Kink Study: L.A. Is Kinkiest City in U.S.

SAN FRANCISCO — Los Angeles is the most “kink-friendly” city in the U.S., beating out more well-established centers like New York, San Francisco and Portland, according to a new study by Kink.com.

Kink evaluated BDSM, fetish and polyamory data from the 50 largest cities in the U.S. using four metrics — the total size of the city’s “kink-identified” population, the size of the kink population relative to the city's overall size, the number of resources available for kink-identified people in each city and visits to BDSM and fetish entertainment sites.

The BDSM entertainment giant also looked at sales data from its retail division, as well as growth rates in the overall kink-identified population versus a previous study in 2015, to determine overall trend lines for the community.

While nearly all cities in the study showed significant growth in their kink-identified populations (averaging about 40 percent), Los Angeles’s kink community has more than doubled in the two years since the study was first conducted, growing an astonishing 114 percent, Kink said.

Kink said that Los Angeles also now has the greatest number of resources for kink-identified people, with more than 500 kink-friendly doctors, lawyers, therapists, play spaces and retailers.

“Los Angeles is quickly becoming the new center of the kink world,” said Mike Stabile, a spokesperson for Kink.com. “L.A. topped or nearly topped every metric we looked at, while being half the size of other kink centers like New York. And despite the rising housing market, kink-friendly spaces have not been forced out on the same scale they have in cities like San Francisco.”

Portland, which had topped the 2015 list, had the slowest kink growth of any city on the previous list, and slipped to No. 3 this year.
 
New York City topped Kink’s survey with the largest total number of kink-identified people, while Atlanta, a newcomer to the list, had the greatest density of kink-identified people, with more than 7 percent of the city represented on Fetlife. In 2015, the highest percentage of any city was Portland, at 3.99 percent. El Paso was again the least kinkiest city in the U.S., Kink said.

See Kink's "State of the Union 2017" report here.