some kind of actual bad, an actual negative impact, or else there's no reason for me to see anything unhealthy about it.

I'd compare it with a weapon. It's a danger, no matter who veals it. But not every weapon is used in an unethical way.

Same is with people having fun hurting others. It's a danger, but that doesn't mean that every person experiencing that fun acts in an unethical way.

13 minutes ago, Notaradish said:

Why is nonsexual kink some…"true self" thing but sexual kink isn't? They're both real experiences by kinksters, a part of who they are.

Maybe that's based on a false assumption. For me my arousal guided self is not my true self. It's like my goals just get exchanged when I'm aroused.

15 minutes ago, Notaradish said:

This is the same as above, it's only a problem if harm occurs.

I'd consider it problematic, if harm is likely to occur. (But I can't say where to put an border. Though harm potential cannot be clearly measured or accuratly defined anyway.)

17 minutes ago, Notaradish said:

It can squick most out, but squicking people out is not a justification for us being seen as a problem needing to be fixed as long as we are happy and keep it to our consenting partners.

I don't know what "squick" means, but I anyway never though that my definition for people who'd carry inherent harm would match on much people, especially not on all kinksters. I assumed that probably it's not how you describe, but that there is some underlying feeling and that harmful kinks arn't part of ones personality for most people.

[Guest]

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