I did not feel safe at a kinksters’ event of which I was one of the hosts.
Content warning: sexual harassment, transphobia, survivorship bias, abuse of influence, manipulation, mentions of stalking and violence and enabling of stalking and violence
This is a bit on the long side, but I think it’s an important read. It’s yet another example of what’s become of our kink communities, long bastions of foward thinking in the discussions around sexual consent and safety.
Since 50 Shades, the disruption of sex work communities due to FOSTA/SESTA, the rise of incels and the manosphere taking their examples from the narcissism and avoidance of accountability of one Donald Trump, and COVID, it has never been less safe to be a kinkster.
Between the attacks on consent and tolerance against it now coming from within (with the Paradox of Tolerance being entirely lost on these people) and a Christofascist regime without that won’t stop at regulating the bodies of women and trans people, defending and promoting safer communities and consent frameworks is a moral imperative.
Thus that’s exactly what I did in this republished writing and continue to do on FetLife.
And now I’ll do it here, too.
Enjoy.
There’s a reason I don’t mention what type of event I’m talking about in the headline. It’s because it’s actually a ‘non-event’. They call it “not a munch.” Here, I will refer to it as a munch.
A munch is an informal gathering of kinky people in a oublic vanilla setting that is usually organized on FetLife, complete with RSVPs partially so that organizers can keep people safe.
You may ask why anyone would claim that their munch isn’t a munch. Or if you’re kinky, you may already know the answer: because the organizers don’t want any responsibility for the behavior of the (often violent and criminal) history of their attendees. There were 8 of us at the planning meeting, and I lost a vote to attempt to gatekeep missing stairs (or really have any rules at all) by a margin of 7–1. No further votes were taken.
Before I continue, some, maybe even many of you may say that munches are in public and therefore cannot be controlled. To that, I ask: if you brought 40–75 people into an establishment twice a month, do you really think that you don’t have the ability — the responsibility — to have it remove people who are a threat to your attendees?
So why did I join? Because, as someone known to be adamant about consent, I felt like I had just been baited into a ‘friends close, enemies closer situation’, and feared what might happen if I Ieft after it was immediately made clear to me that my fellow hosts didn’t care if anybody felt safe.
They only cared that it was a karaoke munch, and that I am a DJ and singer with friendships that cross over between other singers and kinksters. They probably also thought they could change me (good luck with that) because I did want to accept their explanation that any consent violators they knew were rehabilitated. But I never really did.
Starting quickly, but over the next few months, I began to feel myself drifting away from the others in the group. After just one decision to not join the other women for group boob photos, I was never asked again. I was not included in other interactions. I did not see these people outside the munch except at their ACTUAL munch. The one time I didn’t attend, they got so raucous with public play that they were asked to tone it down by the management.
I had literally no emotional connection to them whatsoever. As a trans woman, if it’s one thing I know, it’s the feeling of being simply tolerated and kept at arms-length. It’s why I don’t out myself when I don’t have to. It’s also why my ‘negative’ (read: realistic and constructive) feedback was flippantly ignored. Yet, they still did not remove me from the host roster, even after I told them I wouldn’t be attending anymore. I felt trapped.
My being trans was not an issue initially, but after months of going to this munch with nary a word about it, men who were part of the group at-large were suddenly very comfortable with harassing me about it with terminology I literally have nearly never heard directed at me, even during my early transition.
I was also being sexually harassed by still other men who attend this munch, sometimes, even AT OTHER MUNCHES. I had one person hover over me at another munch, and when I PM’ed him to back him off, he complained about it in the group chat and the expectation was that I, the scene veteran, was expected to be more tolerant and understanding than the newbie violating my personal space.
That person then later RSVPed to a party I was hosting even after I told him that he was forgiven, but to keep his distance. Yet another man physically put himself between a girlfriend and I and pressured me to kiss him before he would sit back down. It was always something with this group.
These men also harass and prey on other women, especially those newer to the community, many of whom come through this group’s “educational” munch.
Whenever I brought a complaint to the other hosts, the responsibility of smoothing things out always fell to me. The toxic inclusion and positivity were palpable. It was clear to me that they would always choose a quantity over a quality of people.
So when I brought it to them that I felt threatened by the very sudden influx of transphobes, I was literally told, “who cares? Be proud.”
Wow. Talk about dismissive. It’s not for them to decide that I should risk my safety in a venue that has had three shootings since May.
I’m not really visibly trans, and when men find out that a woman they’re attracted to doesn’t have the bits they expect, they often lash out and murder us. Too many serve no jail time due to something called the ‘trans panic’ defense.
At that point, I was just done. I finally admitted that the group I tried so hard to enjoy being around was always going to be a haven for predators.
So why didn’t I come forward sooner? For one, professionalism. I was DJ’ing a house member’s wedding and I didn’t want to rock the boat. But more importantly, I was greatly outnumbered, surrounded, and scared. Honestly, I still am two of those.
But after speaking to other organizers about this munch, I was shown that my conclusions about the situation are very much the modus operandi of the people involved, and have been for quite some time.
I apologize for any involvement I’ve had with this chaos, and I hope the other organizers will follow through on their promises to defend my position in this matter and continue to provide a positive counterbalance to the toxicity of this munch, as well as alternatives for anybody else who may feel unsafe in this environment, and any other like it.
ETA: I wasn’t going to make my post any more specific than I thought it needed to be, but after comments were made defending this group’s intentions, it should be added that I may have been targeted because I’m a very close friend of the ex of a notorious abuser in the community.
I identified this person at the planning meeting, and they specifically defended him by saying simply, “but he’s our friend.”
This person is a rigger who has multiple allegations against him for violations ranging from stalking to rape. He abused my friend for two years (and she still came out to support me even when he was there, the fucking badass).
