Imagine walking into a room full of strangers who all share a common interest in a complex and exciting game. Everyone is friendly, and the atmosphere feels welcoming, even fun. You watch people showcase their skills and interact with enthusiasm.
However, while the gathering looks harmless on the surface, the game’s stakes are much higher than you initially realize. Behind the friendly smiles and casual conversations, you don’t really know who these people are or what their intentions might be. Some may be trustworthy, but others might not be. Their intentions might be more sinister than you can ever possibly imagine.
When you reveal your personal identity in these spaces, you’re handing over your most sensitive information to people you’ve just met, trusting they will never use it to harm you. Trust must be earned because while some individuals may initially seem trustworthy, this is often a facade masking their true intentions.
But, without precautions, it’s impossible to know who will protect you and who might put you at risk.
This is why you must take an active role in protecting your personally identifying information (PII). Because once your identity has been revealed to the wrong person, there is no going back. Let’s discuss practical ways to disarm these psychopaths that we can’t seem to rid ourselves of in our local kink communities.
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When you enter your local kink community, it’s only a matter of time before you encounter a class on the ambiguous topic of safety. Your guide on the topic will ordinarily be a self-proclaimed expert on the topic by virtue of their many years of experience in your community (at best). Or your guide is a friend of the dungeon owner and is basically reciting the former (at worst). Why would these people even bother?
Kids would call it “street cred”, but us refined people would pedantically clarify it as clout chasing. As a less seasoned community member, you’re not expected to understand so early into the game that the person lecturing you has something to gain by going through the motions of talking about the topic of safety. Consequently, you assume that this “subject matter expert” is a safe person. This is your first mistake in your lofty goal to safeguard your identity in the lifestyle.
While this may seem like an overly cynical lens, it’s warranted given the normal behaviors of those in the lifestyle on any given day. Anyone who has spent any length of time in their local kink community would likely agree that we have become far too casual and lax about respecting each other’s privacy.
It’s extremely common for community members to huddle over private messages sent in confidence; use legal names without regard to who is around us; send group texts that share contact info without permission, etc. All of these seemingly small infractions make up a larger picture that culminates in a massive breach of PII.
Modern technology has brought us closer together despite our distances apart. But it also made it easier to identify people with even the slightest bit of information about them. The unfortunate reality is your local kink community will almost certainly have enough members that will act on bad faith once they haveany of your PII. That is why this topic is extremely important.
With that, here’s what you can do to limit your risk of PII exposure:
1. Do not post face pictures on your kinky social media website(s)
This is the easiest security measure you can take from the beginning to offset potential damage in the future. As tempting as it may be to rake in the love bombs, this is just handing over ammunition to nefarious individuals.
The main mechanism of action in outing incidents is leaked kinky pictures from the target’s website. If there’s no face shots in these pictures, there’s likely to be minimal damage if your employer or family member(s) are sent the pictures.
Here’s a scary thought: there is free software out there that can provide information about a person with only a picture of their face!1 One can easily imagine how this software can be used to harm others if it’s in the wrong hands. Thankfully, there are limitations to this software.
Realistically, if you have no qualms about refraining from face shots on your website, you can probably forego the other steps to protecting your PII discussed here. If you insist on showing your face, however, buckle up because there are multiple things that you must do to safeguard your PII from bad actors.
2. Use a believable vanilla pseudonym
I’m not sure why this isn’t more common. I suppose it’s because people believe that their choice of a kinky social media screen name will stick. Look, if your screen name is IWannaBeYourCow, most people are going to insist you give them a vanilla name they can use that’s easy to say, remember, and can easily be used in a quasi-vanilla environment. And that’s a completely understandable desire.
Unfortunately, people cave under pressure and provide their first legal name for simplicity and the PII breach snowballs from there. Choose a first and last name that’s realistic and not the name of someone you personally know locally. Also update your money handling apps (i.e. Cashapp, Venmo, etc.) that you might use for payment in the lifestyle with this pseudonym. This is a commonly overlooked detail.
3. Stop giving out your phone number
This is the number one rookie mistake. People seem to forget that a reverse number search can be done very easily and usually for free. I’ve known people in the lifestyle who are very proud of their ability to uncover the identity of other lifestylers. Still not convinced that exposing your phone number can cause you some grief?
Here’s something to chew on. I’ve known organizers that have found people through reverse phone number searches and one of the first things they see is what political party the guest is registered with as a voter. They subsequently discriminate against the guest.
