thefourthvine | [Poll] Perceived Kinkiness

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[Poll] Perceived Kinkiness

I am having a crappy day, people. I come to you for entertainment and distraction.

So, the other day - or maybe it was the other week; I'm not exactly Speedy Jenny, here -

frostfire_17 said something that interested me. She said that she thinks Reboot Kirk would be kinkier than TOS Kirk.

My immediate reaction, of course, was to want to evaluate the Perceived Kinkiness (PK) of many characters on a set scale. This is a pressing and important issue in fandom, after all, and I think it's tragic that I can find no previous work on the subject in the literature. (Why is there no journal of Fandometrics? I know lots of people study fans, and, look, I love you guys and I find you interesting and all, but what I really want to read is studies on the characteristics of various OTP groups within a given fandom as compared to OTP groups within another fandom, and an ordering of perceived character intelligence plotted against six key traits one of which is total percentage of dialog, and data on the distribution of key adjectives associated with certain characters, and maybe how that relates to fannish migration over time. Plus, of course, PK.) Fortunately, we have this thing called polls, so I can at least cover the PK issue until such a time as Fandometrics starts publishing.

Obviously, answer this poll using your own personal definition of kinkiness. For bonus points (and a more distracted, and thus more happy, TFV), discuss what specific kinks you think a character is mostly likely to have in the comments.

On this scale, 0 is totally not at all kinky, and 5 is most kinky in all the land. Go! Rate! We will have our Fandometrics yet! (And now we do, thanks to

dramaturgca:

fandometrics!)

[Poll #1427906]

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Relative Kinkiness is complicated!

AOS vs. TOS Kirk: I think that for TOS Kirk, kink is something that *happens* to him, not something he likes. I mean, sure, if you're a dashing space captain, you occasionally end up having sex with green dominatrices, or AU BDSM versions of your pilot, or those things with all the tentacles, or your best friend in pon farr, and sex pollen happens; but what he really wants is a stable, steady relationship with a nice, intelligent human woman and regular vanilla sex, and I don't see him staying long-term with anyone who needs kink. (Well. Every seven years isn't a deal-breaker, probably.)

AOS Kirk is clearly someone who, aside from being up for anything, also gets off on pain, submission, humiliation, manhandling and exhibitionism. I'm not sure he realizes that there are alternatives, though.

TOS Spock is weird, 'cause Vulcan sexuality is weird. I think he finds the physical -ide of sex uninteresting (pon farr aside); there's nothing wrong with it, there are just better ways to spend one's time. But I also think that, between human children's biological need for touch and the taboos necessary for touch-telepaths, he's got some issues around mindtouch and intimacy. By which I mean he's a total slut who will mind-meld with anything from a glowing light in a box to a rock to the entire bridge crew (often handwaving ethical questions) just because it gives him an excuse for touch.

Reboot Spock is also somewhat more free with the mindtouch than Vulcans consider moral, but he has whole-heartedly embraced the physical. I imagine he and Uhura are working through a whole list of different human ways to experience intensity of physical contact. :D

Uhura in both universes, I think, doesn't need it, though she does like giving orders quite a lot, but has a giving nature and a scientist's love for experimentation, and has a lot of fun. Similarly McCoy, with the addition that he's eminently practical, and quite self-aware, and figures that if it works, why not do it? Though I think reboot McCoy has lost some of his taste for it just due to long exposure to Kirk and his damage.

...and I could go on, but this is too long already. Except to sadly note that people must not have been watching the same Ray Vecchio I was!

Also also! I get the point of all the people who say that kinky is culturally relative and therefore Jack Harkness ranks low, but I disagree. I happen to believe that, just as in a repressive society there will be plenty of people who go for kink anyway; in a fully open society, there will be plenty of people who still mostly don't want anything fancy, just somebody to touch and be touched by. Possibly even most people.

Captain Jack is not one of those people; "adventurous" is what Jack is. :D (Neither is Methos. He gets off on pain and battle and submission. He gets off on pain and battle and submission *onscreen* - srsly, there's some interview where PW admits that his quickening routine was just faking an orgasm.)

This was an interesting exercise. Took me a while to decide on my scale, but I went with some vague sense of how I think they perceive their own limits and how that compares to others.

Kirk may be willing to do way more than Spock (thinking TOS here) but Spock is pushing his personal boundaries further so he is kinkier.

