The term "fetish" might evoke pictures of black bodysuits and complicated sexual contraptions, x-fetish.tube however you could already be acting out some of the commonest examples. (Spanking, anybody?) What defines a fetish isn't what the exercise or object of desire is so much as the role it performs in somebody's life. "A fetish is often referred to as habits that someone can't get sexually aroused without. Fetishes can also be a time period folks use to explain sexual arousal that's coupled with a typically non-sexual object," says sexologist and psychologist Denise Renye.

While folks often use the phrases "fetish" and "kink" interchangeably, a kink means an activity or habits that someone enjoys that exists outdoors the "norm" of "traditional" intercourse, akin to incorporating handcuffs and even balloons. Think of the variations this way: If somebody's kink is bondage, they most likely get extremely excited after they're tied up. If somebody has a bondage fetish, their whole sexuality might revolve round restraint. (There's also the category of flip-ons: issues that simply arouse an individual.)

Once we think of kink, we regularly think of BDSM, which includes an erotic power exchange through dominance and submission. BDSM is kinky, however not all kinks fall beneath the BDSM umbrella. Renye adds that individuals typically have a couple of kink or one fetish, and there is often overlap: As an illustration, someone may engage in spanking as part of a task-enjoying state of affairs by which one companion is dressed up as a schoolgirl and the opposite like a professor. In such an occasion, the state of affairs would involve function-play, influence play, and even age play.

Research suggests that maybe half of us are fascinated about sexual activities exterior the "norm," so if you are fascinated by making an attempt any of the next, relaxation assured you are not alone. And naturally, with any sort of sex, performing on fetishes or kinks ought to all the time contain enthusiastic consent from all events and safer intercourse practices, corresponding to the usage of condoms, to prevent unwanted pregnancies and STIs. You by no means need to try anything that's not enticing to you, however please chorus from kink shaming others. Remember, we're attempting to dismantle sexual shame.

Able to dive in? Here's a listing of a few of the most typical fetishes and what they entail.

1. Impact Play

Impact play means spanking, flogging, paddling, and different types of consensual hanging. Spanking is commonly an easy and safe BDSM entry point that results in exploring extra, akin to purchasing a crop to use with a companion. Impact play can range from a mild slap on the bum to a crack of the whip.

As with all kink or fetish, it's vital to negotiate boundaries beforehand. "Safety and comfort are the most important facets of kink," says Renye. Do your homework earlier than practising affect play. Discuss the extent of intensity you get pleasure from (or your accomplice enjoys), choose a protected phrase to shut down the action on a dime if need be, and study what components of the body are protected to impression. Keep on with the meatier areas, like the ass and thighs, and keep away from much less protected areas the place organs reside, like the lower again.

2. Role-Playing

You don't need to cease playing make-consider whenever you grow up. Role-enjoying means performing out a sexual fantasy along with your companion(s), either once or as part of an ongoing fantasy. While it is usually a fetish or kink within itself, it's also a wholesome approach to act out different fantasies. For instance, when you've got a medical fantasy and are aroused by doctors, you probably don't truly want your doctor to get sexy with you, as a result of that can be creepy and abusive. The beauty of role-taking part in is that you may have your associate costume up as a doctor and indulge your fantasy consensually in your own home.

3. Foot Fetish

A foot fetish includes a desire to worship feet by way of acts similar to therapeutic massage, kissing, and smelling. As skilled dominatrix Goddess Aviva previously advised Allure, it is an extremely widespread fetish. In case your associate shares that they've a foot fetish, it may be initially jarring, but it is a chance for you to discuss a doubtlessly thrilling new a part of your sex life together. (And, if you're into it, just consider all the foot massages headed your means!)

4. Anal Sex

You don't need to have an anal fetish to engage in anal intercourse, but loads of people do particularly get off on butt stuff. Anal play can range from including a finger within the ass during penetrative vaginal intercourse to utilizing butt plugs to having anal sex with a penis or a dildo.


While anal intercourse can be protected and wonderful, there is some prep work involved. Because the butthole shouldn't be self-lubricating and harbors micro organism that can result in infection if transferred to the vagina, it’s vital to inventory up on lube and browse up on ass etiquette before partaking in anal play. That features safer sex precautions similar to condom use. Start small and go slow, using fingers, anal toys, and loads of lube earlier than moving as much as larger objects equivalent to dildos or a penis.

5. Lingerie

Renye says that certainly one of the commonest fetishes centers on something that could be sitting inside your dresser right now: lingerie. "[This] may show up in sexual play between and amongst people who may not even consider themselves kinky or to have a fetish (or two or three)," she says. Again, while many people get aroused by sexy underwear, lingerie turns into a fetish when somebody needs it to be current in a sexual state of affairs so as to totally engage or get off.

6. Group Sex

Group sex is getting it on with multiple individual. If you've ever swiped on Tinder, you're probably aware that many couples are looking for a 3rd, though group sex can imply greater than just a threesome. An orgy is when a bunch of individuals of all genders have intercourse, whereas a "gang bang" typically refers to at least one individual having sex with greater than two members of one other gender (while the term can have violent connotations, it is also used within the kink community to seek advice from consensual eventualities).

