A while back, I decided to give Fetlife a try. For those of you unfamiliar with it, it is a site for those of us interested in BDSM. Kind of a BDSM friendly MySpace or FaceBook. Initially, I was underwhelmed. It was slow, there wasn’t much of a community. I was disappointed. But I kept my eye on it.

I can report now that I really do enjoy it.  I am there at least once ever day now. The groups are fantastic (at least the ones I have joined).  The community has grown tremendously. For a second opinion I recomend you look here. I found the link and her background about Fetlife interesting. She even wrote an article about it for the Montreal Mirror (FetLife is based in Canada).

I think the following explains FetLife the best.

Baku’s philosophy is disarmingly simple. “My mantra is, do what’s best for the women. If you do that, the men will come.” With this in mind, he refuses to add a refined search feature, so men cannot seek out women within specific parameters in order to cruise them.

“It’s not a dating site, it’s an anti-dating site,” he deadpans. “If you do meet somebody through FetLife, it’s because you had good conversations in a group and hit it off. Any other way is purely about sex.”

It may seem counter-intuitive to create a site for kinky people that’s actually not about hooking them up to have kinky sex. But, says Baku, it works: “Because of this, we have an unconventionally large number of women on the site. The majority of dating sites have under five to 10 per cent women, but we have a ratio of almost 50-50. Or let’s say 40-50, when I put in the genderqueer, male-to-female and female-to-male people.”

Check it out. I am MasterVoid there too.

MV

John Baku, the founder and owner of FetLife, issued an apology for the banning of some individuals earlier this week. I think this is an excellent step forward for this site, and a view of the character of the person behind the site.  Now frankly, I am not sure what happened, but it is good to see that John can apologize for a mistake, and move forward.

As an additional step forward, all individuals who were banned earlier this week were invited back.

I sincerely apologize to the whole community including those who were banned. I was wrong with the way I handled things. I should of given everyone that was banned two formal warnings before they were banned and held myself to the same standards I set for the rest of the community. I am sincerely sorry.

For the majority of the people who were banned I will be sending them an email to apologize for the way I handled the situation and invite them back to FetLife. I understand if they are apprehensive about coming back here but I hope over time they will join us.

For those who gave donations and want a refund I will refund them. All they have to do is email me requesting for me to refund their donation.

All I can say is well done. We will all make mistakes, but it is how we deal with them that reveals our true character.

MV

FetLife, and it’s advertisers, are giving away over $500 worth of goodies this Christmas to it’s fans. So, sign up now if you haven’t and go get yours.

MV

I just thought I would share this bit of news with everyone. JohnBaku announced that FetLife had its 100,000th member join today. This is less than 13 months after it’s January 3, 2008, launch.

In case you were unaware, FetLife is a social networking site for people into the Lifestyle with a focus on being an anti-dating site. Yes, a place that makes it harder to hookup. But this is part of it’s charm. It allows serious discussions without the spam that usually fills up the women’s mailboxes. While not perfect, it is nice.

Congradulations, John, on hitting another milestone. And if you haven’t been there yet, you should go.

MV

Ok, sometimes I am late to the party. I only learned of Graydancer’s Ropecast reciently by following John Baku (FetLife‘s founder) on twitter.  He will be on it later this month (it appears that there is some difficulty in recording it, so I can’t give you a date).

So, Ropecast has been in existance since 2007 (and here I thought I was up on podcasting, lol). I plan on adding it to my ipod. I will try to give you a report on what up with it.

And I really look forward to hearing what John has to say.

MV

John Baku (why does this man not have a Wikipedia entry?) has announced that due to popular demand, FetLife will have a line of t-shirts, and maybe other schwag. I am eagerly awaiting the T-shirts, though personally a pin or patch would look better on my vest. Kinky Tease (you get the pun?) is the new site that he launched to support the effort.

Initially there will be 3 designs, which you can see here, here and here. (FetLife Membership required.) Order yours on December 1, 2009.  I am all a twitter.

Speaking of twitter, you can follow KinkyTease on Twitter.

MV

Given that this is the first week of the new year, I thought I would take a moment or two and reflect on some of the bigger stories (in my humble opinion) of the last year. It was an interesting year with a lot of events and stories, but some rose to the top.