I think TOS Kirk is about as kinky as Reboot Kirk but for very different reasons. Weirdly I think acceptance, as a personality trait, is a big sign of kinkiness. TOS Kirk really does seem like he'd be up for just about anything with his generally easy-going attitude. Reboot Kirk you could probably get to do the same stuff, but out of a sense of machismo or unwillingness to back down.

On the other hand Faith for example (what I remember of her) seems pretty kinky outwardly, but I think once you pushed her into something really new she'd no longer be game.

And Jack Harkness (I was gonna say Captain Jack then I realized there were two @_@) is just so easy going that it does almost seem like he should be a low number 'cause he's already done everything. But you know if he DID find something new, that managed to push his boundaries he thought were out as far as they would go.... he'd totally try it! So he's still kinky at heart, even if there are no kinks left unexplored (FOR NOW! MWAHAHAHAHAHA. I mean, people must discover new kinks, right? ...I wonder if he could single-handedly make the past more sexually open just by living through it and sleeping with people. It is a chain-reaction after all.).

So on my scale Jack Harkness and TOS Spock are at the same level of kinkiness! That makes me happy. (Though it's still 'cause with a scale that only goes to 5, 5 has to encompass '5 and anything beyond'). Sadly reboot Spock seems way more rigid and less accepting than TOS for right now, as well as having boundaries that are already further out (being all emotional and young and stuff). So he only gets a 3. ;_; (He is still Vulcan, almost anything is probably kinky and he'd totally do some of it).

God I ramble. @_@ But my last comment is that even though I see '1' as the 'average kinkiness' I do think almost anyone starring in a fantasy or sci-fi show must be pretty willing to try new things so I THINK all my 3s 4s and 5s aren't just fantasy fulfillment. Maybe. ^^;;

Oh god I keep having second (and more complex) thoughts! I have not properly weighted my scale to include how much they would LIKE the kink they'd be willing to try. Which is actually the more important part! ...or at least as important. Like I guess I would expect reboot Kirk and Spock to LIKE the kinks they'd be willing to try more than their TOS companions.

I'm such a meta fangirl. I feel like this should be like 3 different ratings for each character. Make it stop. >_< Must go do something else now.

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dramaturgca.livejournal.com - 2009-07-11 01:11 (UTC) - Expand

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yuki-kokoro.livejournal.com - 2009-07-11 09:09 (UTC) - Expand

Huh, I would have thought people would think John Sheppard was way kinkier.

I wonder why Reboot characters seem to overwhelmingly be kinkier - is that because people on TV in the sixties just weren't that kinky? Kirk and Spock are more messed up in the new one, which doesn't necessarily mean kinky, but I think possibly both more into extreme play - but what about McCoy and Uhura? Hm.

(Sorry you're having a crappy day :( )

Science/Graph question!

Are there people who are rating characters they're not familiar with as 0s because they're unfamiliar? Because if so, it's going to skew the results, particularly in the slightly less available fandoms.

I didn't rate the Supernatural characters, because I haven't watched the show in forever. Same thing with most of the Doctor Who characters, although I did have an opinion on Captain Jack.

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dramaturgca.livejournal.com - 2009-07-11 00:57 (UTC) - Expand

oh, captan jack. glad to see we have such consensus. :-)

i just... i can't imagine a vanilla jack AT ALL. he's the most sexual, the most 51st century, the most... HOW COULD HE NOT? how could jack not have explored every flavor of sexual expression possible? it's JACK.

yay this has done a bit to cheer up my torchwood-induced blues

no, i was lying, torchwood blues back in force. need happy (kinky) jack/ianto fic. it has been a very long time since i was so desperate to reject the events of a tv show... *cry*

Relative kinkiness is kind of tricky to quantify. My scale runs roughly as follows:

4s and 5s are people who seem like they would either actively experiment with everything physically possible and some things that aren't, like Jack Sparrow, or people who seem like they would really need a certain element of kink in their lives, like reboot!Kirk.

The ones I rated middle range (2 and 3) are different degrees of "up for most things but wouldn't necessarily seek them out, or want to repeat them," and the 1s are people with simple pleasures, who would probably be reluctant to try anything too wild but enthusiastic about vanilla sex.

