Fetlife.com-The Facebook group for Kinkster by Kinksters

Who has visited this group?Like finding sxl magazine through facebook it has a fetishes list that is incredible.I always thought that BDSM meant bondage,leather,restraints and control.

I'm on there, and I'm pretty sure it's not a "facebook group".

BDSM stands for bondage/discipline, dominance/submission and sadism/masochism.

The book club thread on fetlife is awesomely active, btw

Fetlfe is nothing to do with Facebook, as far as I could tell, but it does insist on quite a lot of personal data before it lets you in to any depth. That said, it's quite informative, but it is a BIG site, and really needs time to work it through. There is certainly an overlap with LT as far as common members go ...

Fetlife has been described as the kinky person's answer to Facebook...

How much information they ask for and how much you give them is entirely up to you - but there are obviously means by which you can be circumspect if you choose.

The site has grown at an incredible rate since its inception as it has been seen to offer a viable alternative to some of the more established kinky sites that are purely designed as hook up platforms!

There are a number of people here who are also members of Fetlife - authors and readers alike.

Which ones? Can we make this a coming-out thread? My username on fetlife is leper.

I still haven't gotten used to how the groups work, but yeah, if creepy oversexed dudes with bad grammar isn't your thing, fetlife is the best online thing to happen to BDSM in a while. It's quirky and relaxed.

If you're interested in BDSM books, I would suggest checking out some of the articles at http://www.lifekink.com/. TammyJo Eckart is a venerable erotica writer who posts kinky book reviews once a week to the site.

supernumery - the Kinky Intellectual's Book Club is the group to join http://fetlife.com/groups/36

John Warren is a member and there is also a group built around his book, The Loving Dominant http://fetlife.com/groups/5446 That's just for starters!

The groups work pretty much the same way as they do here - you click to join the group and select any thread topic of interest to read and post within. Your personal pages keep tabs on the action in the group and your threads of interest.

Oh, I know how it works, I just don't feel I can use it intuitively. For starters there's no way to skim the newest posts regardless of group, and there are discussions I would like to follow that belong to groups I don't want to publicly join. So I still lurk (the book club, for example).

I don't like the inability to filter information; anyone who isn't blocked can see my FL profile and recent activity, and being part of a very active local scene, there are those I would prefer didn't have that access. For someone who does NOT have a kink community, or whose community is not diverse, it can be a great resource for conversation with like-minded people from all walks.

I guess that with any public forum, you run the risk of someone you don't want reading about you, being able to do so. You are given the opportunity to create an identity that can be as anonymous as you wish to make it. I know of people who have more than one on many different sites for that very reason.

Fetlife is no different to any other in that respect.

I understand the comparison you're trying to make. I don't disagree that everyone should be aware that anything they put on the Internet has a chance of being read by someone they wouldn't tell that thing to directly. My qualm with FL is that I believe a site that deals with more personal information than, say, Facebook, should have more privacy settings options, not fewer. It's fine if you want to go through the trouble of creating multiple online personas, and maintaining an anonymous profile which still reflects your true self, but that's a balancing act I can't be bothered to attempt for the sake of a website. If and when John and the crew are able to offer more options, I'll be more inclined to build a presence and a network there.

I am brand new to Librarything (4 days old) and came upon this group by chance. I recently discovered Fetlife (also by chance) and joined as a free member. I must admit have certain fetishes and would like to explore them further. If you wish to know please ask. What I find is that it is very expensive to become a paying member and I think you basically are ignored as a free one. I also have trouble in loading my pic and I find the search criteria is inadequate. Maybe I have not explored the site that well. But I cannot find a list of those who share my kinks. There are also too few women, many as in most adult websites, are actually men posing as women, and I have never received one message. Basically I am seeking what I call intelligent sexuality chat but not a relationship. (I am in a vanilla one), but it is hard to find. I may be available to explore my kinks further if I find the right person that is in a similar predicament as me.
I cannot tell if it anything like Facebook as I am not there, but somehow I think not

I have not found there to be any difference in the manner in which paying and non paying members of Fetlife are treated, except with the notable exception of using the video option.

The justification for videos only being available to paying members was based on the financial cost of supporting having the feature available - it was an expensive addition to the Fetlife site and it was felt that those that wanted it could put their hands in their pockets!

