Back in November 2025, I attended the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality (SSSS) conference. It was a great experience connecting with sexual health professionals and gaining insight about what’s currently happening in the field. During one of the sessions, I came across a fascinating project: an effort to collect and centralize academic literature about kink and the kink community in a single, searchable resource. They're calling it the Kink Literature Database. I was intrigued, so I interviewed the project's coordinators: Steve Ratcliff and Stefan Lucke. Strap in–you're going to want to hear about this.
What Is It?
The Kink Literature Database does exactly what it sounds like: it pulls together decades of academic and significant community publications on kink topics into one accessible place. We're talking BDSM, consensual nonconsent, and a whole lot more. Similar projects have existed before, but this one is set apart for a few key reasons: being open access, disclosing search methods, aiming to be comprehensive over time, and being highly searchable. The team has spent hundreds of hours to make this growing, multidisciplinary body of literature easier to find and use for researchers, clinicians, educators, and the general public alike. And in a world where paywalls are everywhere, here's some good news: the database itself is free, and they plan to keep it that way.
Why Was It Created?
The spark for the Kink Literature Database came from a frustration familiar to anyone who spends time in academic literature: the same names and studies getting cited over and over, while a wealth of other work quietly goes unnoticed. Kink research is being produced all over the world, but without a focused place to find it, much of it is left effectively invisible or hard to find.
Visibility was a core motivation. By pulling this literature into one place, the database makes it easier for researchers, clinicians, and educators to find work they might never have stumbled across otherwise.
But the intended audience isn't just academics. The kink community itself is notably self-reflective and research-engaged. Many community members actively seek out studies about their experiences and want to weigh in on what's being said about them. The database gives the community a single place to encounter that literature, affirming and stigmatizing alike, and engage with it on their own terms.
That community orientation points to something bigger, too. Kink spaces have long been at the forefront of conversations about consent, communication, and intentional relationship structures. There's a lot in this literature worth learning from–even, and maybe especially, for people outside the kink community. For sexual health professionals in particular, engaging with this body of work may also support attitude reassessment around kink. If that's something you want to explore more intentionally, SHA's Sexuality Attitude Reassessment (SAR) weekends offer a structured group experience for examining your own feelings, values, and beliefs about human sexuality and sexual behavior.
The People Behind the Project
As is the nature of community-based projects, it takes a village! A few individuals have played an outsized role in developing and maintaining this project, though, and I'd be remiss not to highlight them. Plus, their stories are genuinely interesting!
Steve Ratcliff's passion for human sexuality science and kink research comes through immediately. Already a certified sex therapist before the database project began, he has a long-standing investment in the field. At some point in his career, he noticed a pattern: some kink research was being cited heavily while other work was being overlooked, so he started a spreadsheet to track it. Sound familiar? The Kink Literature Database was originally conceived as his dissertation, but he was discouraged from pursuing it because the scope was so ambitious. Look at it now!
Stefan Lucke has lived a few different lives before landing here. Originally a sound engineer, he changed gears after immigrating to the U.S. from Germany, working over a decade as a database programmer, all while harboring a deep fascination with the field of sexuality. He eventually decided to pursue that interest, expecting to become a clinician initially, but ended up in sexuality-related policy instead, which he describes as "therapy for society." He is passionate about the database project because there is still such a “worldwide stigma regarding sex itself” that he wants to challenge by uplifting sexuality research that is rich and representative. He highlights that the database helps “you find papers that may not be found elsewhere” because they are lost under the noise of big names and journals.
Special Interest Group & Volunteers
The SSSS Special Interest Group (SIG) for Kink/BDSM has also played a pivotal role in the project's development. SIG leader Frederik Zal has championed the database, helping to initially organize the effort, amplify its reach, and sustain its momentum–with much personal investment. If you've spent any time in academia, you know how rare and valuable it is to keep that conference energy alive once everyone goes home. Finally, several volunteers–both community members and SIG members–have contributed insight and time along the way. Steve and Stefan both emphasized that the database would not be where it is today without that volunteer support.
Scope and Criteria
The Kink Literature Database follows PRISMA standards for a scoping review (a structured way of determining what gets included or excluded based on criteria they established and consistently applied. Using PRISMA is pretty standard practice for this kind of project).
More detail on their inclusion/exclusion criteria:
Inclusion Criteria
Piece of formally published, mainly academic literature identified in a surveyed database or tailored list
Includes a relevant search term for a kink community
The majority of the manuscript deals with this kink community or the manuscript significantly contributes to kink literature
Exclusion Criteria
Doesn't meet the inclusion criteria
Is erotica
Limitations and Biases
The team behind the Kink Literature Database is refreshingly upfront about the project's limitations and biases. Here's what they had to say:
Passion and Purpose: The project is rooted in a genuine passion for uplifting kink voices and representing the community, which means there's a positive skew toward affirming research. That said, work that perpetuates stigma against kink communities and practices is still included, as the coordinators aim to include everything they can find, both affirming and stigmatizing, that meets the inclusion criteria.
Range of Sources: You may have noticed that the database excludes unpublished literature and erotica. The reasoning matters: it's about ensuring quality and avoiding flooding the database with sources outside of the project’s aims. Over 100 community publications are included, as are a number of para-professional publications. Self-published sources are evaluated on a case-by-case basis by the team, as quality varies considerably. Also, although erotica sources have real value, they fall outside the scope of the project.
Global Representation: Ideally, the Kink Literature Database would encompass kink-related publications from across the globe, not just the Global North or English-language sources. In practice, they're limited to what they can screen and locate using their search keywords. For example, if a publication uses the English terminology (like "BDSM") rather than a translated equivalent, it's findable, but otherwise it's a challenge. If you read other languages, consider volunteering (see further down)!
If you want to learn more about the methodology behind the project, you can read more on the SSSS webpage.
Looking Forward
Future Directions
The team is committed to keeping the database up to date, so there's always more work to be done! In addition to adding new publications as they come out, volunteers are continuing to sort through archives and older texts to determine whether they belong in the Kink Literature Database.
Additionally, with the volume and density of content in the database, it can be hard to get a quick lay of the land on a given kink-related topic (especially if you're unfamiliar with that area and need a fast debrief to best help a client or just get up to speed)! To address that, the creators are planning to develop "recommended reads" sections organized by topic to help readers find their footing!
How Can You Get Involved?
Projects like this thrive on collaboration and community investment. This is a volunteer-driven effort, so consider offering your time and talents:
Screening: Interested in diving deeper into kink literature and want to lend a hand? They're always looking for volunteers to help screen articles for inclusion in the database. Reach out to them via email at kinklitdatabase@gmail.com to get started!
Foreign language support: The team is particularly interested in volunteers with fluency in non-English languages to help screen books, articles, and other publications.
Submissions and keywords: Don't have time to screen, but notice something missing? Feel free to email them (kinklitdatabase@gmail.com) with a publication you think fits or a keyword that could cover untreaded ground.
Use it and say so: Whether you're using the database for a project or some light reading, let them know! Join the database as a viewer to show your support, or shoot them an email. That kind of feedback genuinely matters, especially when you consider how much time and effort has gone into creating the resource!
Want to become an in-demand sexual health professional? Learn more about becoming certified with SHA!
Written by Jesse John, B.S.
Jesse is a clinical psychology doctoral student at Rowan University in New Jersey. Their research focuses on sexual decision-making, sexual violence, and relationship experiences. The author identifies as a Queer, neurodiverse, white, non-binary person, which informs the way they write and see the world!
