The data · 7 min read
The Most Common Kinks and Fetishes
Almost every list of “top kinks” online is somebody's guess. This one is a count — from 15,503 survey answers a researcher published in full — with the sampling limits said out loud.
Written and clinically reviewed by Vanessa Cushing, LPC, NCC, MS — AASECT-Certified Sex Therapist, licensed in Virginia & Florida. The Cushing Counseling team covers Virginia, DC, Maryland & Florida.
The short answer
In the largest openly published dataset on sexual interests, the most commonly reported categories are enthusiasm and responsiveness in a partner, gentleness and affection, power dynamics, bondage, and sex toys — each reported by roughly half or more of respondents. Pain-based interests sit near a third, and the categories people fear most are the rarest. Having several kinks at once is the norm, not the exception.
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Where these numbers come from
Figures below come from our own analysis of the representative subsample of Aella's Big Kink Survey (15,503 respondents) that she published openly. It is a self-selected online sample of a young cohort, not a random sample of any country, so read every number as “among people who answered this survey” rather than as a national rate.
The survey asked respondents to check which broad categories contained something that aroused them, then asked follow-up questions inside each category they checked. Counting who answered inside each category is how we get the ranking below. That is our own analysis, not a published finding of the researcher's, and the categories are hers rather than a clinical taxonomy.
- 15,503 respondents, 365 variables, published openly with a citable DOI.
- Respondents skew young — roughly ages 14 to 32 — and close to an even split by birth sex.
- Self-selected, non-peer-reviewed, correlational. No causes, no national prevalence.
- We name categories without describing them; this page is clinical, not explicit.
The ranking
The single most striking thing about the list is how ordinary the top of it is. The interests reported most often are not equipment or taboo — they are about how a partner is present with you: enthusiasm, responsiveness, gentleness, and who holds control.
| Category of interest | Share reporting it | Worth noting |
|---|---|---|
| Enthusiasm and eagerness in a partner | 72.9% | The most common “kink” in the data is wanting to be genuinely wanted. |
| Gentleness and affection | 56.1% | Slightly more common than bondage. Tenderness is a kink for most people. |
| Bondage (any intensity) | 55.8% | Ranges from a scarf to formal rope work; most sit at the light end. |
| Power dynamics (dominance and submission) | 55.5% | About control and surrender, not necessarily pain. |
| Sex toys | 53.4% | So common it is barely a category anymore. |
| Specific body parts beyond the obvious | 43.4% | Feet, hands, hair, necks. The most stereotyped fetish is not the most common one. |
| Multiple partners | 39.7% | As fantasy for most respondents; three quarters still prefer monogamy. |
| Nonconsent themes in fantasy | 34.9% | A fantasy about force is not a wish for harm. This is the distinction that does the clinical work. |
| Roles and professions | 34.8% | Uniforms, authority roles, teacher/student framing. |
| Clothing and materials | 32.7% | Leather, latex, lingerie, specific fabrics. |
| Sadomasochism (giving or receiving pain) | 32.5% | Roughly a third — common, but far from universal. |
| Mythical or fantastical beings | 23.9% | Overlaps heavily with fandom and fiction. |
| Humiliation and degradation | 21.9% | Almost always tightly scripted and negotiated in practice. |
| Pregnancy-related | 19.5% | |
| Mental alteration themes (hypnosis, suggestion) | 18.8% | |
| Bodily secretions | 18.7% | |
| Sensory play (temperature, texture, deprivation) | 18.4% | |
| Objects and inanimate things | 17.7% | |
| Race or ethnicity as an erotic theme | 16.5% | |
| Gender play and crossdressing | 15.9% | |
| Transformation themes | 11.0% | |
| Unusual body configurations | 10.7% | |
| Incest-themed fantasy | 10.1% | Fantasy about a taboo is not a desire to break it. |
| Animal-related themes | 8.1% | Overwhelmingly anthropomorphic fiction rather than real animals. |
| Extreme brutality themes | 4.4% | The categories people most fear being alone in are the rarest. |
Four findings that matter more than the ranking
If you only take one thing from this page, take this section rather than the table. The prevalence order is interesting. These four numbers are the ones that change how people feel about themselves.
- Across the survey's onset questions, roughly 79% of datable answers land before age 19 and about 62% by 16 — interests usually show up early and are rarely chosen.
