The obvious pull toward Tina Horn’s Why Are People Into That?: A Cultural Investigation of Kink is what draws us, in our most basic, lizard brain way, toward everything related to sex. I picked up the book, as I’m certain many will, due to its sometimes flashy, sometimes taboo, and sometimes titillating chapters ranging from “Bimbofication” to “Cash” to “Fisting”.
But what ends up impressing most about Why Are People Into That? is the book’s capacity to balance between broad accessibility and niche expertise, as well as between social destigmatization and erotic reverence. Horn clearly loves what she writes about, and wants others to have the context, tools, and resources to unabashedly love what turns them on, too.
The first chapter, simply titled “Feet”, is just as much an exploration of the historical, social, and even medical stigma surrounding any sex deemed strange or perverse as it is about foot fetishes themselves. Why Are People Into That? builds upon itself from there, and by the end of the book, in a chapter titled “Orgies”, one feels almost directly called to perverted and sexually embodied action. “There is no fantasy fulfillment without risk,” Horn lays out plainly, after explaining in no unclear terms that the only way to partake in the sex life you want to have is to go out and find it. The sexually liberated experiences you want to have may appear secret, exciting, and debauched as part of their fantasy appeal, but that does not mean you cannot access or create them yourselves.
Why Are People Into That? is nuanced and richly researched without ever requiring an extreme level of what Horn calls “sexual extroversion” — the practice of loving to think and talk and read and write about how sexuality affects our day-to-day existence — or even any real previous contextual understanding of kink from its reader. This in and of itself feels like a deeply important gesture toward sexual liberation through honest (and excited!) education. Why Are People Into That? won’t alienate you or leave you behind, but it’s refreshingly straight-up and unflinching about our human right to pursue and delight in what turns us on.
By the end of Why Are People Into That? accessing our honest desires feels actually tangible. To speak so plainly but lovingly of sex that makes us feel good, regardless of its appearance, and to point to where these interests and their shockwaves (both positive and negative) exist in our personal, artistic, cultural, and political spheres as Horn does allows for that which is stigmatized to be defanged without losing its titillating thrill. It’s a tightrope to walk, but Why Are People Into That? does so approachably and aspirationally.