Even though the search wasn’t made to discover the guest’s voting registration, the search shows this detail as one of the top details and distracts from the original context of the search. I know that very few will heed this advice, so the next suggestion might be more realistic.
4. Start using a Google Voice number
This is a free service that provides believable phone numbers that you can register to your phone. You can also register a name to the number as well and it would be wise to use a believable pseudonym.
The name associated with the number will be the name provided in your Google account. You’ll have to create a John Doe Gmail account before setting up the number. Note: this is the name you type in for the account, and not the name on the email address itself.
The only thing needed for verification is a phone number which can be obtained from a burner phone sim card if you want to be extra cautious. In a reverse search of a Google Voice number, only the name provided in the Google account will be presented.
5. Don’t text, use apps like Kik and Signal
6. Stop allowing vanilla social media (VSM) to be your Achilles heel
I don’t care if a lifestyler is your new best friend or you’ve been working with them for a year- stop adding them on VSM. It’s not worth it. These relationships are notoriously volatile. The only thing you’re doing in adding lifestylers to your VSM account is exposing yourself to opportunities for jilted sadists to harm you.
Secondly, set your friends list to private. If you’ve already added lifestylers to your VSM account, at the very least protect their accounts from exposure by making their association with you private.
And thirdly, set your profile to private. This is a no-brainer easy solution to avoid VSM breaches. VSM algorithms are the number one means of people being outed.
I wish I could say that this is a robust remedy, but it’s not. Let’s unpack how VSM is outing lifestylers. As soon as you add someone’s phone number into your phone, the VSM algorithm detects this relationship and connects you to this other person. This manifests in the form of recommending friends to you on these websites even though you’ve never searched for them, and they didn’t request to be friends online. How does this happen?
As soon as you gave VSM messaging apps permissions to access your phone’s data (contacts, call logs, etc.), you enabled this pairing to passively occur. You can only circumvent this if you refuse to provide the app access to your data (and consequently lost access to the app or most of its features).
Because I am aware that everyone loves their messaging apps and I don’t think anyone will realistically take this advice, there are other ways to circumvent VSM exposure. If you’re already compromised because you have an entire phonebook of lifestylers linked to the phone number of your VSM account, you can heed the advice above in addition to changing your name and profile picture.
That way if the algorithm does link you to them, they won’t easily identify you with a completely unrelated name and picture that isn’t you. Use of a Google voice number should avoid detection on VSM. Another suggestion might be to create a VSM account that uses your pseudonym and lacks any employment information. This gives lifestylers a red herring.
7. Pay with cash at vanilla meeting spaces
The use of IDs in Kink Spaces
All these measures can be taken to limit your risk of PII exposure, and you will still be exposed. You’re still expected to present your ID to enter Kink events. And I’m not about to endorse obtaining a fake ID.
Perhaps the most unresolved security risk in the kink community setting is the use of IDs for event entry. While it’s understandable for the guest to value their privacy, it’s a reasonable request to conduct a background search on guests and check their age.
No host wants to be put on blast for “allowing” guests on the sex offender registry. And they equally don’t want to get busted for allowing a minor into an adult event or “serving alcohol to” someone under 21 years old. And it’s a valid concern because there are people younger than 21 who will use fake IDs to get into kink events.
The Risk Of IDs At Kink Events
If you don’t think that the use of IDs lead to exposure, I’d say you have way too much faith in the professionalism of dungeon owners and their staff/volunteers. It’s very common for dungeons to have a small group of staff/volunteers that rotate in shifts. This creates a situation where multiple pairs of eyes have seen your ID.
This increases your risk of your identity be exposed because you don’t know what any of them will do with that information and it decreases your ability to hold someone responsible for any damages because you won’t know who breached your privacy.
But why would anyone checking IDs act maliciously?
The common argument dungeon owners provide to people with my perspective on this matter is that they want to see guests return. They have a financial incentive to not upset their guests.
I think this is a fairly sound defense, but it’s limited because it only applies to dungeons that rely on admission sales to operate. If someone is hosting and accepts no cash for entry or they simply don’t rely on the cash to host at all, there’s nothing stopping them from going scorched earth.
Additionally, this defense only applies in settings where only the dungeon owner could be liable for PII breaches, as their financial incentive doesn’t apply to their staff/volunteers.
What is particularly concerning about dungeons that operate on a lengthy volunteer roster that rotates ID checkers is that very seldom do owners carefully vet these volunteers. To them, these volunteers are a pair of eyes checking for age and it saves the owner time and money.
