The question of when kinky people became kinky (or first noticed they were kinky) is a complicated one. Adults might mis-remember the development of their sexuality, or retroactively identify things in ways that are different from the understandings they had at the time. Some people seem to become partially aware of kinky desires, but attempt to minimize their significance, or even actively combat that aspect of their personality.
Researchers have approached this question using a range of lenses, and the answers vary accordingly. In general, it seems that a fairly large group of kinky people become aware of themselves as kinky at or before adolescence. This point was noted in a case study by Krafft-Ebing a century ago (p. 99):
“my masochistic ideas were manifested from my earliest youth, and that, as long as I have been capable of thinking, I have had such thoughts.”
The DSM-IV maintains that sadism and masochism are typically present from a young age. However, questions like when someone “came out” or had the first experience that they identified as sadomasochistic tend to elicit later responses, with a mean age in the early 20s. There is also a general suggestion in most of these authors that people realize themselves to be heterosexual, bisexual, or homosexual earlier than they realize they are kinky.
| Spengler | Moser and Levitt (1987) | Brame | ||
| First Awareness | First Experience | Coming Out | Realization | |
| up to 10 | 7% | 12% | 4% | 24% |
| 11-12 | 10% | 4% | 6% | |
| 13-16 | 25% | 10% | 4% | 34% |
| 17 | 15% | 9% | 12% | |
| 18-19 | 23% | |||
| 20-24 | 20% | 22% | 20% | |
| 25-26 | 12% | 22% | 22% | |
| 27-29 | 14% | |||
| 30-40 | 11% | 21% | 32% | |
| 41-60 | 4% | |||
| 61+ | 0.16% | |||
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