The short answer
A kink is any consensual erotic interest that sits outside what we’ve been taught to call conventional: being held down or holding the reins, a blindfold, rope, praise, being watched, being teased until you can’t think. They are far more common than most women assume; in one large survey, 96% of women had fantasised about at least one aspect of BDSM. Beneath every kink is a deeper desire: to surrender, to be seen, to be wanted, to lead, to feel. Explore it slowly, with negotiation, a safeword and aftercare, and safety becomes the thing that sets you free.
There is a particular moment you may already know. He asks whether you’d like him to stop. You realise you don’t. You know exactly where your control is, because you chose where to put it.
That moment, the one where wanting and permission meet, is what kink is really about. Costumes and a cupboard of equipment are beside the point. A blindfold is just fabric until someone you trust ties it. A command means nothing until you decide you’d like to obey it.
For years, women’s curiosity about kink has been treated as either a joke or a symptom. It is neither. This guide is for the woman who has wondered, privately, what a particular fantasy says about her, and for the woman who already knows what she likes and wants the language for it. We’ll walk through the most common types of kink, what each one is, the desire that lives beneath it, and how to begin gently. Nothing explicit. A little naughty. Never vulgar.
In this guide
Definition
A kink is a consensual sexual interest, practice or fantasy that falls outside conventional ideas of sex, such as power exchange, restraint, sensation play or role play. Kink is defined by choice and consent: everyone involved wants it, has agreed to it, and can stop it.
You’ll often see kink folded into BDSM, an umbrella term for bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, and sadism and masochism. Sex researcher Justin Lehmiller describes BDSM as sexual interests “centering around consensual power exchange”. Not all kink is BDSM, though. Praise, teasing or a carefully staged role play can be deeply kinky without anyone being tied to anything.
Definition
A fetish is a strong erotic focus on a specific object, material or body part (silk, leather, feet) that is sometimes needed for arousal. A kink is broader: a preferred flavour of play you enjoy but don’t require.
No. In 2019 the World Health Organization’s ICD-11 removed sadomasochism and fetishism as diagnoses, so consensual sexual practices are no longer treated as disorders unless they involve distress, harm or non-consent.
Yes, and the numbers are startling. In Lehmiller’s survey of 4,175 Americans for his book Tell Me What You Want, 96% of women had fantasised about at least one aspect of BDSM, and women fantasised about submission, bondage and mixing pleasure with a little pain more often than men.
A Canadian study of 1,516 adults found that 64.6% of women had fantasised about being sexually dominated, 52.1% about being tied up, and 36.3% about being spanked. Only two of 55 fantasies, both involving harm to others, were genuinely rare.
Fantasy and practice are different things, of course. In the first Australian Study of Health and Relationships, 1.3% of sexually active women said they had done BDSM in the past year. In the second, 7 to 8% of Australians had tried sexual role play or dressing up. In the United States, a nationally representative survey found at least 30% of adults had tried spanking and at least 20% had tied someone up or been tied up.
The gap between the two figures is the interesting part. Most women carry these desires privately. Many never find a safe enough place to explore them.
The research says the opposite. The Australian study found people who practised BDSM were no more likely to have experienced sexual coercion or to be anxious or unhappy; the authors concluded it is “simply a sexual interest or subculture”. A Dutch study of 902 practitioners found they were, on average, less neurotic, more open, more conscientious and reported higher wellbeing than a control group.
Every kink is a door. What matters is the room behind it.
Anna Grosman, Founder
In our experience, the rooms tend to be the same handful, whatever the door looks like:
There’s a reason so many capable, high-achieving women are drawn to surrender. If you spend your days making decisions for a team, a household and everyone in it, being told what to do by someone you trust can feel less like weakness and more like rest. Being wanted matters just as much, and our epicurean guide to desire explains why feeling desired is such a powerful turn-on for women.
The body backs this up. Researchers who measured hormones before and after consensual BDSM scenes found that cortisol, the stress hormone, rose during the scene for the person being restrained. Afterwards, when the scene had gone well, stress fell and both partners reported feeling closer.
Definition
Subspace is the floaty, deeply absorbed state some people describe when submitting during consensual kink, with time slowing and self-consciousness falling away.
A small preliminary study found that people in the receiving role showed signs of reduced executive function, a slowing of the brain’s planning and self-monitoring centre, while the person leading showed signs of flow. For a woman whose mind never stops, that may be the whole point.
Here are the most common kinks women ask about, from the gentlest to the more adventurous. Each one has a feeling, a definition, the desire underneath it and a gentle way to begin.
