So what happened to Fetlife?

That was my problem with collarspace/collarme. As a male sub, I found that most of the female ads were either people trolling/scamming- you would see tons of profiles with the picture of a typical 20 year old model who was into "Financial Domination" and nothing else, or, they would just send you a link to join another adult dating site. Well, that and for whatever reason, I never could figure out how to post messages there since the message board would never recognize my password. My old account there has been dormant for years.

I can understand the shady nature of backpage- even here in my home state I read about someone beaten up and murdered who tried to hook up on there. It a male answering a "Men seeking Men" ad on the backpage personals- it was scary what happened. And I have backed away from a few ads from women that seemed suspicious and/or really shady, so all of that did make me very wary. But I did meet an absolutely AWESOME female dominant who advertised on there, with whom I had one of my most intense erotic experiences ever. If only she had lived closer than 250 miles away...

But how, then (is the question) are legitimate sex workers, in our case BDSM providers, able to advertise? Where do you go to find their ads? I think as mentioned, in the government's eyes there is no such thing as legitimate sex industry providers, sadly.

Some interesting and somewhat alarming changes have been made recently to fetlife. New words have been added to the list of words that can no longer be searched and users are reporting that some of their groups and fetishes have been deleted. It seems that "vampires" have disappeared with the no blood thing and also words like "forced" and words used for race play have disappeared. It seems that they are also not taking card payments right now, so the changes are most likely because of financial pressure from their card processor.

Hypnotism groups have been eliminated, as well. Lots of writings on k&P about the lack of communication from Fet to site users, suggestions they move servers to the Netherlands, panic about the site going offline without warning, etc. I think I saw somewhere that JB was going to make an announcement today.

Yeah, groups for rape play and CNC have all disappeared too. I didn't know about the upcoming announcement, I've just been watching people go crazy over being censored.

MeekMe said:

Yeah, groups for rape play and CNC have all disappeared too. I didn't know about the upcoming announcement, I've just been watching people go crazy over being censored.

Click to expand...

Interesting! I hadn't noticed until you called my attention to it. I only had one RP group with rape in their title of the 160 groups I belong to. But sure enough, it's gone. What's CNC stand for?

Never mind. I figured it out.

Gianbattista said:

I haven't - tell me please -

Click to expand...

Consensual Non-Consent


Some people use it as a euphemism for rape play; I'm assuming that's why it got the ax.

I joined this site a few days ago. Met some cool women who are supposedly into the kinks that I am into. How genuine they are, I don't know.

Update

The following topics are no longer allowed:

Nothing non-consensual (abduction, rape, etc.)
Nothing that impairs consent (drugs, alcohol, etc.)
No permanent or lasting damage (snuff, lacerations, deep cutting, etc.)
No hate speech (Nazi roleplay, race play, etc.)
Nothing that falls under obscenity (incest, etc. )

Click to expand...

Future changes are still possible. These restrictions include profiles and user names that relate to these topics so some users are either having their accounts deleted or being asked to change their names. This is all due to financial obligations and also legal pressures from different countries. Sad news.

This is really unfortunate.

MeekMe said:

The following topics are no longer allowed:



Future changes are still possible. These restrictions include profiles and user names that relate to these topics so some users are either having their accounts deleted or being asked to change their names. This is all due to financial obligations and also legal pressures from different countries. Sad news.

Click to expand...

If this continues, the site might as well change its name to VanillaLife.

Gianbattista said:

Oh.

Thanks . You cannot make it more obviously consentual than calling it that *shrug*. (grins and ponders)

Click to expand...

Consensual non-consensual is sort of an agreement between parties that the sex is consensual, even while the role play that follows portrays a non-consensual scene. I'm not sure if I explained that well enough, but that's been my perception of CNC. Someone else might be able to do a better explanation. And yes, I noticed my CNC related role play groups on Fetlife are all gone. Bummer!

