Thoughts on Fetlife

SirSilverWolf​(dom male) • Jul 10, 2021

I have been on fetlife for a decade and honestly, I am pro and con. I used to use it as an avenue for looking up events and keeping up with friends in my circle of friends in the community.

Part of the problem with fetlife is their friends/followers dynamic. It feeds the attention seekers, so people tend to be more flamboyant and over the top. Let's face it BDSM is full of people looking for the fulfillment of one sort of another.

As a platform for meeting someone... At least from my perspective as a Gentleman Dom, it is almost worthless to respond to listings as every female gets 100's of responses to listings. Not to mention many are just looking for a friends list increase or body count multiplier.

All I can say is be careful, use good judgment, use a block as needed.

Old profiles

Jack of all doms​(dom male) • Jul 10, 2021

My biggest gripe with Fetlife is it is overrun with old, dead profiles. People who haven't been on in over 5, 10, 12 years and you still have wade through all that deadwood.

That and the male-female ratio is like totally out of wack so there are dozens of men to every one woman. I totally get why that is for women.

Women get treated like a fresh steak in the carnivore house and the carnivores are starving. Many women have told me they just feel completely unsafe and exposed in fetlife and I have say I blame them.

Jack of all doms​(dom male) • Jul 10, 2021

"I can't say I blame them."

Cressida Clytie​(masochist female){Taken} • Sep 19, 2021

I also have FL but I still prefer The Cage. For me, FL is so big and overwhelming. The number of nudes is hurting my eyes. The community is very wild. The hook-up culture is extremely popular, but I'm not into it. Nonetheless, I keep my profile updated.

Sasa​(dom female) • Sep 19, 2021

I have a Fetlife account, but I don't use it. My mailbox was full in an hour and it is simply not my place to be. Nothing to say against being horny, but I found mostly creepy men there, who wanted a kink dispenser. I tried a few times and gave up. Not worth my time.

SubtleHush​(sub female) • Sep 19, 2021

Little Vixie​(sub female)
Thoughts on Fetlife
2 months ago • 06/21/2021 9:53 pm
So I joined Fetlife and compared to the Cage I hate it. I wasn't sure if anyone else on here has a profile, but to me I feel like fetlife is the pornographic version of tinder. I've encountered several "doms" who claim to be into bdsm, but say that I must fork over trust and my rights. Am I seeing the wrong side of it or am I spot on?

.....................

(I'd say you have to be honest about what you seek from these sites. A big pro of FetLife is the discussions platform. It is more comprehensive than here, with groups that are topic-specific. I send a lot of people there who have specific questions that are best answered by others in that situation. I see them post questions here and get a variety of opinions from people who are clearly inexperienced or just answer every question and that is not helpful to the person asking.

I've been on a lot of lesser-known sites and they all have an abundance of porn-ish photos and people sharing wayyyy too much about what they want and how they want it. All of which is not automatically kink or fetish.

One site I was on briefly had a secret confessions section. THAT was rough. The shit people said there made it hard to believe these were people in our community (tho some were not) and actually had families, and jobs.

All sites I have been on have scammers, addicts, sex-obsessed creeps, and those who think your profile is an invite regardless of your relationship status. In other words, we see the same collection of fucked up people mixed with earnest people on all sites.

The fact is FetLife has been around a long time and accomplished a lot that made other sites better able to succeed.

It is a social network like facebook for our people. John Baku never wanted it to be more than that. This is why you have block options and people to report problem behavior to and no way to search age, sex, and location like many of the older sites offered.

As far as attention whores, they've been around since the beginning and are not exclusive to kink sites.

So if you hate it don't go there. But be sure you are not looking for events, groups, or socializing opportunities because they have the biggest lists for these anywhere that I have seen.

RightOne • Sep 19, 2021

Fetlife is a balkanized collectiion of group fiefdoms and the main staging ground for the culture wars in the kink community. It is obviously the best site for the full process of event organization and management. It is also an excellent site for finding people with similar kink interests, for deeper discussion and exploration. The largest group I own on the site has over 13K members, and it is a major resource for people into everything to do with healthy kink.

People who have great fears about being hit on will not like Fetlife. It is almost as if getting hit on in cyber space is, in some minds, a real life 'danger'. People who have such trouble distinguishing between cyber life and real life generally need to get out doors more. Travel more. Do real stuff in real life.

Fetlife does have the odd phenomena of cliques who have organized around 'hating and activisting' fetlife. These are the people who scheme and plan constantly how they are going to 'fix fetlife'. It reminds me of a general comment I heard recently about left activists....they are good at organizing a protest event. But do not trust them to run properly a lemonade stand in the suburbs!

My kinky journey and ongoing exploration has been substantially enhanced by Fetlife. I have been able to find and attend events globally because of the site. Develop a much deeper understanding of poly kink. Connect my athletic life and kinky life. The culture war dimension has helped me clarify in the deepest of ways my own values. Overall Fetlife is far and away the most important social media site for the global kink community...at present. TheCage.Co certainly has a chance to become another highly valued property as well.

R1HZ

SubtleHush​(sub female) • Sep 19, 2021

RightOne: "The largest group I own on the site has over 13K members, and it is a major resource for people into everything to do with healthy kink."

What is the name of your FetLife group?

KisforKitten​(sub female) • Sep 19, 2021

I actively use both and agree with a lot of the comments.

Both are good in different ways and for me, hold different purposes but it did take me a lot longer to figure out how to use Fet and get the most out of it.

K xx

Know the feeling

Solidus​(dom male) • Sep 19, 2021

I have been on Fet for a long time and as they say... in the beginning... it was a decent place. But now it has turned into basically Tinder for BDSM and most people who say they are looking for a dom on there are time wasters and only are searching for attention with no real intention of actually talking or meeting. FL though is nice to find events and catch up with old friends and some of the forums are decent. I am new to thecage so hopefully people here are a bit more serious about finding someone