When Kanye West and Bianca Censori stepped onto the Grammys red carpet earlier this month and Censori dropped her long fur coat to reveal she was wearing nearly nothing, the internet started asking questions: Namely, what in the everloving kink is going on with these two?
Censori, an Aussie architectural designer who married West, who now goes as Ye, in 2022, wore a transparent skintight dress that gave the impression she was, in fact, nude.
It wasn’t the first time Censori has left so little to the imagination with her wardrobe: She has appeared nearly nude on Ye’s album covers (which the Grammy stunt was reportedly meant to evoke), to music events, and even to the Cheesecake Factory.
And as usual when Censori wears nearly nothing, Ye was all covered up at the Grammys and seemed to bask in the attention they drew from the stunt.
What kind of kink are they engaging in, if any? (After all, this is Ye, and there is a chance that these two are just shameless attention hounds.)
While celebrities don’t owe the public any explanation for how they conduct their private lives, these two have made the private aspect of their lives super public, said Amanda Dames, a sex and relationship coach and certified sexologist.
“When a couple is so publicly engaging in some kind of power dynamic play, and one of the partners claims ‘dominion’ over the other, that’s when the public [is] owed some transparency,” she said. “If we’re going to be involved as voyeurs, we need to know what we’re witnessing.”
“I definitely think this is a ploy by Kanye to get attention by any means necessary.”
– Amanda Dames, sex and relationship coach and certified sexologist
Without Ye and Censori coming out and explicitly saying, “This is our particular kink,” it’s hard to say what we’re seeing. Healthy and consensual kink between two or more partners isn’t always easy to identify from the outside. Still, kink coaches and sexologists we spoke to took some guesses.
Censori might be displaying qualities of an exhibitionist, Dames said. That’s when you’re turned on by the idea of others watching you undress or performing sexual acts. (Remember when the pair were “banned for life” by a boat company after Ye exposed his butt during what looked like a sexual act on a Venice river taxi in 2023?)
This would make the Yeezy rapper’s behaviors reminiscent of a voyeur or more specifically, a candaulist: someone who exposes their partner, or intimate images of their partner, to others for their own voyeuristic pleasure.
“But these are usually kinks explored in front of a few hundred people, max, at a private party where attendees have consented to witnessing the exhibitionism,” Dames said, not in front of millions of people watching the Grammys, or paparazzi and tourists in Venice.
Their antics could also represent a humiliation kink, said Stella Harris, a certified intimacy educator and sex coach who teaches classes on kink and BDSM (bondage, discipline, dominance, submission).
“Humiliation kinks are much more difficult to guess at from outside the relationship, because what each person finds humiliating or embarrassing is incredibly unique,” she said. “In the example of being nude (or mostly nude) in public, that would only be humiliating for someone who values modesty.”
With a humiliation kink, oftentimes some of the enjoyment comes from being forced against your will, which makes it difficult to know whether or not it’s consensual or forced, Dames said.
Their behavior could also signal a consensual dominant/submissive dynamic, the experts said, with Ye being a dom and Censori being his submissive.
In such an arrangement, the dom consensually controls their submissive partner and derives sexual pleasure from that. For instance, a dominant ― who could be a man or a woman ― might set guidelines for how their sub can dress or behave socially or have control over the submissive’s finances, as in the case of financial dominatrices.
That might sound vaguely controlling or emotionally abusive, but in healthy versions of these relationships, consent and permission are hugely important, Dames said. Both partners genuinely want to engage in kink play and they negotiate how it should go early and often.
“In any kinky relationship, constant communication (using safe words to stop the “play” or “scene”), checking in with each other are essential,” she said.
OK, but why do we have to watch?
That leads us to the next question: Is exposing your kink play to others, without their consent, even ethical?
It’s true that some people like to find opportunities to display their kinks in public, said Harris. You may see someone wearing a collar or even cuffs as they go about their daily tasks.
“Some people in D/s relationships even have a ‘day collar’ — something that is subtle enough to wear to work, around family, etc., that still signifies their relationship,” she explained.
But that’s fairly demure and undercover compared to what Ye and Censori are doing. Kink’s entire backbone is based on consent — and when two (or more) people are engaging in public play, they need consent from everyone around them for it to be considered kink, said Emily Costello, a relationship coach and polyamory and kink educator.