• FetLife: I think this site continues to be the biggest story in the world of Fetish and BDSM. This is now the premier Lifestyle site without a doubt. The have almost tripled in size this past year to over 300,000 members. While other sites may have more members (I am not sure of the actual membership of sites like CollarMe and Alt), FetLife is unique in the quality of the members and the discussions that happen every day in the groups found on this social networking site for kinksters.
• The Economy: The economy has had a serious impact on the Lifestyle this year. Many conferences were either canceled this year or were cut back drastically (my favorite event, BlackBEAT, was one of those that had to cut back). Many of us were laid off with the rest of America. This has made running BDSM oriented events, clubs and businesses even more challenging than they already are.
• Jack Rinella Runs for Congress: Joe Laiacona, who writes BDSM related books and articles under the pen name Jack Rinella is running for congress. I think the outcome of this election may have some significance for our Lifestyle, especially if he manages to win later this year. I wish him luck.
• Atlanta Eagle Raid: When the Atlanta Police decided to raid the Eagle, earlier this year, I do not think that they foresaw the consequences that would come out of it. From rallies, to possibly even altering the outcome of the city election, this has had a serious impact on Atlanta, and will continue to do so in the coming year. This may even serve as a warning to other cities who embark on these kinds of policies.

What stories do you think were important this year?  Let me know in the comments!

MV

FetLife really changed the game when it came online back in 2008. FetLife was a different sort of social networking site. Before it existed, the kink community congregated in sites like Alt.com, CollarMe.com and Bondage.com. While they all served their purpose, and had thriving forums, they were first and foremost a meat market. Their focus was on getting you laid.

Search
First, FetLife doesn’t let you search for users by age, sex, orientation, or role. You won’t immediately find a way to do this. And while you can search Don’t worry about. FetLife isn’t about instant gratification, but rather it is about making a deeper connection. You can find what you want, but instead of it being served up on a platter for you, you have to do some looking and talking and meeting people. Kind of like the offline world.

Imagine going to a night club where you walk up to a host and say, “Hey, show me all the blonde 18-25 year olds who live 25 minutes from me.” That isn’t how the real world works. That isn’t the way FetLife works. You are going to have to join groups and interact with people. Just like real life.

User Status
No one knows you are online. Let me repeat that, you won’t get a ping from someone you know saying, “Hey I saw you were online and wanted to see if you wanted to chat.” That lets you lean back and relax. When you look at someone’s pics or post or profile, no trace is left unless you leave it on purpose. You can write on their walls or not or “perv” (as John Baku likes to say) their pics and no one will know.

I really like this. While it is fun to see who is looking at your profile, it can be a bit annoying at times and I don’t always want people to know what pics I am looking at. And here you have that option.

Privacy Options
To put it bluntly, there are none. Now John doesn’t let search engines crawl through the depths so you won’t find the content through web searches. But anybody can see your profile and every post, picture and comment is visible through your profile and the other users’ “feeds”. Write a post, and all your friends can see it.

While some are concerned about issues regarding stalking or not being able to share more risqué content with only friends my way of thinking, this is better in two ways.

The first way this is better is that you are accountable for what you post. Say something mean, there is a trail. Post a picture that isn’t you, everyone sees it. I think it leads to a more mature environment and a bit of a small, home-town feel. You don’t get to hide here. You can build (or destroy) a reputation because there is a history.

The second way is due to the nature of the Internet. If you place anything on the Internet that even one other person can see (and why did you upload it it if you don’t want to share it in the first place?), it can get out. Popular culture examples revolve around Facebook, but this experience has been going on for a long time. There is a story in the news about a woman who got fired from her job for something she said on Facebook. And Facebook is famous for the privacy controls. Frankly, privacy settings is more about theatre than keeping your stuff private. You don’t want it seen? Don’t post it.

That said, FetLife does give you some defenses.  If some one is harassing you and sending you unwanted messages, you can simply go to their profile, and click on REALLY BIG (well maybe not that big) block button on the right side. Click that and *poof* they cannot message you, see your profile (beyond a few basic bits of info), any of your pics (besides your profile icon), and all their messages and comments magically disappear.

If they aren’t bothering you on your profile but in a group instead, try messaging one of the leaders. They are usually the best place to start asking for help. If that doesn’t work you can email the caretakers (caretakers @ fetlife. com) and they can help you out as well. The caretakers are all volunteers, but they try to respond to spamming and serious harassment issues as quickly as they can. I have even seen people removed from FetLife, though they usually like to approach the users and try to mediate the differences first.

‘Nuff said about the differences, lets get you signed up.

