J: This podcast has explicitly adult themes and language. Listener discretion is advised.

I: Hi. My name's Iris. My pronouns today are they/he and I'm excited about my new desk pet, Mortimer.

J: We love a they/he. Congratulations. Hi, I'm James. My pronouns are he/him. And I think all pirates, cowboys, and vampires should be queer. Because I watched Our Flag Means Death this weekend and it's good. But wait, show me Mortimer again, sorry.

I: So, yeah, I have this desk cat Mortimer, that flapjack just tried to take a chomp out of, which is really sad because it's a rock with a face. But yeah, what a fucked up flapjacks teeth just a little bit more than they already are.

J: Shouldn't bite rocks, who knew. All right. Well, this is Kinky Queeries, a podcast where you send in questions and we work out the kinks, or more often than not, work in the kinks. Uh, we've got some content warnings for this particular episode if you want to go over those, Iris.

I: Yeah. So the content warnings are specifically for sexual violence and rape, as well as racism and antisemitism. James just made a face. I just wanted—

J: As a Jewish man, opening this document and seeing content warning for antisemitism was not what I was expecting today.

I: Yeah. Especially on the question, what is FetLife?

J: But I know how the internet works. I know it's a cesspool and FetLife exists on the internet. And therefore. But I just— I didn't— I wasn't ready. Now I am because we have content warnings and that's the point of the content warnings.

I: I just feel like that's important. And so our question today is, what is FetLife? For like a base definition, it's a social media platform and specifically an 18+ social media platform that is based around being available for people who practice or are interested in BDSM, kink, and fetish. If you ever open it, you'll be like, Wow, this website looks old. That's because it kind of is, hasn't really been updated much aesthetically since 2008 when it was originally created. But it has space for events. It has space for photos and videos for people to post. There's a timeline aspect, there's groups to chat in. It’s got the basic format of any social media platform, to be quite honest.

J: And I would say the one, you know, obvious appeal as opposed to other social media platforms is that if you post something even slightly risque on Instagram, it'll get flagged and taken down pretty immediately. Not the case here.

I: Right.

J: Yeah, I'm actually really excited about this episode because I… Do I have a FetLife. Do I give it out when I go to events and people ask me for it? Sure. Do I use it? No. So I love kind of a bit more of a user guide as well as navigating some of the challenges of it.

I: Yeah. So the purpose of this episode is kind of answer like what is that life where we just give you like a fairly basic rundown, but also to talk a little bit about like the pros and cons of usage, some of the history behind it and like where it is today as a platform. We know there are other social media platforms that are meant for the BDSM, kink, and fetish communities as well. But we're going to focus on this one because it has over 9 million users at this point in time, which is a heckin’ ton amount of people as well as it's one of the more widely used social media networks within the scene and community.

J: Hold on. It's time for James to do math. I want to see how relevant 9 million is because I feel like it's relevant. Give me a second. Okay. So if there's roughly 7 billion people on the planet, I know that's probably an underestimate at this point. And roughly 1% of people are kinky, that’s 70 million people. So this is, if we're taking a safe average, roughly 10% of all kinky people in the world.

I: Cool. I had never thought of it that way.

J: I feel like that's a safe estimate.

I: I wouldn't be shocked if 1% of the world is kinky. I think it's actually higher based on personal…

J: I would agree that feels like an underestimate.

I: based off of personal anecdotal observation. But we don't have that data.

J: The percentage of people in the world who are queer is estimated around 10%, and the percentage of people who have red hair is like 1%. So like somewhere in that range feels safe.

I: The gap between being queer and having red hair. Sure.

J: Yeah. In terms of things that exist in humanity. Sorry, I did not mean to derail for math.

I: No problem at all. As we said, this is a social media website. It is used by a fair amount of sex workers as well. We kind of mentioned how like if you post something on Instagram that is risque, it'll get taken down because of FOSTA-SESTA and because of all these policies around different social media networks is a platform that is fairly easily usable and it hasn't really affected by those kinds of policies of having more explicit information as well as more explicit photos and videos. So it is a good hub for that community as well. But there are some people who attempt and I guess some people successfully use it for dating and hookups as well. That is not the intention of FetLife as a social media platform, but people do use it that way. There are specific groups on the website. I don't have any experience personally using those groups. I'm more about in person, go to events, kind of person on FetLife, but there are those areas on the website as well.