Thirteen kinks at a glance
| Kink | The desire beneath it | A gentle start |
| Submission | Rest from responsibility | Let him choose one thing |
| Dominance | Authority over your pleasure | Give one instruction |
| Bondage and rope | Being held | A silk scarf, loosely knotted |
| Blindfolds | Anticipation | A silk eye mask, five minutes |
| Sensation play | Presence | Ice, then warmth, on the wrist |
| Light impact | Intensity and release | An open hand, built slowly |
| Teasing and edging | Wanting, stretched out | Let him make you wait |
| Praise | Being seen and approved of | Tell him the phrase that undoes you |
| Worship | Being desired without condition | An hour where you only receive |
| Role play | Novelty and freedom | Strangers at a hotel bar |
| Voyeurism | To look without being looked at | Ask him to undress for you |
| Exhibitionism | Being seen as erotic | A mirror |
| Multiple partners | Abundance | Talk it through as a fantasy first |
He tells you to stay exactly where you are. You find that you’d like nothing more.
What it is: One person agrees to give up control and the other agrees to hold it, for a scene, an evening or simply a moment.
The desire beneath it: Rest from responsibility. Trust. The paradox that giving up control is itself a choice only a powerful woman can make.
Start gently: Let him choose one thing: where you sit, what you wear, when you may touch him. Agree on a safeword first.
Definition
Power exchange is the consensual transfer of control from one partner to another, agreed in advance and revocable at any moment.
You decide the pace. He waits, and watches you decide.
What it is: You set the rules. You give the instructions, choose what happens and when, and enjoy being obeyed.
The desire beneath it: Authority over your own pleasure, often for the first time. For women raised to be agreeable, leading in bed can feel thrilling.
Start gently: Give one instruction and see how it feels to have it followed: slower, not yet, look at me.
A soft knot at the wrist. Your heartbeat, suddenly very loud.
What it is: Restraint with silk scarves, cuffs or rope. Shibari is the Japanese-influenced art of decorative rope binding.
The desire beneath it: Being held. Restraint removes the option to perform, so all you can do is feel. Many women describe the ritual of being tied as meditative.
Start gently: A silk scarf, loosely knotted, with scissors nearby. Rope is a skill: the most commonly reported rope injury is pressure on the radial nerve in the upper arm, so learn from someone experienced and stop at any numbness or tingling.
“I keep thinking about the other night with my companion. Not in some abstract way, but in my body, the memory of rope against skin, his hands positioning me exactly where he wanted me. Being guided and held by someone so deliberate and present created a surrender I didn’t know I wanted.”
One of you, after an experience with Her Confidant
You can’t see him. You can hear him decide.
What it is: Removing one sense, usually sight, so the others sharpen.
The desire beneath it: Anticipation. Without sight, every touch arrives as a surprise, and you are freed from watching yourself.
Start gently: A silk eye mask and five unhurried minutes where he does nothing but trace your shoulders. Arguably the easiest kink to begin with.
Something cool travels the length of your spine, then his warm breath follows it.
What it is: Playing with contrast and texture: a feather, fur, the edge of a fingernail, a chilled glass, a warm massage candle made for skin.
The desire beneath it: Presence. Sensation play pulls you out of your head and into your skin.
Start gently: Ice and warmth in turn, on the inner wrist first. Only use candles designed for massage, and test the temperature on your own skin.
The sting surprises you. What surprises you more is that you want it again.
What it is: Consensual, light impact (most often a playful spank with an open hand) that’s usually rhythmic and builds slowly.
The desire beneath it: Intensity, release and the rush of endorphins. For some women it is also cathartic, a way of feeling something sharply in a life of numbing routine.
Start gently: Fleshy areas only, warm up slowly, and use the traffic-light system (below). This is about sensation, never harm.
He stops just before. Again. You have never wanted anything so much.
What it is: Building pleasure toward its peak, then pausing, again and again. Orgasm control hands the timing to your partner.
The desire beneath it: Anticipation stretched until it becomes its own pleasure. And for women who rush toward the finish line to get there, permission to slow down.
Start gently: Agree that nothing is the goal. Let him make you wait, and tell him when.
“Good,” he says, close to your ear, and you feel it everywhere.
What it is: Being aroused by praise, encouragement and affirmation during intimacy.
The desire beneath it: To be seen and approved of, for simply being you, in the moment. Many women spend a lifetime giving reassurance. Praise kink is receiving it.
Start gently: Tell a partner one phrase that undoes you. Australian sex therapists report a shift in the bedroom away from put-downs and toward praise.
Definition
Praise kink is sexual arousal from receiving (or giving) compliments, encouragement and verbal affirmation during intimacy.
He takes his time with the back of your knee as if it were the only place in the world.
