Don’t Make Vanilla Guys Bark 

There are a million ways to reveal your fetish to your playmate. Midway during sex isn't one of them.

In the second episode of Now What?!, our doe-eyed gay hookup hero takes home a guy who, on the verge of orgasm, suggests they wear furry cow and wolf costumes. "That's a good wolf," he gasps, moaning. "Who's my little wolf? Moooo!"

Our main man isn't into animal play, and the sexual adventure goes south. Now What?! is based on true stories, so kudos to him for even putting on a furry wolf hat and giving an effort to keep going. This short's awkwardness illustrates the problem with finding an attractive playmate, taking them home, getting them in bed -- then proposing they try out your kinks. That's not how kinksters (kinky people) typically do things.

If I go out and meet guys, court them, take them back to my place, then, when we're cuddling on the sofa, ask them if they want to stick their hands up my butt, I'm going to get a lot of appalled "NO!"s. These rejections might sting -- but they would be completely my fault.

Guys with particular kinks and fetishes can't get upset when their playmates aren't into those things, particularly if those fetishes were not communicated at the get-go. In fact, it's a good rule of thumb -- particularly if you're into "extreme" sex acts as I am -- to assume most guys won't be into them.

It's safer to make this assumption and date/hookup accordingly. As you can elucidate by the above scenario, I'm into fisting. If I go home with a hot guy I meet at my favorite coffee shop, imagine for a moment that he's never fisted anyone before, but when I tell him I'm into it, he decides, "OK, cool, let's try it." Do I want a beginner guy who has never fisted before sliding his hand into my ass, finger by finger? No. He can seriously (albeit unintentionally) hurt me.

That's a mild scenario. Some guys react very strongly to kink. I've had guys yell at me and physically threaten me. Guys have stood up and left without a word at the mention of fisting. Believe it or not, there is still a strong stigma against kink and fetish play. It scares some people, and many misconceptions about the leather and BDSM community abound thanks to problematic depictions in pop culture (ahem, Fifty Shades of Grey).

For these reasons, most kinksters and guys with uncommon fetishes seek playmates who share their kinks. If you're into something niche and sexually nontraditional, you will need to filter the playing field by specifically searching for others like you. We do this by specifying our kinks on apps like Scruff and Recon; by attending kink conventions like MAL, IML, the Folsom Street Fair, Up Your Alley weekend, and others; by visiting local leather bars; and by joining local kink and leather organizations (nearly every major city has one).

Doing this keeps us safe and promises better sex, the kind we want to have.

If you're into animal play -- like the cute guest bedmate from Now What?! -- there's a large community of people out there who will crawl on all fours and be your "little wolf."

Another episode from the series touches on fetish play. In "Ticke Me Red," Another scruffy hookup starts tickling our protagonist and takes it too far, eventually getting smacked. Our protagonist is clearly not into tickling, either. His hookup bluntly asks, "So what do you feel about spanking?" He is told to leave.

A kinkster might see our main man as a bit melodramatic in his crash-and-burn hookups, but in him we see the everyman -- the vanilla, traditional homo who meets guys at coffee shops and takes them home. That kind of everyman might see these hookups as "freaks," but I see them as as family.

The tickler makes the same mistake as the mooing guy -- a mistake which, I can't iterate enough, is one that many experienced kinksters stop making pretty quickly. It takes a few bad hookups for kinky guys to think, "Fine, I'm going to start looking specifically for guys who are into this stuff. I'm tired of getting laughed at, mocked, and shamed."

As a devoted kinky homo, I don't meet guys at coffee shops and take them home. If I do, I communicate to them beforehand exactly what I'm into and what I'm looking for. The world of hooking up for me is less about stumbling into situations with attractive people and more of a specified, intentional hunt. If you want to fuck somebody while yelling "Moo," this will be your dating life too. Welcome to the farm!