Tropes and Kinks list

[ninety6tears]

For reference and for fun, this is a list of kinks (and some general narrative tropes) that I like. Many have copied the entire list from here and bolded their likes, but I settled for deleting the options I don't feel strongly about, keeping the ones I like, bolding the ones I love, and striking the ones that are on the squickier side for me.

• Absence makes the heart grow fonder
• Abuse (sexual, emotional, and/or violent childhood abuse; past abusive relationships; character A's abuse drives character B into arms of character C; the wounded child as an adult archetype)
• Accidental stimulation (proximity and friction; involuntary arousal; situations of adrenaline and reflexes)
• Adrenaline and crises (pre-, mid-, or post-crisis sex; speed-freaks or adrenaline junkies; near-death experiences; the shadow of impending death--hours, minutes, or moments)
• Age regression ( characters met before in the past; high school AUs; time-travel)
• Aliens make them have sex (fuck or die; intoxication; taking one for the team)
• Anal sex (face to face, from behind, bent over desk; gay or straight; girl-on-boy with strap-on; girl-on-girl with strap-on)
• Angst
• Animalistic behaviors and characteristics, dominant (snarling; sniffing; scent-marking or biting; other claiming acts; territoriality; predatory stalking; cuffing; forcing the partner's neck down; claws and other features)
• Animalistic behaviors and characteristics, submissive (feral characters or behavior; domesticated pet behavior such as sitting at owner's foot and cheeking their thigh; purring; licking; characters objectified as animals, e.g., ponyboys)
• Anonymous sex (clubbing; alley sex; one-night stands)
• Anti-heroes (sympathetic villains; villains with principles; noble demons; enemies who keep their word)
• Aphrodisiacs (see Intoxication and altered states)
• Asphyxiation (asphyxiophilia; scarfing; choking; breath play)
• AUs (alternate characterizations and situations; sex between alternates of one character or between different characters; alternates as catalysts for realization of desire; role reversal; darker mirror universe characters; mistaken identity)
• Baths and water (as a location for sex, as a non-sexual setting)
• Begging or offering (begging or pleading for mercy, for sexual release, to be taken; a character offering himself; neediness)
• Beloved enemies
• Bisexuality
• Blood (fetishization of wounds; blood-play; blood as lube; vampirism)
• Blow-jobs (oral sex, fellatio)
• Body-painting or inkbrushing on someone's skin
• Bodyguard scenarios
• Canon (canon elements/canonicity heightens characterization or scenario)
• Cars (drag racing, motorsports, getaways and chases)
• Catalysts (e.g., character A shows interest in character B, which makes character C realize how hot B is; or other catalytic events bringing about such an epiphany)
• Clothes fetishization (uniforms; thigh-highs; stilettos; leather jackets; tuxedos or GQ wear; boxer-briefs; unclothed/clothed pairing; undressing; softness or smoothness)
• Cock worship
• Come-marking (letting it dry visibly on the skin)
• Confessions (revelation of love/desire; of other secrets; truth or dare games. deathbed confessions; revealing truths when feverish)
• Crossovers (characters thrust into other universes; canon universes merged; sex between characters played by same actor)
• Crush or unrequited love
• Crying, sobbing (erotic and non-erotic)
• Damsel in distress scenarios (danger and rescue; damsel character need not be female)
• Dancing
• Delayed gratification
• Docking
• Dystopias (apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic worlds; alien invasions; pandemics; settings in Hell, or earth becomes Hell)
• Emotional themes, (angst; wallows; darkfic; emotional damage; psychological trauma; tragic pasts; guilt and shame; mental instability; sadness and grief; abandonment or fear of same; characters who can't go home again; fear in general; nightmares; loneliness; broken-heartedness; failure; insecurity; self-hatred)
• Enemies working together
• Face-sitting (straddling for blow-job or cunnilingus)
• Fake rake (a man falsely rumored to be promiscuous, who isn't; romance novel term)
• Feminine terms used for males (e.g., calling a man a bitch, calling his ass a pussy)
• First times (first time between two individuals; losing virginity; first time doing a particular act; first time with a particular gender)
• Fisting (anal or vaginal)
• Forbidden (love affairs or trysts; in general, wanting someone or something that's expressly forbidden)
• Friction or frottage (naked or clothed; masturbatory or with partner; cocks rubbing together; tribadism; intercrural sex; someone rubbing off on sheets while giving head or being fucked; chafing clothes; accidental contact)
• Friendship and affection (gestures of friendship; epic friendships a la Gilgamesh/Enkidu or Alexander/Hephaistion; friendship as pre-slash)
• Gentleness (tenderness; kindness; concern; gentle natures; characters who display sensitivity to fearful children, animals, the weak, etc; gentle responses at unexpected moments)
• Hand fetishization (big strong hands; steady hands; rough knuckles; calluses; fists clenching in sheets)
• Heroes (knights and champions; superheroes; samurai or ronin; super-soldiers; ordinary characters becoming heroes and characters overcoming fear with bravery; rebel/underground heroes; saviors and liberators; avengers)
• Historical and period settings
• Homosocial environments (i.e., all-male or all-female, such as prisons or harems)
• Humor as a mask (characters who hide pain behind humor)
• Intercrural or interfemoral sex (i.e., thrusting cock between partner's thighs)
