On July 29, 2019, Sex and Psychology published "How Many People Have Experimented With BDSM Before?" The figure stays on that page. This article does not print it and does not merge it with the August 16, 2017 infographic about how many Americans have tried BDSM. Same broad topic, different column, different year. If you cite one, you are not citing the other.
Keep the two trial columns apart
- July 29, 2019 asks about people who have experimented. Its number stays on that page.
- August 16, 2017 is an American infographic. Its number stays on that graphic.
- Do not average, update, or "correct" one post with the other.
- November 12, 2014 is about fantasies, not experiments. Do not cite it as a trial rate.
- An experiment is not a role, a standing yes, or a duty to continue.
What "experimented" is allowed to mean here
The 2019 title uses "experimented" and "before." Those words belong to the column. This page will not redefine them into a stricter or looser act, because that would invent a method note. If you need to know what the writer counted, read the July 29, 2019 post while you have it open. If a slide needs the definition, put the link on the slide. Paraphrase only the sentence you can see.
Experimenting can be a single careful try or a short season someone has already ended. Neither version prints a role on the person. Dominant, submissive, switch, sadist, and masochist are labels an adult may choose. They are not receipts for having experimented. Orientation and leisure are optional ways to describe yourself after the fact. The column does not choose for you.
Why merging with 2017 misleads a room
The 2017 post is an infographic with Americans in the title. The 2019 post is a later column with different wording. A presenter who says "the number is around the same, I forget which year" is asking the audience to trust a blur. Do not be that presenter. Pick a page. Say the date. If you do not remember the figure, say you do not remember it and pull the page up. Empty precision is worse than a pause.
Students and journalists copy the blur because both headlines contain "how many" and "BDSM." The repair is mechanical. Two bookmarks. Two dates. A spoken sentence: "I am citing July 29, 2019, not the 2017 infographic." If someone in the room has the other number, thank them and separate the claims. Do not split the difference and call it an update.
Fantasy posts do not belong in the average either. A wish counted in 2014 is not an experiment counted in 2019. People picture acts they will never do. How common fantasies are is a different education page for that reason. Send readers to the Sex and Psychology original for the graphic, and do not pretend the wish rate and the trial rate are one statistic with two nicknames.
What an experiment does not authorize
A past experiment is history. It is not consent for tonight. The other adult can be the same person and still say no. You can be the same person and still say no. Consent practices start over when the plan changes, the partner changes, or the setting changes. "We already experimented" is a memory, not a key.
One new act remains the pace if you are still learning. Do not treat a column about experimentation as encouragement to stack unfamiliar tools in one night. Name sex separately from rope, service, and impact. BDSM is not always sex. An experiment that was only rope is not an experiment in intercourse. An experiment that was only sex is not an agreement to be hit.
Do not learn choking, breath play, fire, needles, suspension, or sex with a sleeping person from this page. Impact is not choking. Stop on numbness. If the experiment you are considering involves pain, read masochism in plain language and still negotiate the specific act. A prevalence column is not a class.
Adults, privacy, and the people you cannot spot
Adults only. Minors are never participants in an "experiment," never a survey you run at a party, and never an audience for explicit play. A column about people who have tried something is not cover for involving a teenager. Refuse that suggestion immediately.
You cannot look at a stranger and know whether they have experimented. Clothes and confidence are not data. Ask only in a relationship that can hold a no. Do not use the 2019 column as a pickup line or as a door test for a venue. Hosts need age, rules, and a way to call staff. They do not need a headcount from a blog.
Myths beginners hear include the idea that "everyone has tried it, so you are behind." You do not know the figure unless you are looking at the July 29, 2019 page, and even the true figure would not put you behind. There is no schedule. People start at forty. People never start. Both are allowed.
Shame, pressure, and care
If reading about experimentation leaves you ashamed or frightened, the column is the wrong tool for care. Call or text 988 if you are in crisis. If a partner uses "people have experimented" as pressure, the sentence to answer with is simple: a column is not your yes. If the pressure includes harm, isolation, or threats, call 1-800-799-7233 and see partner abuse in kink communities.
A kink-aware therapist can talk about curiosity, regret, or a bad first experience without treating consensual adult kink as a disorder by itself. One experiment is not a diagnosis. Distress and harm are the clinical concerns. Bring those, not a demand that the therapist endorse a statistic.
How to file the citation
Write it on its own line: Sex and Psychology, July 29, 2019, experimentation, figures on that page. On the next line, if you also teach the infographic: Sex and Psychology, August 16, 2017, Americans, figures on that page. Do not put both figures in one cell of a table on your site. If your handout has one number, it must carry one date and one link. Readers should be able to check you in a single click.
If you forget which year said what, you have not lost the lesson. You have gained a reason to look. The error to avoid is confident swapping. A 2019 sentence attributed to 2017, or the reverse, teaches the room that dates are decoration. They are the only way these two posts stay true.
A practical close
Read the July 29, 2019 column for its own result. Leave the August 16, 2017 infographic in its own tab. Do not merge the numbers. Do not promote an experiment into an identity. Do not promote either post into consent.
If you and another adult want to try something, name it, keep it to one new act, and keep a stop that works. If you only wanted the figure, use the link and close this page. The figure was never stored here, and it should not be reconstructed here either.
A week of reading without borrowing numbers
If the July 29, 2019 column is homework you assigned yourself, do it in a way that cannot leak into the 2017 graphic. Day one, read the 2019 post and write three lines: the date, a one-sentence description of the question it asks, and the link. Leave a blank where a figure would go, and fill that blank only by copying from the page in the moment you need it. Do not store the figure in a note you will trust next month. Notes rot. The page is the record.
Day two, open the August 16, 2017 infographic in a separate sitting. Write a parallel three lines, and write a fourth line that says "not the 2019 column." If you feel the urge to compare, compare questions, not results, unless both pages are open and you are quoting both. "This one says Americans and tried. That one says people and experimented." That comparison is about titles. It is safe. A comparison of magnitudes is not safe unless you are looking at both magnitudes and you attribute each one.
Day three, if you still want a personal plan, close both tabs and write a plan that cites neither. What you might want to try, what you will not try, who you would ask, and how they can say no without managing your feelings. That plan is yours. It does not get stronger by attaching a year. It gets riskier when the year is wrong. Consent practices can sit in the plan. A borrowed percentage cannot.
If you teach this sequence, give students the two links and forbid a single shared statistic on the slide. Grade the date, the separation, and the refusal to invent. A student who says "I looked it up and I will not recite it from memory" has learned the skill. A student who recites a confident number with no year has not.
If you are not a student and you are only curious, the same discipline protects your group chats. Paste the link. Name the year in the same sentence as the claim. If someone replies with the other year, thank them and split the thread. Two correct numbers in one undifferentiated message are how readers learn the wrong lesson, that any BDSM headcount will do. It will not. The question "have people experimented" and the question "have Americans tried" can both matter, and they matter separately, on their own dates, with their own figures left on their own pages. If a friend wants a single number for a caption, tell them to pick one post and show the date in the caption. A caption with no date is how the 2017 graphic and the 2019 column become the same rumor. Date the caption.