Connection isn’t boring. Vanilla is hot. Fight me.

Somewhere along the way, "vanilla" became an insult. TikTok made it official: If you're not into choking, power dynamics, or a running list of kinks, you're boring. i-D reported that the hashtag #FreakTok had racked up over 1.2 billion views, with entire video threads dedicated to mocking people whose sexual preferences sit closer to tender than transgressive. "Vanilla is the new frigid," one 19-year-old told the publication. And just like that, an entire mode of intimacy got written off. By teenagers. On the internet. We're going to need to do better than that.

Here's what that conversation keeps getting wrong. Vanilla sex isn't a clinical diagnosis or a personality flaw. It's sex that centres intimacy over performance, presence over novelty, and connection over spectacle. Far from being the absence of something, it's a deliberate choice about what actually matters in a sexual encounter. For a lot of women, softness, presence, and genuine connection aren't consolation prizes. They're the whole point. And if that makes you vanilla, then vanilla is exactly what you should be.

The pressure to perform kinkiness has become its own kind of performance, which is worth sitting with for a second. Vice has noted that young people who aren't into rough or kinky sex are increasingly the subject of mockery, with the implicit message being that conventional intimacy is somehow less evolved. But a lot of the people performing kinkiness aren't doing it because it's what they actually want. They're doing it because they've absorbed the message that wanting warmth and closeness makes them dull. That's not sexual liberation; it's a different kind of social pressure, but social pressure nonetheless.

So let's be direct about what actually makes sex good. Connection. Attentiveness. The feeling that the person you're with is genuinely present with you, not running through a checklist or performing for an imaginary audience. Slow, emotionally present sex with someone who actually sees you is not for people who haven't figured it out yet. It is, for a significant number of people, the best sex they have ever had. The kind they remember, and would choose again.

Women who identify as vanilla often know exactly what they want. They want to feel safe, desired, and met with care. That clarity is its own kind of power, and frankly, it's a lot harder to find than someone who'll push your boundaries for the sake of it. Knowing what works for you, and refusing to contort yourself into someone else's idea of exciting, is far more radical than it sounds in a culture that still mistakes compliance for confidence.

So if you want connection over performance, tenderness over intensity, a partner who looks you in the eye: You're not behind and you're not boring. You know exactly what you want. And that, more than anything else, is the hottest thing there is.