How to get out of kink

How to get out of kink

evilassassin00​(switch male) • Mar 9, 2022

Probably something that everyone here will say is impossible, but how does when go about putting their kink side aside? Repressing it is probably never good/healthy, but if it’s not something you can exercise properly (or at all) how do you go about not focusing on it or managing it in a way where it doesn’t consume you, waste time, energy and cause desperation and unhappiness?

Everyone has a totally different relationship with kink and their life outside it and the balance between the two; so there’s no one size fits all answer for this, but I thought I’d pose the question to help me work through my own problems and also hopefully help others on the future.


My personal situation (keeping lots of the details and specifics out of it cause they aren’t relevant):

I got into online play/kink when I was young and it was always a hidden secret side of me. When I had my first real relationship I incorporated a little bit of it, but things were mild.

Once I separated I had a bit of casual online fun here and there, but wasn’t really dating on into anything serious. My interest in kink grew (mostly online) and I started dating. Most of my dating was vanilla, with a little bit of kink based dating thrown in there, but the majority of my kink fun was online and that managed to scratch most of my itch. As this continued I got more and more into kink, but again mostly online for various reasons. The more I got into it though the harder it seemed to fill the need (constantly chasing the dragon and escalating things).

Eventually I met someone (mostly vanilla) and things were great. We had a bit of kink at the start of our relationship, but over time that faded - life got in the way, she seemed to not need it as much (seemed like she scratch the itch) and we became a very standard couple.

This wasn’t bad and we have a great relationship, but I kept searching online for fun and things to fill the needs that couldn’t be met by my vanilla relationship (for various reasons - her interests and mine are quite different).

Over time I start to work out what I wanted, and managed to meet a few people over the years who met that for a little bit, but generally longer term they would disappear or weren’t a good fit. Lately it’s gotten harder and harder to find the right thing, and I’m realizing some of the things I want are basically just unrealistic. This has led to more searching, investing more time (for little to no gain), desperation, sadness, feeling worthless and realizing that I won’t be able to get what I want.

I think I’m close to the point of trying to find a way to get out and try to not search for those things that I can’t have, but it’s a struggle. When I’ve tried to stop in the past I’ve always come back. Everyone always says the right thing will come along, but after years part of me feels like I need to face facts. Unfortunately what I’m after seems to require lots of effort and some of that effort also goes against what I’m searching for. I think at the moment I’m just spiraling and need to change something and I think the best option is to try to move away from kink.


Would love to hear peoples thoughts on how I can go about closing that chapter of myself.

Zelia • Mar 9, 2022

Did something else that makes you a better version of yourself. Join a gym, take up a new sport, read, meditate, practice mindfulness, focus on you. Nobody ‘needs’ kink. We say we do. We say it completes us but in truth we choose to allow it to be part of our lives and to complete us. Everything that requires a voluntary physical action is optional.
Good luck

Miki​(masochist female) • Mar 9, 2022

Especially of late I have realized more and more that I don't "need" kink. It's just added pleasure , sure, but like sexuality itself, it does not define me.

I was more into it when I was younger, but after a while the thrill became the commonplace.

Also on the whole I don't do relationships, so as I ran into more -- who wanted more-- leaving me having to distance myself from them and all the while explaining that it wasn't anything to do with "them" but it was a me thing--- until I was out of breath, in a manner of speaking. - I just figured that staying out of the scene altogether is better for me, at least at this time.

As for "getting out of kink"-- That you want to indicates it is not the be-all and end-all of your relationships so, basically, just do as you are doing. If you found a mutually fulfilling so-called "vanilla" relationship, then keep going.

Also as suggested above, find things to do that keep you busy, keep you healthy-- like the gym, etc. and go from there. That you want out means you're already better than half way there... And there is nothing wrong with that at all.

requin lupus • Mar 9, 2022

I won't say it is impossible, but (and I know I will get flayed for saying this) I liken it to addiction. I personally view addiction, or as is commonly indicated in Drug and Alcohol Evaluator assessments addictive personality, as being hardwired into someone's brain just as I think being kinky is as well. It is a lifelong thing, some persons with a kinky sway may never discover kink just as people with an addictive personality may never touch drugs or alcohol, or gamble or whatever they may have the potential for addiction with.

