"Sexual shaming can be used to erode a person's sense of agency." -Megwyn White, certified sexologistįor example, someone who is vanilla shamed by a partner (and made to feel as if their desires are unworthy) may be more easily coerced or pressured to try something that they don’t want to do, or that feels uncomfortable, scary, or even dangerous to them. After all, an ashamed, powerless person "is much easier to manipulate," says Purnell.
In this way, "sexual shaming can be used to erode a person’s sense of agency," says White, in order to control or abuse them. Shaming someone for any kind of sexual preference-whether their tendency toward overtly vanilla or kinky sex, or anything in between-is a tactic to make them feel less worthy of pleasure, respect, and care because of their desires. What do people engage in vanilla shaming? Have you ever felt embarrassed when a partner says you’re not adventurous enough? Has your stomach ever dropped when your sexual desire, pleasure, or boundaries have been written off as boring? These feelings are all cues that you may be experiencing vanilla shaming. The best way to identify vanilla shaming is to notice your emotional and physical reactions to other people’s actions and comments in regard to sex. Even influencer Emma Chamberlain has stated that she feels “embarrassed” about her more conventional sexual preferences. A corner of TikTok called FreakTok is now rife with videos of people denouncing vanilla sex and mocking people, often women, for not being into choking, cutting, slapping, and other rougher kinds of kink, in particular. Spend any time on the sex side of social media, and you’ll see the kind of eye-rolling White is talking about. “Some people believe conventional sex is boring, vanilla, and this judgment can manifest in various ways, such as mockery exclusion.” “Vanilla shaming is when there is judgment toward people who have more traditional sex lives,” says certified sexologist Megwyn White, director of education at sex toy retailer Satisfyer. Where kink has become the “new normal” within the popular discourse, vanilla sex has become the new target for derision, with the unfortunate trend of “vanilla shaming” leaving those who enjoy non-kinky sex unnecessarily ostracized. As it becomes more socially acceptable to enjoy fetishes, fantasies, and classically “deviant” sex acts associated with BDSM (like choking, bondage, and other forms of power play), it’s vanilla sex that is now being subjected to societal shaming. Indeed, the history of sex-negativity in this country is so rich-propped up by egregiously lacking sex education-that even the increasing normalization of kink in recent years (which is, in itself, a great thing) seems to have a cost. Cultural narratives around sex and sexual preferences have long been weaponized to make people feel embarrassed or ashamed of what they like.
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