Another Cis white male here who absolutely hates anyone who cannot respect boundaries, I am behind this effort all the way. Some of my favorite kinksters happen to be black women and I refuse to be a part of any system that is marginalizing those more at-risk folks just trying to enjoy what small joy there might be in life. Fetlife used to be a much more diverse and free flowing society and now with the current national trend of fascism, race baiting, pedophilia, and toxic masculinity at disastrous levels we all could use a little more support in our lives. I have noticed most of the women in my local area rooms have all moved on and I cannot blame them one bit. Fuck Bro culture and fuck anyone who threatens or leverages the kinkster community. As one of you I will die on that hill.
I started writing this, and a lot of buried anger poured out of me. I'm a gay black man.
Let me start with the featured "Kinky and popular" section. It's full of white, young, slim, primarily straight, cis women. Who does Fetlife expect to attract with this section? Straight cis males. It looks like any other straight porn site that's built for straight cis males. There are hundreds and hundreds of them on the web. It's popular with exactly the people that the site's administration sees as important. That's why it has the subheading. If it wasn't important, it wouldn't have a subheading. If there was a featured section of the site that featured 98% non-cis men and trans people and included those who weren't young and slim, I'm sure the admins would cancel it. If it featured a cross-section of average people on the site, the admins would cancel it. In both cases, straight cis men would complain, and they're more important than anyone else on Fetlife.
A minor irritation that compounds the above: The built-in, hard-coded profile phrase, “Princess by day, Slut by night” also makes me crazy. The site's admins claim to be fair and open-minded, but there's no "Prince by day... " or "Trans royalty by day... " Again, straight cis men are more important than anyone else.
Then there are easily found, clear violations of the Community Guidelines & Content Guidelines. They say, "Our caretaking team acts on reports of abuse using more than 20 different internal policies covering a range of behaviours, from the use of racial slurs and body shaming to revenge porn and sex offenders." Just do a search on the "N" word with an "er" at the end, or an "ar" at the end. Who does that offend most? Certainly not most straight, white, cis males. I guess that, therefore, it's not a priority. Automated searches would also be too difficult because it's not a priority. Expecting offended people to manually search the site 24/7 is absurd.
Using the excuse, "but straight, white cis males are the majority" is a weak one. They're not the majority. The majority of men anywhere aren't kinky. And the global population of males, kinky or not, is not a majority. If you count just kinky white cis males, they're definitely a minority group. But it feels like the site somehow along the way decided that they're the only important ones.
I’ve already left a longer piece on FetLife where I elaborate more, but in short this isn’t about color or anything like that, it’s about someone not respecting your “no”. Unfortunately, you can’t fully stop this behaviour because it’s rooted in ego, entitlement, ignorance, and the inability to handle rejection. You can block, report, and educate, but you can’t rewrite everyone’s psychology.
I also understand these situations can be triggering, they trigger me too, but exposing a personal chat with someone’s nickname is seen by the platform as breaking privacy rules, regardless of whether the person deserved it. They treat it as doxing to avoid bias and legal issues, encouraging internal reporting instead. It may feel unfair, but part of this is about platform policy as much as personal boundaries.
I’ve been wrongly targeted in the past and accused of things I was never involved with at the time. But the community has some toxic mob mentality that judge everyone equally for small mistakes, like me I was dating someone through fet and they were posting content that I didn’t fully consent to when I started posting similar content ( wouldn’t show identification) I would get hell to pay. Despite taking the photo with the person with their phone together and get clear verbal consent only for them to deny it but not deny my pictures that I didn’t consent too.
I’ve been wrongly targeted in the past and accused of things I was never involved with at the time. But the community has some toxic mob mentality that judge everyone equally for small mistakes, like me I was dating someone through fet and they were posting content that I didn’t fully consent to when I started posting similar content ( wouldn’t show identification) I would get hell to pay. Despite taking the photo with the person with their phone together and get clear verbal consent only for them to deny it but not deny my pictures that I didn’t consent too.
Okay. So. I want to do this because I'm her. And it pisses me off that we can't publicly call out abusers on here. That being said I've read that Fetlife claims they will never be able to support these kind of features because a) they can't get passed for things like the app store and b) there simply aren't enough members to pay for those features and never will be. So I'm wondering what exactly a protest will do? It's not like fetlife is run by millionaire administration and tech. It's surprisingly a small owned local site with not a lot of resources.
