Kink: A Straight Girl's Investigation
From bondage parties and peeping toms to plushies and foot worshippers ... and beyond - Kink is one woman's sometimes mind-boggling, mostly hilarious, always fascinating investigation into sexual fetishes in the 'burbs.
"Turned on by something unusual? Interview subjects required for ultra-confidential research into fetishes. Call Sandra."
Straight girl Stephanie Clifford-Smith was fascinated by fetishes and how they worked in relationships.
Were sexual fetishes widespread throughout the community, or are they only the domain of a kinky minority? And how has kinkdom changed over time?
So Stephanie assumes an identity, puts an ad in the local paper, and sets off to find out for herself. She infiltrates the scene, goes to bondage parties and watches grown men suck dummies as they have their nappies changed. She thought nothing could shock her. She was wrong. The results of her investigation are mind-boggling, hilarious, sometimes creepy and always absolutely fascinating.
The Naked Truth with Dr Gabrielle, July 2010
Author Stephanie Clifford-Smith talks with Dr Gabrielle about how kinkdom has changed, how widespread sexual fetishes are, and how someone would bring up a sexual kink or fetish with a new lover or long time partner. Listen to the interview here.
WHO Weekly, 21 June 2010
Sex in the suburbs: Your neighbour's backyard party might involve more whipping than sipping, according to Sydney author Stephanie Clifford-Smith. Read the full article in PDF here.
Review, Sun-Herald, 23 May 2010
'Following a discussion with a pal as to what happens when someone with a sexual fetish shares it with their lover, journalist Clifford-Smith placed a newspaper ad to recruit subjects with unusual sexual interests. Responses were plentiful and interviewees included folk into piercings, exhibitionism, voyeurism, amputees, enemas, bondage and waxing. She visits a dominatrix session and a brothel where dildos and other sex toys are tools of trade. Writing as a first-hand investigation, Clifford-Smith makes these preferences sound both less threatening and at times hilarious.'
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Robyn Doreian
Minestyle, 1 March 2010
What happens when a fetish fledgling embarks on a journey to unveil the carnal fixations of Sydney's suburbs? You get a 290-page ripper of a book that will make you gasp and giggle, cringe and contort facial muscles you never knew you had. Read the full article in PDF here.
Cosmopolitan, March 2010
Kink is clever, well researched and shocking. Read the full article in PDF here.
Pharmacy News, February 2010
Fresh and witty, Kink is a closely observed, completely unjudgmental book about the great gamut of human behaviour. Read the full article in PDF here.
Read the introduction to Kink here
Meet some Kink people here
Introduction
Have you ever wondered what happens the first time someone with a sexual fetish shares it with their lover? Say you had a kink, something you knew was really unusual. Would you risk having your lover run screaming from the room by asking if they’ll let you lick their eyeballs, or would you find some oblique way of bringing it up, perhaps when they were struggling with a stray lash? Or would you just go behind their back and find a willing partner on the internet?
The topic engaged a girlfriend and me for hours over lunch one day. It wasn’t the sexual nuts and bolts of fetishes that kept us talking – our vanilla backgrounds would have made that a pretty short conversation - but the human angle intrigued us. How do kinks affect relationships and how does one person suss another out? How does someone gauge the right moment to broach nappy wearing as a turn on? Do marriages fall apart over these desires or do they remain hidden, frustrated?
The questions lingered with me long after lunch and multiplied as the evening went on. I wanted to know if kinks were timeless or whether there were certain periods when particular tastes became recognised as kinks. Were there things that today we’d see as kinky but weren’t viewed as such in the past? And who were history’s great kinksters? I’d heard a bit about the Marquis de Sade, rumours about Hitler, but I’d soon learn there was still Percy Grainger, James Joyce and prominent sexologist Havelock Ellis himself to consider.
My curiosity also ran to the mundane side of things like how you cope with the laundry when you want quantities of messy substances involved in the act? Do kids ask their parents awkward questions when props or accessories are left lying around? And what is it, exactly, that makes a person need that trigger to get them going?
So why should I care? Call it curiosity. I’m a journalist so that characteristic comes with the territory, but I wonder who among us hasn’t shared this inquisitiveness, even if only fleetingly. Or maybe there was something else operating here. I studied psychology at university and worked for years in medical publishing and while the mathematical part of my brain has only ever really functioned at a rudimentary level, the scientific bit was always reasonably easy to rev up. Here was a subject which was giving that corner of the cortex a charge it hadn’t had since I became a food writer a few years ago. Yes, food and sex. They’ve always been connected so it’s probably not surprising I should be curious about them both. I guess I’m specialising in the journalism of primal urges.
My husband, David, was never enthusiastic about my researching this subject but wouldn’t say why; my hunch was that he thought it’d be risky business meeting and interviewing strangers about their sex lives. But rather than come out and say so, he bombarded me with alternatives. Actually it was really only one, in various guises – to write a cookbook. Of course, it made sense. I’m a keen cook, he’s an enthusiastic and appreciative eater, what could be better? Perhaps nothing, but by this point I was obsessed with getting answers to this growing list of questions.
I knew I’d be dealing with some pretty confronting stuff, but I felt fairly confident that I was unshockable. I’d recently finished writing a biography of celebrity chef Bernard King, a man who constantly challenged me with bluer and bluer stories, waiting for me to blush. I’d laugh. A lot. But blush? Never. To be so jaded and yet so young! Okay, so I’m kidding myself, but here at least was a way of finding out just how thick my skin was.
Bruce, into genital piercing:
"Some people like gardening, some people like fishing and I happen to like having my penis pierced. I just think it looks nice. You might say it's disgusting but it's the same with art. I go to the art gallery and everybody's raving about a painting and to me it just looks like somebody threw up on a canvas."
Pierre, into slavery:"It's the self-discipline and the fact that you have pleased your lady. You are her slave. It's her wish. It's her demand. She has all the rights. The reward is in the relationship. The fact is that most women like straight sex as well, and that would be part of it. She might want it at three in the afternoon, or every night before she goes to sleep, or first thing when she wakes up, or her feet sucked when she comes home from shopping or dancing."
Gary, just curious:"I've had singles, I've had triples, I've had guys involved, I've had anal penetration with a dildo. But we're just a normal, conservative Hills District family."
Sacha, into auto-fellatio:"When I was about 15 I used to do martial arts and I used to sit in the splits for hours and gradually I began to be able to get down to the area of my penis, and, being a Roman Catholic, shock, guilt, horror, I became aware that I could actually auto-fellate myself."
Estrelle, into submission:"I'm a naturally assertive, headstrong woman, and I work hard so that my life runs smoothly, stays under control. That means when I meet up with a lover it's not reasonable for them to expect me to drop straight to my knees and assume the role of the submissive ... It's often when I most need to be submissive that I find it hard to allow myself to. That's where pain comes in; it allows me to shrug off the 'tough-girl' attitude and just be a girl. Once that initial wall is broken and I've been pushed to the point where I'll cry out from pain, then I enter the submissive mindset very smoothly. I'm not a masochist, I don't enjoy pain, but sometimes I do need it."
Baby Jennie, male adult baby:"I told her I liked to be babied, breastfed, cuddled, that sort of stuff and she was into that. Then I told her I liked to wear nappies and she thought that was amusing. Occasionally I'd wear a babydoll nightie to bed and I'd say, 'I wish I had a nappy on,' and eventually I went and had them made ... I wear pull-ups because I'm a big kid now.