This is a text adaptation of an audio message I posted on my OnlyFans on July 6, 2023.

I see the words “kink” and “fetish” used interchangeably a lot, and as a kinky fetishist, I want to point out that there is a very big difference between those two things. One is not better or worse than the other, but they are different in nature.

Generally speaking, people who are kinky or have kinks have approached this aspect of their sexuality in a more exploratory, open-ended way. That’s not to say they haven’t been kinky since birth—I have submissive girlfriends who used to get up early as kids to watch Saturday morning cartoons, hoping they’d see a girl tied to the railroad tracks, because that’s what excited them even back at that age. But often when kinky people enter the scene and finally get to start playing and exploring, they’re excited to try a bunch of different things and see what they like and don’t like. They may have a few primary kinks, like rope or cuckolding or impact play, but generally speaking, they’re more open to variety. 

Kink is like a wide, shallow pond, brimming with all kinds of diverse life. Fetish, on the other hand, is more like a narrow well that runs deep, deep, deep. 

In most cases, you don’t discover that you have a fetish—on the contrary, it’s often impossible to ignore that you have a fetish, because it’s the core of your sexuality, sometimes to the near exclusion of all other sexual interests. I’m hesitant to use the word “obsession,” but it can definitely feel like that sometimes, particularly when you don’t get to engage with it, or when it causes problems with romantic partners who don’t understand or aren’t able to go there with you. If you have a fetish, you might have compulsively looked it up in the dictionary as a kid just to see it in writing, or you might masturbate exclusively to this one thing, whether it’s feet or pantyhose or diapers or spanking. 

Having a fetish can feel like a curse sometimes, and even though you belong as part of the kink community, it can feel alienating or off-putting to enter that space because it seems like everyone’s interested in so many things, and you’re only interested in this one, specific thing. I had that experience myself when entering the scene as a spanking fetishist. Like most spankos, my spanking fantasies occur mainly in a private, domestic space—not in a BDSM dungeon with people hanging from rope and getting whipped naked on a St. Andrew’s cross. It’s so funny to think about now, but I used to feel very removed and separate from all that stuff when I was first coming out.

The good news is, when you do get to engage with your fetish, you can experience what I personally believe is an unparalleled level of sexual intensity, as well as a kind of thriving or blossoming that stretches out across all aspects of your life. My favourite poet, Rilke, writes about our sexuality as a life force, as this incessant drive that nags and nags at you until you finally give in and are true to yourself. He writes:

I love that.

The one other thing I’ve noticed and personally experienced about getting to engage regularly, is that often when you feel fulfilled in that way, after some time you start to be open or interested in other sexual things. Back before I joined the scene, I wondered if maybe I was a bit asexual, because despite being straight, I had very little interest in heteronormative vanilla sexual activities. I always knew that spanking was the core of my sexuality, but it wasn’t until I started having regular spanking fetishist play partners that I realized that spanking was the gateway to my full sexuality, and that once that core need was met, I was suddenly much more interested in both vanilla sex and exploring the wide, varied world of kink.

(Before I wrap this up, I’m going to take a sidebar here to say, just in case: If you have a fetish that you can’t engage with because it’s destructively harmful or inherently non-consensual, you have my utmost sympathy for being in such a difficult, shitty situation. But please do the right thing for the world and for yourself and seek treatment with a mental health professional rather than acting on your urges. There is help available in the form of medication, hormone treatments and therapy, and seeking it out is the pathway that good, responsible people in your situation take to thrive.)

Anyway, that’s my personal take on kink versus fetish, but hey, I’m not the singular authority on this stuff, despite how much I love being an authority figure. I encourage you to have this conversation at your local munch or with your own kinky/fetishist friends. What do you think distinguishes kink from fetish? Do you identify as a kinkster, a fetishist, both or somewhere in between? And what’s that experience been like for you?