7. Sensation Play

Sensation play can check with an enormous range of actions based mostly on the receiving or withholding of various stimuli. As an illustration, one partner may blindfold the opposite to deprive them of their sense of sight, a type of sensory deprivation, or they may drag an ice cube alongside their skin, a type of sensation play often known as temperature play.

8. Orgasm Control

Edging, by which the submissive associate is brought to the brink of climax and then pressured to stop - typically achieved repeatedly - is an instance of orgasm management. The idea here is that for as long as you like, you let your partner take the reins and determine when and how you come. As with all the actions right here, anyone can interact in orgasm control regardless of their genitalia.


9. Bondage

Bondage is when one companion restrains the opposite. You may bind your associate using objects you already have around, corresponding to a belt, or purchase specialty kink items like handcuffs or hair equipment-turned-wrist ties. To have interaction in restraint play safely, establish boundaries and a safe word, emphasize consent and communication at each step, and begin sluggish.

10. Psychological Play

A few of essentially the most intense sexual play takes place in the mind. Renye refers to psychological energy play - a type of BDSM - as "mind management." Psychological play entails implementing a sexual energy trade: Humiliation play, for instance, would possibly involve a submissive accomplice getting off on being known as names. Consensual threats are an example of psychological play; one example is a domme warning a male submissive with a foot fetish that he'll must lick her ft if he would not fall in line and do exactly as she says.

11. Voyeurism and Exhibitionism

Voyeurism - or acquiring sexual pleasure from watching others who are bare or having intercourse - is more frequent than you'd think. Of course, as with each other fetish, engage in voyeurism consensually, for instance at a sex celebration where a pair has given you permission to watch; watching someone without their permission isn't acceptable. The flip side of voyeurism is exhibitionism, which suggests attaining sexual pleasure by allowing others to observe you. It is the sexual enjoyment of exhibiting off. In the event you like to get down at a intercourse occasion, in public spaces, and even at house with the curtains open, you could also be an exhibitionist.

12. Cuckolding

You could have heard the time period "cuck" thrown round as an alt-proper slur. It's unlucky since cuckolding is a standard kink that anybody can enjoy. Traditionally, talking in gendered phrases, cuckolding is when a husband watches as his spouse (the hotwife) has intercourse with another person (the bull). The husband, aka the cuck, could get to observe, however he's emasculated and not allowed to participate. It's usually a type of erotic humiliation. The female version of a cuck is called a cuckquean. However, all genders can enjoy being the cuck, the hotwife, and the bull.

13. Erotic Humiliation

Erotic humiliation permits you to reclaim embarrassment by getting off on it. "Humiliation play is a consensual energy exchange that's a very typical fetish. It may also help people heal elements of the self that may have been bullied as a child. There's a way of mastery over something that will have beforehand been non-consensual," says Renye.

14. Spectrophilia

Spectrophilia refers to having a factor for ghosts as a result of typically people aren't price it. It often involves the fantasy of a spirit, but sometimes people believe they even have intercourse with one at evening or whereas they sleep. Traditionally, a succubus refers to a female intercourse ghost, and an incubus is a male ghost that has sex with humans as they sleep.

15. Dominance and Submission

Dominance and submission check with a consensual erotic power alternate between two (or extra) individuals. Although it might sound scary, as a consequence of consent and safety precautions kinkster interact in, a D/S scene can be safer than a vanilla hook-up. "Any time that we're speaking about energy management, that's the safest kind of intercourse that partners can have because there's a lot communication, trust, and vulnerability built into these sorts of exchanges and sexual experiences," says intercourse therapist and author of Reclaiming Pleasure: A Sex Positive Guide for Moving Past Sexual Trauma and Living a Passionate Life Dr. Holly Richmond.

16. Autonepiophilia

Autonepiophilia means grownup infants. These harmless beings prefer to put on a crinkly diaper and sometimes have a "mommy" or other nurturing dominant determine take care of them. It's okay if it's not your thing, however as kinksters wish to say, don't yuck someone else’s yum.

17. Urophilia

Urophilia is a fancy title for piss play, golden showers, and watersports. Often throughout piss play, there is a level of domination and submission. For instance, you may see a businessman going to his dominatrix to get peed on after a protracted day of barking orders. Others combine the kink into their romantic relationships. "My partner acquired me into weeing on one another early on in our relationship," says Anoushka Lee*. "I remember feeling a mixture of ideas and feelings, all of the taboos and stereotypes of it being a 'soiled act for soiled previous males,' mixed with a feeling of intense excitement and arousal."

18. Sadism & Masochism

Sadism refers to an individual, a sadist, who will get off on inflicting ache. Their obligatory counterpart is masochists, those who get off on receiving erotic pain. As at all times, S&M relationships require consent from all events concerned. Once all events feel enthusiastic about what's about to go down, S&M can appear to be impression play, erotic humiliation, or dripping hot wax on one another.

19. Wax play

Wax play involves dripping hot candle wax on your lover. Not only can wax play be extremely hot (sorry) but it surely entails using romantic lighting.