I was less surprised at the disappearance of the rape group. I was always a little uncomfortable with the word "rape" in the title of the one group I was a member of, even though it was a role play group and not one advocating the real thing. But the disappearance of the CNC groups is a bit more troubling for me, since that first C is to indicate that everything that follows is still consensual.

kimuk said:

I was having a browse last night. I used to be a Fetlife member years ago so thought I'd rejoin. Says it's not accepting new members. There is a little info on the net about a "meat list" security leak. But can't find any statement about it from Fetlife it's self.

So what happened?

Click to expand...

I have been on Fetlife for years and I still am.
Matter of fact I met my Dream girl on there and we are so happy she said HI to me

dale124 said:

Consensual non-consensual is sort of an agreement between parties that the sex is consensual, even while the role play that follows portrays a non-consensual scene. I'm not sure if I explained that well enough, but that's been my perception of CNC. Someone else might be able to do a better explanation.

Click to expand...

You explained it perfectly well! Not calling this better, just an expansion. To me, CNC is about the s-type giving consent to the D-type to do things without further consent.

For example, when Sir takes away my safeword (our signal for starting a CNC scene), I know that until it is returned, he can do whatever he wants to me. The key feature of CNC is that you don't have a CNC scene without already trusting the person to make decisions in line with your own. In some cases, what happens might look like rape, because it might get very violent, there might be pleading to stop...but it's still consensual.

So...yeah. The fucking credit card processors see that and go OH IT LOOKS LIKE RAPE THEREFORE NO WAY.

I just renewed my membership, though. Used the bank draft option. They're gonna need the help.

Etoile said:

You explained it perfectly well! Not calling this better, just an expansion. To me, CNC is about the s-type giving consent to the D-type to do things without further consent.

For example, when Sir takes away my safeword (our signal for starting a CNC scene), I know that until it is returned, he can do whatever he wants to me. The key feature of CNC is that you don't have a CNC scene without already trusting the person to make decisions in line with your own. In some cases, what happens might look like rape, because it might get very violent, there might be pleading to stop...but it's still consensual.

So...yeah. The fucking credit card processors see that and go OH IT LOOKS LIKE RAPE THEREFORE NO WAY.

I just renewed my membership, though. Used the bank draft option. They're gonna need the help.

Click to expand...

Yeah, it's fine and dandy until a prominent figure known all over FL ends up in court over rape charges. He claimed he was all about CNC but he was really just an abusive asshole raping his way around the world with fans of his "primal edge play." That and he recorded and posted a video of him doing this kind of thing to a minor. So yeah, if the credit card processors got wind of that, "bye CNC!"

I'm not against CNC, btw. But a lot of victims were harassed and shamed and silenced by users and FL caretakers. This is damage control for FL and it's far too late.

Mind control groups are still alive, but nervous. If hypnotism sites are gone, they figure they'll soon be as well. As for race play, I'm still finding those groups. They're not on my group list, but I still see them on other people's profiles as of earlier today. Maybe there's a certain language in the title (like the N word) that triggers the censors.

My original reason for joining fetlife was to learn about all the different kinks associated with the BDSM community. Including kinks I would have never considered trying. And even after joining some of those kink-specific groups, some of them I still would not try personally. But I find them interesting to learn about. And I like to insert those kinks into some stories and role plays, so I joined to learn about what I was intending to write about, if that makes sense.

Fetlife has always said they're not a dating site, even though they have personals groups. But the only hookups I was looking for when I joined fetlife were the groups holding the local munches. Those are still around and may end up being the only things left.

attack of the bots

Fetlife probably trying to avoid becoming craigslist. CL is probably 95+% bot action including the pro's who are just trying to steer you to their cam sites. I was able to Join Fetlife last week without an invite.

cuck2serveU said:

Fetlife probably trying to avoid becoming craigslist. CL is probably 95+% bot action including the pro's who are just trying to steer you to their cam sites. I was able to Join Fetlife last week without an invite.

Click to expand...

No, FL management is shit and there are still groups of pedophiles discussing their gross abuse. Anyone can sign up now but there are more restrictions on the kinks you can discuss.

