Spanning 63 episodes, Kink is a documentary type DVD series featuring the real sexual livelihoods of Drag Queens, Dominatrixes, Submissives, wannabe Porn Pin-Up’s, and just all around curious couples and pervy people in Canada. It widely covers all areas of fetish and BDSM from Japanese rope bondage to play-piercing and scarification, to even the odd enactment of hockey dressing room fantasies. Some are lost, some are found, and some are just wandering where the hell to go next sexually.

They give us and Showcase’s cameras a gape, rather than a peep at their lifestyles; in the home, on their shopping trips, to work, and even to the places you never thought you would have gone before. Kink is frank, funny and heartfelt all at once. What makes it even better is its deep digging into the graver issues of edgy exploratory life, like belonging and acceptance, self discovery, self confidence, childhood abuse, and dealing with HIV. It’s easy to fall for these characters because they are just as vulnerable, curious and unsure as we are; a characteristic that definitely sets it apart from today’s barrage of mind-numbingly packaged and fake reality shows.

It would be absolutely A-grade if there were more of the kind of character who did gardening and worked as a bank teller at your local HSBC, rather than a slightly over-crowded cast with piercings and tattoos and/or a ridiculous amount of body fat and/or leather jackets and lesbian buzz cuts; also if they got rid of the ever-impeding choral soundtrack of doom. Otherwise, as far as documentaries go, I found it extremely enlightening and even addictive at times.

Kara Martin

You can purchase all five seasons of Kink online at www.kinkondvd.com, and get a 33% discount, bringing the $149.75 price tag down to $99.95 (approximately £72).