J: I can see how that mistake gets made though, because when you sign up, and is actually something I really like about FetLife, they have just so many profile customization options and one of them is just like basically your kink identifier, things like dominant, submissive, brat, all of those different things. And I think when people see those as options, it like aligns with kind of how you sign up for dating profiles. So I can see how that confusion gets made.

I: Yeah, that's fair. And you can one— of the perks about FetLife that when you're building out your profile so you can say that you're looking for someone who's like a mentor or a teacher or someone or a partnership or a relationship that you're looking for friends or events or like there's so many different things that you can explicitly say on your profile that you are looking for, that other websites haven't necessarily had available. And then for the polyamorous community and the non-monogamous community, you can also list multiple partnerships that you are in or experiencing as well.

J: I think that's a really great aspect. And also there's just like a huge open block for put your bio. You know, there's not like a character limit like on Twitter or like even Instagram where it's kind of small. I think there's a lot of good profile customization options, which I like, but that's about where my interest and knowledge of FetLife stops.

I: Yeah. And then like when you're navigating with basically you have your own profile where you have your about section, you can put whatever you want to in the about section. People can see your activity. So if it said— if you're interested in going to an event or you're considering one and you put that on the website, people can actively see what you're engaging with, your own pictures, your own videos, as well as you can write as well. People will write about their experiences within the scene, people that they engage with, concerns, thought pieces. So you'll see a lot of that as well. And then when you go to the top of the page, you'll have the home button where you'll just have a news feed and see what all of your friends or the people that you're following are sharing and doing. You have explore, which is basically some lovely pornographic images and writing that comes up and it's just kind of everything under the sun, not necessarily what you are following or people that you're friends with, but often what is popular, what is more recently being posted in the grand scheme of Fetlife, etc. There's groups, so you can follow different groups and see what's going on with those. And so if there is a particular university or college, they tend to have groups on there. There are BDSM in the law groups, there are different groups depending on what state you live in or what city or region that you're in, as well as ones that are based off of specific interests like hypnosis or latex or rope, etc.. Then there's events and you can list where you are within the world and you can see any local events to you. And local can mean like literally in your city or things that are like a two hour drive away depending on where you are. So it can be useful for you, depending on where you live and where you like to travel to. But for some people it just shows like the lack of access to the BDSM, kink, and fetish community. They list places so you can see what's going on in other regions and countries. I haven't particularly use of that aspect of Fetlife, but I guess if you want to travel around and see what events exist in a different city or country that you're traveling to, go for it. And then you'll see fetishes and it’ll just post up a bunch of random fetishes and kinks that exist. You can click on them and see any affiliated content and you can also list those on your profile.

J: What is like an ideal Fetlife user experience for you? Like what is the process through which like you find an event that you'd want to go to?

I: In my experience of finding events and engaging with Fetlife, my experiences are mostly based on being in cities, fairly large cities as well. So it has colored my experience that is not universal to everyone. And I also want to point out that like I'm a white, polyamorous, gender fluid, queer, and that's also impacts my experience of Fetlife, we’ll go on a little bit into that as well later. But when I'm looking at events, I click the events tab and I see what's going on in my area. And so sometimes I'll see that there are femtop groups, I'll see that there are munchies, that there are, like, gaming groups, so like table top and video game groups. And then I'll see things like there's something in my area called like a sex toy show and tell, which I'm excited to go to because I get to bring all my fucking sex toys.

J: That sounds amazing. Oh my god, I want to go.

I: So, like, I'm excited to go to that specifically. I'm excited to see what different groups are happening. In my area because those groups based off of like interest and there's coffee nights, there's munchies, there's parties. Some cities have like very explicitly parties as events that you can, like, sign up for and go to some cities to not have those kinds of things listed on Fetlife because of different policies of legislation that exist in those regions. You'll see hotel nights occasionally exist, where they'll do orgies or parties there.

J: Oh cool.

I: There is skill shares, there's educational opportunities, there's different meet and greets. Yeah, it's a little bit all over the place. Anything from, like a bowling night to a full on orgy. It just kind of depends on what is in your area.

J: Sounds like a lot of options.

I: Yeah. And you also see like different conferences, if there's any regional conferences in your area, show up as well.

