Another Cis white male here who absolutely hates anyone who cannot respect boundaries, I am behind this effort all the way. Some of my favorite kinksters happen to be black women and I refuse to be a part of any system that is marginalizing those more at-risk folks just trying to enjoy what small joy there might be in life. Fetlife used to be a much more diverse and free flowing society and now with the current national trend of fascism, race baiting, pedophilia, and toxic masculinity at disastrous levels we all could use a little more support in our lives. I have noticed most of the women in my local area rooms have all moved on and I cannot blame them one bit. Fuck Bro culture and fuck anyone who threatens or leverages the kinkster community. As one of you I will die on that hill.
I’ve already left a longer piece on FetLife where I elaborate more, but in short this isn’t about color or anything like that, it’s about someone not respecting your “no”. Unfortunately, you can’t fully stop this behaviour because it’s rooted in ego, entitlement, ignorance, and the inability to handle rejection. You can block, report, and educate, but you can’t rewrite everyone’s psychology.
I also understand these situations can be triggering, they trigger me too, but exposing a personal chat with someone’s nickname is seen by the platform as breaking privacy rules, regardless of whether the person deserved it. They treat it as doxing to avoid bias and legal issues, encouraging internal reporting instead. It may feel unfair, but part of this is about platform policy as much as personal boundaries.
Not to discount anything you've said, but its all women. It doesn’t matter if you're green, purple, blue whatever. Fet is no longer a safe place for women in general. They do not support any woman who speaks out against harassment. They allow people, both men and women to harass, hurt, and humiliate women and when we call it out, we get put in the corner and the guilty party gets absolutely nothing. We get told to be the bigger person and just ignore or block, however I've witnessed myself the same perpetrators come.right back under a different screen name and continue the harassment once blocked. FET needs to do better….
You’ll get no debate from me on this. I agree. It’s absolutely a full community concern. I can only see as far as my feed and followers but I hope to amplify this to the other sides of the platform and it encourages them to join us as well. I welcome additional hashtags to represent the subsets of communities in the platform. We have #UncensorBlackKink to highlight a major concern in our community. I encourage others to do the same.
I feel like fet needs a solid reset everyone should start with a fresh slate. But have a lot more diversity in the systems, I’m all for peer reviewed and the three strike system makes sense but I also think there should be digital workshops and tutorials because the site can be rather overwhelming online for some introverted peoples. And going to munch can be just such an inconvenience with managing work or family
I started writing this, and a lot of buried anger poured out of me. I'm a gay black man.
Let me start with the featured "Kinky and popular" section. It's full of white, young, slim, primarily straight, cis women. Who does Fetlife expect to attract with this section? Straight cis males. It looks like any other straight porn site that's built for straight cis males. There are hundreds and hundreds of them on the web. It's popular with exactly the people that the site's administration sees as important. That's why it has the subheading. If it wasn't important, it wouldn't have a subheading. If there was a featured section of the site that featured 98% non-cis men and trans people and included those who weren't young and slim, I'm sure the admins would cancel it. If it featured a cross-section of average people on the site, the admins would cancel it. In both cases, straight cis men would complain, and they're more important than anyone else on Fetlife.
A minor irritation that compounds the above: The built-in, hard-coded profile phrase, “Princess by day, Slut by night” also makes me crazy. The site's admins claim to be fair and open-minded, but there's no "Prince by day... " or "Trans royalty by day... " Again, straight cis men are more important than anyone else.
Then there are easily found, clear violations of the Community Guidelines & Content Guidelines. They say, "Our caretaking team acts on reports of abuse using more than 20 different internal policies covering a range of behaviours, from the use of racial slurs and body shaming to revenge porn and sex offenders." Just do a search on the "N" word with an "er" at the end, or an "ar" at the end. Who does that offend most? Certainly not most straight, white, cis males. I guess that, therefore, it's not a priority. Automated searches would also be too difficult because it's not a priority. Expecting offended people to manually search the site 24/7 is absurd.
Using the excuse, "but straight, white cis males are the majority" is a weak one. They're not the majority. The majority of men anywhere aren't kinky. And the global population of males, kinky or not, is not a majority. If you count just kinky white cis males, they're definitely a minority group. But it feels like the site somehow along the way decided that they're the only important ones.
Fet was programed by nazis, so it's very foundation is inherently racist no matter how many good movements came out of it. You want to make a change to Fet? You have to hurt them in the one way that will force a change, financially.We take the Collective Shout Approach. We go and report how fetlife is a breeding ground for predators, how admins are putting children at risk, how racism is running rampant.. We pressure payment providers such as Mastercard/Visa and force them to pull out.. it would be a massive blow to fetlife and really put the pressure to make change.. going "quiet" will not work..