Owners seem to forget that the person checking IDs needs to have the highest level of integrity and professionalism if they genuinely care about the privacy of their guests. Unfortunately, these volunteers are often friends of the owner and random people wanting to get into events for free through service.
The argument against this concern, of course, is the simple fact that the average person cannot commit multiple names and addresses to memory in a short length of time. This is true and a valid point, but it lazily disregards the reality that this person will be selective in their interest in the information they’re provided. This means that only the people of interest will be at risk.
Who is at Risk at Kink Events
The malicious dungeon representative tasked with checking IDs will not be merely some busybody that has a fetish for logging away everyone’s PII. This is someone who will focus on key people of interest.
These people of interest may be someone that refused the representative play; it may be someone that the representative is simply enamored with and may proceed to stalk; or it may be a person that has upset the representative, their friend(s), or the dungeon owner themselves. Any guest can become a person of interest to malicious lifestylers if they make waves in either an overly positive or an overly negative manner.
Once this person has the name of those they’re targeting, that’s usually all it takes to gather more information because technology has provided us with ungodly access to information. This malicious person doesn’t even need to know their target’s physical address to cause substantial harm; a name and an age will suffice for a background search that provides employment and family history.
A Potential Solution to PII Breaches due to ID checks
There are multiple ID scanner products on the market that can quicky provide a “yes/no” response to queries regarding age and criminal background. The guest simply inserts their ID into a card reader and the user interface need not display more information other than verification that there isn’t a criminal background associated with the card and that the card owner is over 21.
One limitation to this solution might be the possibility of the software storing scanned card data in a database for the user to view. This further emphasizes the need for the dungeon owner to be the sole verifier if they’re vetting guests based on criminal background searches and age.
There will undoubtedly be guests who don’t like the idea of a database being accessible to the dungeon owner, but the owner retains the right to randomly check their guests for a criminal background and age before admitting them because the owner is assuming all the liability during these events.
Limitation to these Methods
As with anything else in life, there are limitations to these approaches to safeguard your PII from malicious lifestylers. If you decide to alter your VSM to cloak it as a red herring for lifestylers, you might have to endure probing questions by vanilla friends and family. You will also have to adjust the settings in your phone to make your Google Voice number your primary number when making outbound calls or your vanilla contacts may have questions for you.
You can switch between “profiles” in your phone associated with your numbers. Additionally, setup of a Google Voice number doesn’t stop a lifestyler from calling you. As previously discussed, your call log will be shared with VSM algorithms if you enabled those permissions on messaging apps.
The major limitation you will face in taking these steps to remain anonymous is you just cannot get around these ID checks at events. I don’t foresee event hosts changing their methods of guest verification anytime soon because the burden is on the guest, not the host.
Software and hardware are also an added expense (and learning curve) that most owners won’t view as a worthy investment. To add complexity to the matter, there’s a debate on whether to check IDs at every event or only at vetting. If a guest shows up every weekend to an event, it seems redundant to check their ID when they have already been previously confirmed.
But the counterpoint is equally valid: just because they clear a criminal background check today doesn’t mean they won’t be convicted of a crime some time later. The solution then may be to do a routine background check on regulars.
An interesting addendum on limitations for hosts to consider is that a general background search will not produce a report detailing civil holdings (including restraining orders, unless they were resultant from criminal charges).
I find these cases to be highly relevant in terms of vetting because it speaks volumes on the guest who is devious and malicious. Personally, I don’t believe guests with restraining orders against them should be admitted into kink spaces.
Dungeons with a “privacy policy”
The hardened veterans of local communities everywhere would likely staunchly rebuff the perspectives offered here, citing that their dungeon has a strict privacy policy. What you’ll find interesting in these “privacy policies” is that they’re often uniformly worded (at least around the U.S.). Maybe this looks familiar:
“The [dungeon] acknowledges, understands and agrees that the personally-identifiable information of its members is of an extremely confidential nature, and The [dungeon] agrees to keep such confidential information of the Member on a need-to-know basis for its Management, and to take commercially reasonable steps to secure all such confidential information of the Member. The [dungeon] will not distribute or sell Member’s confidential information to any third party.”
This is a generic privacy policy that is more or less the same across dungeons around the U.S. The only thing this statement concretely promises is that the “Management” won’t sell your PII to third parties.