What it is: A partner devoting slow, adoring attention to your body, or part of it, entirely for your pleasure.
The desire beneath it: Being desired without condition. Body-conscious women often find worship more convincing than any compliment, because they feel the attention rather than having to believe it.
Start gently: Ask for an hour where you receive and give nothing back. It is the whole idea behind Erotic Tantric Massage.
Tonight you’re a stranger at the hotel bar. He has to earn your name.
What it is: Taking on characters or scenarios: strangers, a forbidden encounter, a formal arrangement.
The desire beneath it: Novelty and freedom. A character can say what you’ve never said and want what you haven’t let yourself want.
Start gently: Strangers meeting is the classic for good reason, and a beautiful hotel bar does half the work. Agree the scene in advance and keep a way to step out of it.
You watch him undress slowly, at your request, and you don’t look away.
What it is: Pleasure in watching, whether a partner, a performance arranged for you, or a couple you’ve invited to be watched.
The desire beneath it: Control and curiosity: to look without being looked at. In a Québec survey, 34.7% of women expressed at least some desire to watch.
Start gently: Ask him to undress for you. Look for as long as you like.
You leave the curtains open a little. It’s the knowing that does it.
What it is: Pleasure in being watched, by a partner, a mirror or a consenting audience.
The desire beneath it: Being seen as erotic, unhidden. About a quarter of women (26.9%) in the same survey expressed some desire to be watched with a partner.
Start gently: A mirror, a boudoir shoot, or a third person who is there to watch. Keep everyone watching consenting: public indecency laws apply in every Australian state.
Two men, both attending to you. All eyes on you.
What it is: A threesome or more, whether as a couple or alone with two Companions.
The desire beneath it: Abundance. Being the centre of attention. In Lehmiller’s research, 87% of women had fantasised about group sex, most often a threesome.
Start gently: Talk it through as a fantasy first. Our guide on booking an escort for a threesome covers the conversation couples need to have first.
“They were true gentlemen until I didn’t want them to be.”
One of you, after an experience with Her Confidant
Some of women’s most common fantasies, including being taken by someone who finds them irresistible, would be unwelcome in reality. That isn’t a contradiction. In the Canadian study, around half the women who described submissive fantasies said they wouldn’t want them to happen in real life. Research on these fantasies found the strongest link was simply with openness to sexual experience, and a link with wanting to feel desirable. In a fantasy, you’re the author: you choose the partner, the setting and the script.
A fantasy is allowed to stay a fantasy.
Anna
Notice what you return to. The scene in a novel you’ve reread three times. The fantasy that appears when you’re drifting off. The word that made you blush when you heard it said out loud. These are your clues.
In kink, consent is what makes intensity possible.
Anna
Definition
SSC (Safe, Sane, Consensual) is a kink ethic coined in the 1980s that frames play as safe, entered into with a clear mind, and fully agreed. RACK (Risk-Aware Consensual Kink), proposed in 1999, acknowledges that no play is risk-free and asks everyone to understand and accept the risks.
Both approaches put informed consent first, as the RACK principle and Gary Switch’s original essay make clear.
Before anything happens, you talk: what you want, what you’re curious about, what’s off the table (your hard limits), any health considerations and how you’d like to feel afterwards. It can be flirtatious. Saying exactly what you want, out loud, is its own kind of heat.
Definition
A safeword is a pre-agreed word that stops play immediately, no questions asked. Many people use the traffic-light system: green for keep going, amber for slow down or check in, red for stop.
| Colour | What it means | What happens next |
| Green | Keep going | He carries on, and keeps reading you |
| Amber | Slow down or check in | He eases off and asks what you need |
| Red | Stop | Everything stops, straight away |
Choose a word you wouldn’t say by accident in the moment. If speaking may be difficult, agree a gesture instead, such as dropping an object you’re holding.
Developed by Dr Betty Martin, the Wheel of Consent asks two questions about any touch: who is doing it? and who is it for? The answers give four roles: serving, accepting, taking and allowing. It’s a useful tool for kink, because so much of the pleasure is in knowing exactly who is giving and who is receiving.
Definition
Aftercare is the attention partners give each other after intense play: holding, water, warmth, reassurance and talking about what felt good.
Some people feel a dip in mood hours or a day later, often called a drop. Aftercare, and a check-in the next day, make it gentler. It’s also where the closeness Sagarin’s team measured really lives.
“And then, unexpectedly, I became overwhelmed with emotion and found myself crying. My companion didn’t flinch. He simply stopped, held me and allowed me to be exactly where I was in that moment.”
One of you, after an experience with Her Confidant
Many women never act on a curiosity because there’s no one they trust enough to ask. Sometimes the partner isn’t interested. Sometimes the fantasy feels too private to say out loud to someone who’ll be across the breakfast table tomorrow.
