How popular is consensual non-consent?
Consensual non-consent was the most popular option in our app's taboo-roleplay list, with a clear majority saying yes to it.
BeMoreKinky Research
BDSM and kink research
Our original BDSM research is drawn from 25k+ couples and 100k+ survey responses.
Kink communities are full of wonderfully confident rules: brats are switches, experienced people know exactly what they want, and couples either match or they don't. We wanted to see which of those stories survived contact with other people's answers.
The patterns here come from anonymous answers in our BDSM test and from couples exploring desires in BeMoreKinky.
Scenes, bodies and desire
Aftercare, pain, restraint, language and the details that decide what a scene feels like.
In BDSM, what's more important: the mental or the physical?
Neither side always wins. Control, surrender and trust made BDSM feel mental, while physical activity won when the mental side meant teasing, instructing and obeying.
Do people want to be left alone after a BDSM scene?
Usually not. Most people preferred some form of connection after a BDSM scene, while immediate solitude was rare.
Do people with breeding kink want pregnancy?
Breeding kink does not automatically mean wanting pregnancy. The language people liked centred more on sensation and the act than on a literal baby.
Who wants bruises after a BDSM scene?
Self-declared dominants were much more likely than submissives to enjoy seeing marks or bruises on a partner after impact play.
How do people react to pain in BDSM?
Most people wanted to turn pain into pleasure, ride it or surrender to it. Self-declared submissives chose surrender especially often.
How restrained do subs want to be?
Among people who described themselves as submissive, secure restraint was far more popular than light restraint or loose ties.
What do people need before they can orgasm?
Time and warm-up mattered far more often to people using the app's feminine wording than to those using its masculine wording.
Do subs want to be praised or degraded?
Subs often want sweet praise and firm commands at the same time. Degradation is a separate preference, and the exact words matter enormously.
What are the limits of humiliation in BDSM?
The clearest limit in our humiliation data was the audience: private ideas were much more popular than humiliation another person could witness.
How important is the dark aesthetic to kinksters?
Dark, moody spaces appeal to many kinksters, but the familiar leather-and-protocol look is only one way to make a scene feel kinky.
Roles, labels and brat play
Where identity, appetite and the role somebody actually takes line up — and where they don't.
From the data
Most people with the strongest Brat scores leaned more submissive
How the strongest Brat scores leaned between Submissive and Switch
Among people with the strongest Brat scores, 67% leaned more submissive, 4% tied, and 29% leaned more switch.
Featured finding
Are brats switches?
Some brats are switches, but brattiness itself more often appeared alongside a stronger submissive lean on our BDSM test.
How submissive are doms?
Doms are not automatically low in submission. A strong dominant appetite can sit beside anything from no interest in submitting to a serious submissive streak.
Does liking kink gear mean you're into BDSM?
Liking kink gear is a strong clue, but people can want praise or power exchange without caring for the visual kit.
Does a BDSM role quiz match how people identify?
Usually. Our short role quiz tends to agree with the dominant, submissive or switch label people choose for themselves.
Is there a brat-to-brat-tamer imbalance?
Bratting has broader appeal than brat taming, but plenty of people enjoy something on both sides of the game.
Experience, communication and boundaries
What experience changes, how people communicate limits, and which habits people say they use.
What changes with kink experience: enthusiasm, intensity, or preparation?
The clearest difference with self-described kink experience was an appetite for more intense play; enthusiasm moved less, and reported preparation barely moved at all.
How many safety-check takers use a safeword system?
Most safety-check takers report a dedicated safeword system, while others rely on ordinary refusal words or have no established system.
Are self-described submissives comfortable saying no?
Many submissives feel very comfortable saying no directly, though that answer was substantially less common among submissives than dominants.
Partners or the kink community: who do quiz-takers turn to?
When a quiz offered both partner and community answers, people chose the partner option far more often.
Do self-identified kink veterans report stronger safety habits?
Self-described kink veterans reported the most thorough safety habits only somewhat more often than beginners, and experience did not form a neat ladder.
Do people who enjoy tying say they tie safely?
Most people who enjoy tying a partner say they choose ties that suit the person's body without blocking blood flow.
Cuckolding, hotwifing and group play
Who watches, who joins, who chooses, and how partners find different routes into the same fantasy.
How many people want to watch their partner with someone else?
A clear minority wanted to watch a partner have sex with someone else, even though watching that partner perform directly for them was widely liked.
Do hotwife-profile takers want their primary partner involved?
Yes. Most Hotwife Profile takers wanted their primary partner involved and informed, while continuing ties with an outside partner drew less interest.
When both partners rate the Cuckolding pack, do they usually agree?
When both partners rated our cuckolding ideas, both usually found at least one thing they liked. It was far less common for only one partner to find something appealing.
Does cuckolding always involve power exchange?
No. Cuckolding can centre on hierarchy, but takers across every profile-role group also chose versions with no power exchange.
Do dominant-identifying people prefer FFM or MMF threesomes?
Dominant-identifying people showed a clear preference for FFM over MMF, while submissive-identifying people were close to evenly split.
How do dominant- and submissive-identifying Hotwife Profile takers differ?
The clearest difference is who gets the encounter moving: dominant-identifying people more often suggest someone new, while submissive-identifying people more often say their primary partner suggests it.
In cuckolding, is 'we choose' the opposite of 'I choose'?
No. People who preferred choosing together were also more likely to want personal choice. Both answers can express the same wish to have a say.
Who wants the additional-partner seat in cuckolding?
The additional-partner seat was uncommon across role groups and least popular with submissive-identifying Cuckolding quiz takers.
From the archive
Earlier couples research
Longer reports on agreement, disagreement, experience, language and what couples do between sessions.
Flagship report
What Couples Reveal About the Kinks Partners Actually Agree On
Couples agreed most often on blindfolding and anticipation. Roleplay brought the most disagreement among the broad categories compared here.
The Kinks Couples Agree on Fastest
Blindfolding led the kink-specific mutual-yes ranking, followed by anticipation, surprise notes and sensory reduction.
The Most Divisive Kinks in Relationships
Among the kink categories compared here, roleplay produced the most disagreement. Naming phrases also created some of the sharper splits between partners.
How Experience Changes What Couples Want
How kink experience changes what couples want, including the categories people embrace early, those that grow with experience, and the level-two dip.
How Kinky Language Is Gendered: The "Good Girl" Effect
What "good girl" means in BDSM, why kinky titles are so gendered, and what saying and hearing these names reveals about kink culture.
What Couples Do Between Sessions: Proposals, Tasks, and AI Scenes
How couples use structured tools to communicate desire, from play proposals to power-exchange tasks to AI-generated fantasy scenes.