Why India is still awkward about kink, and why that may be changing Premium

Why India is still awkward about kink, and why that may be changing

Everyone has an opinion about kink, and almost none of them begin with, “I’m curious.” The first time it came up with my friends, it was over dessert, which feels appropriate because Indians love processing discomfort with sugar. Someone asked, genuinely alarmed, “So it’s basically just hurting people, right?” Another waved their spoon dismissively and said, “Wasn’t that Fifty Shades?” And that was that.

Here’s the first myth to dismantle: kink in India is not one thing. It’s not a dungeon, it’s not a personality type, and it’s definitely not eight shades of collective moral panic. At its most basic, kink is a set of preferences, practices, and agreements about power and pleasure. Over the past few years, communities have been forming, people have been comparing notes, and yes, India even had its first Kink Con a few years ago.

So why do we still get it wrong? Shame. We inherit it like furniture. Our first reference point is usually spectacle. Strip away the theatrics, though, and kink is aggressively practical. It’s about safewords, checking in, aftercare, and saying things out loud that most of us would rather assume. In her book Speak Easy, sex educator Seema Anand says it plainly: consent isn’t a one-time “yes”; it’s an ongoing conversation.

But communication isn’t the whole story; otherwise, Indians would simply WhatsApp their way into better sex and be done with it.

A married woman I spoke to told me kink did something unexpected in her marriage: it made her husband ask. Constantly. “Are you okay?” “Do you want to stop?” “Do you like this?” She laughed when she said it and then added, “That level of attention was the most romantic thing he’s done in years.”

A young, queer man in Bengaluru told me kink forced him to stop blaming “chemistry” for every failed hookup. “We say there’s no spark,” he said, “when what we really mean is we didn’t talk.” The first time someone asked him what he actually wanted, he froze. “I realised I’d spent years performing desire without knowing my own.” Kink, for him, was less a fantasy and more a mirror.