Imagine this: After years of deliberations, internal conflict, and searching, you have finally decided to dip your toe into the realm of BDSM. Lucky for you, you have found a common soul who has also expressed a desire for the taboo.
Your interactions with this special someone go splendidly, leading up to two scenarios: 1) you both continue on your merry way to privately explore kinky bliss together or 2) they slip you the ask to join them at a local BDSM event. This article covers the latter scenario.
Now, the ask is not nearly as dramatic in reality as I have rhetorically alluded here. I’m just adding comedic dramatic flair because I think it warrants it; this is the first ultimatum you’re given before the dynamic is even formally recognized, negotiated, and agreed upon.
The ask, at its core, is: engage in the “community” if you want to play with me. Of course, this is approached in a more diplomatic and casual manner. Often, this ultimatum comes in the form of a question that is framed more like the following: “Will I see you at the next munch?” A bolder person may even invite you out with them to a BDSM party.
Just for some general housekeeping, some assumptions are made in this article. I am assuming
1) you, the reader, have absolutely no experience in the BDSM community.
2) You elect to engage with the community to maximize your opportunities to explore kink.
3) This community is in the U.S. For simplicity, the “community” here is described as a large populace of local alternative lifestylers who regularly meet up at events that are organized by other lifestylers.
A munch is one such event; it’s essentially a networking event often organized by local BDSM groups or organizers of local functions. Ordinarily, they take place in restaurants, but they can also take place at bars and other recreational spaces. I’m using the broad term “lifestylers” to describe those who attend community functions because attendees are not restricted only to those who practice BDSM.
Why would this person of interest ask you to meet at a munch or other similar events? Many lifestylers feel that meeting at a munch affords the highest level of safety one can hope for since there are multiple lifestylers present as witnesses (who, theoretically, know how to detect sexual predators).
The presumption is that in the event something goes wrong, their fellow community members will back them up in lieu of relying on the out of touch and overly expensive legal system that fails to resolve these disputes. Your first time attending any such functions marks the beginning of your engagement with the community.
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As someone who has been heavily involved with various communities around the U.S. for almost 8 years now, I can guarantee that you (the newbie) have a handful of misconceptions that I’ll be discussing here regarding the BDSM community. These preconceived notions are noteworthy because adopting them can create further social tensions for you in the community, at best, and can lead to you being banned at worst.
In my time in a few communities, I’ve made my fair share of mistakes and observed others follow suit as I eventually started organizing lifestyle events myself. While every community is different and everyone’s “mileage may vary”, I feel that there are some universally held misconceptions among new kinky people regardless of other factors native to their locale. The purpose of this article is to better prepare you for your engagement with the community.
Here are some misconceptions that newcomers to the BDSM community tend to have:
To explore kink, one must be part of their community
Private exploration has never been easier. With the vast array of BDSM social media, tutorial videos, blogs, books, private pro dungeons, and a recent boom in academic research, there’s no reason someone should feel isolated from kink if they aren’t near a local community, or they simply decide not to be involved publicly.
Admittedly, remaining private may hinder your partner search because many of your potential play partners will likely absentmindedly embrace community dogma that initial visits must be done in the community. There’s no rational explanation for someone to feel less safe meeting you in a coffee shop with a friend than meeting you at a munch. The waiter may state your name publicly among people you don’t want to know your legal name. Or if you go to other functions aside from munches, one of the first things organizers do is check your ID.
You’re perfectly valid for prioritizing your safety by safeguarding your privacy. Additionally, there are pros to meeting outside of a community context including the ability to bond intimately, maintain a private conversation, avoid outside distractions, and avoid outside influences that may have ulterior motives for sabotaging the negotiation of the dynamic.
The only people not admitted into the community are those who have a criminal record
A sad reality of our community is we have ingroup politics. To the self-appointed gatekeepers of the community, their politics supersede your vanilla record and accolades.
You could be a pediatric neurosurgeon with a clean record and a lengthy transcript of philanthropic work- it doesn’t matter to these people. If they don’t like your demographics or personality, you can face an aggravating process of being given excuses as to why your access isn’t being granted at that time until you lose all interest and walk away.