FetLife account creation.
Going to FetLife.com for the first time will present you with a screen like this. One interesting note is that all of the pics on the web page are actual FetLife members. JohnBaku arranged to have some of these pics taken in a photo shoot and he has even called for member generated images as well for the public face of FetLife. Look around for a bit, because you can see some interesting stats. When you are ready, click on the BIG sign-up button and get started.

I wanted to include a screenshot of the signup form and highlight some of the unique features of FetLife. First, John doesn’t ask for a lot of information from you. Something to call you. Gender, orientation, date of birth. Country.

That last part is important. FetLife is highly international. I see posts everyday from people in Canada, Europe, and Australia. In fact FetLife itself is mostly run by kinky Canucks.

And if you are uncomfortable telling people where you live, there are an amazing number of kinksters in Antarctica.

FetLife offers a vast number of choices in the gender, orientation and role categories. In fact the biggest I have ever seen. John has said he would like to have a fill in the blank form here. For now, pick what is closest (and I think 90-95% will be well served by the choices listed).

Once you have that filled out,  you need to provide your country, state/province and city. If you’re very new and don’t feel comfortable filling that in, just choose a location near enough to make you comfortable.

You can also safely fill in your birth date as well. Remember, there is no age search. But if that makes you sad, there are also a surprisingly number of 90 year old kinksters too. lol

Finally put in your contact info (email address), password, enter in the verification code and click on the annoying legalese and you’re done.

Welcome to Fetlife.

Next time, I visit this subject I will talk about how to use it.

MV

Update #1

FetLife just added the ability to mark individual photos as “private” which means that only people on your friends list can see them. They will also not show up on the feed, unless the person is also your friend.

I ran across this video blog the other day, and I thought I would share it with you. I hope you find it interesting.

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQPTW4vyjAQ]

You can see what she says about CollarMe after the break.

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ga8bd31t3JI]

What do you think about these services?

MV

I saw a post on FetLife the other day where someone asked why her Dom said she made a better girlfriend than a sub. This cause a bit of confusion for people. They did not get that there was a real difference between a girlfriend and a full time submissive. You see, in a modern boyfriend/girlfriend relationship, the partners are pretty much equals. They negotiate every thing. Sometimes he gets his way, other times she gets her way.  In a D/s or M/s relationship, both get their needs met, but the power is oriented so that the D-type gets their way. That is the difference and why a sub isn’t my girlfriend. The exchange of power.

Now for some, they do the dating thing and don’t exchange power outside of the bedroom. And that is OK, but that is why for some of us power exchange is more important.

Let me know how you feel about this, in the comments.

MV

OK, I am giving my ideas about the FetLife feed on my own page.  I have made some changes to the graphics to protect the innocent. (As if any of my FetLife friends are innocent, LOL.) Before I launch into the negatives, lets talk about what they got right.

The first thing that I like is that we now have continuous feed. That means that when you scroll down, you don’t have to click to continue.  That is neat and is a big improvement. Speeds up my perving of FetLife.

I also like the change of placement for the upload links. They moved them underneath the status bar. Makes them more handy. More handy means more stuff uploaded.  Might be better if they were a little brighter, but overall they are an improvement over the old one off to the side.

The next thing I like, at least in theory (it is only available to premium paying members so I haven’t had a chance to try it out yet), is the gag feature. This allows you to put friends who overshare, or who wanted to follow you (but you didn’t care if you saw their stuff) in a kind of timeout, where you don’t see their stuff. You can also customize your feed where you may only want to see group activities, or you don’t want to see writings.  Again, this is a pay for play feature, so I have no real opinion on this.

Now where did they go wrong?  Well frankly this was the ugliest update that I have seen to date on their site.  Normally John Baku shows a great deal of care and love for a site design.  And I did see him try here.  But something went horribly wrong.  The layout of this design reminded me of a Visual Studio design, and that is no compliment.  I particularly do not like the layout of the sidebar, the font size is too small, particularly for us older members.  My eye sight isn’t what it used to be.

I also have a major functional issue with the new group listing to the side.  The groups you lead, as you will notice in the picture above are all nicely laid out, like the old feed was.  But now the groups you are a member of are all in a scroll bar.  Why John, why?  I am in soooo many groups.  They all do not all show up on one screen, and it is almost impossible to use on a mobile device.  I have noted a lot of complaints from Blackberry users in particular.

