Content Warning: This article and the books included contain heavy sexual content that may be triggering to some readers. Please exercise self-care.
There is a lot in the world of sexual interests and romance, from tame to taboo kinks, positions, and activities. Sexual interest goes beyond sexual identity. A level of importance comes with exploring these themes within yourself and becoming aware of them. It can encourage safer sex and encourage self-discovery, which are both incredibly crucial in today’s times. However, these types of conversations end up being chastised or shamed, and as many people know, humankind likes to avoid uncomfortable conversations. Buckle up, because today we are talking about the importance of exploring your sexual interests and how to discover them through books.
Why Exploring Desire and Sex Is Healthy and Normal
Starting, it is essential to note that exploring your sexual kinks is normal. Despite what some sects of society might say, it is normal. Getting into the world is hard and should be done slowly and safely. This is not a world where you jump straight into the deep end, as that can lead to harm and unsafe situations that you don’t want to be in. Despite all of that, exploring it slowly and safely can lead to healthier sex, communication, and relationships with yourself.
When you begin to explore new ways that can create safe, pleasurable, and exciting sex, you start to form a radical version of self-love and acceptance. Individuals often feel more connected with themselves and open up a new road on their self-journeys. This type of acceptance can lead to healthier relationships with yourself and your partner. It is also normal to have thoughts of exploring and wanting to act on them. Humans are curious creatures, especially about ourselves, so exploring sexual interests is one of the most normal things that you can do.
When you bring a hobby such as reading into your self-discovery journey, you open up a new connection with yourself and open up a new genre of books to read. Not only that, but it is a great way to keep kinks less shamed, by buying and reading more books in that genre.
The Importance of Knowing Boundaries
Exploring sexual themes isn’t just about how it can be healthy and normal, but it can also open your eyes to a lot of good and bad things within the community. As much as people wish it were always a safe and open space, some people join the community, making it dangerous. Sex is highly intimate, and when participating, you deserve to feel secure, loved, and cherished, never scared or hurt (non-consensually and seriously). Exploring also forces you to look within and understand your boundaries. Kinks that seem fun for some might seem too much for you, which is okay. Or maybe you like a particular kink, but only to a certain extent before it becomes too scary.
Boundaries are what keep you safe. Once you know your boundaries, you have to communicate them. As stated earlier, exploring these themes can help open up healthier communication patterns as you have to communicate these discoveries. Communicating boundaries is no different, but sometimes it can be awkward and challenging, especially in the moment. That is why something in the community is known as “safewords.” These are words that you and your partner solely use during kinky scenes where you need to communicate that something is too much, and you need to stop.
The boundary part of exploring your kinks is so essential because it is what keeps things normal, safe, and healthy. Once you explore what you like, find yourself through these scenes, communicating the boundaries is the next important step. Being safe and loved while exploring is what matters in the community.
How To Get Into It
Getting into these communities can be intimidating and hard, but knowing how to do it safely is essential. When you are just starting, having only experience in vanilla sex, a type of kink where people prefer things to be more calm and sensual, you might not even know where to start looking for kinks you like. Though I will get more into it in the next section, one of the best ways to explore what kinks and sexual themes are for you is through reading. The romance genre goes from pure to pitch black in terms of content, and genres contain kinks of all kinds, from tame ones to taboo ones. Reading is a great way to explore what you might enjoy by yourself.
There are other ways to discover kinks, but once you have an idea of what you like, you have to do some research. This part is crucial. This research can give you red flags to look out for, like doms, a person who prefers to only dominate in a relationship, who purposefully likes to ignore safewords. The research piece helps you know what you should look out for to keep you safe, but also enables you to find where your boundaries lie, what type of person you want to be in the dynamic, and who you look for. Then you create your safewords, and can even go out and look for communities. They are mainly online, but can help make things feel more normal and safe.
Online communities of all kinds have their downfall, and it is essential to keep an eye out for everyone in the online communities, but that shouldn’t shy you away from this. Remember, there is no shame in your interests and what you want to try. Getting into the community means that you understand there is nothing wrong with your actions. It also means that there is an understanding that people do not promote things that romanticize a type of abuse. Being true to yourself, while being safe and keeping your partner safe, is what the community is about.
Great Kinky Romance Books
As stated, I will offer some excellent kinky romance books that are not too intense, but still fierce enough that you will double-take, questioning everything you thought you knew about romance.
The Salacious Players’ Club by Sara Cate
I couldn’t pick just one book from the series, as each one goes into different kinks. It is the perfect book if you are looking for interconnected standalones set in a billionaire-type realism world. It includes kinks from age gaps, powerplay, voyeurism, praise, masochism, and more, which are all perfect places to start. Nothing too dark.
The Ritual by Shantel Tessier
The Ritual is a more intense book, but it is a perfect example of how things become risky and fierce, but the submissive person is still safe and in control. This story is about college love, full of rich bad boys and their secret club. It portrays a lethal possessiveness, voyerism, consensual but risky, dark fantasy-like scenes. The Ritual is better if you want to get into the community.
The Wicked Horse Series by Sawyer Bennet
The Wicked Horse and the spin-off, The Wicked Horse Vegas, are great series if you are just starting. These are both series based in exclusive sex clubs where people come to explore in a judgment-free environment. While the Vegas spin-off is slightly more high-stakes and intense, they both go into dom/sub roles, voyeurism, mild BDSM, age gap, forbidden romances, and more. I honestly couldn’t recommend a more romance-focused story if that is what you want.
Knowing the importance of exploring your kinks is healthy, because there is more to the community and discovery journey that more people realize. It is a healthy and normal thing, as are boundaries within the community. Not only that, but these are great starter books for people just dipping their toes into the pool.
Check out some kinky sapphic romances in this article here!
Check out the team’s favorite spicy dark romances here!
