We're Lucky to Have the Scene

When I first joined Fetlife, I would have defined the kink scene as “Literally the most terrifying thing I’ve ever encountered.” I’d seen Eyes Wide Shut, so I knew you all looked like Naomi Campbell and had black-tie orgies in super secret locations. If you wanted to attend one of those orgies, you’d have to befriend a grey man in a black suit hiding at the back of a random, smoky bar. You’d give him The Password, and if he thought you were sexy enough, he’d give you another password, which you’d use to attend your first orgy in a mansion in San Francisco. Obviously you’d have to show up naked but for a butterfly mask. You can’t have your orgy partners seeing your real face, you know.

Things have changed a lot since then. I’ve done kink events in South Africa and a few American states. I’ve shagged a couple of kinky men and played with a few more. Apparently there are no passwords. Kinky folk mainly just knock on the door when they want to attend orgies. Then they sit in smoky corners playing Cards Against Humanity and getting offended.

These days, I’d define the kink scene has “a lot like that annoying cousin who always tells you dad jokes on weekend camping trips.” There are dudebros to fend off, 20-year-old masters to shut up, and website owners who are more indifferent about their members than they are about who wins American Idol.

You can always tell the newbies from the oldies. The noobs are the nekked ones chasing each other all over the house. The oldies are the ones with weird eyebrow twitches and yuuuge suitcases full of toys. They’ve been here long enough to know all the scene’s flaws, so their raging libidos have transformed into raging annoyances.

Or maybe we’ve just been around too long to see the dildos for the trees.

I spent my Sunday with a dear 80-year-old friend who wears purple. Over breakfast and Scrabble, she told me she’d done a blowjob workshop at a festival. “What did you learn?” said I (obviously.) “Well,” said she, “I learned you’re supposed to enjoy it. No really.” She gave me a few tips and informed me that she now gives her (poly) guy blowjobs every single day...

... and she enjoys them.

A couple from the kink scene have given this fabulous couple a leg up in the sex stakes because you’re never too old to learn.

That butterfly effect doesn’t always happen in a microcosm that tiny. Hell, our own Susan Wright got fetishes redefined in the DSM-V. You couldn’t get more influential if you tried. We’ve become a movement populated by powerful and spectacular people. The trouble is their exploits don’t usually make it onto K&P, so we miss all of their amazing achievements.

We’re all incredibly lucky to walk alongside those giants, and even more lucky to be able to attend blowjob workshops without camping out in a shitty tent at a festival. My friend, Ms Purple, is in her first true polycule. She’s never heard of a polycule. She can’t even pronounce polyamory, so her relationships have been a tangled ball of confusion.

I sent her to TheFerrett, of course. He has written everything anyone could possibly know about polyamory, and we get to read him every day. See? Lucky. I also sent her The Ethical Slut—the book poly kinksters have been telling me about for years.

The kink scene is made up of thousands of spectacular individuals. They educate us. They guide our ethics. They support us when our consent is violated. They meet us at our first kink event and hold our hands after our first scenes. We’re exposed to just about everything we could possibly need from a sex-positive environment. Beyond the toxic sludge that flows beneath every gathering, there are so many flowers to pick.

It’s easy to focus on the sludge, but I think I need to start appreciating the roses again.