One more glaring mistake is the omission of the link to support FetLife.  For some reason, they have decided to replace that with links to services that only paying members can use. Instead of seeing a friendly message asking for a support, you get a “Fuck you you non-paying bastard” feel every time you click on gag, or one of the other symbols (like the @ symbol at the top).  John, please put back the nice message. Stop turning me off with those links.  I understand that FetLife needs to make a buck. Servers don’t run on free.  And John Baku and company need to pay rent, buy food and buy remote controlled cars. But seriously, you think that annoying your users is a good way to make that money? Stop it.

OK, those are my thoughts. But I would love to hear what you think. Let me know, in the comments.

MV

Update

James and John have sent me some feedback based on this article.

From James:

My response was pretty simple to James. The continuous scrolling has to go.  I mean besides crippling groups on my home page, what if I want to read the stuff at the footer?  I have to go through how may hours/days worth of material? Or I have to leave the home feed.  Not a good solution.  Back to the drawing board with this one.  I suggested that they could replace the click (or at least add to it) a mouse over to the area you used to click, and that would solve the issue for everyone.  the feed wouldn’t be continuous, but it would be usable.

From John I received this message:

I suspect that that he may have been referring to the “What’s popular” feed that launched this week. Meh, not that impressed.  Still don’t see the need to screw with people’s feeds like they did to add it.  Could have easily been added as another tab.

And the tech support thread has been screaming with people having issues with the new feed.  Too much Java script for older machines and buggy code for others (probably more to do with mobile devices).

Yep.  Great planning to put your customers through the “Madness”.
MV

So ever since James announced chat coming to FetLife I’ve felt betrayed. I recall vividly John Baku saying that Chat would not come to FetLife. That there would never be a way to show who is online. This was a different experience than other sites. A fun place to get your kink on. A place to connect with new people.

Now apparently they are rolling out a feature that does both. And it is on by default. I felt betrayed. I got that feeling you get when a company does something sleazy. Let’s call it that “FaceBook Feeling” because that’s how that site makes me fee with the way they change settings and eliminate privacy without much complaint. And I feel even less motivated to donate to support the site. (Actually I feel motivated to not donate, so I that I will not get features I neither want nor need.)

I thought about deleting my account. But really, would that matter? Would anybody else even care? Who would even notice?

In my analysis, it seemed that the only person who would suffer is myself. I gain nothing from killing my account. Staying with a site I now consider to be in the same league as FaceBook when it comes to my trust. I’ll still be there when ASL Search comes. I’ll still be there when they sell my info. Why? Because it is a trade off. I get something. I can control most of what FetLife sees about me.

I’ve come to learn companies lie. They do what makes the most money.

And they lie. When it is convenient they change their story. I had hoped that fetlife would be different. Time has shown me that they aren’t really all that different.

So, I will be turning that feature off. Turning off scripting on that site. I will probably not recommend FetLife to anyone in the future, at least until I am convinced John means what he says. Our reputation and credibility is important. More so in this shadowy world of kink we live in. I feel most disappointed because I have been there from the warily days, my blog started within a month of FetLife’s start. It felt like family.

And now, it feels more like FaceBook.

If you have any thoughts or feelings about this, or FetLife in general please feel free to post in the comments. ( And if you feel like I am full of it, let me know that too. )

That was a good song. Loved it.

Saw this posted today on FetLife, an event in Durham, NC called PUSH. It seems interesting.  If it were closer, I would try to attend.  You might want to check it out if you are looking for something to do on June 16th.

Details are here.

Oh, and something else to enjoy. I do like that song.

MV

Photo credit: Wikipedia

Ok. I saw something on FetLife today that really annoyed me. A slave essentially said the following:

It isn’t my choice to do this, my Master made me do this.

Bull-fucking-shit.

Yes slaves, unless you are brain-damaged or brainwashed, it is your choice. It may not be your preference but you choose every day to obey and honor your Master. Do not demean that choice by saying that it isn’t yours to make. Own it. Be proud of it.

Now, if you are a slave who is beaten and kept chained naked in an unheated damp basement, then I am wrong in your case. You don’t have a choice. Everyone else, watch your language.

(And if your that chained/caged/beaten slaves master, message me about how the fuck you got away with it.

MV

The leather pride flag, which has become a symbol of BDSM and fetish subcultures. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I saw this question in the tech support forum on FetLife today. This sparked me to think about FetLife’s current situation. A few weeks ago JohnBaku announced that FetLife lost its relationship suddenly with it’s payment processor. Now if you read the full thread, you will see the end where iBill starts talking. To be honest, I don’t know who to believe about what happened. And I don’t care. It isn’t relevant to me and my life right now.

