FetLife

FetLife is a social networking website that serves people interested in BDSM, fetishism, and kink. On its homepage, FetLife describes itself as, "Similar to Facebook and MySpace but run by kinksters like you and me." FetLife distinguishes itself from competitors by emphasizing itself as a social network rather than a dating site.^[1] FetLife is pansexual; everyone is welcome.

FetLife runs on a custom nginx variant of the Ubuntu/Debian distribution of GNU/Linux; it was adapted from the brightbox version.^[2]

History

FetLife was launched in January 2008 by John Baku, a software engineer in Montreal, Quebec.^[3] Frustrated by attempts to find women who had the same sexual interests as he did, Baku created a website in 2007 called “FriendsWithFetishes”. While working on release 2.0 of FriendsWithFetishes, Baku decided to launch it as a separate site and named it FetLife.^[4] James Golick served as Chief Technology Officer from 2008-2012.^[5]

In 2012, FetLife found itself at the center of a controversy regarding its policy that users pledge not to "make criminal accusations against another member in a public forum,"^[6] which has been objected to by users ^[7][8] on the basis that it prevents them from warning each other about predatory users or illegal activities.^[9][10][11]

Features

Any member may create a group devoted to whatever fetish he or she chooses. There are thousands of groups, on almost any legal topic. (Due to restrictions from credit card processors, some topics are not permitted.^[12]) Any user may join any group, although the group owner can ban problematic users. Group membership is required to post or reply to posts. Members can enable email notification of posts in groups they are members of.

All new members are by default enrolled in the group Fetlife Announcements, which has (as of 2015) over 3,000,000 members.

There are many groups devoted to answering thematic questions, such as "Ask a Slut," "Ask a Fag," "Ask a Dominant," "Ask a Stripper," and so on. Groups can be searched for by words in the group title.

In addition, there is a separate "directory" of fetishes which a member may indicate his or her interest in. Any member can create a new fetish.

Any member can post an Event with date, location, cost, dress code, and other information. Location can be concealed and only revealed individually by the Event owner to participants. Users, on an Event's page, can indicate that they "will attend" or "might attend."

All members have a personal profile. A member may have multiple profiles. An age and location must be posted, but honesty is not required; there are many users who specify they are in "Antarctica", and many who give their age as 93 (the maximum the system allows). There are 11 possible "sexual orientation" choices, plus "Not Applicable." The groups the member belongs to and the fetishes the member is "into" or "curious about" are displayed as part of the profile. Beyond this, the member may write text that is automatically posted on his or her profile, with no limitation on length. All profiles are by default visible to all members, though a member can block another member.

Members can indicate that they are "Friends" with another member, and thus receive notification of the Friend's activity (for example, which groups the Friend joins and what posts he or she makes). Confirmation from the proposed Friend is required; friendship is always reciprocal.

Members can also indicate that they are in a "relationship" with another member. There are 19 types of relationships on the menu. A separate menu allows a member to indicate that the member is in a D/s (Dominant/submissive) relationship with another member. There are 49 types of D/s relationships listed.

Members can exchange private messages with any other member. A limited chat function has recently (2013) been implemented. One can only chat with Friends.

Each member can post writings (journal entries, erotica, and notes), photographs, and videos. Posting of photographs or videos not taken by the member him- or herself is not permitted, unless they are photos or videos of the member. While membership is free, videos can only be viewed by those who are financial supporters. Those who make a financial contribution receive an "I Support FetLife" badge on their Profile.

Any member may comment on another member's piece of writing, photo, or video. Comments are public, and cannot be changed or deleted after posting.

The search feature is deliberately limited to prevent members from finding users with specific characteristics, such as age or gender.^[13]

Members are encouraged to report illegal content as well as terms of use violations to the administrators of FetLife.

Criticism

One criticism of FetLife is that the website's administration censor the postings of sexual assault survivors that aim to warn other users about dangerous users.^[7][14] FetLife's reasoning behind this policy is that it allows users to accuse others of a crime, which could be libelous if the allegations are false or unprovable.^[15]

The limitations on search capability are also the cause of some user dissatisfaction. One can search for users with interest in fetish X or for users with location Y, but by design one cannot search for a user with interest X located in location Y. There is also no ability to search for users by age, gender, sexual orientation, or other personal characteristics other than profile name, nor can one search by neighborhood within a city.

While every user can post and is indeed encouraged to post erotica, journal entries, and other types of writing, there is no way to search user writings by topic or keyword. Also, group postings can not be searched; thus there is no easy way to see if "your question" has already been answered.

Because of external pressures, about 40 words are blocked in the search for groups.

An account is required to view content on FetLife, although since membership is free the level of privacy offered by the site is minimal. In practice, this means the site is not indexed by search engines and, partly because of this, critics have argued that FetLife presents itself as being more private than it is.^[15]

References

External links

• Fetlife homepage