Newly divorced, hoping to enter the kink scene
July 9, 2020 10:25 AM Subscribe
I'm going through a divorce with a woman who had previously been into a fetish lifestyle and acclimated me into a Dom role over five years. Now that she has decided to go her own way, I'm mourning the loss of my role as a Dom, and I'm also interested in being a switch.
I've created an account on FetLife hoping to meet people, which I believe begins with going to advertised events and networking. As a single man with no contacts, I suspect people would be wary about letting me inside the lifestyle. Could someone familiar with the ins and outs offer some advice about how I should proceed? If it helps, I live in southern Maine.
I've created an account on FetLife hoping to meet people, which I believe begins with going to advertised events and networking. As a single man with no contacts, I suspect people would be wary about letting me inside the lifestyle. Could someone familiar with the ins and outs offer some advice about how I should proceed? If it helps, I live in southern Maine.
In normal times, yeah munches are where it's at. There might not be any right now though.
More generally, as a guy and a relative newcomer, I'd encourage you to go into fetish situations (online or in person) with a learning-first perspective. Often people will enter these communities and really want to jump right to doing scenes with a dozen new people and actively scouting for 24/7 subs, etc, which is not the way to do it. Treat this as any other social situation at first, don't go looking for the boundaries and start pushing at them right away. You will win more goodwill and make more genuine friends that way.
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:24 AM on July 9, 2020 [5 favorites]
More generally, as a guy and a relative newcomer, I'd encourage you to go into fetish situations (online or in person) with a learning-first perspective. Often people will enter these communities and really want to jump right to doing scenes with a dozen new people and actively scouting for 24/7 subs, etc, which is not the way to do it. Treat this as any other social situation at first, don't go looking for the boundaries and start pushing at them right away. You will win more goodwill and make more genuine friends that way.
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:24 AM on July 9, 2020 [5 favorites]
It's best to think of Fet as kind of life a cross between kinky Facebook and kinky Metafilter. I agree with everything Parasite Unseen and showbiz-liz have said too! I'm quite active on Fet- message me if you have questions or want some more specific suggestions about navigating it and getting the most out of it during COVID times.
posted by Mouse Army at 2:47 PM on July 9, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by Mouse Army at 2:47 PM on July 9, 2020 [3 favorites]
All of the advice above is great! Several of our local kink events in Portland have gone virtual, including parties and mixers, so perhaps that's happened in your community as well. If not, you might see if there are any virtual events from all over that you're interested in -- I believe Fet just changed the event settings so that you can look for events outside of the usual geographic radius. The Portland, OR community would probably welcome someone respectful from outside of the community visiting, if you need a place to start. Lots of educational events are online too if you're interested in exploring that way as well.
You're right that as a single man people may be a little wary. It's great that you're going in aware of that, but in my experience if you conduct yourself in a respectful and above-board way you'll mostly find that it's not too hard to make friends. My best advice is to go slowly like showbiz_liz said. Many people arrive to the scene in a frenzy, end up in relationships that aren't healthy because they're so eager, and then cause a lot of drama. I've seen it happen to good people and it either sours their experience or sours other people's impressions of them.
I would also advise you to make friends with people that you're not attracted to/interested in sexually. Make friends with other Doms because you'll be grateful to have friends who have similar perspectives and experience as you get deeper into kink & power exchange. I would also say that one of the things I look at first in a straight cis-man's profile (just assuming from the few details shared) is who they follow/friend and how interested they are in being part of the community vs. just seeing it as a hunting ground. Yes, most of us are around to meet people, but I feel like it speaks positively to someone's character when I see that they are invested in finding and having relationships of all kinds with kinky people. You will also want to have those friendships to serve as a character reference of sorts and to meet people who can introduce you to others and events.
posted by Colonel_Chappy at 6:04 PM on July 9, 2020 [6 favorites]
You're right that as a single man people may be a little wary. It's great that you're going in aware of that, but in my experience if you conduct yourself in a respectful and above-board way you'll mostly find that it's not too hard to make friends. My best advice is to go slowly like showbiz_liz said. Many people arrive to the scene in a frenzy, end up in relationships that aren't healthy because they're so eager, and then cause a lot of drama. I've seen it happen to good people and it either sours their experience or sours other people's impressions of them.
I would also advise you to make friends with people that you're not attracted to/interested in sexually. Make friends with other Doms because you'll be grateful to have friends who have similar perspectives and experience as you get deeper into kink & power exchange. I would also say that one of the things I look at first in a straight cis-man's profile (just assuming from the few details shared) is who they follow/friend and how interested they are in being part of the community vs. just seeing it as a hunting ground. Yes, most of us are around to meet people, but I feel like it speaks positively to someone's character when I see that they are invested in finding and having relationships of all kinds with kinky people. You will also want to have those friendships to serve as a character reference of sorts and to meet people who can introduce you to others and events.
posted by Colonel_Chappy at 6:04 PM on July 9, 2020 [6 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 10:51 AM on July 9, 2020 [6 favorites]