Kink My Words: Gender Neutrality in BDSM

Words hold power. The language we use to describe our experiences, needs, and identities are multifaceted and often ripe with emotion. As a former English teacher, I find words and the histories around them endlessly fascinating.

Every culture and community adds their own facet of understanding what words mean and blend their experiences with a common understanding of how a term is defined.

A word’s meaning isn’t about what we can put down on paper as its definition, it is about what a word does as it moves in our bodies and across our lips. The visceral connections terminology makes when we say it aloud with our mouths or sign it with our hands is something that defies explanation.

In the kink community, we often use terminology that has been passed down for generations and which have deep roots in our collective history as kinksters (a term coined by Eli Sheff and Corie Hammers). For people outside of the kink community, some of these words can appear to be confusing, upsetting, or offensive.

We may casually use words like Domination, Master, slut, and brat to describe our roles in kinky play and relationships. Many of these terms elicit a negative response from folks who do not understand or identify with them or their dynamics. These reactions can be based on how these terms are used outside of kinky context and for their stereotypical gender roles they illicit.

Read: 5 Ways to Help With Gender Affirmation

In the aspect of gender, we are asked to examine whether any identifier is actually tied to a binary role or if kink already goes beyond gender constructs. As society awakens to a need to expand our understanding of gender many people who live within the intersections of gender-queer spaces and the kink community are asking just that:

Are kinky terms gendered? What are gender-neutral kink terms?

For years there have been distinctions in gender and power play titles. For example, a partner who is dominant is either a Dom (male) or Domme (female). A submissive partner is usually simply the submissive and gender is not addressed.

Some submissive subcategories such as sissy, slut, and sugar-baby were often gendered but because of the kink community’s reluctance to conform to a social standard, hardly anyone bats an eye if anyone of any gender decides to take on a particular role/title.

As a non-binary person myself, I feel that exploring developing additional, truly gender-free terms could be beneficial. Language is an organic and ever-evolving experience, as the kink community expands and looks to examine who we have a history of excluding and increasing inclusive practices, we need to be open to seeing the areas we need to infuse anti-oppressive frameworks. Exploring how gender constructs can limit kink inclusion is one important step in that direction.

Both historically and in the present day, many queer cis-women, trans, and non-binary folks have paved new paths when it comes to gendered terminology and kink. For example, by embracing terms often seen in the mainstream as "masculine" such as Sir and Daddy/Daddi these forerunners challenged the gender box of kinky spaces and helped to enlighten fellow kinksters to the truth that identity is personal and so are the terms we decide to reject or embrace.