I’m not saying that one’s occupation implies that one is a decent person. What I’m saying is this scenario is a real gut check to many because in our vanilla lives, we’re used to being treated with mutual respect and what we do with our time often heightens that level of trust. Everyone is assumed to be a dangerous scumbag until proven otherwise, which probably isn’t the worst assumption given the context of BDSM. But you’re also outwardly treated as such when you’ve done nothing wrong. This is where we need to draw the line; lack of trust doesn’t need to erode diplomacy.
The issue is although the worldwide community boasts inclusivity that people don’t find in the vanilla world, organizers still exercise their right to exclude for any or no reason at all. The newcomer that believed the rhetoric is often shocked to find that they were excluded because they forgot that organizers are imperfect people that exercise their right to be self-serving and prejudiced.
If you find yourself meeting resistance from organizers and you don’t have a criminal record, consider the possibility that it’s a reflection of them and not you. You would be wise to remember that these “vetting” processes organizers adopt are more often compatibility checks more than safety checks. Being excluded doesn’t mean you’re a bad person, it means the organizer doesn’t feel like you’re useful to them personally.
BDSM Lifestylers are more open-minded than their vanilla counterparts
Multiple theories exist that attempt to explain where this presumption comes from on a subconscious level among BDSM newbies. The more predominant one is the belief that BDSM community members are less prejudiced since communities are overwhelmingly populated by those of the LGBTQ+ community (at least 65% of a randomly selected international cohort identified as LGBTQ+2).
The LGBTQ+ community has faced substantial discrimination throughout U.S. history. It’s assumed that people that have faced discrimination won’t exercise prejudice against others who identify as kinky because they too are marginalized by society. And yet, intersectional identity surveys find that discrimination in BDSM communities mirrors that of the vanilla world.
For instance, Erickson, et al. (2022) found that colored BDSM practitioners are 16 times more likely to experience discrimination in their communities. This assumption is, therefore, preposterous. We must not forget that the BDSM community is just a microcosm of the vanilla world.
People with all manner of prejudices and biases freely engage with the BDSM community. When considering stepping into a BDSM community, it’s important to remember that it’s not a magical place where bigoted people are effectively barred from entry.
BDSM parties are safer than the average vanilla house party
In my professional experience as a BDSM function organizer, the number one assumption that leads to despair is the one where we tell ourselves that because we obsessively preach consent, our risk profile improves substantially.
A U.S. sampling of 29% of lifestylers experienced a consent violation at a BDSM party. Of them, only a quarter of them reported the incidents to the organizers. Only 66% of those reporting was satisfied with the outcome.
More chilling, it was noted in a similar report that common recommendations to community members was to avoid the police and others in positions of power in matters of violations.
The point is that the BDSM community has a self-policing culture that emphasizes (personal) accountability. Organizers have a heavy incentive to downplay the risk associated with BDSM parties and not cooperate with victims that want police intervention. Further, what makes lifestylers more dangerous than their vanilla counterparts are that they’re also often intimately familiar with the local community politics and can easily corrupt the self-policing aspect of the community to their whims.
The most disturbing adage in BDSM culture is the people who are the loudest about consent are often those who don’t practice what they preach. House parties are house parties. People can preach consent all they want; it doesn’t mean that they’ll uphold those values.
But what of the commercial dungeons? It’s true that these dungeons can be safer than the average house party because they don’t allow penetration or alcohol (at least officially, due to local laws). However, lifestylers are cunning thrill seekers; the definition of harm in this context is not limited to acts of sexual assault. Organizers in these settings are just as reluctant to responsibly intervene and de-escalate situations in an unbiased manner.
The one conducting the vetting is safe
This seems to be a completely unconscious logical conclusion on the part of the unsuspecting newcomer. When you’re in the position to ask for permission for entry, seldom do you ask yourself if those gaining entry aren’t merely prey.
Anecdotally, there’s no universal consensus on how organizers vet attendees of BDSM parties. Indeed, there are those who don’t vet attendees at all (particularly when there’s a monetary incentive to increase door sales). However, it’s widely accepted that a background check should be conducted to bar sex offenders from entering. An organizer can screen attendees as they see fit; instead of screening out sex offenders they may, for instance, screen out women who RSVP with a partner as opposed to those that RSVP without a partner.
The question that attendees don’t ask themselves is whether this organizer is hosting because they’re not allowed anywhere else for previous violations of others. Although I would caution the reader to be mindful of the reason this may be (false allegations can destroy lives), the organizer is still worth investigating.