I’ve been wrongly targeted in the past and accused of things I was never involved with at the time. But the community has some toxic mob mentality that judge everyone equally for small mistakes, like me I was dating someone through fet and they were posting content that I didn’t fully consent to when I started posting similar content ( wouldn’t show identification) I would get hell to pay. Despite taking the photo with the person with their phone together and get clear verbal consent only for them to deny it but not deny my pictures that I didn’t consent too.
I’ve been wrongly targeted in the past and accused of things I was never involved with at the time. But the community has some toxic mob mentality that judge everyone equally for small mistakes, like me I was dating someone through fet and they were posting content that I didn’t fully consent to when I started posting similar content ( wouldn’t show identification) I would get hell to pay. Despite taking the photo with the person with their phone together and get clear verbal consent only for them to deny it but not deny my pictures that I didn’t consent too.
I did not remove the user image or name a fully expected a spotting warning owning the post and got a TO for “screenshot” which I didn’t know was a thing. Different reason code. No previous warning with that code that I know of because they don’t tell you what the reason code is for when they remove posts. That visibility is a part of the request.
So, I'm not 100% sure what you're saying here, but if I understand you correctly you posted a screenshot without anonymizing it. If this is the case then that is indeed against the terms of use and they are within their rights to issue a timeout. Whether it's FAIR is another matter entirely. I think we can all agree that there are too many assholes on this platform, who send too many transgressive and shitty messages to people. But I'd also hate to exist on a platform where public shaming is allowed. I've often argued the need for a system whereby aren't merely given timeouts when their messages are reported by recipients, but that they are also banned from contacting anyone new for a while once their timeouts have lifted. I.e.: you can use the website but cannot cold-write anyone for a period. Until such time, the only way to deal with this, within the rules of the terms of use, is to simply report and remember to anonymize any (understandable) rage-posts.
You are spot on. Exactly all of this. The only revision I’d make is to note that even anonymizing a screenshot is against the community guidelines. Didn’t know that. But the gaps you name are spot on as to what we would like to see addressed.
I didn't know that screenshots are against the community guidelines even when anonymized. Though it does make sense on some level. In principle direct messages ought to be considered private unless permission is given by both parties to share. But yeah, it's beside the point in the sense that posting scrrenshots (anonymized or not) is usually a reaction to an environment in which transgressions go unpunished and people feel the need to take matters into their own hand or react out of pure frustration. I.e.: that's what needs to be addressed first and foremost. I'm glad we can find common ground on this😊
I agree. I use my privacy feaures as best as I can but I also think that there should be some accountability if my profile indicates my desires for intercactions and someone violates that. It’s digital non-consent. Just because you have access to my DMs doesnt mean I want you using it.
Actions speak louder than words, but $$$$ probably speaks loudest of all.
Has anyone considered a mass email campaign to Fet advertisers? It's not that difficult to do, is it?
Click on a banner ad, see where it leads to... take down the email addy of that business. Build a list, and then let the messages begin. I would *NOT* use hashtags or anything uniform. Don't make it easy for the recipients to filter out, and send directly to the spam folder. I would start out writing about a product or service, ask questions about things pertaining to the business, and then somewhere in there slip in a line, towards the bottom, "Oh, and have you heard about what's happening on Fetlife? They don't like people of color." Something to that effect.
Yo I deal with the same kind of stuff as a man from gay white men and I don't understand how many times I would like no I'm not gay I'm not bi I will not make any exception I will deactivate my account tomorrow
1. the caretakers are diverse. You would be surprised who is among them. But they cant say who they are.
2. You don't have all the information to make those decisions.
3. There is a clear structure in place with very limited room for adjusting.
4. It's near impossible to do that. People will always find a way.
5. There is no punishment for reporting someone. The caretakers look at everything they see before taking action. If you view it as biased against you, I'm sorry. If you want a follow up team THAT is a great idea!
6. The rules are enforced as clearly as they can be written without covering every single possible situation. There are guidelines made up based on issues that occur in the community and they are pretty extensive and have increments and levels based on continued violation.
7. It's not a monarchy it's a TEAM of people working together.
Threatening the site is not how to work together towards a better site. Working with others and the site will yield much better results.
Assuming all you have shared is true... why, then, is Baku so scared... so callous... so indifferent... that he pretty much ignores these issues whenever they come up? Why do they put so much effort into shadowbanning, timeouts, and other measures? They prefer to distract everyone with one shiny object after another (posting photos in groups, superloves, etc), rather than tackle these big, sore, festering issues?