Now, I personally don’t think FetLife is going anywhere anytime soon. But it does beg the question what do I do if FetLife goes away.

FetLife has offered a unique opportunity to grow the Fetish and BDSM communities like nothing ever seen before. It allowed us to connect. It allowed us to exchange ideas. It allowed local communities to grow at an unbelievable rate.

It was a good thing.

But, is your community prepared for what happens if FetLife goes down? Will your munch group survive? Do you have people’s email? Do you have a website? Do you have contingency marketing plans? Don’t build your community only on the back of FetLife, instead leverage FetLife to market what you build.

MV

FetLife has a secret. There are things it has not been telling you. There are things FetLife doesn’t want you to know about. Things FetLife has been strangely silent on. There are things there (some of which are allowed still by FetLife’s terms of use) that you cannot find.  When you search for these words, you won’t find Groups, Fetishes or even Users who have these words in their names or profile.  Some of these terms are understandable, some are not.

Strangely, even though there have been several posts on the FetLife tech support group about this, there has been no official response from FetLife or John Baku. We know this is deliberate, and not some sort of bug, because at one point you could search the terms using quote marks and then all of a sudden you couldn’t. We know these aren’t necessarily banned terms, because if you can find a user with them in their profile and click on them you can find them. And Hypnotism isn’t banned and returns results that include the banned terms.

Below is a list of terms compiled by a FetLife user named Snakeman. He did a lot of work (which I have’t done the research to verify, but you should be able to find out for yourself by clicking on the links.

• lita
• Family
• Knife
• Forced
• Force
• Rape
• Raped
• Incest
• Bestiality
• Murder
• Cannibalism
• Cannibal
• Teen
• Snuff
• Gun
• Guns
• Underage
• Child
• Children
• Kid
• Kids
• Baby
• Babies
• Prostitute
• Prostitution
• Necrophilia
• Shit
• Scat
• Drugged
• Kidnap
• Young
• Infant
• Infanticide
• Knives
• Molest
• Torture
• Hypnotise
• Hypnosis

Frankly some of this disturbs me deeply. FetLife used to be a safe place for kinksers to meet and discuss taboo topics.  I still think it is the best place to connect with other members of my community, but it seems it is no longer a place to discuss taboos.  I will be emailing John Baku for his official statement and to why there has been no official word as to why this has been kept quiet.

FetLife really changed the game when it came online back in 2008. FetLife was a different sort of social networking site. Before it existed, the kink community congregated in sites like Alt.com, CollarMe.com and Bondage.com. While they all served their purpose, and had thriving forums, they were first and foremost a meat market. Their focus was on getting you laid.

Search
First, FetLife doesn’t let you search for users by age, sex, orientation, or role. You won’t immediately find a way to do this. And while you can search Don’t worry about. FetLife isn’t about instant gratification, but rather it is about making a deeper connection. You can find what you want, but instead of it being served up on a platter for you, you have to do some looking and talking and meeting people. Kind of like the offline world.

Imagine going to a night club where you walk up to a host and say, “Hey, show me all the blonde 18-25 year olds who live 25 minutes from me.” That isn’t how the real world works. That isn’t the way FetLife works. You are going to have to join groups and interact with people. Just like real life.

User Status
No one knows you are online. Let me repeat that, you won’t get a ping from someone you know saying, “Hey I saw you were online and wanted to see if you wanted to chat.” That lets you lean back and relax. When you look at someone’s pics or post or profile, no trace is left unless you leave it on purpose. You can write on their walls or not or “perv” (as John Baku likes to say) their pics and no one will know.

I really like this. While it is fun to see who is looking at your profile, it can be a bit annoying at times and I don’t always want people to know what pics I am looking at. And here you have that option.

Privacy Options
To put it bluntly, there are none. Now John doesn’t let search engines crawl through the depths so you won’t find the content through web searches. But anybody can see your profile and every post, picture and comment is visible through your profile and the other users’ “feeds”. Write a post, and all your friends can see it.

While some are concerned about issues regarding stalking or not being able to share more risqué content with only friends my way of thinking, this is better in two ways.

The first way this is better is that you are accountable for what you post. Say something mean, there is a trail. Post a picture that isn’t you, everyone sees it. I think it leads to a more mature environment and a bit of a small, home-town feel. You don’t get to hide here. You can build (or destroy) a reputation because there is a history.