My lone 0 was Castiel, because the idea of angel sex is a huge DO NOT WANT for me, but I think if he ended up mortal like Anna he'd probably veer up to 4 or 5, experimenting with everything and possibly being really into d/s or something like that.

So what's your definition of kinky then where Captain Jack Harkness is not kinky? I do not understand!

Dean is ~~slutty~~ opportunistic, not kinky. I think he's tried a few things, but he's happy with the basics and doesn't need or really want a whole lot that's really kinky. He also hasn't really had the chance to explore serious kink in a setting where he trusts the other person (um, clearly, wincest aside, but even there, Sam would be the one pushing the boundaries. if there are boundaries after you've broken the incest taboo).

Sam, otoh, has had a relationship long enough to have explored the kinkier things he may have wanted but was embarrassed about, and also, the whole blood drinking thing, not to mention the sex with a demon (and, technically, the dead body she was inhabiting) and sex with a werewolf... Sam is definitely the one with superfreak (in the Rick James sense) tendencies.

Obviously, mileage varies.

yup. sam's kink is canon, imho, while dean's just opportunistic. and even that might be overstated...we hear about it but don't actually see much of it. this is the man whose siren song was fraternal adoration. he might not be getting as much action as he claims.

Edited 2009-07-10 21:30 (UTC)

I had trouble with Castiel, because I think he's not intrinsically kinky, but that he'd be totally willing to do whatever his partner wanted, no matter how kinky. There's such a disconnect between his mind and body; he hasn't got physical wants, per se. He doesn't understand them, and thus kink wouldn't do anything for him, at least not until he starts letting the input from Jimmy's body affect his emotional state.

I was getting ready to compare Castiel to Valentine Michael Smith, and then I had this huge epiphany: Misha Collins needs to play Val in the film adaptation of Stranger in a Strange Land. It would be brilliant.

Also, your scale needs to go up to eleven for Captain Jack Harkness, and possibly for Methos. *g*

Also also? I think that the reason TOS Kirk pings as lower on the kink scale than Reboot Kirk for many of us is more Doylian than Watsonian. Television from that era was tame by today's standards, and I think that colors perceptions. Additionally, many of us were first exposed to TOS when we were kids, and so there's sort of a "no sex" filter on all of our memories of the show. (It's like all the middle-aged Brits who flailed when the Ninth Doctor was portrayed as a sexual being. *g*)

I was getting ready to compare Castiel to Valentine Michael Smith, and then I had this huge epiphany: Misha Collins needs to play Val in the film adaptation of Stranger in a Strange Land. It would be brilliant.

This is the most brilliant idea in the history of ever.

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montanaharper - 2009-07-11 02:40 (UTC) - Expand

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laughingacademy.livejournal.com - 2009-07-11 00:40 (UTC) - Expand

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montanaharper - 2009-07-11 02:42 (UTC) - Expand

I'm amazed to find I had *reasons* for most of those!

1) The poll is flawed regarding Jack Harkness. The numbers just don't go up high enough to reflect his Perceived Kinkiness.

2) I'm amused by how there's virtually no disagreement on his PK, at least as far as we can measure it.

I can see most characters anywhere on a continuum of kink, in the same way that I can see most of them anywhere on a continuum of gay-all-the-time to straight-but-hell-just-this-once. So for purposes of story A, I could make Fraser a cheerful sexual omnivore with no dark places in his sexual psyche: "Everything is perfectly natural, Ray!" -- which is alien to true kinkiness. But for purposes of story B, I could see his sexuality as nothing but a stage on which he can act out his abandonment issues: kinks galore.

No matter what I do, though, I cannot see John Sheppard as sexually well-adjusted.

I agree about Sheppard. I rated him low because I think he'd be more withdrawn and stand-offish, even during sex. But even if he's super kinky, I don't think it'd be a healthy kinky.

It amuses me that he has the highest (or one of the highest) standard deviations.

I feel like, with Jack Harkness (as well as, to a certain extent, Methos, the Doctor and Jack Sparrow), they've had time enough or experience enough (or both) to maybe *seem* kinky to other people, but to just - not get off on kinky stuff as much, because the shock factor is just not there. So I was torn between "seeming kinky" and "feeling kinky" on those, if that makes sense.

Also, I feel like Teyla just doesn't have any hangups -- she might swing from the chandeliers, for all I know, but only because it is mutually pleasurable to her and her partner(s). So again, she probably does some pretty kinky stuff, but she would look at you funny if you pointed out that it *was* kinky.

