The Numbers

Current statistics about the BDSM community are hard to find but kinksters generally accept one dataset as a reliable source. This dataset was posted on FetLife — facebook for kinksters — in 2014 by a robotics engineer from Texas. He was a FetLife member and actively involved in the community. He wrote a program using Python to pull data from FetLife accounts worldwide. He collected information on users’ genders, regions, ages, orientations and kink preferences. Using logical filters, he culled out non-active users and voyeurs. The following information is based on his data.

There are more than 11,000 residents of DC, Maryland and Virginia who identity as kinky. Based on population, Washington DC is the kinkiest place in the nation. Kinksters nationwide have a median age of 33 years old. Fifty-six percent identify as male and thirty-six percent as female. Forty-nine percent identify as straight.

The majority of FetLife users fell in to four preferences of kink:

· SUBMISSIVE: a person who intentionally and consensually gives up their power, allowing another person to take control over him or her. Eighteen percent identified as submissive.

· DOMINANT: A person who takes control over or has power over another person, and may, for example, give that person orders which are to be obeyed. Fifteen percent identified as dominant.

· SWITCH: A person who can play either a submissive or dominant role. Eighteen percent identified as a switch.

· KINKSTER: A general term for someone who enjoys kinky activities. Nine percent identified as a kinkster.

California based porn giant Kink.com recently published an article rating the 10 kinkiest cities in the U.S. It listed D.C. as number five based on porn habits. I spoke with Mike Stabile, Kink.com’s communication director. He explained that Kink’s article used data on users of Kink.com combined with data from FetLife.

Because Kink.com did not apply filters that culled out the extraneous FetLife accounts, their data is skewed and therefore less reliable.