• Intimacy
• Intoxication and altered states (aphrodisiacs; drugs or alcohol; sex pollen/spores; substances or devices that create arousal, affection, or dependency; speaking or showing the truth while intoxicated; visionary states)
• Journeys (odysseys and quests; time-travel; being lost and trying to get home; road trips; pioneering and exploration, including space travel)
• Kissing, necking
• Lady and the Tramp pairings (het, slash or femslash; see also Rogues)
• Loss of control (emotional, physical, situational, erotic, etc)
• Love and passion (falling in love; eternal love; unconditional love; star-crossed lovers; tempestuous passions)
• Love/hate relationship
• Magical themes (love spells; magical characters or creatures; magical lands or settings; predictions; curses; possession; fairytales)
• Make-up sex or reunions
• Marriage (of arrangement, convenience, or necessity; accidental marriage; group marriage)
• Masquerade (a character pretends to be someone else, or something he's not; a cop goes undercover in prison; a spy infiltrates an agency; a good guy pretends to be his AU evil twin; Cyrano scenarios)
• Medical scenarios and fetishization
• MPREG (male pregnancy)
• Names (endearments; insulting terms that may hide some affection; using someone's name as a sign of intimacy; using only formal modes of address: Sir, Major)
• Nautical themes (ships and the sea; navy/pirate conflicts; colonialism)
• Nipple play or torture
• Otherness and outsiders (alien identity or transformation; mutants; demons and angels; elves and other magical beings; half-human hybrids, e.g., the offspring of humans with demons, vampires, aliens, elves; racial difference in general; clones; twins)
• Penance or reform (bad boy turns good; evil seeks to change; performing acts of atonement or restitution; self-mortification; martyrdom; selflessness; apologies or apology sex)
• Possessiveness or jealousy
• Power issues (inequities in beauty, rank, or class; teacher/student pairings; abuse of power; blackmail; reluctance or refusal to act on attraction because of power imbalance)
• Power issues, sociopolitical (colonialism; alien invasion or rule; institutionalized slavery; totalitarian states and rebellion)
• Preferential treatment (e.g., making a point of showing respect towards someone when no one else does; showing a soft side only to them)
• Prostate pleasure
• Prostitutes (call-girls and hookers; rent boys and hustlers; escorts; paying one's way through school with sideline hooking; juvenile past on the streets)
• Protectiveness (physically or verbally defending someone; caretaking in general; bodyguard scenarios; mysterious benefactors or protectors)
• Rescue (danger and rescue in general, e.g., abductions)
• Restraint (pinning someone down; pushing someone's arm up behind their back during sex; covering or clasping someone's hands to prevent movement)
• Rimming
• Rogues (outlaws, mercenaries, pirates, gangsters, hitmen, etc; black sheep and royal bastards; Han Solo characters; tricksters)
• Rough sex (quick and dirty sex; hate or grudge sex; angry sex; fighting/wrestling; sex with no or little lube)
• Secret identity (superheroes, slayers, immortals, mutants, etc; disguised gender; spies)
• Secrets, other (dark or criminal past; double lives; unspoken feelings)
• Sex change (gender swap)
• Sex in public or semi-public places
• Sex outdoors/outside (in a field; in a rainstorm; in an alley)
• Sex with clothes still on or partly on
• Sexual movements (back arching; hips lifting; thrusting back; writhing, jerking, bucking; clenching; grinding or rocking; trembling or shivering; hooking legs around shoulders; pressing someone's legs back toward the bed; riding someone's fingers)
• Sharing (sharing a beer bottle, joint, or bucket of popcorn; loaning someone clothes; a character letting someone stay in their home; sharing confidences; sharing a woman)
• Shower sex
• Silence (silence as an erotic element in sex; trying to be silent during semi-public sex; going nonverbal or speechless with arousal; traumatic mutism; selective mutism; sign language; gestures used to convey feelings rather than words)
• Sleep and bedding themes (sharing a bed by necessity, such as in a hotel with only one room left; sharing a sleeping bag for warmth; sex while drowsy or sleeping; sex as a sleep aid; autonomic arousal from proximity; falling asleep against someone's shoulder; watching someone sleep; dreams; nightmares)
• Slow and/or prolonged sex
• Straight-homosocial sexual scenarios (lending a helping hand; circle jerks; watching het porn together, with or without masturbation; practicing dancing, kissing, or romantic conversation in preparation for one character having a date with a woman)
• Talking and communication issues (dirty talk; talking someone to orgasm; talking during sex; phone sex; speech becoming broken as one is aroused or upset; being inarticulate or articulate; aphasia; miscommunication and misunderstandings in general; lack of a shared language)
• Threesomes (M/F/M, F/M/F, M/M/M, F/F/F)
• Trapped or stranded together (on another world; in a cave-in; in a cabin during a snowstorm; in an elevator)
• Triangles (love triangles)
• Triangulation of desire (two men express their desire for each other through a female intermediary (or gendered vice versa); sexual rivalry for a woman/man is actually homoerotic interest)
• UST (unresolved sexual tension)
• Virgins or inexperienced partners
• Vulnerability
• Western scenarios (cowboy gear; campfire and trail scenes; horses; gunslingers, lawmen, card sharps, etc; train robberies and bank hold-ups; posses; saloon brawls)
• Worry (one character worrying anxiously about another; going crazy with worry)