On FetLife, lots of people post the results of something called the “kink test.” You can find it at Kinktest.org. As with much on FetLife, it doesn’t quite speak to me: it tends to make people look unappealing to me, as it reduces them to a set of labels and characteristics, many of which, in isolation, I don’t find particularly attractive.
I was speaking yesterday with a lovely woman about her quest for a mate. She enumerated all of what she’s looking for; all of what, in her experience, the men she dates are looking for. “I think when you are looking for something in particular, you’re bound to be disappointed,” I said.
I’ve written a number of times about how submissive women seeking “a Dom” often find themselves disappointed with me, because, they say, I’m not really a Dom. Like, I don’t want them to call me “Sir,” or some shit like that. There are things they want as a sub that I don’t offer. [See: topping from the bottom.]
So while I understand the appeal of a kink test like this in its promise of establishing the presence or absence of (the possibility of) compatibility, I don’t, in the end, particularly like it. It feels to me like it’s reductive, and like it eliminates (or rather, devalues) the thrill of getting to know someone, getting to know them in all their uniqueness. I mean – if I were to answer this kink test with one person in mind I might have a very different set of answers than with another. Just to reach way back into my past, for example: I would want to be much rougher with V than with L. Or with Isabel. And my roughness would feature much more primal aggression with Marina. And much less with, say, Jen.
Like, ok, so, according to this kink test, I’m a “90% rigger.” More, apparently, than I am “dominant” (65%). But whose definitions are these? And what if I might answer the kink test’s questions differently on another day (or in another minute)? Like – I took the kink test twice, a few days apart, and this is what I came up with (the left column was the first time; the right, the second):
So clearly, the two columns are similar. But they are also different. Like, I was more (8% more) of a hunter the second time. And more of an owner. And a little bit less of a swinger. Much more (14%) of an exhibitionist. And 0% more things altogether. But it looks like I became much more of a findomme (?!? – I’d have thought I’d be a “findom,” if anything).
Anyway: point being, I’m not, I think, going to post my score on my profile, because I have the sense that it shifts around, and that much would depend on the partner and the timing. I could write a kink test that would produce very different results, and that would be much more… interesting. [Note to self: that would be a fun project.]
Now – this is a standardized test – everyone who takes the test is taking the same test. So at least that provides some way to understand the results relatively. Like, someone else taking the test and getting a similar score in one category or another probably answered the questions similarly. But. It’s surely bad science. The questions are too few, they have too many typos, they’re too confusing with respect to roles at times.
I guess what I’m saying is I’m hungry for a more three-dimensional portrait – and one that shifts both situationally, in different relationships, and over time – of my kinkiness. Which, I guess, is what this blog is. 🙂