WHY ARE PEOPLE INTO THAT?

A sex educator analyzes how and why kinks captivate us.

Through a queer feminist lens and suffused with a strikingly authoritative flair, sexuality podcaster Horn, creator of the comic series SfSx (Safe Sex), attentively examines a variety of sexual kinks, including spanking, bondage, and the sexualization of financial domination, among others. Featuring sharp analysis and a solid dose of humor, the opening section explores the eroticization of feet. Elsewhere, Horn examines how group sex, cannibalistic “vorarephilia,” and theatrical sploshing (“wet and messy” fetishists) found their way into fetishistic communities. Horn generously interjects aspects of her own kink identity into every chapter, offering anecdotes, intimate stories, erotic musings, and truths about her early beginnings in the sex industry and, later, as a sadomasochistic sex worker. She imparts how the realities of fear, humiliation, and shame became the “fundamental raw materials” of modern-day sex work and, as a professional dominatrix, how she teaches (and learns from) her clients about the “prismatic possibilities of desire.” Horn delivers refreshing opinions on gender, identity, and the need for a new societal code of sexual ethics based on imagination, curiosity, and communication. “The danger comes when authority figures think they can control our desires, coaxing our identities into normalcy by censoring our experience,” she writes. “But desire, like nature, finds a way.” Since there are only nine kinky categories headlined in the book, each one benefits from pages of intriguing, judgment-free inspection, and the author approaches all her material with the authenticity and cultural analysis only a true aficionado of sexual exploration like Horn could deliver. Perfect for kink enthusiasts, the “pervert-curious,” and fans of Horn’s titular sexuality podcast, the book respectfully isolates a heady collection of fetishes that, for many, represent sexual freedom in all its kaleidoscopic wonder.

A probing, sex-positive report on the origins and values of fetishes.