I feel fet is in the right here. If someone DMs you a private message that you don't like then you have the right to block and report. By posting it live is just stirring shit. Too many people are doing this. And nasty political comments are not for public viewing. Its the same as airing someone's dirty laundry on facebook just to smear another person
I had hostile intentions towards me for simply not supporting the middle eastern conflict in their flawed narrative. People have the right to protest and having different opinions and perspectives you have to respect them enough that you acknowledge that they exist, you don’t have to support it you don’t have to agree with it.
Not to discount anything you've said, but its all women. It doesn’t matter if you're green, purple, blue whatever. Fet is no longer a safe place for women in general. They do not support any woman who speaks out against harassment. They allow people, both men and women to harass, hurt, and humiliate women and when we call it out, we get put in the corner and the guilty party gets absolutely nothing. We get told to be the bigger person and just ignore or block, however I've witnessed myself the same perpetrators come.right back under a different screen name and continue the harassment once blocked. FET needs to do better….
You’ll get no debate from me on this. I agree. It’s absolutely a full community concern. I can only see as far as my feed and followers but I hope to amplify this to the other sides of the platform and it encourages them to join us as well. I welcome additional hashtags to represent the subsets of communities in the platform. We have #UncensorBlackKink to highlight a major concern in our community. I encourage others to do the same.
I feel like fet needs a solid reset everyone should start with a fresh slate. But have a lot more diversity in the systems, I’m all for peer reviewed and the three strike system makes sense but I also think there should be digital workshops and tutorials because the site can be rather overwhelming online for some introverted peoples. And going to munch can be just such an inconvenience with managing work or family
As a cis white male, I'm not experiencing this myself, but I have seen any number of people--all women, IIRC--expressing frustration and anger at this pattern on Fet. All of these women are people who are able to set clear, unambiguous boundaries and they've gotten smacked for doing so. Their complaints have been pretty consistent and it's very believable... and disappointing. I think Fet could do better.
I like the goals stated in your post, which are reasonable and attainable. Good show.
I am trying to read this with an open mind. But the context for the issue portrayed is very limited. You do not get suspended for taking a screenshot, they have no way of telling you took a screenshot. I do it all the time to keep track of conversations and for the groups I moderate. You however absolutely DO get suspended for uploading that screenshot on-site and sharing that persons profile name and the message which because it is a DM, is automatically considered "confidential" and privileged" information. Which is absolutely against the sites' TOU. However, if you were to share it off-site, their ability to take action against you is limited unless the other person can prove it and claim slander.
Further more, you have no idea what diversity exists within the caretakers. I can assure you that you dont know them all and have never met them all, nor will ever, especially now, meet them all. Many of the demands you have posted while understandable to a point, will never happen because they are factually baseless. They will never open moderation to a purely "Peer" based systems, nor should any moderation team ever do that. Twitch tried it, it was very bad, and shut down as quickly as it began.
There ARE problems on Fet, I will agree with that. The site is a shadow of its former self and needs an overhaul with a lot of things, but your entire post here oozes with the feeling that you screwed up, pissed off the moderation, they took action against you and now you are mad about that. I dunno, but without the full story of what happened, thats just the way it seems.
When I learned about the "misogyny kink" and saw groups that are in support of the abuse of women, I realized that fetlife has become less of a place for community and more of an echo chamber for sexist, misogynsitic white men to have a "safe space" to air their darkest desires where they can justify it by saying "it's just fantasy." But some of these groups are REAL. I know someone who used to be in some of them (we no longer speak for multiple reasons) and he said that he got banned from these groups when he expressed his concern that they were more than just fantasy. Fetlife is now a place that protects racists, misogynists, and predators. I've never even felt safe enough to go to a munch, much less participate in the "kink community." I'm so fucking sorry that you have to deal with this shit and I will do anything in my power to help change it.
You know, I've been fed up with fetlife protecting predators and punishing victims for a long time now. I have no issues with leaving forever. I'll deactivate and follow the protest, but if no changes are made, I'm gone.
Get stalked then have people harass you in public and private, then ask “leaders” in the community to help and they just make the situation worse. They offered to help and made the situation worse, what leaders abandon people who are in desperate need of leadership?