"Wax play is therapeutic for me," says sex educator Erin Kennedy. "Being kinky with fibromyalgia means I'm always seeking sensations that soothe."

For those concerned about burns, go for a candle made for sex, resembling JimmyJane's afterglow therapeutic massage candles. These candles burn at a decrease temperature, so you possibly can benefit from the heat in your physique without worrying about inflicting damage.

20. Vorarephilia

Vorarephilia is the infamous cannibal kink. It means getting turned on by fantasies of consuming someone, and the subject has made headlines this 12 months as a result of sexual assault allegations towards actor Armie Hammer.

Of course, literally killing and eating somebody is incorrect. However, kinks and fetishes are already stigmatized; we need not pathologize this one if someone is doing no harm. "It's usually metaphorically, or an embodied feeling, slightly than a literal translation," Dr. Richmond says. "Partners will usually say, 'I may just eat you alive I’m so turned on by you,' however that's driven by an urge to consume the vitality of eroticism and arousal greater than an actual or uncontrollable need to consume part of the human physique. Obviously, if it moves right into a compulsion or biting in a method that is not consensual, that is harmful, illegal, and positively not sex-optimistic," she adds.

The only safe and consensual way to try paraphilia is to (consensually!) add it to your soiled talk. But, maybe wait till you know someone and their preferences before whispering, "I need to cook and eat you alive, honey."

21. Quirofilia

Quirofilia is a kind of kinks that sounds extra far-out than it is: It merely refers to an attraction to hands. Whether you go for massive, furry fingers, or tender, dainty manicured ones, considering how a lot we use our fingers throughout intercourse, it is a extremely relatable kink.

22. Pregnancy

Yes, pregnancy could be the results of sex, however it may also flip people on. Pregnancy kinks embrace a need to get someone pregnant (typically referred to as a breeding fetish) and an attraction to pregnant folks. "The previous is one with an element of riskiness. There's a everlasting potential to be endlessly with the results of unprotected heterosexual intercourse," says Renye. The latter could simply be an attraction to a pregnant physique or could possibly be a sort of age play.

23. Tentacles

If you've got ever gone into a porn search black hole, you will have stumbled upon anime tentacle porn. And sure, it's okay to seek out it arousing. Don’t fear, you don’t need an precise octopus to take pleasure in tentacle play. There are lovely intercourse toy companies, such as Bad Dragon, who make body-protected silicone tentacle dildos for you.

24. Age Play

Age play is simple to be creeped out at, however it is so common that you don't even notice it. If a lover has ever referred to as you "child," you've got engaged in age play. But for people who actually get into age play, it may look extra like a "daddy dom/baby lady" state of affairs the place the roles are extra pronounced. Remember, in our guide, "child," "daddy," and "mommy" can all be gender-neutral, so decide your favourite. "Age play is not pedophilia," reminds Renye. "It's consensual play. If somebody is interested in kids, that's not age play."

25. Stranger Play

If you've got ever hooked up with a stranger, maybe even earlier than getting their title, congrats, you've tried stranger play. "Stranger play is considered one of my favorites! When I was younger, I satisfied myself that girls discovered me attractive more for my persona than my physique. So, a total stranger who doesn't 'know' me participating in a selected sexual scene is de facto affirming," says Billy Procida, host of The Manwhore Podcast.

26. Emetophilia

Gag warning: Emetophilia is a sexual fetish in which one will get aroused by vomit. Yes, it is real, and it’s more common than you think. A lighter version of emetophilia may play out as discovering it a turn-on if someone gags during a blow job. A better octave model is just getting wet for puke.

27. Klismaphilia

Klismaphilia is arousal from enemas. Some people, often those that take pleasure in receiving anal sex, will prep beforehand with an enema to ensure the mess is minimal (a trick additionally used on porn sets). However, others find enemas themselves arousing. This may be part of a larger medical fetish and should involve a fantasy of a doctor utilizing an enema on you.

28. Electrostimulation

In response to Richmond, electrostimulation is a fairly common kink. It entails utilizing electricity for sexual purposes, and sure, it may be executed safely, utilizing kinky toys corresponding to by means of a Violet Wand, for sexual gratification. It tends to be a part of an even bigger D/S dynamic.

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Remember, regardless of your fetish or kink, consent is paramount. "Kinks and fetishes are fertile grounds for misunderstandings if consent will not be specific," explains Renye. Once you get hold of consent, expressing your sexual needs is among the healthiest things you can do in your sex life: Fetishes which can be repressed somewhat than expressed can take their toll on each people and relationships. As lengthy because the want is protected and based mostly on consent from everybody involved, everybody deserves to pursue theirs.

*Name has been modified.

Sophie Saint Thomas is an award-successful sex journalist and Allure's resident astrologer. She believes in the ability of glamour and embracing one's sexuality. She can also be the author of Sex Witch: Sex Witch: Magickal Spells for Love, Lust, and Self-Protection and the upcoming Glamour Witch: An Empowering Sex-Positive Guide with Spells and Witchy Beauty Tips for All Budgets and Body Types.