This glossary is written by one person, not a team, not a committee, not an institution, often at 4am, doing their best to write accurately and respectfully about a huge range of human experience. Some entries are more complete than others, and some contain gaps or errors. If you find one, there's a form at the bottom of this page.
I do not open entries with consent qualifiers. The entire site operates from the premise that the activities described are practiced between consenting adults. Consent is addressed in the safety sections of entries where there is a genuine safety concern to flag, not sprinkled throughout as a disclaimer.
Some entries deal with themes that are non-consensual within the fantasy: consensual non-consent (CNC), abduction play, primal play, and similar. What's being described is a negotiated dynamic between consenting adults, not an endorsement of non-consent in the real world, and I write it with the same directness as anything else. I know some of this is genuinely triggering for a handful of readers. That doesn't change what I write: describing these practices accurately, and why people engage in them, comes first.
Safety sections are written under RACK (Risk-Aware Consensual Kink), not a promise that anything here is "safe." Nothing removes risk; what varies is whether you actually understand it. So instead of "watch for signs of numbness," I write the real progression, tingling to numbness to weakness, and the exact point that means stop. Instead of "this can be dangerous," I include the actual mechanism, numbers, and sourced research, wherever they exist, because a vague warning doesn't let you consent to anything concrete.
These entries are a carefully researched starting point, not an exhaustive review of the literature. Due diligence is yours to do: read the linked sources yourself, and go further than that, especially before taking on real physical risk.
Entries are written from a sex-positive, non-judgmental position, assuming the reader is an adult who's curious, exploring, or already practicing. I don't hedge every sentence with "some people" or "for those who enjoy": I assume you're here because you're interested.
Many glossary terms are gendered because they exist in community usage as gendered labels, bull, vixen, cuckoldress, nawashi, and gender is part of what they mean. I write them as accurately as I can.
That doesn't cover everyone. If you're gender diverse and a role's entry doesn't fit your language, that's a real limitation of the current glossary, one I'll fix by adding gender-neutral equivalents where the community has coined them. Until then, the identity an entry describes is yours regardless of its pronouns.
Where entries have a gender equivalent, I write both with identical directness and tone, never softening one and sharpening the other.
I cite academic and journalistic sources where they exist. Many entries, especially newer community-coined terms, have no academic trail; when that's the case I say so, draw on documented community history, and distinguish what's sourced from my best account of the available information. I don't invent citations or use statistics I can't verify.
Some history sections include people who probably identified with the kink or role described, without claiming they'd have chosen these labels themselves. I include them because their documented behaviour is strong evidence of the interest, and erasing that history does a disservice to people looking for it. Where this applies, the entry says so.
The DSM-5 and ICD-11 classify some sexual interests. Where a classification exists, I address it in a dedicated section at the end of the entry rather than leading with pathology, so clinical content doesn't frame how you encounter the kink.
Use the form below for anything: a factual error, additional sources, firsthand knowledge that would improve an entry, or just to say something landed well. An email address is optional, but helpful if you want a reply.
Please note: I won't change entries because the framing feels uncomfortable, because you disagree with a community definition, or because you think I should lead with safety warnings. The editorial choices above are intentional.