Latest / The Kink Consultant / Ep 20: How to Find Your Kink Community: Safety, Red Flags & Building Real Connections

Transcript

Ep 20: How to Find Your Kink Community: Safety, Red Flags & Building Real Connections · The Kink Consultant

• 0:07
  Welcome to Quick and Clinky, where we take your burning
• 0:09
  questions about kink, relationships, and everything in
• 0:12
  between and break them down into bite sized answers.
• 0:15
  Let's dive in. You don't have to find your
• 0:22
  community, right? It's not a necessity.
• 0:26
  I know a ton of people who are involved in King and don't.
• 0:28
  But here's why it kind of can be a necessity, or why you should
• 0:31
  strongly consider finding your community with King.
• 0:34
  But first of all, it's good for the community and it's good for
• 0:36
  you, OK? You have the opportunity to meet
• 0:39
  other people who are interested in the same things you're into.
• 0:42
  This can be a lonely practice, but when you get involved in the
• 0:44
  community, you meet a bunch of people who are into the same
• 0:47
  things you're into, or even variations of it.
• 0:49
  But you're meeting people who understand what it's like to
• 0:53
  live kinky, who understand what it's like to want to explore
• 0:56
  kinks. And dating is hard.
• 0:58
  Being kinky can be difficult. It's nice to have other people
• 1:01
  around you who are into the same things.
• 1:03
  Most of my friends here in Vegas are from the King community
• 1:06
  because when I moved here was like, how do you make friends as
• 1:09
  an adult? So I got on Fat Life.
• 1:11
  I started to look for what events were happening.
• 1:14
  I found a group called Vegas Toolbox, and I went to their
• 1:18
  online orientation so that I could start going to educational
• 1:20
  classes. Then I found out about some
• 1:22
  munches that were supposed to be good, and technically I could
• 1:26
  have just gone straight to a munch.
• 1:27
  But it was good to meet people, see who I got along with, and
• 1:30
  then go to the munches they recommended.
• 1:32
  From there, it sort of spiraled. I'd go to a munch which is a
• 1:36
  plainclothes meet up of kinky people.
• 1:38
  You go to like a diner or somewhere where you can munch on
• 1:40
  food and just talk to each other to find your specific king
• 1:45
  community. I think start general and filter
• 1:48
  down. Here's what I would do.
• 1:49
  I would get on Fetlife and make a profile if you don't have one
• 1:52
  already. Yes you can find events
• 1:55
  elsewhere but a lot of them are still posted on Fetlife for some
• 1:58
  reason. I hear people say oh Fetlife's
• 2:00
  dangerous and that's 100% true, but so is Instagram if you start
• 2:04
  meeting random people from it. So I guess that's neither here
• 2:07
  nor there. I'm just tired of people who are
• 2:09
  saying don't get on Fetlife, it's dangerous.
• 2:11
  It's like so is Facebook marketplace.
• 2:13
  It depends on what you use it for.
• 2:14
  You have to be cautious. So get on Fetlife and make a
• 2:17
  profile. Then navigate to the events page
• 2:21
  and Fetlife's gotten really good.
• 2:23
  You can filter by event type, BDSM party, social event,
• 2:27
  educational event, sex party. I would say filter first by the
• 2:30
  social and educational events because those are going to be
• 2:33
  your like plain clothes meet up a lot of the time where you're
• 2:38
  just meeting other kinky people and it's a great way to dip your
• 2:40
  toe in the water. OK, so I would start there.
• 2:43
  There are even specific munches for specific communities like
• 2:47
  there are rope munches, spanking munches, impact munches, master
• 2:51
  slave type of munches. So it depends on the dynamic and
• 2:54
  the kink. So you can start there, meet
• 2:57
  people who you're getting along with and then find out well,
• 2:59
  what events do they recommend? And then check out those events.
• 3:03
  Here are some things you should look for in a healthy and
• 3:06
  welcoming kink because safety is important.
• 3:09
  You want to make sure you're going somewhere where people
• 3:11
  look out for each other, where they give you the lay of the
• 3:13
  land when you get there, and they're really genuinely
• 3:17
  welcoming. So when I went to my first
• 3:19
  munch, the organizer stood up, introduced himself, asked me a
• 3:24
  little bit about myself, and then he sat me with people who
• 3:27
  he thought I might get along with.
