It is unlikely that you want everybody in your life knowing about your kinky side. Whatever your reasons for keeping that side of yourself private, it’s valid and okay. Making it something you don’t share with everybody doesn’t mean that it is in any way shameful. It simply means that, like most other people, you don’t want everybody in your bedroom scrutinizing what you do in private. Now the question becomes how you interact with a kinky community while maintaining some distance from you are in the vanilla world.

And this is where the idea of a Kink Persona steps in.

What Is a Kink Persona?

Let’s take a drag queen. On stage, she introduces herself as “Helen Da Stroyah.” But off stage, he’s Frank Tannenbaum from accounting. Frank doesn’t want his vanilla life to cross over into his drag queen life for a variety of reasons, so the name and the makeup and the outfit protect Frank, but allow Helen to shine.

While not a perfect analogy, a kink persona fulfills a similar role. It allows the individual to exist in the kink community without having it leaking into their vanilla life. When you come up with your kink persona, it can also help show a little bit about who you are. 

Creating a Kink Persona

Don’t confuse your persona name with a username or handle you might use on a website. While they can be similar, or even identical, they are often different for a variety of reasons. When you go out in person you may not want to be referred to as Cum Slut 69 (but if you DO want to be referred in that way, more power to you). 

My slave and I have specific Nicknames we use in public to communicate dynamic related information. Ours aren’t super cutesy, but I’ll use more cutesy examples here.

For this, we’ll say her name is Jane.

“Jane, can you get me a glass of water?” This question is using her vanilla name and denotes that it’s not dynamic related or overly important to the dynamic. She may go get me a glass of water if she wishes, but she may also decline in this circumstance without worrying about a punishment.

“Buttercup, can you get me a glass of water?” This alerts her that I am not asking as vanilla partner, but as her Dominant. This is a service request I am making from within the Dynamic and it means she may not refuse. If she’s in the middle of a conversation, she may wait for a moment to extract herself, but she generally has about five minutes to complete the task I’ve given to her in such a way.

When we’re in a public situation, she doesn’t need to respond with any kind of honorific. Instead, she can touch her collar as a sign of submission and then perform the service.

Now, if we’re out at a kink gathering or event, I refer to her with our agreed upon slave name and because it’s not a vanilla event, she will refer to me as Master or Sir. We may choose to share our vanilla names with people in the kink community or we may choose not to. Who you decide to share your vanilla name with is entirely up to you. I have several friends whose vanilla names I do not know simply because they don’t want to think about vanilla life when they’re at kink events or communicating in kink forums. If that’s your choice as well, then don’t fret about it.

After you’ve determined how you wish to be referred to within the kink community, you can start determining how you want to approach your presentation. What do you want to display to your kinky community when you’re interacting with them?

There is no one right way to approach this. For many people, this can the moment that they finally feel free to be exactly who they are without having to hide the pieces of themselves that they may feel is somehow shameful (it’s not shameful, but we don’t judge others for feeling shame about their kinks when there is so much misinformation about kink in the world). It’s possible that you will see people in a kink community wearing next nothing (or nothing) when they may dress very conservatively in their vanilla life. In addition, you’re going to see some of the stereotypes of people who are quiet in their vanilla lives taking charge in their kink persona and you’ll see those who wield power and responsibility becoming quite and submissive. You’ll see other sorts of transformations as well as the go-getter from legal has regressed to the mindset of a seven or eight year old and is playing with a coloring book and crayons and clinging onto somebody they may call “Mommy” or “Daddy.”

A kink persona allows you to exist as you are without judgment while being surrounded by others who understand.

There is a distinct sense of relief and community when kinky folks gather together and can talk openly about their desires, kinks, and experiences.

What Do You Do With a Kink Persona?

Not only is a Kink Persona good for in person socializing, but as you might imagine (and probably thought of as the first use for a kink persona), making use of it online can help keep your personal identity private. Using a kink persona on kink-centered websites where you can login and connect with other kink people from around the world need a username. That username could very well refer to your kink persona you use at in-person events (such as Buttercup87), or it could be something that focuses on your most desired fetish, or it could just be something you think sounds cool. Some examples of screen names could be (I made these all up on the spot):

• CumSlut69
• Power_Man_Dom
• DragonSlayer87
• PrettyPrincess
• Cuckold_Desires

You can use some form of your name to sign up for various sites that cater to the Kinky Crowd. You may even wish to use that handle for your Obedience account.

You may choose to have a handle that follows you from platform to platform, but you may also want to create different handles for the various platforms you may wish to interact with. Maybe you want to take your kink persona onto social media as well and use to interact with other kinky folks on those platforms. Overall, I believe it’s incredibly important to be exactly who you are in the kink space. We tend to be very accepting, we don’t kink shame, and we’ll listen to you talk about your concerns, your desires, and your experiences without judgment.

Perhaps your kink persona is less about being a persona and more about allowing yourself to exist as your truest self. Maybe it’s your vanilla side that’s really the persona.