How did you know I was kinky?

Image by the brilliant Stuart F Taylor

When I was about twenty two, a friend of mine asked if I wanted to come to a fetish bar with her. This wouldn’t be a particularly unusual thing for someone to ask me, because I am a huge fan of both fetishes and bars. What made it odd, though, is that I’d never once had a conversation with her about kink. There were plenty of other people she knew better than she knew me, and we’d not once spoken about our own personal kinks. So how the fuck did she KNOW I was kinky?

We went to the bar, obviously. And in fact although that specific night isn’t chronicled anywhere in this torrent of filth that passes as a website, there’s a story about the bar itself in my first book if you’re interested.

What I’m on about here isn’t the bar itself, though, it’s the fact that this person seemingly knew that I was kinky without my ever having told her. When I replied to her email to give an enthusiastic ‘yes please I would love to come to a fuckpub’ I also couldn’t resist asking: how did you know I was kinky? She replied by saying that I just gave off a ‘spank me’ kind of vibe.

You have the air of a kinky fucker

I don’t think you can tell whether someone’s kinky just by looking at them. Fair enough, if they’re dressed in full fetish gear and a gas mask, you can assume they’re at least open-minded, but most people don’t advertise their kinky credentials by wearing a badge or a t-shirt with ‘SUBBY SLUT’ printed on the front. And yet these little moments of recognition happen quite frequently: a nod here, a sly smile there, a reference to something that could possibly be passed off as innocent unless you have insider knowledge.

Another time, shortly after I became GOTN, when I was still juggling it with a job that had nothing to do with shagging, I shared a cigarette and a chat with a guy from our IT department. We met outside the office most days, and had bonded in the way that smokers do: casual conversations about the weather led to more discussion about who we are and what we’re doing, which led eventually to a gentle rhythm of snatched gossip at regular intervals throughout the day. We weren’t friends as such, but we knew each other.

And one day, after he’d asked me what I was up to at the weekend and I told him ‘off to a party,’ he asked me:

“What kind of party?”

It’s a slightly out-of-the-ordinary question, that one. His raised eyebrow and sideways smile indicated that he wasn’t looking for a ‘birthday party’ or ‘housewarming’ type of answer. So I told him: a vanilla party. And we spent the next ten minutes talking about what he was up to at the weekend, which was definitely not a vanilla party. I don’t know how he knew either, but when I asked he shrugged and said ‘I was right… right?’

How do I know you’re filth?

I don’t think I’ve ever been brave enough to launch into a kink-hinting chat in the way either of the above people did, but I know I’ve had similar moments – usually with shy guys I fancy. There’s sometimes a little flash of something that takes you from ‘wondering if someone’s filthy’ to ‘knowing they are for sure.’ A look here, a word there, or sometimes just a raised eyebrow or a pause at the right moment.

“Oi, it’s your round – off you go to the bar, mate.”

Slight pause.

Make me.”

Offering someone your hand, palm upwards, and instead of interlocking fingers they hold you by the wrist.

Spilling someone’s drink and having your profuse apologies met with a flash – just the briefest moment – of eye contact and a stern look. As if they’re about to tell you you’re a naughty girl. I’ve had this a couple of times, and there’s a thrill in that split second when I work out how to respond. Ignore the look? Playfully assume the role of bratty submissive? Or simply say “I’m sorry, sir…” with emphasis that could either be read as kink-confirmation or brushed off as sarcasm if I’ve guessed his intentions wrong.

As I write this down I’m wondering if I imagined some of these moments. The way shy guys suddenly looked up in surprise if I said something that hinted at kink, and then gave me slow, deliberate smiles to indicate that I’d read them right. Or the raised eyebrows if I say I shouldn’t go into detail when a story touches on sex, and a nudge in the right direction: “I’m not some innocent, you know.” The guy who said that to me was one I’d crushed on for a while, but I’d never really been sure if he was kinky, or if his kink-friendly playfulness was just put on because he knew I was GOTN. The ‘innocent’ comment was his way of opening the door to filthy conversations without having to actually say ‘I’m kinky too. It’s cool.’

Maybe I did imagine some of it. And even if I didn’t, perhaps I shouldn’t write about it: it requires guesswork and interpretation, so it’s not exactly a great starting point for communication and it’s certainly not a chat-up strategy. But fuck it: it’s fun. And I like those moments – the little spark between two people that sometimes means ‘let’s fuck’ or ‘how about it?’, but often just acts as a flash of knowing camaraderie. The spark that means ‘I get you.’

7 Comments

  • Warren says:

    Several years ago, a colleague of mine one recounted a surprising story about a girl who worked in our office. She was pleasant enough, but kinda boyish and also a bit geeky, with a tendency to blush if any male engaged her in conversation. I think we all assumed that she didn’t have a bf, not that we had any particular reason to think so. After a while, she changed jobs and was gone.

    A few days after she left, she phoned my colleague, who’d been on the same team as her, to ask if she’d left a jacket on the coat rack, which she had, and he offered to drop it at her flat as she lived a couple of streets away from him. He rang the bell and was shocked when she answered the door, dressed in a kinky nurse’s outfit. He just handed the jacket to her and left after a very brief and flustered few words. When he told me about it, he was confused, as he couldn’t work out whether she’d done this deliberately because she fancied him and had misread that he might be into that kink, or she’d forgotten he was bringing it around and caught her out. Then he speculated that she wore that kind of thing at home all the time for her own entertainment, or perhaps that she had a partner who was ‘the patient’ waiting in the bedroom for some ‘treatment.’ He never had any contact with her after that and never did find out the back story. Maybe she’d just hired it for a fancy dress party and was trying it on. We’ll probably never know.

  • New to this says:

    Not rubbish, very interesting and hope you feel better soon x. I never get outed as a kinkster… must try harder to emanate filthy vibes and will definitely steal a couple of above for ideas sounding out others’ depraved vices :)

  • The One says:

    I wish wish wish someone would rise to my artfully concealed fuckbait. I continue to live in hope.

  • Leafy Arms says:

    A friend of mine recently used in the word “chastised” in a sentence, where a more ‘regular’ phrasing would have been “got cross with.”

    My mind’s eyebrow arched right up at that one.

  • Midlands Man says:

    I once sat opposite a girl on the Paris Metro (where else?) and was idly fantasising about her. She wore a sleeveless top with a small roll neck, short pleated skirt, dark stockings (I hope) or tights (more likely), and black heels. She sat with her knees together, her bag by her side. I was thinking how lovely her wrists and ankles would look with some wide leather straps around them, and how easy it would be, with her ankles clipped together, her wrists secured behind her, to bend her over, and lift the flared skirt to reveal her rear. The question was, would the roll neck allow a collar to be fitted, so I could pull her head back as I pushed my cock in ? I looked at it, and caught her eye, and her look back said “Yes, yes to the collar, and a lead, and no, I don’t have knickers on, so it’s just the skirt to lift, and yes, I am wet enough, putting on the restraints was all I needed”.
    I felt a flush of shock – it was almost as if words had been spoken – and then she got up to get off, and that was it.

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