The second way is due to the nature of the Internet. If you place anything on the Internet that even one other person can see (and why did you upload it it if you don’t want to share it in the first place?), it can get out. Popular culture examples revolve around Facebook, but this experience has been going on for a long time. There is a story in the news about a woman who got fired from her job for something she said on Facebook. And Facebook is famous for the privacy controls. Frankly, privacy settings is more about theatre than keeping your stuff private. You don’t want it seen? Don’t post it.

That said, FetLife does give you some defenses.  If some one is harassing you and sending you unwanted messages, you can simply go to their profile, and click on REALLY BIG (well maybe not that big) block button on the right side. Click that and *poof* they cannot message you, see your profile (beyond a few basic bits of info), any of your pics (besides your profile icon), and all their messages and comments magically disappear.

If they aren’t bothering you on your profile but in a group instead, try messaging one of the leaders. They are usually the best place to start asking for help. If that doesn’t work you can email the caretakers (caretakers @ fetlife. com) and they can help you out as well. The caretakers are all volunteers, but they try to respond to spamming and serious harassment issues as quickly as they can. I have even seen people removed from FetLife, though they usually like to approach the users and try to mediate the differences first.

‘Nuff said about the differences, lets get you signed up.

FetLife account creation.
Going to FetLife.com for the first time will present you with a screen like this. One interesting note is that all of the pics on the web page are actual FetLife members. JohnBaku arranged to have some of these pics taken in a photo shoot and he has even called for member generated images as well for the public face of FetLife. Look around for a bit, because you can see some interesting stats. When you are ready, click on the BIG sign-up button and get started.

I wanted to include a screenshot of the signup form and highlight some of the unique features of FetLife. First, John doesn’t ask for a lot of information from you. Something to call you. Gender, orientation, date of birth. Country.

That last part is important. FetLife is highly international. I see posts everyday from people in Canada, Europe, and Australia. In fact FetLife itself is mostly run by kinky Canucks.

And if you are uncomfortable telling people where you live, there are an amazing number of kinksters in Antarctica.

FetLife offers a vast number of choices in the gender, orientation and role categories. In fact the biggest I have ever seen. John has said he would like to have a fill in the blank form here. For now, pick what is closest (and I think 90-95% will be well served by the choices listed).

Once you have that filled out,  you need to provide your country, state/province and city. If you’re very new and don’t feel comfortable filling that in, just choose a location near enough to make you comfortable.

You can also safely fill in your birth date as well. Remember, there is no age search. But if that makes you sad, there are also a surprisingly number of 90 year old kinksters too. lol

Finally put in your contact info (email address), password, enter in the verification code and click on the annoying legalese and you’re done.

Welcome to Fetlife.

Next time, I visit this subject I will talk about how to use it.

MV

Update #1

FetLife just added the ability to mark individual photos as “private” which means that only people on your friends list can see them. They will also not show up on the feed, unless the person is also your friend.

Photo credit: Wikipedia

Ok. I saw something on FetLife today that really annoyed me. A slave essentially said the following:

It isn’t my choice to do this, my Master made me do this.

Bull-fucking-shit.

Yes slaves, unless you are brain-damaged or brainwashed, it is your choice. It may not be your preference but you choose every day to obey and honor your Master. Do not demean that choice by saying that it isn’t yours to make. Own it. Be proud of it.

Now, if you are a slave who is beaten and kept chained naked in an unheated damp basement, then I am wrong in your case. You don’t have a choice. Everyone else, watch your language.

(And if your that chained/caged/beaten slaves master, message me about how the fuck you got away with it.

MV

Looks like our favorite fetish social network is purging again, and has been silent on it again too. Right now there is no credit card payment option, no add new group link, and groups and fetishes on the banned words list are disappearing. The only official word on the recent actions taken were on a post about removing blood photos and that it was due to the new political climate here in America.

I’ll post any updates I find out.

MV

Recently I posted about the new purge of forbidden fetishes and groups on FetLife. I want to make something clear. While I hate that John Baku and BitLove have to toe the line of the credit card processors, but let us be real they do. FetLife is a privatly owned website and has provided a great service to the community. But to stay open, they have to be able to take credit cards. It is unpleasant, but real.

My issue is that I had wished that John had published an announcement about the cleanup. It is true that many of these fetishes were banned years ago, though he tried to be clever and hid them for as long as he could to get around the processors.  I suspect that caused the issue we are dealing with today. So John, if you read this, please take a minute and let us know what is going on.

Thanks if you do, John.

MV