The proof of this strange phenomenon of accepting the host as a safe person is evident in the universal default to referring to them as “community leaders”. Whether one hosts private house parties, manages a commercial dungeon, or hosts a group, they’re invariably referred to as such regardless of their personal characteristics and decisions as a host.
Vetted members of a community are safe to play with
By accepting the idea that someone is safe to play with merely because someone else “vetted” them, you’re assuming a passive role in your own journey of exploring kink. You’re accepting the idea that a stranger is better than you at assessing your needs, desires, and the compatibility of other strangers. This is just the classic process of the blind leading the blind.
Vetting does not work most of the time because the infractions committed by community members at BDSM functions are crimes of opportunity. Vetting is nothing more than a (ideally) prolonged interview process. The issue is that Americans are trained practically all their young adult lives to game the interview. A whopping 81% of job applicants surveyed in the U.S. have admitted to lying in an interview (with a hilarious correlation found between dishonesty and extraversion in this cohort). Why would this behavior suddenly stop here in the BDSM community where there’s limitless potential to explore one’s wildest fantasies?
And even if people were genuine in interviews, research has shown that interviews are about as effective at predicting compatibility as flipping a coin! Many organizers claim to have “vetted” a person through a few interactions at munches (essentially, a causal interview). Neglecting the efficacy of munches as an appropriate means of vetting aside, a handful of interactions doesn’t accurately gauge whether someone has a flawed enough character to take the opportunity when it presents itself to harm someone they despise.
These “vetted” members of your local community should be regarded as just as strange to you as the average person you pass in a shady area of town; the only thing you know about them is their own self-reported interest of either giving or receiving pain/discomfort.
A potential play partner is safer if they have good references
This is my favorite part of the ever-pervasive security theater in kink. Why anyone thinks this is any more effective in the kink world than in the vanilla world is beyond me. Anyone can choose at least 3 people that like them to say good things about them.
And thanks to the overly casual context in kink, it’s very likely that a person’s references are those they’re having sexual relations with. Further, because of the highly emotional nature of their association, a reference for someone can be singing someone’s praises today and assassinating their character tomorrow.
These references don’t gauge anything remotely objective or valuable in the context of vetting them for safety and/or compatibility. When you meet someone who is all too happy to present you with a list of references, it would be wise to remain skeptical and note the nature of their relationship.
If one must vet others through references, it might be more appropriate to consult those that aren’t on great terms with the person of interest. Personally, I believe that the measure of a person is how they treat others more powerless than them and who they hold in contempt, not how they treat their “superiors” and friends.
BDSM Lifestylers are more mentally mature than their vanilla counterparts
I have some bad news for all you new kinky people out there. Theres a whole lot of backstabbing, gossiping, rumor-mongering, and internet trolling that isn’t just prevalent in kink, but is a hallmark of it.
The problem with being so flamboyant in these spaces that allow us to fully embrace our lifestyle is that sometimes we do so at the expense of our privacy. While I don’t support extreme conservatism regarding our sexuality as a society, I think we should exercise a higher standard of class to help our fellows maintain their dignity and privacy. It’s unfortunately very common for community members to openly discuss what transpired at a BDSM party with others who weren’t in attendance, and this has become a virulent safety concern for organizers worldwide.
What many people fail to realize is that these details can be used to cause real harm to those in attendance (i.e. stalking, defamation, outing, etc.). If you live a very private life that could be compromised if someone outed you, you need to know that lifestylers are notorious gossipers and it’s difficult to control the flow of information once it starts. While some gossip may be harmless, you can’t control who obtains your sensitive information and how they choose to use it.
If someone is banned it means they were unsafe
Banning is the main go-to action for organizers that lack diplomatic and leadership skills. Admittedly, organizers don’t have a massive repertoire of methods for addressing disputes. What no organizer wants to ever admit to you is that it’s completely normal for a group or dungeon to have a list of people who are banned for various reasons (and this list may be confidential).
If that seems counterintuitive to you, what you’re realizing is that organizers don’t go about this as a business model that serves a community (there’s no customer service aspect). Since there’s no authority over the organizer, they’re free to ban people as they see fit. And since dungeons are not often in abundance, people attend anyways because they lack the strength to boycott an organizer that acts unethically at the expense of their selfish goals.