• 3:28
  So he did a great job of facilitating that.
• 3:32
  He's amazing. I actually had him on the
• 3:33
  podcast, him and his wife Jim and Veronica.
• 3:36
  I credit them a lot, a lot with how well I was integrated into
• 3:39
  the community. So I was really lucky with that
• 3:42
  experience. But I've had experiences where
• 3:44
  there are red flags. And one of the things that
• 3:47
  normally tips me off, this might just be a woman to woman thing,
• 3:51
  but I have had women come up to me and say, be careful of that
• 3:53
  guy. Be careful of that guy.
• 3:55
  And sometimes there's just like one weirdo that no one wants to
• 3:58
  talk to. But other times you hear two or
• 4:00
  three people tell you to be careful and you start to wonder,
• 4:03
  well, why is that person still in the community?
• 4:05
  If there's more than one person like that, that, that's a huge
• 4:08
  red flag for me because it means that the organizers are not
• 4:11
  properly vetting and taking complaints seriously.
• 4:15
  So that's one red flag. The second red flag is when
• 4:18
  there's an imbalance of ages or groups within the community
• 4:22
  because it just sometimes creates this almost predator
• 4:26
  vibe. If it's all these young girls
• 4:27
  and then a bunch of older men, the question is, where are they
• 4:30
  younger guys to? Have they been scared out by the
• 4:33
  older crew who sometimes can be a little gatekeepy?
• 4:36
  That's a red flag for me. I mean, and it goes both ways.
• 4:39
  Sometimes it's older women who are super gatekeepy and they can
• 4:42
  be bitchy to young girls. When I started making content,
• 4:45
  that was my number one thing. I was like, fuck the
• 4:48
  gatekeepers. Like I'm done with them and I
• 4:51
  was so done with them. I was like, I make content to
• 4:54
  say fuck the gatekeepers and make this information more
• 4:56
  accessible to everyone. Whoever wants the info.
• 4:59
  You know, I know I talked a lot about Fetlife, but you wouldn't
• 5:01
  believe it. There are also communities
• 5:03
  online. There are certain Discord groups
• 5:06
  and also Facebook groups that you can get involved in.
• 5:09
  So I would search through there. And then if you're looking for
• 5:12
  more events, Eventbrite in your city might actually have a lot
• 5:16
  listed. So if you go to Eventbrite and
• 5:18
  you can, I think filter for adult events or something along
• 5:21
  those types of parties. So there is a lot of information
• 5:24
  out there. I just think Fetlife is the
• 5:26
  easiest because it's all concentrated and then you can
• 5:28
  see which of your friends are going to it because it is like a
• 5:31
  social media site for kink. Facebook, if you start following
• 5:34
  creators who post about kink in general, sometimes they post
• 5:38
  events that are happening and in different communities and they
• 5:42
  have their own discords as well. There's like a lot of places
• 5:45
  where you can find that, like the Patreon I set up where twice
• 5:48
  a month I meet with a group of people who are all kinky and
• 5:51
  dating and we sort of discuss the highs and lows of it.
• 5:53
  We give each other advice and we just talk through what it's
• 5:56
  like, what our challenges have been and what our wins have
• 5:59
  been. So there's community around
• 6:01
  dating kinky as well. That's one thing I will say
• 6:04
  about us kingsters. There's a lot of us out there
• 6:06
  who brave community. So we created ourselves and
• 6:10
  we'll put in the work. We'll create the parties to
• 6:12
  create the spaces we want to exist so we can feel more
• 6:15
  comfortable and make others feel more comfortable to go down the
• 6:18
  paths we want to go down and explore the things we want to
• 6:21
  explore. I've been to so many in person
• 6:24
  and online events and I've met amazing people in both, right?
• 6:29
  I'm going to be honest about it. You would think that the in
• 6:31
  person events, oh, people left their house, they got dressed
• 6:34
  up, they really committed to going out.
• 6:36
  Not the case either. You know, people show up as they
• 6:39
  are and then sort of like what we love about the kink community
• 6:42
  too. It's like no one's expecting
• 6:45
  fireworks, right? Except it really disappoints
• 6:47
  people too. People are disappointed by their
• 6:50
  local communities because they're not full of these
• 6:53
  beautiful kinky people that we've been fed like pictures of.