Everything else is lip service because first, you can’t prove that the dungeon staff shared your PII (although it’s debatable if you even must prove it in court). Second, there’s a legal grey area regarding whether this policy is a legally binding contract. And third, only members are protected by this policy.
If there’s no proof of membership that you can access, your membership is a craftily worded fiction. Your membership status can easily go mysteriously missing when the “Management” decides that protecting your PII is not a “commercially reasonable” thing for them to do.
The dungeon privacy policy exists because with mass commercialization of dungeons, it would look suspicious not to have a policy. I’ll leave it at that here because this topic warrants its own article.
Why this Topic should Matter to You
Breaches in PII due to complacency or malicious invasions is an issue that new lifestylers need to consider when they decide to engage publicly. If you have an occupation that stands a high risk of being compromised if you’re outed, you’re well within your right to request that only the dungeon owner sees your ID for background searches and to deny requests for others to see it.
This is a reasonable request that needs to become more regular in the worldwide kink community. At the very least, no one needs to know where you currently live, so it might be wise to use an old ID that has a prior address.
Historically, I imagine that in classic kink settings, this was less of an issue, as kink parties were invitation-only among friends and lacked the robust technical capabilities we enjoy today. The commercialization of kink seems to be directly correlated with the modernization of our (U.S.) culture.
Consequently, this has led to a larger influx of guests of unknown character and background, warranting more scrutiny in vetting practices. The diametric relationship between our universally accepted desire to maintain safe spaces through modern vetting practices and protect each other from outing is certainly perplexing. Due to the diversity among dungeons nationwide (in the U.S.), the new lifestyler should take care to assess each one they’re considering patronizing and be mindful not to assume uniformity in policies and procedures.
Final Thoughts
The reason I’m covering this topic in depth is that I feel many members of the kink community aren’t properly addressing all the important aspects of safety within the lifestyle. When we innocently ask our local dungeon owners how they’re upholding their privacy policy as a tool to provide a safe space, we’re often met with defensive responses because this questions their integrity.
There is a robust international discussion that is easily accessible in all physical and virtual kink spaces regarding safety as it pertains to sexual assault, human trafficking, predatory behaviors, equipment uses, and scams (the latter two being almost exclusively covered in kink spaces). Although I do agree that these are critical topics to cover, I think it’s strange that these scenarios dominate (if not entirely eclipse) safety discussions.
In my experience and those I’ve observed in other communities, these scenarios are the absolute worst outcomes, resulting in tangible damage, but by no means are they the most common infractions committed by lifestylers. Anecdotally, small slips in maintaining standards of privacy are the most common infractions.
I hypothesize that the decline of traditional values in vanilla society coupled with the normalization of kink and fetishism has cued lifestylers to view PII breaches as minor issues. They seem to believe that modern (vanilla) people will be less perturbed when they find out about someone’s alternative lifestyle and the fallout will be less dire today than any other time.
I’m not an alarmist that will attempt to convince anyone that the average retail worker has as much of a risk of losing their livelihood when they’re outed as compared to, say, a politician. However, regardless of where someone stands on that argument, the risk assessment relative to one’s occupation is irrelevant because the crux of the matter remains the issue of consent (and the violation of it). Regardless of the potential outcome following a PII breach, we need to respect a person’s choice to remain anonymous to their fellow community members.
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
1. Hameed, I. M., Abdulhussain, S. H., & Mahmmod, B. M. (2021). Content-based image retrieval: A review of recent trends. Cogent Engineering, 8(1), 1927469. https://doi.org/10.1080/23311916.2021.1927469.
2. See generally Gregory Klass, Empiricism and Privacy Policies in The Restatement of Consumer Contract Law, 36 Yale J. on Reg. 45, (2019).
3. Wright, S., Bowling, J., McCabe, S., Benson, J. K., Stambaugh, R., & Cramer, R. J. (2022). Sexual Violence and Nonconsensual Experiences Among Alt-Sex Communities’ Members. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 37(23–24), NP21800–NP21825. https://doi.org/10.1177/08862605211062999
4. Bishop-Royse, J., Bastian, D., Heart, C., & Scott, G. (2021). Trafficking in the Erotic Labor Market: A National Survey. Journal of Human Trafficking, 7(2), 121–136. https://doi.org/10.1080/23322705.2019.1695094
5. Holt, K. (2016). Blacklisted: Boundaries, Violations, and Retaliatory Behavior in the BDSM Community. Deviant Behavior, 37(8), 917–930. https://doi.org/10.1080/01639625.2016.1156982.
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