What does the kink community crave?

In May 2026, we posted a form on our Instagram - and the answers shook something in us. We asked our community “What are you craving in your dynamic right now?”. The submissions were supposed to be an artistic representation of hunger, yearning, longing in power exchange relationships. It was an open invitation for Obedience users to contribute to and co-create Community Voices section of the Obedient Season #2.

We thought it was essential to include a wider, diverse population - provide space for people whose voices are not usually loud enough to hear. They can typically be found in comment sections and corners of kink events, not having a platform. And why? Those people, those experiences are at the heart of the BDSM community after all. They are included in the Obedient Season #2 not for education - let’s leave that to the selected few who know their stuff and were kind enough to share their expertise with us in their Obedient Season articles. “Community Voices” section is about a shared experience of being a kinkster, being a human with desires, needs and a whole lot of other context.

When we asked about craving in D/s dynamic, we expected people to write about sex. We expected talks about specific acts, scenes, and implements, about wanting more intensity or more frequency. But we underestimated the reflective depth of our community by envisioning submissions full of the surface-level read of “craving” as wanting something physical that you’re not getting enough of. Silly us.

You stopped Maja in her tracks and made her reflect on the plans for the Issue #2 instead.

We had writer after writer reaching for religious language. Daily bread. Gospel. Altar. Worship. One sub wrote about finding their place at their Dom’s feet and called it their sanctuary. These aren’t the words people use when they’re trying to get rid of a feeling. They’re the words people use to signal devotion.

Those words were put together to send a message and, eventually, show patterns.

What it changed about how we read need

Turns out that we, as a community, are craving in similar directions of attention, permission or a version of a partner.

Attention. The want underneath the want is to be seen.

Permission. The craving to be allowed to stop - stop deciding, stop managing, stop performing competence for a few hours - and hand it to someone who’ll hold it. The relief, not the act.

A version of a partner. Not the partner you have on the worst day - the one you know is in there. The Dom who holds the frame instead of dropping it. (We wrote a whole article in this issue about craving the version that doesn’t exist. Turns out we weren’t the only ones thinking about it.)

Psychologists have a name for the thread running through all three: perceived partner responsiveness — the felt sense that the person you’re with sees you, understands you, and acts like your needs matter. That’s what most of these submissions were reaching for. Not a kink. A response.

What it changed in me

I’ll say the part that’s mine to say.

I built this issue believing the depth would come from the contributors and the heart would come from you — a tidy division of labour where the people with decades in the lifestyle bring the rigour and the community brings the feeling. I wasn’t being dismissive. I was being efficient. But efficient was the wrong instinct here, and the submissions caught me out on it.

Because I recognised myself in every one of those three. The want to be noticed without having to ask. The relief of handing something over to someone steady. The quiet, slightly embarrassing hope that the person across from me will grow into the version I can already see in them (and the version I created in my head).

That’s the thing I got wrong. I thought I was making space for voices that don’t usually get a platform — and I was. But I also assumed I’d be standing outside that space, holding the door open for everyone else. I wasn’t. I was already in the room.

So, you told us what you’re hungry for. The least we could do was build the issue around the answer.

The submissions that reshaped it are in there, in Community Voices, sitting right beside the contributors who came to teach. And if you’ve read all this thinking I never sent anything in - your corner of the comment section counts for more than you think. We’re listening.

Obedient Season Issue 2: Craving — out June 19th.