I don't know where all of you are going but as i have said i have been on Fetlife for years and i have never had any trouble with Fetlife. I met my wife on there and she and i have made another account on there. So we can share what she and i do. She is MY Baby-girl and she loves it.

I've been off most of Lit and FL for the past year because of greater priorities. I returned to FL to ask a question a few days ago, and discovered the issues in a sideways manner.

Honestly, I'm not surprised by the concerns or the ways of addressing them. I'm all too keenly reminded of the anti-kink backlash in the heyday of Ashcroft, and the effects his tantrums had on the glass art/pipe businesses that were just in their infancy back then (late 90s). I am NOT a pipemaker/drug apparatus artist, but I'm in awe of the techniques that they use. I was upset, back then, by the suppression, and continue to be to this day. The regulatory BS has backed off somewhat in intervening years, but it's still a PITA in many communities.

The sad thing is that the push for pipe/rig-making art has had repercussions throughout the glass art industry, regardless of what type of glass is used (there are 4 distinctive "flavors" of glass that tolerate and behave differently with different forms of heat). There have been older artists who tried to wean the "youngsters" away from pipe-dependent forms of expression. There have also been those who have tried to translate what they knew of bead making into other useful forms. Both "flavors" have endeavored to meet somewhere near the middle.

I only bring this up because there has also, for many years, been a kink audience for glass sex toys. It was, quickly and poorly, picked up by Chinese copiers who made unsafe objects (this type of glass NEEDS to be slowly annealed with gradually decreasing temperatures in order to be safe from later cracking or (OMG!!!) shattering. (I'm an admitted safety freak because I've had obvious accidents with poorly handled objects. Still glad I was the test subject instead of an innocent victim.)

Okay, I'm obviously rambling. The point I'm aiming for is protection in the kink community. If you buy an object that delights you from someone via the boards here, please speak up for them if you're happy with what they made. It can protect them, and it can promote them in a community which is more and more (again) shuttered.

My biggest pet peeve about all of this is that NOW fetlife is giving us an explanation and a list of reasons why they abruptly deleted so many groups. They couldn't have given us a warning and that list beforehand prior to the mass deletion so that we could save material we'd posted on some of those groups? Or at least been given us time to establish contacts with the people we regularly conversed with on those groups (i.e. friended them)? The rather abrupt way they handled this is what pisses me off.

Most of the groups I lost, I honestly won't lose any sleep over. But there are those that I truly don't understand the deletion of and don't understand the urgency to delete them without warning.

Pretty much everyone, including John Baku, agrees the way it was done is shitty. Nobody thinks it was done properly.

The problem is so many of the groups I belong to that still survive on Fetlife could be eliminated under one of those "pillars that will make up our guidelines", as John Baku refers to them.

Nothing non-consensual (abduction, rape, etc.)
"Damsels in Distress" would fit in that category, since nearly every story on that site begins with an abduction. Likewise with "Evil Madmen & Masterminds - Their Victims in Distress & Peril" and "Twisted Tales of Fate". Just because the magic words "kidnapping" or "abduction" are not in the title, doesn't make these sites safe from the purge.

Nothing that impairs consent (drugs, alcohol, etc.)
"Mind Control Erotica" and "Mind Control for Fun and Freedom". I'm a little surprised those two haven't already disappeared, since the title gives away the focus of the group.

No permanent or lasting damage (snuff, lacerations, deep cutting, etc.)
I don't belong to any groups that fit that category.

No hate speech (Nazi roleplay, race play, etc.)
I don't knowingly belong to any groups that fit into that category, but hate speech is such a subjective term these days that include any view that someone else doesn't agree with.

And though not a member, the groups "Raceplay" and "Race Play" still exist on Fetlife, along with a few others who's titles are far more graphic. Why they still exist, I'm not sure.

Nothing that falls under obscenity (incest, etc. )
The funniest category of all, since almost anything found on Fetlife could be construed as obscene by someone.

Except for maybe my "Yeah, I LOVE baseball and I'm kinky -- DEAL with it!" group.