Another Cis white male here who absolutely hates anyone who cannot respect boundaries, I am behind this effort all the way. Some of my favorite kinksters happen to be black women and I refuse to be a part of any system that is marginalizing those more at-risk folks just trying to enjoy what small joy there might be in life. Fetlife used to be a much more diverse and free flowing society and now with the current national trend of fascism, race baiting, pedophilia, and toxic masculinity at disastrous levels we all could use a little more support in our lives. I have noticed most of the women in my local area rooms have all moved on and I cannot blame them one bit. Fuck Bro culture and fuck anyone who threatens or leverages the kinkster community. As one of you I will die on that hill.
Me and my late partner loved using alt page before fet but had bad experiences with fet I’m the early days of fet and didn’t use it until later.
I have seen enough of this play out in the public spaces of Fet, and have a rough idea of the size of the issue behind the scenes.
All your goals are valid requests. I support this.
I started writing this, and a lot of buried anger poured out of me. I'm a gay black man.
Let me start with the featured "Kinky and popular" section. It's full of white, young, slim, primarily straight, cis women. Who does Fetlife expect to attract with this section? Straight cis males. It looks like any other straight porn site that's built for straight cis males. There are hundreds and hundreds of them on the web. It's popular with exactly the people that the site's administration sees as important. That's why it has the subheading. If it wasn't important, it wouldn't have a subheading. If there was a featured section of the site that featured 98% non-cis men and trans people and included those who weren't young and slim, I'm sure the admins would cancel it. If it featured a cross-section of average people on the site, the admins would cancel it. In both cases, straight cis men would complain, and they're more important than anyone else on Fetlife.
A minor irritation that compounds the above: The built-in, hard-coded profile phrase, “Princess by day, Slut by night” also makes me crazy. The site's admins claim to be fair and open-minded, but there's no "Prince by day... " or "Trans royalty by day... " Again, straight cis men are more important than anyone else.
Then there are easily found, clear violations of the Community Guidelines & Content Guidelines. They say, "Our caretaking team acts on reports of abuse using more than 20 different internal policies covering a range of behaviours, from the use of racial slurs and body shaming to revenge porn and sex offenders." Just do a search on the "N" word with an "er" at the end, or an "ar" at the end. Who does that offend most? Certainly not most straight, white, cis males. I guess that, therefore, it's not a priority. Automated searches would also be too difficult because it's not a priority. Expecting offended people to manually search the site 24/7 is absurd.
Using the excuse, "but straight, white cis males are the majority" is a weak one. They're not the majority. The majority of men anywhere aren't kinky. And the global population of males, kinky or not, is not a majority. If you count just kinky white cis males, they're definitely a minority group. But it feels like the site somehow along the way decided that they're the only important ones.
I’ve already left a longer piece on FetLife where I elaborate more, but in short this isn’t about color or anything like that, it’s about someone not respecting your “no”. Unfortunately, you can’t fully stop this behaviour because it’s rooted in ego, entitlement, ignorance, and the inability to handle rejection. You can block, report, and educate, but you can’t rewrite everyone’s psychology.
I also understand these situations can be triggering, they trigger me too, but exposing a personal chat with someone’s nickname is seen by the platform as breaking privacy rules, regardless of whether the person deserved it. They treat it as doxing to avoid bias and legal issues, encouraging internal reporting instead. It may feel unfair, but part of this is about platform policy as much as personal boundaries.
https://fetlife.com/velvetawakening/posts/12738326
I’ve been wrongly targeted in the past and accused of things I was never involved with at the time. But the community has some toxic mob mentality that judge everyone equally for small mistakes, like me I was dating someone through fet and they were posting content that I didn’t fully consent to when I started posting similar content ( wouldn’t show identification) I would get hell to pay. Despite taking the photo with the person with their phone together and get clear verbal consent only for them to deny it but not deny my pictures that I didn’t consent too.
I’ve been wrongly targeted in the past and accused of things I was never involved with at the time. But the community has some toxic mob mentality that judge everyone equally for small mistakes, like me I was dating someone through fet and they were posting content that I didn’t fully consent to when I started posting similar content ( wouldn’t show identification) I would get hell to pay. Despite taking the photo with the person with their phone together and get clear verbal consent only for them to deny it but not deny my pictures that I didn’t consent too.
Okay. So. I want to do this because I'm her. And it pisses me off that we can't publicly call out abusers on here. That being said I've read that Fetlife claims they will never be able to support these kind of features because a) they can't get passed for things like the app store and b) there simply aren't enough members to pay for those features and never will be. So I'm wondering what exactly a protest will do? It's not like fetlife is run by millionaire administration and tech. It's surprisingly a small owned local site with not a lot of resources.