J: That seems like a really good resource for events, but I know there's definitely people that aren't using it for that.

I: Yeah. So when I began using FetLife, I lived in a city and then I went back to college where I lived in the middle of nowhere, not really near any cities, and the events completely depleted. There was nothing really that exists within that region and that made it hard to really participate in the local community that existed there. I just want to recognize that if you live not necessarily near a city, or not necessarily near a dungeon or a play space, that that'll probably be a similar experience, that you'll look at Fetlife and be like, cool, there's an event page and you won't seeing much or you won't see anything that exists in your region. And so that makes it kind of a less useful resource in that respect.

Because there are a lot of people who are looking to date or hook up on there and someone who is femme presenting and who felt and still feels comfortable enough to post pictures of myself on the platform, I do get quite a few messages and comments and follows from strangers that I've never, ever met about my body, about who I am, and expectations. Like they won't even read my profile and they will push their ideas of who I am and expectations onto me. And they'll say some pretty derogatory stuff because they clearly haven’t read my profile and they clearly can't see the queer coding going on. So even like before, like when we first logged on and like James and I started talking before recording the episode, I saw that like I had 15 new notifications on Fetlife, eight new friend requests from people I've never met.

J: Funny enough comparison, it's sort of— I know it's designed to act as like a kinky Facebook, basically, but with that style of interaction, funny enough, it almost seems like a kinky version of LinkedIn.

I: When you talked about kinky LinkedIn, it made me think of some of the people that I know who have kinky resumes and they have them listed on their Fetlife. And it's like, oh, it can be a kinky LinkedIn, just depends on how you view it and how you decide to utilize the platform.

J: Can you like send me a reference of what a kinky resume is? I would love to build one for myself.

I: Oh yeah. No. There are people who have kinky resumes and then they'll have entire— Like I talked a little bit about the writing part where you can comment as well. There are a couple of people that I personally know who have that set up where it's just like, I want reviews and what your experience with me was.

J: Oh interesting.

I: and I want you to touch on all of these things and I want it to be public. And no matter what you say, I appreciate that you put in the time and effort to give me your view as an individual within the same.

J: Damn, like a Kinky Yelp.

I: Yes.

J: That's awesome.

I: It just depends on how you want to use Fetlife. And like some people's experiences are, is that it allows people to be themselves, allows them to share and experience BDSM, kink and fetish. However, it is still part of the internet. It is still where people are people and unfortunately a lot of the time people fucking suck. And that's also the downside of Fetlife is that people fucking suck. There's not as many policies that are instated on Fetlife that you see on other social media websites. And then on top of that, it is a much smaller social media website. So if you're trying to report anything, it either takes a long time for anybody to see it. Sometimes nothing comes of it like people don't necessarily lose their profiles. People don't get banned or have any repercussions for things that they do, whether it's in real person-to-person life or also things that they post, whether it be images or videos or things that they write. This is the part where those content warnings that I mentioned earlier on become much more applicable. So I just wanted to bring that up again to any listener who might just want to like opt out, uh, knowing the content warnings. This is going to be a hard discussion. I'm really sorry. Some of this I can like confirm from some of my own personal experiences as well. Especially pertaining to the sexual violence on the website.

J: Oh, I am so sorry to hear that.

I: No worries. I am open, I’ve been open on Fetlife about it. I've been open in my personal life about it, but I also just want to confirm that like it's not just something that I am reading and sharing articles on which we will, we have tons of articles on this stuff, but it's a very real experience for me as well. Sexual violence is very much happens on this particular platform because you have these avenues of not only being able to see people's profiles fairly easily and willy nilly, but you can also see what events they are planning on going to. It allows for opportunities for what is supposed to be a space that people can learn, engage, and live their best kinky lives, that people can exploit that unfortunately.

