Why has there been such an explosion in kinky lately? Chalk it up to safe sex, perhaps. Whatever you may have against phone sex, you’ll never get AIDS that way. Carpal-tunnel syndrome perhaps, but no STD’s. For a new trend in kink to catch on, it must be both a) something your parents would never do and b) something grossly inconvenient and unsettling. The predictions below, I believe, fulfill these to a “T.” Here are the New Horizons In Kink!

Country-Western Line Domination
Instead of behaving like a slave in the privacy of a dungeon, try something really degrading: groveling like the worm you are, not only in public, but with two-dozen other pathetic slobs (you don’t even have the balls to be pathetic individually!) and with some of the cheesiest music since “Yummy, Yummy, Yummy” playing in the background. If you’re lucky, the dominatrix will allow you to not only lick her cowboy boots (and we know where they’ve been!), but also to beat yourself senseless with a belt buckle the size of a salad dish. This debacle gives a whole new meaning to “achy-breaky.”

Psychic Gang-Bangs
Once you’ve done the accounting department at work or the Teamsters local, what’s left? How about meeting with a psychic, who will channel dozens of personalities from all ages past to both inhabit your body and screw you silly at the same time! Take on a Visigoth, two Zulu tribesmen, a Puritan and the crew of the Santa Maria all at once! When you tell someone, “Don’t fuck with my head,” you’ll really mean it.

Amateur Home Sex-Change Videos
Instead of taping a boring threesome at home, why not try to switch genders, and get the whole thing filmed? After the second or third time, you may lose enthusiasm for the process (not to mention spare skin and blood), but, hey, at least you’ll have a permanent record of your fun!

American Gothic Sex
No, this doesn’t mean wearing black lipstick and pretending to be a vampire instead of just really bored. This is it; the last frontier, nowhere to go after this, represented perfectly in the famous Grant Wood painting. Here you find a member of the opposite sex, move to a small farm community, wear incredibly drab clothes, go to a repressive church every Sunday, have sex only in the missionary position (always with the lights out), and if either one of you enjoys yourself, you have to stop. The exception is when you’re trying to conceive one of the dozen or so children you’ll be having to help with the chores around the farm. Sounds incredibly bleak, doesn’t it? Next to this S&M scenario, a mere spanking or body piercing is a party in a hot tub.