A look at “Queer & kinky: what do queer BDSM practitioners need from psychosexual therapy to ensure their experience is relevant and inclusive?” by Jody M. Sill (2024)
Many queer people know the exhausting ritual of coming out, again and again, to new doctors, colleagues and acquaintances. Now imagine doing it twice: once about who you love, and once about what you enjoy. For queer people who practise BDSM, that’s often the reality, and it can make walking into a sex therapist’s office feel like stepping onto a stage. This small UK study asked four queer, kinky people what they’d need for psychosexual therapy to feel genuinely safe and relevant.
What they found
The author, a psychosexual therapist and queer researcher, interviewed four people in England who identified as both queer and kinky. Four themes emerged from what they said they’d want.
- Therapy free from stigma. Participants feared their kink being seen as a symptom, a trauma response or something to be fixed. That echoes a long history of BDSM and queerness being pathologised side by side.
- Careful, considerate language. Using the client’s own words for their identities and practices, and not making assumptions about what terms like “queer” mean for them, mattered a lot. So did avoiding voyeuristic questions that serve the therapist’s curiosity rather than the client’s needs.
- Ideally, a queer and kinky therapist. Participants felt someone with shared lived experience would “get it” without needing a crash course. At the very least, they wanted a therapist who is genuinely kink-aware and LGBTQIA+ competent.
- Freedom from normative assumptions. They didn’t want therapy built on default ideas of what “normal” or “healthy” sex looks like: penetrative, monogamous, vanilla and heterosexual.
The author calls for a “paradigm shift” in psychosexual therapy, from tolerating non-normative sexuality towards understanding and celebrating it.
A grain of glitter ✨
This study gives voice to a group rarely heard in research, and its recommendations are practical and humane. But four participants is a very small number, even for this kind of in-depth qualitative work. They were recruited through social media on a first-come, first-served basis, and the author acknowledges that the findings can’t be generalised.
Some participants may not have had psychosexual therapy themselves, so parts of what they said reflect expectations or fears rather than experiences. That’s still valuable, since fear of judgement stops people seeking help, but it’s worth knowing. The author’s own position as a queer researcher likely helped build trust, but may also have shaped what was shared and how it was interpreted.
Why this matters
If you’re queer and kinky, you deserve sex and relationship therapy that doesn’t make you justify your desires before you can talk about what’s actually bothering you. It’s absolutely fine to ask a potential therapist directly whether they’re kink-aware and LGBTQIA+ affirming, and to keep looking until you find someone who is.
Some unicorns like a little leather with their glitter. A good therapist won’t bat an eyelid; they’ll just ask how they can help.