Ever since the early 2010s, there's been like quite a lot of publicity about some of the sexual violence that happens on Fetlife’s accounts and as a platform and some of the interactions that were happening pertaining to sexual abuse and rape, etc.. Fetlife as an organization, as a platform, was not doing anything about the sexual violence that was happening and being perpetrated within the platform. They were allowing posts that had hate speech in them to continue to be posted and to continue to be available. And only over the past several years have they started deleting content related to nonconsensual acts and abduction. Not like consensual non-consent, like actual nonconsensual acts and abduction. They've only started taking action as a website because there are these criminal charges against users. And I've listed a couple of articles that you can read like very specific stories, especially from like the early 2010s of when these started to happen and what caused this ripple effect. But there are tons of toxic behaviors that infiltrate Fetlife, that allow abuse and violence, that is nonconsensual, to continue. And for a community that is very heavily based around consent and making sure that we are negotiating our interactions with one another and that we are trying to keep each other safe in scenarios that we know are not always safe, but we're trying to… we're trying to be conscientious about it and this is still happening. It's because people are taking advantage of this particular website.

J: Yeah. And I'm curious, the intersection of Fetlife versus other social media and also what you're saying to kink in general is a community is so content focused. So I think the fact that this exists online where there's an anonymity and not really any community vetting, that kind of brings out the worst in society that in other situations would not have gotten past the door.

I: Yeah. Users have tried to advocate on multiple times for Fetlife to, 1) get their shit together and 2) let users name people who are violent and abusive within the community because those posts were getting taken down.

J: Oh interesting.

I: Yeah I know.

J: Counter… Like and I understand the hesitancy to just let anyone blacklist anyone else because that can also be abused. But to take down those posts and not other posts is a really poor policy choice.

I: It is a really poor policy choice. This is speculation, not actual… Nothing that has been proven, to my understanding: is that you can't prove it. You can't prove that this person was abusive and you cannot prove that that content was non-consensual.

J: Mmm. Yeah, but you can prove that a post is defaming.

I: Yes.

J: That's a very good point. Unfortunate, but a very good point.

I: That's how I'm viewing them as a website and how they're handling it. It may or may not be true, however, because users did this advocacy and they were not being heard and Fetlife was not taking action. There is the Predator Alert tool for Fetlife, which exists on GitHub, which lists profiles on Fetlife that belong to people who have violated others’ consent. And so there is this list that exists that is not within Fetlife platform.

J: I think that’s a really good community resource and kind of aligns more with how the BDSM community in general operates where like, you know, if you show up at your local dungeon, you fuck around and you find out, you don't get into the dungeon anymore. There's someone literally checking IDs at the door and you're not going to get in. So I think this kind of mimics the real world a little bit better than a purely online space would.

I: Right. I mean, even for like some dungeons, they based it off of username. So having something like this that exists is really important for dungeon spaces to continue to keep their spaces as safe as possible. And I also wanted to point out, I didn’t mentioned earlier, the Predator Alert tool for Fetlife is previously known as the Fetlife alleged abusers database engine, just in case anybody who's listening, who knows that name.

They do have a policy that explicitly states that registered sex offenders are not permitted to have an account on Fetlife, but they have to specifically be a registered sex offender, which is a very difficult thing to have. And the amount of judicial work that has to go into being a registered sex offender is a ton and puts a lot of the weight and effort on the person who was abused or violated.

J: Additionally, just from a purely logistics standpoint, how does a website enforce that? Like the Internet's anonymous by default. Like there's almost no way they can enforce that policy.

I: Exactly. That is something that they have listed on their website. It is still incredibly problematic in the grand scheme of sexual violence and the amount that Fetlife is trying to do pertaining to allow for consent culture to exist within their platform, it just doesn't exist in the ways that it should for a community that is so consent based.

Previously, there have been no policies around hate speech and slurs usage around racial and ethnicity on Fetlife. As a platform, it has always been a white-dominated space and on top of that, there was just no policy and institutional back up around issues revolving race and ethnicity. And so there are tons of articles on this, we’re going to list, one in particular that I thought was a really fantastic overview of a lot of the different discussions that have happened around this particular issue, as well as like interviews, tons of different people from all different kinds of backgrounds and their experiences on Fetlife, leaving Fetlife, deciding to stay on Fetlife. And what caused all of that. One of those individuals in particular is someone who I personally highly admire is Dirty Lola. She is fantastic, she is on all the social media. Fucking loved Dirty Lola.

Lola talks about how black people, indigenous people, and people of color and their experiences on Fetlife and how Fetlife has explicitly failed them because hate speech was commonplace in their experience and was pervasive throughout the platform and Fetlife was just unwilling to update their policies for the longest time and we're not willing to change anything. There was like a post for a long time about like proposed changes where it basically just became a public forum for people to go back and forth and talk about whether or not there should be an instituted policy around racial and ethnic hate speech and use of slurs on the platform

J: It doesn't seem like it needs that much debate.