The key thing is to be honest with yourself. Acknowledge that there is at least some part of you that is drawn to whatever in kink you like, then recognize the trigger for that interest it can be words, activities, sometimes its the actions of others that get your D or s mind aroused. Do your best to avoid your triggers.

Honesty with partners is also important, part of the maintenance of addiction avoidance is accepting the past and letting future partners in on this can help not only with avoidance but also with support. It obviously sounds odd to think of a support person helping someone who wants to engage in play just as a support person helps someone who is jonesing for a drink, a hit, or to play the books, but I think that the concept remains the same.

Changing your environment is also important. It goes along with avoiding triggers. If you have a website that is dedicated to what you are trying to get away from, and you can log into that website at anytime with some key strokes and mouse clicks, then chances are you won't be able to stay away, if that is what you desire.

Lastly, appreciate the positive that you believe not having kink will provide, use that as a reinforcement for not re-engaging. There will be times as you work towards distancing yourself that you may come back, but if you truly want to remove acting on your kink urges it can be done. That said if you are asking how to deprogram from being kink minded, I do not think that is any more possible than expecting the addictive personality brain to stop.

Jillian Keenan who has a channel on Youtube holds that being a spanko is a form of sexual orientation in that for her spanking is where she is sexually satisfied. Sex is sex but it isn't SEX to her. She can have it and the pleasure is there but the brain chemicals are not. I think its the same for the rest of us, as you indicated to differing degrees, in that the level of satisfaction we find in vanilla activity with partners differs with how we are hardwired. I know some kinksters whom need some kinky activity to get the biochemical benefits or as I call it the "meat and potatoes" that sex is supposed to provide while others it serves as the dessert or appetizer to the sex which as those courses do in fine dining, enhances the meal, but it isn't a meal without them.

This likely came off as rambling and nonsense, but its my 0600 attempt at responding so I will toss my two pennies and get off the box now.

Good luck with whatever you elect to do.

Brandallofu​(dom male) • Mar 9, 2022

A good post. Heart wrenching on one hand, real on the other. What you're talking about reminds me of that inner conversation with one's self about death. You know it's coming some day, but that life thing, it's just got its hooks into you. It would be so much easier if you could just go there and get it over with, but that stupid, pesky life thing, just won't leave you alone. Evil.... I feel you, brother. I feel you.
I recently lost my sub of a year. It's been brutal the feelings that won't let up. How is it possible that a connection like that could break? Bones break, promises break, schedules break... all durable things with potent purposes, but, this connection, the one I spent so long weening and caring for, enduring endless hours of exchanges to make the heart melt, that thing... that one thing that would never die.... it died.
A year isn't a long time. The love I have for that woman will last forever and I couldn't tell you why. What is a year besides a few dozen hours of exchanging thoughts with a beacon that shows the way to being seen? Why do those hours mean so much when 30 years doesn't? Those hours were the ones I had been searching for over those 30 years. Now I don't have another 30 to try again. So yeah.... my shade is different than yours, but the color is the same.
And here all of us are, in this cubicle of Internet glory, back to that same ground we all planted our flags of conquest on. This is the addiction I can't get away from. The addiction of hope, found on a computer screen. As this blinking straight line on the screen leads the way for each stroke of my fingers, my mind is telling me I'll absolutely find that illusive commodity and bring her to life. Hope.
But I know how slippery hope is and I think I might not make it to when I'm completed again. And do I really want to feel the way I do right now, all over again, hustling for that little gold ring? In my sickness, I have to say yes. Just like you.

My addiction of bondage sits in front of me every day, powered by google and the Cage and my fingers and my fading, breaking heart as I power through the impossible dream, believing my windmill, my dragon, won't smite me. But the fact that I sit here is proof positive that I've already been smitten and the smite took it's due.

I, like you, won't be happy while I'm looking for the thing I can't find. That thing that when I do find it, leaves anyway. There aren't enough cycles issued at the start of this race to allow we, those who need, to ever really be complete. There isn't enough coddling or caring or grooming and supporting or pushing and taunting or tearing and beating in this planet that can make these losses we hand over, okay. So the answer for me, to your question, starts with recognizing the problem. That problem is this virtual nightmare we all grind to a halt inside of. If this didn't exist, would I? Would you? Simply.... no. These words would have never been written and I can't think of any possible better way to live, than without this pain.