“Think an orgy or sex party, versus someone just having sex in the park,” she said. “One has consent from bystanders, and one very much does not, even if those witnessing may derive pleasure from being a voyeur.”
If you’re exposing others to it without their permission, that’s largely considered a nonconsensual power play, Costello said.
Public nudity is illegal in most states; most of us would probably get ushered out of the family-friendly Cheesecake Factory if we walked in wearing what Censori shows up in. Flesh-colored bodysuits aren’t really the standard there.
“These are two humans who have influence, money and notoriety, and can aptly use that to get away with whatever they feel like doing,” Costello said. “We can speculate as to why they’re doing it and what possible kinks may be standing right behind it, but even if those kinks are present, they’re not healthfully and consensually engaging with them, which is problematic.”
Is the kink consensual or is there something coercive about what Kanye is doing?
Others have openly wondered if what Censori and Ye and are doing is entirely consensual or something she’s been forced or pressured to do. That concern ― which some consider infantilizing of a grown woman ― is heightened because the architect has been so voiceless through all of this.
“Censori’s near-naked public forays have a bit of a Bianca-blink-twice-if-you’re-not-O.K. feel,” Naomi Fry wrote in a New Yorker piece damningly headlined “The Mute Spectacle of Bianca Censori.” “Whether or not she is under Ye’s control — and who can rightly say — she is rarely seen without him.”
There are other power imbalances at play, too. She’s under Ye’s employ ― per her LinkedIn profile, she is currently the head of architecture at Yeezy, Ye’s fashion brand. And there’s been tabloid reports that Censori is not allowed to speak in public, Dames noted.
“That’s what my concern stems from,” she said. “Coupled with her scantily clad outfits and subservient demeanor, my opinion is that something else is at play here. It could be abusive, nonconsensual behavior from Kanye.”
West responded to such criticism after the Grammys, writing on X, “I have dominion over my wife. Yes I don’t make her do nothing she doesn’t want to. But she definitely wouldn’t have been able to do it without my approval.”
Confusion over Censori’s agency grew last week, when reports came out that Censori was divorcing Ye over the Grammys controversy and his online antisemitic rants.
The rapper’s spokesperson, Milo Yiannopoulos ― yes, thatMilo Yiannopoulos ― denied such reports.
It’s worth noting, Censori wore barely there, avant-garde body stocking outfits before she met Ye. Dames thinks that was different from now.
“That was a time when she was less well known,” she said. “The way she dressed and the things she enjoyed were, presumably, not expected to be seen and reported on by millions of people. I definitely think this is a ploy by Kanye to get attention by any means necessary.”
Engaging in kink involves clear communication and consent, often outlined in advance through contracts or agreements. Evie Lupine, a kink educator, said she also worries that West is dictating the terms of the relationship to Censori rather than creating them with her.
“If he doesn’t see her as an equal person with agency from the start, that is a red flag for emotional abuse,” she said. “The biggest tell, though, is if Censori is free to leave the relationship at any time without fearing for her safety. In other words, can she not only give her consent, but revoke it?”
If someone can’t leave a D/s relationship, isn’t allowed to say no, or is otherwise coerced at some level, that’s clearly not a healthy or consensual kink arrangement, Lupine told HuffPost.
“If we’re going to be involved as voyeurs, we need to know what we’re witnessing.”
– Dames
We don’t know how Ye may be acting in this relationship, but we have ample evidence of how he acted during previous breakups, Lupine said.
“When he was breaking up with Julia Fox, he showered his ex Kim Kardashian with a literal truck full of roses,” she said. “He made a music video in which he decapitated Pete Davidson when Kim and Pete were briefly together.”
“He’s also been accused of sexually assaulting multiple women, including a model and a personal assistant,” she added. “To me, this is not someone who leaves the impression he is a safe person to say no to, or someone who will let you leave easily.”
The experts we spoke to balked at the idea that the general public may be drawing conclusions about the kink community based on West and Censori, especially given the couple’s shoddy treatment of bystander consent.
“They aren’t good representatives of our standards at any level, but naturally the most extreme examples always get media attention,” Lupine said. “The sex worker walking a man on a leash in an Erewhon makes headlines, for instance.”
No one writes stories about the hundreds of thousands of couples who are engaging in BDSM in the privacy of their homes or in undetectable ways in public ― texting a partner orders while they’re out in public or controlling a long-distance wearable vibrator ― because no one notices, Lupine said.
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