I: That is something that doesn't need debate whatsoever for a place that is supposed to be inclusive, for a space that is supposed to be open to all and welcoming everyone. I think that's some of the terminology that Fetlife has used is that it's supposed to be welcoming everyone and you're willingly allowing this kind of speech to occur. It's horrific. Because of that and because there is like a lack of content moderation that existed within that place and still does to some degree. Like while there is now a policy that says using hateful hate speech and slurs around race and ethnicity is, what is the language they use, “a big no no” is the language they use and the policy.

J: Sounds like something that won't be enforced.

I: There are specific events that you'll see in a lot of cities that are— that are meant only and exclusively for the BIPOC community. That you see other organizations that exist, that are meant for the BIPOC community and to keep people safe, to make sure that there is a space that doesn't have this hate speech, that doesn't have the pervasive whiteness, and that is amazing that these spaces exist, but Fetlife really needed and still needs to do a lot fucking better pertaining to this. And it's inexcusable.

J: Yeah, I completely agree.

I: One of my favorite groups who I've met many, many members from is Onyx and Onyx Pearls. They are wonderful. They're in most major cities, actually, and they have like regional coverage. They host amazing events. They do a ton of charity work. I've only heard really amazing things from them. I know the founder and he's fantastic.

J: That's cool.

I: Yeah, yeah, he's great. I like him quite a bit. I've met so many individuals who are a part of Onyx and Onyx Pearls through the Leather Leadership Conference as well as through Twisting Culture, as well as other events that I have been able to go to and conferences, and they do amazing work that I find is actually representative of the community, that is consent focused, that is based in charity, and that is based in making space that is inclusive of all. And so I want to uplift that group in particular, because they're wonderful. And that's something that I think the community as a whole should strive to be more like.

J: Highlighting that excellent alternative resource is really great.

I: Going back to Fetlife is like, Onyx is a different resource and it's more community based, but Fetlife as a social media, it's like any social media and that it is problematic. However, there are big things that it needs to consider as a social media platform moving forward to actually do what it's attempting to do. And I'm more frustrated with it. I talked a little bit about my experience, and I talked about some of the research that I've done the most, and in trying to uplift stories of other people's experiences. But it's just disappointing and it's just only increasing my disappointment with it. That doesn't mean that Fetlife can't do better because I want it to be better and do better in the future so that future kinksters and community members can have a really important resources. Because I think it can be a really important resource, but I can also be frustrated by it.

J: I think that absolutely make sense. Framing it, like with all social media as a tool is important. Like a knife can hurt a person, but it can also cut open an apple, you know? So it's kind of what you do with the tool and the safety precautions you put in place for yourself because the knife doesn't really care what it cuts into, right? You know, obviously Fetlife is not an inanimate object. It is run by someone or probably several someones.

I: Several someones, yeah.

J: So they should be taking agency, but since they're not, that responsibility unfortunately falls onto the user.

I: Yeah. And it's only hurting people. But we see this time and time again with internet use and social media platforms. Unfortunately, Fetlife is not doing the active work it needs to do to be better at this point and in general.

J: I mean, unfortunately, on kind of a somber note, but an important thing to cover nonetheless.

I: We are talking about our favorite things, but we're adding more nuance to it. We are talking about some of the hard stuff about being part of the community.

J: Yeah.

I: No one wants to talk about sexual violence, pervasive racism, and anti-Semitism or homophobia and transphobia that exist within a community that they care about. But it's important to have that kind of conversation nonetheless. I hope that this helps people who are listening, and I hope that we continue to, as individuals and as community members, be able to learn and grow and move forward and do better.

Thank you so much for listening as we talk about really important things. If you have a kinky question, send us your queries at kinkyqueeries@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter @kinkyqueeries. That's k i n k y q u e e r i e s. We'll have our next episode ready for your eager ears in two weeks. That's April 19th, 2022.

J: Hell yeah, you crushed that. I was seriously really good. Thank you for putting in so much work for this episode. I appreciate it.

I: No problem. I feel like words are really hard sometimes.