Why not address these things head-on? Why the defensive posturing over the red pill incel crowd, where so much of this bad behavior seems to be rooted?
No response or outreach to the open letter. I commented to J.B. earlier on an other post I Superloved this morning about some proposed change. I am currently drafting a direct letter to them to send immediately ahead of he deactivation date and a series of the will follow as the protest escalates and evolves. More to come for sure. Thank you for your support.
I hardly believe that "just taking a screenshot of a inappropriate DM" was the cause for a ban. It seems more likely the ban arose as a result of sharing that screenshot online. If that is the case and this is main example used to describe "the lack of right to defend oneself". Then the board of FetLife is justified. Why? You are allowed to denied yourself. By adressing the person in the DM. Or contacting the board if the harassment continues. But sharing DM's online is not allowed. Just like you would not share data on a murder case or some other case that the police would be working on. Just like we wouldn't seek to be our own judge and jury.
Well duh! Because if I didn’t share the screenshot, how could they know it existed. So yea, you’re right but prior to this incident. The point is that the enforcement and the policy behind taking and sharing that screenshot on the site, carried a harsher punishment they someone Harrison’s me unprovoked and turning invitation. Both things are wrong but one, the lesser offense, has a clear outline policy that includes consequence where the other, does not. That is the issue here. You are correct.
Okay. So. I want to do this because I'm her. And it pisses me off that we can't publicly call out abusers on here. That being said I've read that Fetlife claims they will never be able to support these kind of features because a) they can't get passed for things like the app store and b) there simply aren't enough members to pay for those features and never will be. So I'm wondering what exactly a protest will do? It's not like fetlife is run by millionaire administration and tech. It's surprisingly a small owned local site with not a lot of resources.
Another Cis white male here who absolutely hates anyone who cannot respect boundaries, I am behind this effort all the way. Some of my favorite kinksters happen to be black women and I refuse to be a part of any system that is marginalizing those more at-risk folks just trying to enjoy what small joy there might be in life. Fetlife used to be a much more diverse and free flowing society and now with the current national trend of fascism, race baiting, pedophilia, and toxic masculinity at disastrous levels we all could use a little more support in our lives. I have noticed most of the women in my local area rooms have all moved on and I cannot blame them one bit. Fuck Bro culture and fuck anyone who threatens or leverages the kinkster community. As one of you I will die on that hill.
Me and my late partner loved using alt page before fet but had bad experiences with fet I’m the early days of fet and didn’t use it until later.
I’ve already left a longer piece on FetLife where I elaborate more, but in short this isn’t about color or anything like that, it’s about someone not respecting your “no”. Unfortunately, you can’t fully stop this behaviour because it’s rooted in ego, entitlement, ignorance, and the inability to handle rejection. You can block, report, and educate, but you can’t rewrite everyone’s psychology.
I also understand these situations can be triggering, they trigger me too, but exposing a personal chat with someone’s nickname is seen by the platform as breaking privacy rules, regardless of whether the person deserved it. They treat it as doxing to avoid bias and legal issues, encouraging internal reporting instead. It may feel unfair, but part of this is about platform policy as much as personal boundaries.
https://fetlife.com/velvetawakening/posts/12738326
Not to discount anything you've said, but its all women. It doesn’t matter if you're green, purple, blue whatever. Fet is no longer a safe place for women in general. They do not support any woman who speaks out against harassment. They allow people, both men and women to harass, hurt, and humiliate women and when we call it out, we get put in the corner and the guilty party gets absolutely nothing. We get told to be the bigger person and just ignore or block, however I've witnessed myself the same perpetrators come.right back under a different screen name and continue the harassment once blocked. FET needs to do better….
You’ll get no debate from me on this. I agree. It’s absolutely a full community concern. I can only see as far as my feed and followers but I hope to amplify this to the other sides of the platform and it encourages them to join us as well. I welcome additional hashtags to represent the subsets of communities in the platform. We have #UncensorBlackKink to highlight a major concern in our community. I encourage others to do the same.
Thanks you for your support and engagement.
I feel like fet needs a solid reset everyone should start with a fresh slate. But have a lot more diversity in the systems, I’m all for peer reviewed and the three strike system makes sense but I also think there should be digital workshops and tutorials because the site can be rather overwhelming online for some introverted peoples. And going to munch can be just such an inconvenience with managing work or family
There is plenty of information on FET. It's up to you to look for it, learn by reading old posts, writings, etc.
There are books, online classes. You just haven't put any time into it.