Ha! I see I'm in agreement with the majority about Jack Harkness, Faith, Methos and Jack Sparrow. Though I'm defining kinky here as kinky according to the perceptions of the people/culture we see around them, rather than their own views - I don't think Jack Harkness in particular would think anything he did was kinky.

The answers amuse me, like that Jack got 130 votes for 5, more than any one else!

the last five results are f'n HILARIOUS.

\o/

We have achieved consensus on Captain Jack Harkness! Thank you for rewarding my innate faith in your good judgment, fandom!

...You needed to make the scale go higher for the Captains Jack. And Methos.

You have the best icon ever

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amarin-rose.livejournal.com - 2009-07-26 05:21 (UTC) - Expand

Is "kinkiness" measured by things a person has actually done, or is it more of a psychosexual thing?

I rated Jack a 5 for experience, even though I think he's a 0 or 1 in psych.

But people, Castiel's an angel. Of course he's kinky: he comes equipped with feathers.

Sam is the kinkiest of all, even taking the blood out of the question.

Because he's such a romantic, and has such an idealistic, unrealistic, inflated view--he's kinky, but not safe.

Whereas Jack... (pre-COE Jack) would do anything you asked, once he got the ground rules of your culture and preferences clear--totally safe, no edge, so maybe in that sense he's kinda...vanilla?

Dean could be persuaded to do kinky stuff, pretend to be cool with it, but be inwardly shocked. So he's kink-possible, but not kink-actual...he'd need someone to help him get past the shock and into the thrill.

I bet Castiel would think it's all kinky. Maybe that would make it so?

Faith is too messed up to be kinky in any meaningful sense of the word. Sex as a desperate survival-based manipulation is scary in the sad way.

Methos? I dunno. But Amanda is kink-tastic!

One question that occurs to me is whether use of magic (by magic-enabled characters, like Merlin and Morgana) counts as a kink or a potential kink. I could kind of see Morgana preferring men she knows will die in the next day's battle, for instance. Merlin, like Jack Harkness, might feel magic is so intrinsic to everything he does that it doesn't change what he'd want to do -- but maybe non-magical sex (or *attempts* at non-magical sex) would be a kink of sorts for him.

It struck me as possibly interesting to think about why I put certain characters in certain tiers, so here are my answers sorted by number on the scale, and an explanation of what each number means to me.

5: Reboot Spock
Finds it difficult to have sex without power games or another kind of kink; in the case of Reboot Spock, it's all about control or loss of control.

4: Reboot Kirk, Reboot Uhura, Ronon Dex, Sam Winchester
Power play or some other kink actively turns them on to the point where they prefer it; generally either being in control or losing it.

3: Reboot McCoy, Rodney McKay, Castiel, Ianto Jones, Captain Jack Sparrow, Ianto Jones, Faith
Enjoys kink when it happens and might even actively seek it sometimes, but is happy to have plain old vanilla sex a good part of the time as well.

2: John Sheppard, Benton Fraser, Jack Harkness
Inclines more toward vanilla sex (and in the case of the John and Jack, a hell of a lot of it), but enjoys a reasonable amount of kink when it comes up.

1: Teyla Emmagen, Dean Winchester, Ray Vecchio
Willing to try kink for certain people and might even enjoy it, but when left to own devices, prefers and practices vanilla sex, possibly in part because kink only makes so much sense to them.

0: ?
Strictly vanilla; not willing to try any kink for anyone. My own bias means that I have a hard to imagining this.

My own bias also means that in my head, "kink" usually maps to "power games," at least in part, so that also probably colors my placement of people into categories.

I also think that my perceptions are not set in stone. I'd be happy to read a story where someone I think of as a 1 is actually a 4, and vice-versa, as long as it's convincingly done. Come to think of it, most of the characters would fit into at least 2 numbers for me; the ones I picked are just relative approximations. It's all fluid!

You precipitated a journal!!!!!

Wooooooooooooooo!

*g*

I filled out the poll, at first, but I didn't hit "submit" (ha! submit!) because I could easily see more than one answer for so many people.

However, I thought it was veddddddy interestink that for both Dr. Who (10) and Jack Harkness I put "0" -- I guess I don't see any of their shennanigans as "kinky" per se because their frame of reference is so different.

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