- About 30% report adult sexual assault: high enough that trauma-informed care should be the default, and far too low to support the idea that kink comes from trauma.
| Finding | Figure | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Respondents reporting at least one kink | 98.8% (in the researcher's published subsample) | Among people who answered a survey about kink, essentially everyone has one. Multiple interests average around ten of 27 categories. |
| “I am ashamed or embarrassed about at least some of what arouses me” | 56.8% agree | Shame is the majority experience. It is also the part that actually responds to treatment. |
| “Engaging with or fantasizing about what arouses me feels therapeutic or healing” | 54.3% agree | Desire is doing real work for people — regulation, safety, repair. That is why suppression tends to backfire. |
| “I've acted upon or experimented with all the things that arouse me” | 48.8% disagree | About half are carrying interests they have never acted on or said aloud. A fantasy is not a plan. |
Common does not mean healthy, and rare does not mean sick
A prevalence table cannot tell you whether an interest is good for your life. Plenty of extremely common interests get acted on in ways that hurt people, and plenty of rare ones sit harmlessly in someone's imagination for forty years.
The questions that actually matter are not about frequency. They are about consent, honesty, flexibility and cost: is everyone involved freely agreeing, can you tell a partner the truth, can you be aroused in more than one way, and is this interest taking more from your life than it gives back.
That is also the line the diagnostic manuals draw. An unusual interest is not a disorder on its own — distress, impairment, or involving people who cannot or did not consent is what turns a paraphilia into a paraphilic disorder. Being unusual is not a symptom.
- Consent: freely given, informed, ongoing, revocable.
- Flexibility: can you get there more than one way?
- Honesty: can the people affected know what is true?
- Cost: is it taking time, money, safety or intimacy you cannot spare?
What we actually do with this in therapy
Most people who bring a kink into my office are not asking me to remove it. They are asking whether they are safe to be known — by a partner, or by themselves. The work is usually about shame, secrecy and negotiation rather than about the interest itself.
We use Internal Family Systems for this because it fits what people describe: one part of you wants the thing, another part is disgusted by wanting it, and a third has decided you must never tell anyone. Getting those parts to stop fighting is what makes disclosure and negotiation possible. Nothing here involves trying to condition desire away.
Vanessa Cushing is licensed in Virginia and Florida; the wider Cushing Counseling team covers Virginia, Washington D.C., Maryland and Florida.
Frequently asked questions
What is the most common fetish?
If you mean a specific object or body part, interest in body parts beyond the standard erotic ones — feet, hands, hair, necks — is the most commonly reported at about 43% in this dataset, with clothing and materials at about 33%. But the most commonly reported erotic interests overall are not objects at all: they are a partner's enthusiasm, gentleness, and power dynamics.
How many kinks does the average person have?
In the published subsample, respondents reported around ten of 27 categories on average, and 98.8% reported at least one. Those are people who chose to take a kink survey, so treat it as “several is typical among people willing to answer,” not as a population average. Clinically, one tidy single kink is the unusual presentation.
Is it normal to have a fetish?
Yes. Unusual sexual interests are extremely common, they generally appear in adolescence rather than being chosen, and having one is not a mental health condition. What warrants attention is distress, secrecy that is costing you a relationship, an interest that has crowded out every other route to arousal, or anything involving someone who has not or cannot consent.
Are these percentages accurate for the general population?
No, and it would be wrong to present them that way. This is a self-selected online sample skewed young, and it is not peer-reviewed. It is the largest openly published dataset of its kind, which makes it genuinely useful for questions like “am I alone in this,” and useless for questions like “what percentage of Americans are into this.”
Does having a kink mean something happened to me?
Usually not. About 30% of respondents reported adult sexual assault — meaningful, and a reason to work with a trauma-informed clinician, but nowhere near enough to explain interests that most people report. Some people do find their desire is tangled up with something that happened, and that is workable; it just is not the default explanation.
When should I actually talk to a therapist about this?
When shame is running the show, when you cannot tell a partner the truth, when arousal only happens one way and that has become a problem, when the time or money involved has stopped being manageable, or when you are frightened by a thought and need somewhere sane to say it. A free 15-minute consultation is enough to find out whether therapy is the right tool.
Keep reading
- Kink vs. Fetish: What's the Difference? — One is a broad category, one is a specific requirement. The distinction matters.
- Kink-Affirming Therapy — Therapy that starts from the assumption your desire is not the problem.
- What 970,000 People Said About Kink — The dataset behind the numbers on this page, and what it can't tell you.
- Is ABDL Normal? — The shame question, answered for one specific interest.
Also on this site
- Meet the team — Who you would actually be sitting with.
- Fees & FAQs — Rates, insurance and what a session costs.
- Book a free consultation — 15 minutes, no charge, no intake paperwork.
Clinical resources this page draws on
- Aella — Big Kink Survey dataset (Knowingless) — The researcher's own release of the dataset, including her sampling caveats. Published subsample: Zenodo DOI 10.5281/zenodo.18625249.
- National Coalition for Sexual Freedom — Kink Aware Professionals — Directory of clinicians who will not treat consensual kink as a symptom.
- AASECT — Find a certified sex therapist — The certifying body for sex therapists in the United States. Useful if you are outside the states we are licensed in.
Next step
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