BDSM Online: Community and Safety in the Age of 50 Shades

As a member, the BDSM community’s integration of “new-world” and “old-school” fascinates me. The community’s relationship to the Internet is unsteady, its history prefacing the tools that now popularize it. Its relationship to media is equally tenuous in the aftermath of 50 Shades of Grey, which inspired traffic to the community en masse.  

There’s even a term for it now. The “50 Shades of Grey effect,” first coined by Dr. Charlotte Jones to describe the series’ purported connection to the rise of STIs in age 50+ couples, reemerged to describe a string of sex toy injuries a year later. Either way, the series has had a tangible effect on people’s sex lives. But what about their digital ones?

We know now that novice kinksters weren’t just rushing to bed after seeing 50 Shades; they were also turning to the Internet. Frenzied interest in BDSM culture only served to gorge an online scene with little boundaries or capability to handle such widespread novelty. The result is clear in the way we represent the online BDSM community, but also in how we connect to it. “Kinky” and other BDSM-related smartphone apps have entered the tech mainstream in droves to latch onto this new trend. Some apps, like KNKI, market themselves as mere networking sites; others, like Whiplr, offer your personal 50SOG experience. Their overall appeal is convenience: they allow users to skip the lexicon, training, and ideology of the community for the lure of a kinky, easy romp.

Photo CC-BY Holly Victoria Norval.

JoElle Notte’s 2015 op-ed for The Daily Dot summarized why this was not a Good Thing: BDSM culture just doesn’t translate easily to the business model or tech setup of a modern dating app. The community is rife with the kind of nuance that can ruin the excitement of exploring kink. Fearing their bottom line, app creators do not properly detail the community’s longstanding relationship with abuse and harassment, nor do they bother to explain the community’s finer ideology – like keeping it “safe, sane or consensual” or engaging in “risk aware consensual kink” – to novice kinksters. In result, Notte claims, kinky apps leave vulnerable novices open to abuse and harassment when they withhold educational resources and inhibit accountability efforts.

I agree with Notte and with many (mostly female and POC) commentators on this ugly part of the BDSM scene, but I’d like take it one step further. This problem is not a mere symptom of *new* types of BDSM tech, but rather an outstanding issue of the BDSM community at large. Online and off, the community continues to struggle with implementing tools that protect its newest members. If our community hopes to produce better tech in this post-5SOG world, the onus bears heavy on tech outlets to protect their users. Time is running out.

Apps are the latest battlefield for the fight for accountability, but this is a battle as old as time. We can see it in the actions of the community’s oldest outlets, such as FetLife’s public silencing of abuse victims on its site in 2012. Not only did the site’s chiding of victims call attention to its morals, it also raised questions about its basic technological functions. What use are screen names or statuses if not for accountability? many asked. It became painfully clear that FetLife was simply not equipped to make abuse victims its priority.

There are many obstacles here, but let’s talk first about the technological. BDSM tech is severely under-funded and under-staffed for many reasons that allude to the intersections of sex and tech. The tech industry’s moral and financial sanctions on sex tech scare investors and burden outlets with higher service or processing fines. Further, BDSM’s esoteric proclivities drain its available hiring pool: imagine how long it takes to find a backend engineer with a thing for shibari, or a venture capitalist with a foot fetish. With none of the traditional backing available to tech companies, teams responsible for beloved kinky outlets are usually small and often community-funded, with their users doubling as their main investors – either with pride or within the shadows. (This can also cause some contention on how or when community policing occurs, especially if an offender is also a dedicated donator.)

Often, these teams are spending massive amounts of resources to even offer basic features that help protect individuals from online harassers, like blocking or muting. This makes more advanced features next to impossible to implement on websites and apps struggling just to keep their front-end intact. But even if the flow of capital within the community were to increase tomorrow, there’s no guarantee that accountability would follow.

BDSM’s reputation – as a set of ideologies and practices that combat traditional notions of sexuality – have made it a target of derision, and thus set in stone its sovereign nature. The basis of “S.S.C” or “R.A.C.K” is the belief that one should be free to play in their own kink, albeit safely. This creates a lax definition of what counts as “safe play,” so moderators hesitate to challenge possible deviations. As of now, it feels as if the community operates as a free for all, with every user as their own governing body. Accountability efforts that encroach on a person’s right to kink immediately become unpopular.

The shaming of BDSM culture also makes anonymity a necessity. People regularly opt out of using their real names, pictures, or locations on kinky websites, which obscures identity further. In accountability cases, anonymity is inherently protected by the actions of the community: think back to FetLife’s blocking abuse victims from using screen names. It’s a tactic that benefits offenders and businesses.

Photo CC-BY Lyn Lomasi.

One argument against accountability is that it’s impossible to impose boundaries on who plays or how they play, but kinky outlets do this all the time. Dungeons and clubs can turn away patrons, and often do. Digital outlets utilize the technology they already have to regulate or outright ban “controversial” kinks – like financial domination, race play, or age play. Consciously or not, kinky teams regularly define the parameters of the digital BDSM scene by their own ideas of legitimate play. Would it be as easy to define what is an acceptable online patron or interaction?

Perhaps not. In the meantime, there are some effective ways outlets can better protect their users and bring BDSM tech into the modern digital age. Teams can look into modern UX method to design websites that are easier to navigate. They can provide better options for a concerned user to report issues. They can build better moderation processes that do not shut victims out of their own community.

A Beginner’s Guide would not take up too much server space, and apps could specify a section for novices. Instead of leaving novices to the wolves, explain to them the merits of SSC or RACK, so they can better identify their own boundaries within newfound relationships. Features can be instrumental as well: a notes feature could help users keep track of who to avoid, and community guideline reminders should be part of the messaging process.

Of course, these features won’t thrive without a team that cares, or a company that is genuinely ready to address its own shortcomings. FetDroid, Kinky Gal LLC, and other private companies chasing capital in our community must realize that behaving solely in the interest of their reputation or cash flow does nothing to benefit the users they sorely need. Change begins when companies learn to align good business with community safety. The answer is not to impose onto people’s digital lives, but to create better, safer ones for every user.