Good luck on finding your way out. Thanks for the post.

LeaderLovingLife​(dom male) • Mar 9, 2022

Sorry for being short, but just a few comments.

You may have heard the term "once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic." Even in recovery and not having a drink in years, you are still an alcoholic. That idea can be applied to ANY behavior that is a deep desire, not just substance abuse, kinks can fit right in there if YOU feel that they are not healthy. I think what you are really looking into is how to manage the behavior so you no longer act on it.
There are many therapists that specialize in behavior modification. It is really going to come down to how motivated you are to make the change, identifying your triggers, what conditions lead to those triggers, and putting together a plan that avoids firing those triggers. Even knowing how to get back on the wagon if you fall off in the future - there is a natural cycle to it and once you understand it you can identify your risk to slipping up. There are numerous processes and names for this sort of behavior management, but I would encourage you to speak to a therapist and get a consultation. You'll find that therapy is 90% you being honest with yourself, self-reflection, and answering your own questions as you develop a management plan to achieve your desired outcome.

tallslenderguy​(other male) • Mar 9, 2022

i think there are some great replies here. i'll add some of my own thoughts to the mix, qualifying i don't think there is a generic answer to your question.

If you have not already, i think it would help to determine whether or not what you would list as your "kink/s" is a want or a need.

i grew up in a religious culture that conditioned me to believe being gay is "sick, broken, an abomination to 'God.'" Consequently, i spent a great deal of my life, from about age 14, trying to de-gay myself. It didn't work and it took me almost 35 years to untangle myself from the web of self rejection.

i know. Prolly talking apples and oranges here, but both are still fruit? Our psychosexuality is complex and wired in individually. We are all custom made.

The fact that you are asking how to get out of kink and the fact you have already have "... tried to stop in the past I’ve always come back," suggests to me some sort of need (vs want) is associated with your kink/s. If you have tried to forbid certain "kinks" in your life, did you discover that you could not do so successfully? Or at least, could not endure the result?

my read is you do not want to get out of the kink, but you want to get out of the cost of the search for that kink?

evilassassin00​(switch male) • Mar 9, 2022

A big thanks to all the replies so far.

I think the idea of it being an addiction holds true with me. I think I have a bit of a additive personality. I have a lot of hobbies and always seem to be wanting more and to get more from them. I know that ultimately I’m using them to fill a certain need (physical and spiritual).

The idea of keeping myself distracted with other things is a good point. As I mentioned I have a lot of other non kink hobbies. I think I go through phases of focusing on different things (kink being one of those things). With COVID everything changed and suddenly I couldn’t do a lot of what I was doing in the past and I was suddenly at home a lot more so the ability to indulge in online kink was right there. The COVID situation is changing here and maybe as things get back to normal I will have less time and need for kink to occupy my time.

As people have mentioned, part of my problems isn’t that I want to get out of kink, but that I’m struggling to find what I want and the cost of it (in terms of time and effort) is way too high (I spend most of my free time messaging people, searching, trying to get that relationship going and it does t work). Everybody says to just sit back and it will happen, but sadly being a male in this world I find I have to be the one approaching people in whatever dynamic I’m after and driving things.

Speaking with a few people they’ve said the only way I can really get what I want is to actually pay for a service. While I think the work these sorts of people do is good and fills a need, I don’t think that’s the right thing for me (as paying would change the experience from what I’m looking for, and ultimately the connection I want would be too expensive haha).

I will keep working through it all and hopefully come out the other end.

DewofHermon​(sub female) • Mar 12, 2022

I agree with some of the responses above that this is definitely an addiction. It drives, torments, compels. And after you taste it, it quenches you for a brief moment before you feel empty again. And over time you crave for something deeper and darker…

To keep yourself busy can work to a certain degree. I find the hardest time is at night because you are along and quiet and getting ready to sleep. Then your demons start their tormenting. If you can make yourself physically tired (gym, hard labor work), you may be able to fall asleep quick.

We all suffer from our demons. Hope you find ways to tame them.

House Talion​(dom male) • Mar 12, 2022

Cold showers
Dead babies
Picturing Bob Ross naked
Punch yourself in the eye
Eat tofu