Look to your right. Now look to your left.
One of those people is probably at least a little kinky.
That's the result of a new study by two Quebec-based researchers who examined the popularity of sexual behaviors that are, clinically speaking, abnormal ("paraphilic," in psychologist-speak).
The authors polled 1,040 residents of Quebec over the phone and online about several variations of what the psychological community has usually considered sexually deviant behavior.
A third had actually engaged in at least one of these acts in the past, and even more (nearly half of respondents) were interested, even if they'd never tried any.
Overall, voyeurism — covertly watching a stranger nude, undressing, or having sex — was the most popular fetish. More than 46% of respondents expressed a desire to engage in voyeurism, while nearly 35% actually had at least once.
Fetishism took second. (The researchers were careful in how they asked about this one: "Have you ever been sexually aroused by an inanimate non-sexual object? Please note that a vibrator does not enter into this category.")
While only a quarter of respondents said they'd engaged in fetishism, 44% said they were, at least, interested.
Breaking the top two fetishes down by gender, the story takes an interesting turn: Many more men (50%) than women (21%) had actually engaged in voyeurism. And while 30% of men had gotten turned on by an inanimate object, only 23% of women had.
The numbers even out when we approach our third-place kink, however: About a third of both sexes said that they'd engaged in what the study calls "extended exhibitionism" — that is, having sex in a place where you risk getting caught.
Finally, the study debunked a common trope about sexual desire — that men are kinkier than women, and women are almost universally vanilla. According to the results, that's just not true — particularly in certain categories, like consensual masochism.
These kinks have long been classified abnormal by the "bible" of psychiatry: the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. (The latest edition, the DSM-5, is careful to emphasize that a paraphilia is not a mental disorder or even a diagnosis unless it causes distress or doesn't involve consent.)
But if something is common, it cannot be considered abnormal. And that was one of the main questions the researchers had: Are these popular kinks really abnormal? The results suggest that at least in the population studied, they are not.
"These results call into question the current definition of normal (normophilic) versus anomalous (paraphilic) sexual behaviors," they wrote.
There are some reasons to interpret these results with caution, however. For one, 1,000 people from Quebec are not a sufficiently diverse sample to represent the general population; cultural norms about sexual behaviors vary significantly around the world.
There's also a huge self-selection bias among people who are willing to answer questions about their sex life, especially questions about the sort of sexual behavior society has traditionally considered deviant.
Additionally, was a difference between those who responded on the phone versus those who took the online survey. In every category, a higher percentage of internet respondents reported direct experience with their kink of choice. That suggests that, as is common with sex surveys, people are not always being entirely honest and may be downplaying or exaggerating their experiences.
Many of these kinks don't hurt anyone — for example, sado-masochistic activities between two consenting parties. But others, like voyeurism or frotteurism — rubbing your genitals against an unsuspecting stranger — do have the potential for harm, and the study's authors don't suggest we condone them just because they turn people on.
But as sex researcher David Ley (who is unaffiliated with the study) told Reuters, social norms around sexuality have been changing rapidly, often for the better.
"For years, the field of mental health believed masturbation and homosexuality were unhealthy," he said. "It turns out we've been wrong on all counts."
Rethinking the "abnormality" of many sexual kinks may be next.