I have been a member of Fetlife since not long after it hit the scene and I have never felt as if I had been ignored or treated differently because I chose not to ante up.

I have joined the groups I am interested in and participate in the discussion where I feel I have something to contribute. I have formed some interesting friendships with locals and been lucky enough to have them translate into real life experiences. Its definitely a place where you get out of it what you are prepared to put in.

Message me privately here and I will give you a link to my Fetlife profile if you are interested in chatting in that environment.

Fetlife is a fine, albeit confusing networking site. If you are looking for an easier site to use in regards to fetish lists, bondage.com is actually better. Most kinksters I know have accounts on both.

If you are new to the scene, I would recommend looking for munches in your local area. Munches are held usually at restaurants, and are generally street clothes attire, where kinky people can talk.

I was at a munch last night and wound up talking to a guy who had done some reading, but hadn't been to a munch before.

Feel free to message me with questions. :)

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Are you sure we're talking about the same Fetlife?

Becoming a paid member is cheap and the only difference between paid and unpaid is paid members can view and upload videos and they have a little note in their profile. I've been a very active member for years now and have never paid (due to lack of funds... I'd love to give them money.) There's a LOT of women on FetLife (yes, "real" ones)... possibly more than any other altsex site out there, and there are a number of active groups for intellectual discourse. Are you sure you're not talking about Alt.com or Bondage.com?

I have to agree with #15... I find fetlife a very easy site to use and correspond on. Its certainly easy to contact other kinksters with similar fetishes.

Bondage.com is more commercial, I don't care for it that much. I like fetlife, although there are way to many groups. There's no way you can find your way in them. But then, anyone can start a group.

#15, #17 I agree with with you both, it's easy to find people with similar fetishes and so forth, but there are an enormous amount of groups, and I personally find that unless a group has a particularly good creator or moderator team, it can be very difficult to find specific information. Other than that, I think it's a good site.

The lack of search within groups is a problem for many people, but there are also a lot of good folks there. The difficulty of searching by ASL plus height, weight, kinks makes it much less of a meat market place, which gets to be BORING for many of us females... so glad that it mostly stays in the personal-ad groups. Clearly they are trying to design out some of the noise and design in more signal, and clearly also there is still some working out the "kinks" (irresistible pun).

I find FL is very nice for coordinating and socializing with our local group.

The number of groups is frustrating and hard to navigate; I have tried to bookmark some in hopes of putting together my own personal guidebook at some point. However, one tip I *can* give you is to find leaders (in your local area or overall) and skim through their profiles for what groups they belong to to find general resources. Not only John Warren but also Jay Wiseman, Midori, Gloria Brame, Tristan Taormino, Douglas Kent, and I'm sure others, have FL profiles if you need somewhere to start.

I have not ponied up the $5 a month to support FL yet but since I rarely run into anything it would help me with (occasionally limits to history; less often a video someone has linked to; YMMV) I figure that it can wait until I have more finances. A lot more expensive than LT but then LT doesn't stream video, which really drives up hosting costs (lots of bandwidth).

Also, we could easily put a LT lounge/outpost group out there if that would be helpful for people trying to network. Or we could figure that's just one more damn group to page through. (8

Chellerystick - a LT lounge on Fetlife would be one way of bringing everyone from here together - if you make it, I am sure we will come....(Had to restrain myself from making bad puns here!)

Restrain yourself?

I know at least 5 people in the group are on FL, could be more but most want to keep the 2 worlds very separate.

Would the purpose be to chat about books or lifestyle? Can anyone form a group or must you be a paid member(on FL)? Anyway please invite me as soon as its formed.

(I have a different name on FL)

Anyone can form a FL group... my thought was more to run into "familiar faces" there since it is a big site and it is nice from a social networking pov to find people you have things in common with. Probably would be a low-traffic group but I know there are moments when it would be nice to be able to point back and forth and find intelligent people to converse with. (The book-oriented features are obviously better here, but the alt sex community is stronger there, and I'm sure there are more people interested in both than are reflected in the forum right here.)

I'll look at the group formation guidelines and get back to y'all tonight or tomorrow.