• 6:58
  To believe that like, oh, kink is all these size 0 people in
• 7:01
  bondage and stirrups and like, I don't know, dressed as horses in
• 7:05
  like beautiful whole gilded, I don't know, costumes.
• 7:08
  It's not like that online. It's not like that in person at
• 7:11
  these social events. Sure, you can go somewhere like
• 7:14
  only fans and pay to see someone dressed as your ideal kinky
• 7:17
  person, or you can pay for an app and listen to stories about
• 7:21
  like from your ideal kinky man. But it's not actually like that
• 7:25
  online or in real life for these social events.
• 7:28
  Real people dress like me, showing up as themselves,
• 7:31
  talking about the thing that they love.
• 7:33
  I will say that the community invites people to show up as
• 7:37
  they are, you know, and express themselves so that like the
• 7:40
  social events that are in bars and pubs, yeah, people are going
• 7:44
  to be dressed vanilla. But when you go in person to an
• 7:47
  event, you're encouraged to be yourself.
• 7:49
  And the advice I always give my coaching clients who are going
• 7:51
  to parties for the first time is show up as your most authentic
• 7:54
  self. Follow the dress code.
• 7:56
  Yes, if it's fancy dress, do it. But if you feel like wearing a
• 7:59
  kilt, wear a kilt. If your alter ego or your kinky
• 8:02
  self wears a top hat, wear a freaking top hat to the event.
• 8:06
  Be that version of yourself that feels authentic to you.
• 8:09
  If it's a Victorian era woman in full get up like head to toe,
• 8:14
  This is the place for you. Arguably you can dress like that
• 8:17
  anywhere, but I feel like you're going to be celebrated in these
• 8:19
  communities for showing up as yourself.
• 8:21
  OK, I go to a lot of parties alone and it's partly because I
• 8:26
  love to go to new places and sometimes I don't have a group
• 8:29
  of people to go with. So I have a few tips of like
• 8:32
  what I do to introduce myself. Sometimes if I'm going somewhere
• 8:35
  totally new I'll contact the organizer on Fetlife and say hey
• 8:39
  I'm showing up to the party, would love to meet you in person
• 8:41
  beforehand or I'll come find you.
• 8:43
  The really good parties will have someone to greet you, ask
• 8:46
  if it's your first time and give you a tour.
• 8:48
  Okay, sometimes I'll tell that person I'm kind of shy.
• 8:50
  Do you mind introducing me to anyone?
• 8:52
  I don't don't mind calling out that I'm shy.
• 8:54
  Other times I sort of before I go into the party, I always have
• 8:57
  a little talk with myself of like, we're all just here
• 9:00
  meeting people for the first time.
• 9:02
  Let's see how it goes. Be confident and I'll have that.
• 9:05
  Like I'll big myself up in a way, almost like mantras so that
• 9:09
  I'm ready when I go in. All right, Kingster, let's talk
• 9:13
  about pleasure. Not just mine, Yours too.
• 9:17
  If you're enjoying this episode of The King Consultant, I need
• 9:20
  you to do me a little favor and I promise it'll feel oh so good.
• 9:24
  Take a second and give this podcast a five star rating.
• 9:27
  Just imagine your finger sliding all over that 5th star, pressing
• 9:32
  down, giving it exactly the kind of attention it deserves.
• 9:36
  Yeah, that's it. And you know what happens when
• 9:38
  you do. I get all hot and bothered
• 9:41
  knowing you're out there showing your appreciation.
• 9:44
  Plus, every time you leave a review, a naughty little brat
• 9:47
  somewhere gets that spanking they've been begging for.
• 9:50
  So be a good listener and tap that star, won't you?
• 9:53
  Thanks, love. Now let's get back to the fun.
• 10:00
  And then my my go to is I will find someone who is around my
• 10:05
  age and feels like maybe we'd get along.