I started writing this, and a lot of buried anger poured out of me. I'm a gay black man.
Let me start with the featured "Kinky and popular" section. It's full of white, young, slim, primarily straight, cis women. Who does Fetlife expect to attract with this section? Straight cis males. It looks like any other straight porn site that's built for straight cis males. There are hundreds and hundreds of them on the web. It's popular with exactly the people that the site's administration sees as important. That's why it has the subheading. If it wasn't important, it wouldn't have a subheading. If there was a featured section of the site that featured 98% non-cis men and trans people and included those who weren't young and slim, I'm sure the admins would cancel it. If it featured a cross-section of average people on the site, the admins would cancel it. In both cases, straight cis men would complain, and they're more important than anyone else on Fetlife.
A minor irritation that compounds the above: The built-in, hard-coded profile phrase, “Princess by day, Slut by night” also makes me crazy. The site's admins claim to be fair and open-minded, but there's no "Prince by day... " or "Trans royalty by day... " Again, straight cis men are more important than anyone else.
Then there are easily found, clear violations of the Community Guidelines & Content Guidelines. They say, "Our caretaking team acts on reports of abuse using more than 20 different internal policies covering a range of behaviours, from the use of racial slurs and body shaming to revenge porn and sex offenders." Just do a search on the "N" word with an "er" at the end, or an "ar" at the end. Who does that offend most? Certainly not most straight, white, cis males. I guess that, therefore, it's not a priority. Automated searches would also be too difficult because it's not a priority. Expecting offended people to manually search the site 24/7 is absurd.
Using the excuse, "but straight, white cis males are the majority" is a weak one. They're not the majority. The majority of men anywhere aren't kinky. And the global population of males, kinky or not, is not a majority. If you count just kinky white cis males, they're definitely a minority group. But it feels like the site somehow along the way decided that they're the only important ones.
I have seen enough of this play out in the public spaces of Fet, and have a rough idea of the size of the issue behind the scenes.
All your goals are valid requests. I support this.
Fet was programed by nazis, so it's very foundation is inherently racist no matter how many good movements came out of it. You want to make a change to Fet? You have to hurt them in the one way that will force a change, financially.We take the Collective Shout Approach. We go and report how fetlife is a breeding ground for predators, how admins are putting children at risk, how racism is running rampant.. We pressure payment providers such as Mastercard/Visa and force them to pull out.. it would be a massive blow to fetlife and really put the pressure to make change.. going "quiet" will not work..
I’ve been wrongly targeted in the past and accused of things I was never involved with at the time. But the community has some toxic mob mentality that judge everyone equally for small mistakes, like me I was dating someone through fet and they were posting content that I didn’t fully consent to when I started posting similar content ( wouldn’t show identification) I would get hell to pay. Despite taking the photo with the person with their phone together and get clear verbal consent only for them to deny it but not deny my pictures that I didn’t consent too.
I’ve been wrongly targeted in the past and accused of things I was never involved with at the time. But the community has some toxic mob mentality that judge everyone equally for small mistakes, like me I was dating someone through fet and they were posting content that I didn’t fully consent to when I started posting similar content ( wouldn’t show identification) I would get hell to pay. Despite taking the photo with the person with their phone together and get clear verbal consent only for them to deny it but not deny my pictures that I didn’t consent too.
Clarifying question: did you post that screenshot without anonymizing it? Was that the reason they put you on timeout?
I did not remove the user image or name a fully expected a spotting warning owning the post and got a TO for “screenshot” which I didn’t know was a thing. Different reason code. No previous warning with that code that I know of because they don’t tell you what the reason code is for when they remove posts. That visibility is a part of the request.
So, I'm not 100% sure what you're saying here, but if I understand you correctly you posted a screenshot without anonymizing it. If this is the case then that is indeed against the terms of use and they are within their rights to issue a timeout. Whether it's FAIR is another matter entirely. I think we can all agree that there are too many assholes on this platform, who send too many transgressive and shitty messages to people. But I'd also hate to exist on a platform where public shaming is allowed. I've often argued the need for a system whereby aren't merely given timeouts when their messages are reported by recipients, but that they are also banned from contacting anyone new for a while once their timeouts have lifted. I.e.: you can use the website but cannot cold-write anyone for a period. Until such time, the only way to deal with this, within the rules of the terms of use, is to simply report and remember to anonymize any (understandable) rage-posts.
You are spot on. Exactly all of this. The only revision I’d make is to note that even anonymizing a screenshot is against the community guidelines. Didn’t know that. But the gaps you name are spot on as to what we would like to see addressed.