At Her Confidant, we’re Australia’s female-led companionship agency, and our approach begins in one place: safety before desire. When you call Anna, our founder, for a confidential welcome call, she’ll ask what you’re craving, what you’re nervous about, your boundaries, and whether you prefer dominance or tenderness. Some women want a Companion who takes the lead; others want a man who will follow theirs. Matching is always intentional, and our Companions include men with playful, dominant or deeply sensual energy.
Can you raise a fantasy or an interest in kink? Absolutely. Be as open as you like, whether it’s something familiar or something you’ve never told anyone. Anna will help clarify what’s possible with your chosen Companion, and anything that happens needs everyone’s agreement and ongoing consent. You remain in control the whole time. Nothing is booked until you’re ready.
From Anna: The thing a woman whispers to me on a welcome call is almost never as unusual as she thinks. I’ve heard it before, often that same week. What I notice is the pause just before she says it, and how much lighter she sounds afterwards. Saying a fantasy out loud is the first time it belongs to her. Everything after that is just good planning.
Every Companion, as we call our male escorts, is vetted and chosen for emotional intelligence and consent literacy. Read more in our guide to staying safe.
We look after women across Australia. Meet our male escorts for women in Sydney and male escorts for women in Melbourne, or ask Anna about your city. What a booking can include depends on your state, and Anna confirms what is possible where you are.
Kink is a language for desire, one that lets you say hold me here, watch me, make me wait, tell me I’m good, and be heard.
Whatever your curiosity, it is likely more common than you think and more meaningful than you’ve been told. Begin gently. Negotiate. Choose your word. And let yourself want what you want.
Begin with a confidential conversation with Anna →
The most common include submission and dominance (power exchange), bondage and restraint, blindfolds, sensation and temperature play, light spanking, teasing and orgasm control, praise kink, role play, voyeurism and exhibitionism. Large surveys show dominance, submission and bondage fantasies are especially common among women. If more than two is on your list, read our guide to booking a threesome.
Fantasies about submission top most surveys. In a Canadian study of 1,516 adults, 64.6% of women had fantasised about being sexually dominated and 52.1% about being tied up. Fantasising about something doesn’t mean you’ll want to act on it. Our guide to how female desire works explains why being wanted sits beneath so many of these fantasies.
Yes. In Justin Lehmiller’s survey of 4,175 Americans, 96% of women had fantasised about some aspect of BDSM. Research also finds BDSM practitioners are as psychologically healthy as anyone else, and the WHO no longer classifies consensual kink as a disorder. You can raise any curiosity with Anna on a confidential welcome call.
A praise kink is arousal from receiving or giving compliments, encouragement and verbal affirmation during intimacy. The desire beneath it is usually to be seen, approved of and adored, which is why it resonates with women who spend their lives reassuring others. It is also part of the appeal of a boyfriend experience, where his attention stays on you.
A fetish is a strong erotic focus on a specific object, material or body part that is sometimes needed for arousal. A kink is broader: a style of play or fantasy you enjoy but don’t need.
Notice the fantasies, scenes and words you keep returning to. Keep a private list for a week, try a yes/no/maybe list, then ask what feeling sits underneath each item: surrender, being seen, anticipation, power. Begin with the gentlest version. When you’d like to try one with someone who knows how, The Indulgence is ninety minutes built around what you ask for.
Negotiate first: wants, limits and health considerations. Agree a safeword or use the traffic-light system (green, amber, red). Start gently, check in often, and plan aftercare. Choose a partner you trust who respects a stop instantly. Our guide to staying safe when booking a male escort covers how we vet every Companion.
Aftercare is the care partners give each other after intense play: holding, water, warmth and reassuring conversation. It helps the body come down and deepens closeness, and a next-day check-in eases any later dip in mood. Anna checks in after every Her Confidant booking, and The Sleepover leaves room for a slow morning.
SSC stands for Safe, Sane, Consensual, a kink ethic from the 1980s. RACK stands for Risk-Aware Consensual Kink, proposed in 1999, which accepts no activity is risk-free and asks everyone to understand the risks. Both put informed consent first.
You can discuss any fantasy or interest in kink with Anna on your confidential welcome call. She’ll help clarify what’s possible with your chosen Companion. Every activity needs everyone’s agreement and ongoing consent, and nothing is booked until you’re ready. Our booking guide explains each step, and many women with a fantasy for two begin with 3SOME.
This article is general information, not medical or psychological advice. If a desire or a past experience is causing you distress, please speak with a qualified, kink-aware sex therapist or psychologist.