• 10:08
  OK. So most recently I was at a
• 10:10
  party and I introduced myself to a couple and I said hi, I'm
• 10:14
  Amanda. Do you come to these parties
• 10:15
  often? I open it up with a curiosity
• 10:18
  thing of like, instead of like launching into something about
• 10:20
  me, I I ask about them and then try and get the conversation to
• 10:24
  flow from there. If not, I try and move on to the
• 10:26
  next group or person. In an example like this, I
• 10:30
  talked to most recently at the party, I introduced myself as if
• 10:33
  they came there often. Turned out they were from out of
• 10:35
  town, which is really cool. We talked a little bit about the
• 10:37
  local scene where they lived. And then I said, I'm going to go
• 10:41
  get a drink, right? And I went off and on my way to
• 10:44
  get a drink, I then introduced myself to someone new and I
• 10:47
  said, Oh my God, I love your collar.
• 10:49
  Where did you get it? And Oh my gosh, this corset.
• 10:52
  And these were genuine things. I really did love her collar and
• 10:55
  corset. And it turned out her partner
• 10:57
  was getting her some water from the bar.
• 11:00
  So by the time her partner got back, we were already deep in
• 11:03
  conversation. You know, so those are like my
• 11:05
  intro things. It's sort of complimenting
• 11:08
  people authentically and also asking questions about
• 11:10
  themselves. If you introduce yourself,
• 11:12
  they're not like, oh, what the fuck, Maybe they're in the
• 11:14
  middle of a conversation. And that's another thing, timing
• 11:17
  is everything. You don't want to inject
• 11:18
  yourself into a conversation. And another thing that's kind of
• 11:21
  awkward is if people are already in a conversation and you sort
• 11:25
  of edge your way in as opposed to just being like, oh, I heard
• 11:28
  you were talking about this. Do you mind if I enjoying the
• 11:30
  conversation? I prefer a direct approach
• 11:32
  instead of like, because they might say no, you know, or like
• 11:36
  actually, this is a private conversation.
• 11:37
  And sometimes that rejection hurts a little bit, but you kind
• 11:40
  of gotta just hold it together and sort of realize it's not
• 11:44
  personal. That was a private conversation.
• 11:46
  Let me move on. And that's happened to me.
• 11:48
  You know, it's like, OK, this is a clicky friend group.
• 11:51
  Those things happen when people go to the same parties year in,
• 11:54
  year out for a really long time. It's not personal.
• 11:56
  They just have their group. Now I need to go find mine.
• 11:59
  And I know it can be really nerve wracking to go to one of
• 12:02
  these events, especially if it's your first time.
• 12:04
  But ultimately, these are still social events.
• 12:07
  They are there for people to meet with each other and enjoy
• 12:11
  something that they all love together.
• 12:13
  So at the end of the day, you're still at a social event.
• 12:16
  The purpose is to be social and meet new people.
• 12:20
  Most people are showing up with the excitement of getting to
• 12:23
  meet new people. Sometimes we create a community
• 12:27
  online of people who live across the country, across the globe,
• 12:31
  and those people can be just as meaningful in our lives as the
• 12:35
  people who we meet weekly at parties or at munches because
• 12:38
  they're going through the same thing we're going through a lot
• 12:40
  of the time. I mean, the friends you make,
• 12:42
  regardless of location, are still friends.
• 12:45
  Sometimes it's hard when you get into the relationship side of
• 12:48
  things because ADS dynamic or even a Dom sub scene partner not
• 12:53
  being able to receive physical aftercare can be quite jarring
• 12:57
  for people. It's a lot easier to get
• 12:59
  catfished like online instead of meeting people in person because
• 13:03
  you can fake a lot online and get away with a lot that as soon
• 13:06
  as you see someone in person they're different right?
• 13:09
  So something I recommend people do just to keep themselves safe
• 13:12
  is FaceTime. There is not one single excuse
• 13:15
  in today and age. If they can talk to you on the
• 13:17
  phone, they can find a way to FaceTime you.
• 13:19
  They can get on download WhatsApp to their phone, they
• 13:22
  can get on a zoom call, Google meets.
• 13:25
  There are so many options and there are so many free options
• 13:28
  to do it like face to face call and that can save you as well.
• 13:32
  Like just enforcing that early 01 more thing that I like to do
• 13:36
  when I meet people online, and this is just in dating is people
• 13:38
  can have these whole profiles set up and it seems like them,
• 13:41
  I'll make them take a selfie in the moment and I'll do something
• 13:44
  like this and send a selfie. And I say send a selfie with you
• 13:47
  doing the same gesture so that you know, it's fresh.