I didn't know that screenshots are against the community guidelines even when anonymized. Though it does make sense on some level. In principle direct messages ought to be considered private unless permission is given by both parties to share. But yeah, it's beside the point in the sense that posting scrrenshots (anonymized or not) is usually a reaction to an environment in which transgressions go unpunished and people feel the need to take matters into their own hand or react out of pure frustration. I.e.: that's what needs to be addressed first and foremost. I'm glad we can find common ground on this😊
I agree. I use my privacy feaures as best as I can but I also think that there should be some accountability if my profile indicates my desires for intercactions and someone violates that. It’s digital non-consent. Just because you have access to my DMs doesnt mean I want you using it.
Actions speak louder than words, but $$$$ probably speaks loudest of all.
Has anyone considered a mass email campaign to Fet advertisers? It's not that difficult to do, is it?
Click on a banner ad, see where it leads to... take down the email addy of that business. Build a list, and then let the messages begin. I would *NOT* use hashtags or anything uniform. Don't make it easy for the recipients to filter out, and send directly to the spam folder. I would start out writing about a product or service, ask questions about things pertaining to the business, and then somewhere in there slip in a line, towards the bottom, "Oh, and have you heard about what's happening on Fetlife? They don't like people of color." Something to that effect.
Just a thought...
FetLife isn't funded primarily by advertisers - the majority of their funding comes from members subscriptions.
I 100% support you all. white male here who is constantly ashamed of what many white men do and get away with
Yo I deal with the same kind of stuff as a man from gay white men and I don't understand how many times I would like no I'm not gay I'm not bi I will not make any exception I will deactivate my account tomorrow
1. the caretakers are diverse. You would be surprised who is among them. But they cant say who they are.
2. You don't have all the information to make those decisions.
3. There is a clear structure in place with very limited room for adjusting.
4. It's near impossible to do that. People will always find a way.
5. There is no punishment for reporting someone. The caretakers look at everything they see before taking action. If you view it as biased against you, I'm sorry. If you want a follow up team THAT is a great idea!
6. The rules are enforced as clearly as they can be written without covering every single possible situation. There are guidelines made up based on issues that occur in the community and they are pretty extensive and have increments and levels based on continued violation.
7. It's not a monarchy it's a TEAM of people working together.
Threatening the site is not how to work together towards a better site. Working with others and the site will yield much better results.
Anonymous... you make interesting points.
Assuming all you have shared is true... why, then, is Baku so scared... so callous... so indifferent... that he pretty much ignores these issues whenever they come up? Why do they put so much effort into shadowbanning, timeouts, and other measures? They prefer to distract everyone with one shiny object after another (posting photos in groups, superloves, etc), rather than tackle these big, sore, festering issues?
Why not address these things head-on? Why the defensive posturing over the red pill incel crowd, where so much of this bad behavior seems to be rooted?
Any update on fets reply
No response or outreach to the open letter. I commented to J.B. earlier on an other post I Superloved this morning about some proposed change. I am currently drafting a direct letter to them to send immediately ahead of he deactivation date and a series of the will follow as the protest escalates and evolves. More to come for sure. Thank you for your support.
Ok thanks for the update I deactivated my page already for in support. And I hope that things change.
I hardly believe that "just taking a screenshot of a inappropriate DM" was the cause for a ban. It seems more likely the ban arose as a result of sharing that screenshot online. If that is the case and this is main example used to describe "the lack of right to defend oneself". Then the board of FetLife is justified. Why? You are allowed to denied yourself. By adressing the person in the DM. Or contacting the board if the harassment continues. But sharing DM's online is not allowed. Just like you would not share data on a murder case or some other case that the police would be working on. Just like we wouldn't seek to be our own judge and jury.
Well duh! Because if I didn’t share the screenshot, how could they know it existed. So yea, you’re right but prior to this incident. The point is that the enforcement and the policy behind taking and sharing that screenshot on the site, carried a harsher punishment they someone Harrison’s me unprovoked and turning invitation. Both things are wrong but one, the lesser offense, has a clear outline policy that includes consequence where the other, does not. That is the issue here. You are correct.
Thank You for your contribution.
Okay. So. I want to do this because I'm her. And it pisses me off that we can't publicly call out abusers on here. That being said I've read that Fetlife claims they will never be able to support these kind of features because a) they can't get passed for things like the app store and b) there simply aren't enough members to pay for those features and never will be. So I'm wondering what exactly a protest will do? It's not like fetlife is run by millionaire administration and tech. It's surprisingly a small owned local site with not a lot of resources.