In my experience with kink communities, shame can really do a number on people’s psychology. It feels like there are always two camps of people: the ones who simply learn to say “fuck it” and embrace their weird side, and those who really become very depressed and self-isolating because they’re made to feel like an aberration. That level of internal conflict, where you spend your entire life fighting against your own (otherwise legally and ethically non-problematic) desires due to internalized shame is a dark and dangerous path.

And like… I get it. To an outsider, any kink that you don’t have can definitely seem weird, gross, undesirable, etc. But then again, even vanilla sex acts can seem gross when you imagine other people doing them. Still, I think a lot of people in the kink space end up struggling with negative feelings about themselves.

Plus, there are a certain group of very puritanical and judgemental people who desperately want to describe (without any psychiatric qualifications) any behavior they don’t understand as being “mental illness”, but ironically, I think the most mentally healthy thing any kinky person can do is simply to accept and embrace their kink.

My message to any kinky people out there is to do whatever you can to accept yourself. Unless your kink involves something that is seriously dangerous to yourself and others, or otherwise legally or ethically dubious, then odds are that the best thing that you can do is just come to terms with being, as Rick James said, a “superfreak”.