Member Article: What Is Kink Pride?
from
Recon News
04 July 2025
By Dr Liam Wignall
June is Pride month and across the world there are celebrations and street parades celebrating sexual and gender diversity. In the UK, many pride events happen across June and July, with London Pride, one of the biggest in the country, taking place tomorrow (Saturday 5th July, 2025) – Team Recon will proudly be walking with its members. Each year brings fresh debates about the presence of kink at pride. This blog isn't going to be about whether kink should be at Pride – it's a tired debate. Kink has always had a place at pride and should always continue to be present and visible – kink is a key part of pride; kink is something to be proud of.
Rather than make the case for kink at pride, I want to consider what we might mean by kink pride. And to do that I'm going to write about three approaches to thinking about kink: through history, through identity, and through community.
History
People involved in different subcultures tend to research their interests, so I imagine many readers will know a bit about the history of kink. One of the most common being the history of sadism and masochism – terms taken from the literary authors Marquis de Sade and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. Less known is that these terms were coined by German Psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing and used to identify deviant behaviours relating to pain - this was arguably where the pathologisation of kink began.
The history of kink is generally a sad one. In the 1950s, kink (like many other sexualities), was labelled as a form of deviance and mental illness to be diagnosed and treated. Despite progress since then, the history of medicalisation attached to kink still remains. Earlier this year, I asked one of my students enrolled on a sexualities course, "Where do kinks come from?" - their response was "It's mental illness, isn't it?"
This stigma has led to persecution—from police, lawmakers, family and friends, and broader society. People have been imprisoned for engaging in consensual kinky acts, have lost their jobs, and have had their children taken away from them. There is also a history of kinky people being stigmatized by culturally conservative LGBTQ+ rights activists as well by saying "we know we're different, but we're not as bad as they are".
Despite this burden, there is a strong history of kink within activist movements and kinksters played a key role in the development of queer communities. Leather bars were integral to the growth of what we now understand to be gay districts and leather folks stood next to drag queens and trans people at the Stonewall riots. Leathermen were central to fundraising during the 1980s AIDS crisis and are often central to fundraising efforts for queer communities today.
Showing pride in kink is recognising the complex history and the fights early kinksters have overcome to allow us to live our authentic lives, and carrying on the tradition of standing up for disadvantaged groups – the image of the Leatherman is an iconic one of strength, power, and solidarity. We should be proud of the work these pioneers did as well as the harms endured by kinksters merely for existing.
Identity
A key element of pride is being proud of one's identity; while it may emphasise the importance of pride in one's sexual and gender identity, pride is now more about being authentic and accepting in all aspects of who we are. Each year, I'm amazed at the different sections in pride marches: gaming geeks, sportspeople, gardeners, and more.
For sexual minorities, sexuality if often a core part of identity. We often navigate the world through the lens of being a sexual minority – pushing back against assumptions of heterosexuality from a young age, often challenging expectations of monogamy, and (for people reading this blog) breaking the mould of vanilla sex. We often have to come out multiple times throughout our lives in a variety of different settings – and even then, we may be able to only disclose so much.
Not all people will have kink as a defining component of their identity – there are different ways people are interested in kink. For some, though, kink is their sexual orientation - their interests develop during adolescence, are relatively fixed throughout their lifetime (but with some flexibility and fine-tuning), and they can't be changed by external influences. People are sometimes more focused on the activities they like, whether it be fisting, spanking or bondage, than the gender identify of who they're playing with. It can be more complex than this, and there could be a focus on both the activity and who is administering it.
Interestingly, some kinksters have told me how they might play with people they're not normally attracted to, so long as their kinks are strongly aligned, and/or they have an in-depth knowledge of kink (and access to a range of gear to use). Maybe it's worth putting a bit more information into your Recon "About me" sections to attract these individuals…
When your sexuality is so intertwined with kink, it can be difficult not to want to talk to people about it and demonstrate your pride about it. This doesn't mean describing your kinks to people in great detail, but it can be being honest about the connections we make and telling people how important our Sir/Master/boy/pup is in our lives – these connections and relationships can help us develop as kinksters and beyond. When kink is intertwined with sexuality and identity, of course it is then a source of how we think pridefully about ourselves.
Community
One of the things that comes up in most of my interviews with kinksters is the importance of the kink community. This includes both the broader kink community and subcultures orientated around specific interests (e.g., the pup community, leather community, rubber community, etc).
The sense of belonging provided by a community for sexual minorities is often of vital importance. As I mentioned earlier, we often feel different growing up and comparing ourselves to others. This can lead to feelings of isolation and loneliness. One participant told me, "I looked for people like me; I wanted to know I wasn't broken." Recon's tagline of "find your tribe" is true – we want to find people who are like us to know we're not alone.
The kink community does several things. It provides a social network for people with shared kink interests; while some of this socialising revolves around kink, other times it's about chatting about random things with people who won't be focusing on the collar round your neck or boy at your feet – you can be your authentic self. One of the great things about being part of a global kink community is when you go to a new city anywhere in the world, you can message Recon members ahead of time and ask for recommendations of places to go (and people to do).
The community provides opportunities for personal development through educational and practical events; this includes the Masterclass events at Fetish Week London, the Café 101 events organised by London Leathermen, or the various workshops at large kink events (such as Darklands or IML).
And let's not forget that the kink community also provides opportunities for unforgettable kinky sex.
I've certainly benefited from being part of the kink community, making long lasting friendships and connections– these people act as a sounding board when I have new ideas about different research projects and hold me accountable on the claims I make about kink. They've also kept me in check at the open bar of the VIP section of full fetish.
Community is what makes kink events and connections so diverse and valuable. It isn't just individuals doing things alone, but people congregating to socialize, find meaning and value in each other, and as a haven from a judgmental society and daunting political climate. We need to recognise the value of these communities and do what we can to protect them. We should be proud of our kink communities and what they provide for its members.
Kink Pride and Kink at Pride
If you want my overall summary - kink has a place at pride and always will. That doesn't mean having sex in the middle of a pride parade (save the public sex for Folsom). But it does mean feeling proud of your identity and the community you are part of. If that's not how you view kink, (and kink is more of a hobby for you), that's totally fine – take joy that other people can be proud of something that means so much to them. It's so important to lift each other up and stand together, rather than tear each other down.
If you want to learn more about some of the topics discussed here, check some of the links below.
***If you'd like to share a fetish or kink experience in a member article, send your ideas or a first draft to: social@recon.com
SHARE
