Why Kink References are Bunk (and What You Should Use Instead)

Yesterday I had a conversation with a Fetlife stranger about consent. He had a nuanced understanding of kink ethics, so I labelled him “one of the good ones” and went on my way. Shortly after that, someone wrote to tell me he’d been accused of participating in a human trafficking ring.

This happens more often than you might think. One of the first friends I ever made on this site ended up being a registered sex offender. Only after Fetlife booted him from the site did I learn how he was grooming three more victims. I’ve seen two Fetlebrities jailed and one dethroned in his own Me-Too Scandal. I’ve even been contacted by two rapists in the US scene.

That’s why it’s standard practice to ask for references before a play date. It seems like an intelligent thing to do until you realise that all predators keep a coop of flying monkeys for precisely this purpose. They’ll tell you Jack the Ripper has always respected their consent, and he probably has. If you were a rapist in a community that relied on references, wouldn’t you reveal your best behaviour to a coop of flying monkeys, too? I certainly would.

As a freelancer, I have about five working resumes. Magazine editors don't care about my poetry publications, and journal editors give no fucks about my features. I write around 20,000 words a week, so it’s easy to drum up references for the kind of client I’m targeting.

Predators do that in the kink scene, too. Rapists don’t hand out references from their victims. They go to the monkey coop. This is why I rarely bother to contact the references I’m given. If I’m considering a high-risk connection, I prefer to look into their histories. I find out who they’ve dated on my own steam and I contact the references I’m not given.

You never know where you might end up. I once got a reference from a vanilla friend who’d worked with a man I was considering getting involved with. Turns out his professional ethics were bunk, so I never saw him again.

I use the predator lists in my local scene, too. Most communities have them. You just have to know where to look. Ask the event hosts. They’re exposed to more predators than most, and if there is a consent violation list floating around, they’re the ones who usually know how to find them.

That's no good if your local predator is an event host, though, and they often are.

You can Sherlock Holmes the hell out of your next date, and you should, but it’s not enough. I've noticed that when subs are assaulted in the kink scene, they usually leave. They give up kink, shut down their profiles, and nobody hears from them again. The odds of finding a survivor’s reference are slim, so your best resource is your intuition. If you feel something is wrong, it probably is. Let your gut have the last word, especially when you’re new to the scene.

If I could force all subs to work on just one safety tool, it would be self-esteem. It keeps your boundaries firm. It allows you to trust your gut. It gives you the confidence to nope out of an uncomfortable position before Jack turns into The Ripper. No reference will achieve all of those things, but if you respect yourself and trust your interpretation of the world, I’ll feel a lot more confident about your safety.