• 13:50
  Yeah. So those are just some of the
• 13:51
  things. I think safety is super
• 13:52
  important and knowing who you're talking to is important.
• 13:55
  There are just so many bad actors out there, even in
• 13:57
  person. It's like tenfold online.
• 14:00
  So you got to protect yourself. Some of the ways that you can
• 14:02
  protect yourself is I think a lot of times, especially in the
• 14:05
  subside Subs want to be nice. They don't want to push too
• 14:08
  hard. They're told get in your lane or
• 14:10
  this is how you're going to fact.
• 14:11
  If it's your first time exploring submission, it can be
• 14:14
  so exciting. You can actually be in what we
• 14:16
  call sub frenzy where you're just so excited to try
• 14:19
  everything. You're going to try everything
• 14:21
  and you're just going to be more submissive than you might
• 14:23
  normally be because of the excitement to try everything.
• 14:26
  You find someone and you feel like, Oh my God, someone finally
• 14:29
  understands me. And it can feel super special
• 14:31
  because they're telling you everything you want to hear.
• 14:34
  It's just like the books or movies and you're having these
• 14:37
  amazing experiences, but you skip over the part where there's
• 14:40
  communication or the person you're talking to tells you this
• 14:44
  is how it's supposed to be. You need to have communication.
• 14:47
  If something doesn't feel right and you need to talk to them
• 14:50
  about it and say, I'm not feeling right about this, we
• 14:52
  need to go more in depth about this.
• 14:54
  Can we have a conversation? You need to be talking to
• 14:56
  someone who's willing to have the conversation and if they're
• 14:59
  hard lined, I'm the Dom, you're the sub, this is what we're
• 15:01
  doing. Or even vice versa.
• 15:03
  They're not for you. If they are not willing to have
• 15:06
  a conversation and they're very hard lined about how I'm the
• 15:09
  Dom, I'm the sub, I'm a brat, this this is how I am and
• 15:12
  they're not willing to come to the table and be like, OK, what
• 15:15
  do we need to negotiate? What do we need to tweak here?
• 15:18
  Cut them. Don't even engage in trying to
• 15:20
  like convince them. Don't bargain with them.
• 15:23
  Cut them. If I can just say one thing to
• 15:25
  everyone, it's that in order to be in a community, you have to
• 15:29
  be part of the community, and that requires getting out there.
• 15:32
  And I know it's tough. Sometimes it's tough to get
• 15:35
  dressed at the end of a week and go out.
• 15:38
  But being active in the community is what keeps it
• 15:40
  alive, okay? I really cannot stress the
• 15:43
  importance enough of getting out there and talking to people.
• 15:46
  I meet a lot of people who say like, Oh well, there's just no
• 15:50
  community where I am. And it's kind of one of those
• 15:52
  things you have to start showing up.
• 15:54
  I actually have a friend who does this when he posts on
• 15:56
  Fetlife about a munch. He's trying to start it up.
• 15:59
  And his point is in order to have this, we need to start it
• 16:03
  and be present at the beginning. And that's something, if you are
• 16:06
  starting it, show up, be there and put the time in to build
• 16:09
  what you want because you get out of it what you put into it.
• 16:13
  OK, so show up, be present. If you've been going to events
• 16:16
  for a few months, be the person you wish existed when you
• 16:20
  started going to those events. A good online example of where
• 16:23
  community is starting and we all need to be showing up, or I
• 16:26
  think it's great to show up, is the app Meet Kingsters.
• 16:30
  They're really focused more on the social side and the dating
• 16:34
  side of kink. So when you go there, you can
• 16:37
  see everyone in your community who's kinky and you can also
• 16:40
  filter by people who are into the kinks you're into.
• 16:42
  And it's not just a dating app, it really is more of that like
• 16:45
  here are the kinky people in in your area.
• 16:48
  And it's great to be able to search that way.
• 16:50
  So that's a really good example of something that's starting
• 16:52
  new. And I think we should all be
• 16:54
  showing up to and trying out. So meet kingsters.com/TKC for
• 16:58
  50% off premium for your first month.
• 17:00
  I highly recommend checking that out to meet other Kingsters in
• 17:04
  your area. Got a question or something you
• 17:08
  want me to tackle in the next episode?
• 17:10
  Drop it in the comments. And until next time, keep on
• 17:13
  kinking on.