I feel fet is in the right here. If someone DMs you a private message that you don't like then you have the right to block and report. By posting it live is just stirring shit. Too many people are doing this. And nasty political comments are not for public viewing. Its the same as airing someone's dirty laundry on facebook just to smear another person
I had hostile intentions towards me for simply not supporting the middle eastern conflict in their flawed narrative. People have the right to protest and having different opinions and perspectives you have to respect them enough that you acknowledge that they exist, you don’t have to support it you don’t have to agree with it.
So true
Not to discount anything you've said, but its all women. It doesn’t matter if you're green, purple, blue whatever. Fet is no longer a safe place for women in general. They do not support any woman who speaks out against harassment. They allow people, both men and women to harass, hurt, and humiliate women and when we call it out, we get put in the corner and the guilty party gets absolutely nothing. We get told to be the bigger person and just ignore or block, however I've witnessed myself the same perpetrators come.right back under a different screen name and continue the harassment once blocked. FET needs to do better….
You’ll get no debate from me on this. I agree. It’s absolutely a full community concern. I can only see as far as my feed and followers but I hope to amplify this to the other sides of the platform and it encourages them to join us as well. I welcome additional hashtags to represent the subsets of communities in the platform. We have #UncensorBlackKink to highlight a major concern in our community. I encourage others to do the same.
Thanks you for your support and engagement.
I feel like fet needs a solid reset everyone should start with a fresh slate. But have a lot more diversity in the systems, I’m all for peer reviewed and the three strike system makes sense but I also think there should be digital workshops and tutorials because the site can be rather overwhelming online for some introverted peoples. And going to munch can be just such an inconvenience with managing work or family
As a cis white male, I'm not experiencing this myself, but I have seen any number of people--all women, IIRC--expressing frustration and anger at this pattern on Fet. All of these women are people who are able to set clear, unambiguous boundaries and they've gotten smacked for doing so. Their complaints have been pretty consistent and it's very believable... and disappointing. I think Fet could do better.
I like the goals stated in your post, which are reasonable and attainable. Good show.
I am trying to read this with an open mind. But the context for the issue portrayed is very limited. You do not get suspended for taking a screenshot, they have no way of telling you took a screenshot. I do it all the time to keep track of conversations and for the groups I moderate. You however absolutely DO get suspended for uploading that screenshot on-site and sharing that persons profile name and the message which because it is a DM, is automatically considered "confidential" and privileged" information. Which is absolutely against the sites' TOU. However, if you were to share it off-site, their ability to take action against you is limited unless the other person can prove it and claim slander.
Further more, you have no idea what diversity exists within the caretakers. I can assure you that you dont know them all and have never met them all, nor will ever, especially now, meet them all. Many of the demands you have posted while understandable to a point, will never happen because they are factually baseless. They will never open moderation to a purely "Peer" based systems, nor should any moderation team ever do that. Twitch tried it, it was very bad, and shut down as quickly as it began.
There ARE problems on Fet, I will agree with that. The site is a shadow of its former self and needs an overhaul with a lot of things, but your entire post here oozes with the feeling that you screwed up, pissed off the moderation, they took action against you and now you are mad about that. I dunno, but without the full story of what happened, thats just the way it seems.
Thank You for your contribution.
When I learned about the "misogyny kink" and saw groups that are in support of the abuse of women, I realized that fetlife has become less of a place for community and more of an echo chamber for sexist, misogynsitic white men to have a "safe space" to air their darkest desires where they can justify it by saying "it's just fantasy." But some of these groups are REAL. I know someone who used to be in some of them (we no longer speak for multiple reasons) and he said that he got banned from these groups when he expressed his concern that they were more than just fantasy. Fetlife is now a place that protects racists, misogynists, and predators. I've never even felt safe enough to go to a munch, much less participate in the "kink community." I'm so fucking sorry that you have to deal with this shit and I will do anything in my power to help change it.
You know, I've been fed up with fetlife protecting predators and punishing victims for a long time now. I have no issues with leaving forever. I'll deactivate and follow the protest, but if no changes are made, I'm gone.
Exhibit #1. Came this far to showcase the mild version of what's presented in the post.
Get stalked then have people harass you in public and private, then ask “leaders” in the community to help and they just make the situation worse. They offered to help and made the situation worse, what leaders abandon people who are in desperate need of leadership?