The State of Kink.

This is anonymized, aggregate data pulled from Bearings, SafeHaven’s free kink and BDSM personality test — real answers from real people, opted in, aggregated, and never linked back to anyone. It updates continuously as more people take the test, so the picture only gets sharper over time.

Nobody publishes kink data like this, and we think seeing what a real (if self-selected) slice of the community actually looks like is genuinely interesting on its own — whether or not you’ve ever taken the test yourself.

100% anonymous, aggregate-only, never linked to anyone.

What Bearings actually measures.

Bearings places an answer on six independent scales. None of them is a score, and neither end is better than the other — a strong lean and a dead-centre result are equally real answers. The “lean” figures above are simply where the sample sits on each of these, averaged.

Power — Submissive ↔ Dominant

Who you want holding the reins, and how firmly. This is about the direction authority flows in a scene, not about confidence, competence, or how you are anywhere else in your life. Plenty of people lead all day and want none of it here.

Sensation — Masochist ↔ Sadist

Which side of intense physical sensation you are drawn to — giving it or receiving it. It covers far more than pain: heat, cold, pressure, overstimulation and the deliberate absence of sensation all live on this scale.

Restraint — Rope bunny ↔ Rigger

Your pull toward bondage, and which end of it. Riggers are drawn to the craft of tying and restraining; rope bunnies to the experience of being tied. The rope itself is optional — cuffs, furniture and stillness all count.

Exposure — Voyeur ↔ Exhibitionist

Whether being seen or doing the seeing is the charge. In practice this shapes how someone relates to play parties, photography and public dynamics, and it is one of the axes where consent boundaries matter most sharply.

Caregiving — Little ↔ Caregiver

The nurturing register — looking after someone, or being looked after. It runs from the aftercare every scene needs through to full caregiver dynamics, and it is entirely separate from the power axis: caretaking is not the same thing as control.

Openness — Vanilla ↔ Experimental

How wide the appetite is for the unfamiliar. A low score is not inexperience — it often means someone knows exactly what they like. A high score means novelty itself is part of the draw.

Bearings is our own instrument, built in-house with a consent-first, inclusive lens. It has not been through external psychometric validation, and we do not present it as a clinical or diagnostic tool — it is a well-made mirror, not a measurement of anyone’s worth. Take it yourself or read the 35 archetypes it scores against. If a term here is unfamiliar, the Library explains it in plain language.