BeMoreKinky research
What yesses are people least excited about?
Even the coolest starred yes in our app was rarely rated low. A yes is usually warm; a maybe carries much more room for nuance.
I went looking for the flimsiest yes in our catalogue and found "Call them a puppy". It drew the least enthusiastic yesses among the activities with enough star ratings to compare. Even then, low ratings were rare. Once somebody had said yes to an idea, their stars usually showed real interest. Maybe was where people left themselves much more room.
In our app, people can answer yes, maybe or no to an idea, then add a star rating. The answer tells us whether the idea appeals. The stars tell us how much.
From the data
Only 8% gave 'Call them a puppy' a low star rating
Ratings from people who said yes to it and then added stars
Among people who said yes to 'Call them a puppy' and added a star rating, 8% gave one or two stars and 92% gave three to five stars. It had more low-star yesses than any other activity in the comparison.
Most people who said yes to "Call them a puppy" gave it at least three stars
Puppy language can be the whole delicious point for one person and a small extra for another. Both might say yes to it. Their stars stop those yesses from pretending to be the same answer.
The lower and higher ratings still belong on the same yes list, but they mean different things when a couple is deciding what to try next. One says, "I am open to this." The other says, "Can we please stop scrolling and talk about this one?"
None of the activities in the comparison split the people saying yes into a sizeable love camp and a low-rating camp. People who choose yes are usually somewhere on the warm side already.
It sounds obvious until you look at how often wish lists flatten every positive answer into the same little tick. "I would enjoy this" and "please put this near the top of the list" can sit several miles apart.
Saying yes does not show how excited someone is about an activity
The least enthusiastic yes is not the same thing as the least popular kink. Popularity asks how many people chose an activity. Enthusiasm asks how strongly the people who chose it felt about that choice.
An obscure idea can have a small, devoted audience. A familiar one can collect plenty of pleasant but unhurried yesses. Using popularity as a stand-in for excitement loses the people who adore a niche idea and overstates the heat behind an easy, broadly appealing one.
That distinction is especially familiar in kink. Some interests are central to a person's erotic life. Others are things they like when a particular partner is in the mood, or would happily fold into a scene without planning the evening around them. Both belong on a yes list. They do not belong at the same height on it.
The star makes room for that difference. It lets yes remain a clean answer while giving the person enough space to say whether the idea is simply appealing or the thing they have been hoping a partner would ask about.
What does "maybe" mean on a kink list?
Maybe is the elastic answer. It can mean "with the right person", "in a gentler form", "I like the fantasy more than doing it" or simply "I have not decided". Those are very different thoughts living in the same word.
Joel Nadler and his colleagues found that people use midpoint answers for several meanings, from uncertainty to indifference or having no opinion. A middle answer is not one tidy state of mind.
For kink, context makes the range wider still. A person might be intrigued by rope and unsure about the time it takes. They might enjoy an order from one partner and hate the same words from somebody else. They might want the idea in fantasy, but have no appetite for the faff of making it happen on Friday night.
A star after maybe gives those answers a temperature. It cannot explain the whole answer, but it can separate a nearly-yes from a nearly-no instead of treating everybody in the middle as equally undecided.
Star ratings help couples tell a mild yes from an eager one
A couple does not need identical wish lists. They need enough information to spot where one person's eager yes meets the other's warm maybe, or where a casual yes is being mistaken for a burning request.
In a study of long-term heterosexual couples, Sheila MacNeil and Sandra Byers found that disclosing sexual preferences was associated with better partner understanding. That understanding was associated with a more rewarding shared sexual script. Degrees of preference can matter when two people are trying to build something together.
A yes-only list gives every positive answer the same volume. It finds the overlap, then leaves the couple to discover whether that overlap is a mild "sure" or an immediate "when?". The star puts some heat back into the answer.
"Yes" puts an activity on the shared list, but it does not say whether somebody feels mildly pleased or is already reaching for the toy bag. The stars restore that difference. They let a couple see whether an overlap is pleasant background warmth or the idea both people keep hoping will be next.