I’ve seen people banned for a myriad of reasons:
- it was a result of a nasty breakup
- the person wouldn’t play with someone important
- the organizer is terrified of the bad publicity if they don’t ban someone who is unpopular
- etc.
You’ll undoubtedly hear about one person or another that had been banned in your community, and you’ll likely be expected to assimilate with the group’s position on the matter. This doesn’t get stressed enough: if you’re personally really concerned about who was banned, do your own investigation. Don’t rely on hearsay. And ask yourself if you want to associate with people that behave in such petty, juvenile manners.
I think the one thing that surprises inexperienced kinky people the most is how many people are banned for reasons that are not strictly related to consent infractions and criminal records.
BDSM parties are orgies with rules
This is easily the most prevalent innocuous rookie misconception among new kinky people. Newcomers are often shocked to show up at an unassuming house with 10-30 guests at what we’d otherwise consider to be a potluck (but with fetish attire). They’re often underwhelmed and even disappointed when they experience little to no play.
Although strangely universal among newbies, there’s no formally recognized root cause of this assumption. It might be safe to hypothesize that this presumption stems from a long-held attitude by the general population that BDSM correlates with sexual deviance, suggesting that lifestylers have minimal standards in selecting play partners. It’s understandable for a new kinky person to assume that lifestylers would be more open to new play partners. We know theoretically, however, that since the community is a microcosm of society, lifestylers will vary in their selectivity.
Anecdotally, I’ve found lifestylers to be inconsistent with their choice of play partners; while they generally regard newcomers with caution, they also seem to pursue a certain thrill of playing with someone new.
I recommend not showing up to your first play party fueled up on liquid courage and gas station “performance” pills. Instead, take the opportunity to observe the interactions of others, get a feel for the crowd, and get to know people on a personal level before even considering play.
This may sound like boring “vanilla” wisdom, but we’re all human and we don’t discard our humanity when we put on fancy fetish attire; good chemistry is the foundation of successful relationships – even if they’re not romantic ones.
If you’re reading this and feel suddenly concerned that exploring kink would necessitate an inventory of expectations, you might have an advanced intuition on risk profiling and its role in kink. This will serve you well because BDSM is an inherently risky activity that warrants more discretion than one would expect to need in the “vanilla world”.
And the risk substantially increases when one engages with strangers they don’t know well in a communal dynamic. The rationale for this is a topic for another article. Deciding to engage with a community is a big move because it comes with numerous considerations that are not intrinsic to your potential play partner. There are pros and cons to playing privately and publicly, but what matters most is what you are comfortable with.
By Aurelia Caesaris
Aurelia has 8 years of experience in the BDSM lifestyle and her local community. She's primarily a service sub but has worked as a pro-Domme. About 7 years of her experience has been dedicated to serving in multiple roles in her community including dungeon monitoring, organizing events, advisory, promoting, and podcast production. Her volunteer experience has resulted in the establishment of a commercial dungeon, the expansion of a private dungeon, and the rekindling of a large, successful group. Aurelia focuses on the topics of vetting, community dynamics, organizing, security, and ethical management of alternative lifestyle spaces. She's passionate about informing lifestyle newcomers and raising awareness of unethical practices in lifestyle community management.
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Citations
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2. Boyd-Rogers, C. C., & Maddox, G. B. (2022). LGBTQIA + and Heterosexual BDSM Practitioners: Discrimination, Stigma, Tabooness, Support, and Community Involvement. Sexuality Research and Social Policy, 19(4), 1747–1762. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-022-00759-y
3. Erickson, J. M., Slayton, A. M., Petersen, J. G., Hyams, H. M., Howard, L. J., Sharp, S., & Sagarin, B. J. (2022). Challenge at the Intersection of Race and Kink: Racial Discrimination, Fetishization, and Inclusivity Within the BDSM (Bondage-Discipline, Dominance-Submission, and Sadism-Masochism) Community. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 51(2), 1063–1074. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-021-02102-9
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5. Bowling, J., Wright, S., Benson, J. K., McCabe, S., Mennicke, A., Willard, J., Kissler, N., Good, H., Moody, B., Stambaugh, R., & Cramer, R. J. (2024). Disclosing and Reporting of Consent Violations Among Kink Practitioners in the United States. Violence Against Women, 30(6–7), 1453–1476. https://doi.org/10.1177/10778012221145299
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