Let’s start this out by saying that I am far from any kind of very serious BDSM or Kink professional (I’m not even BDSM verified on Slixa), nor am I even especially experienced in those worlds. But it’s fair to state that I have more than a passing interest in activities that live… outside of the mainstream, we'll say.
Capital-K Kink has always seemed a bit exclusive to me though, with folks identifying as “kinky” seeming to have some kind of insider knowledge or membership in a club I am not yet aware of. I’ve made it these last 32 years without openly identifying with the Kink or BDSM communities but have spent plenty of those years 👀 from the sidelines.
Which is why the recent discovery of Fetish.com was a bit of a positive thing for me.
While the site seems primarily oriented toward straight/hetero-identifying users, there is a breadth of users and forum material that focuses on LGBTQI+ folks (like me!) too.
Let’s look at some of the community’s best features:
Profile and Activity Timeline
Often times, sites are pretty restrictive about what goes into a profile like this, offering a couple boxes like “bio” and “interests.” But Fetish.com expands to host a ton of details (for those who want to share), featuring everything from photos and event attendance to “desires and fantasies.” If you want to give viewers the clearest possible image of who you are in this space, Fetish.com won’t hold you back.
The Facebook-like activity timeline will feel intuitive and familiar, too, allowing users to share favorite images or videos or links with anyone visiting your profile.
What you can do there
As a professional male escort, I’m not permitted to advertise my work there (though they do seem to make special exception for Dommes and perhaps BDSM pros to advertise non-sexual services), but there’s no shortage of ways to connect with other users for personal (rather than business) matters. My personal favorite feature is all the different ways you can sort and search the other users based on location, interests, what they’re into, and on and on and on.
The site also features extensive forums where folks talk about virtually everything (man – don’t you miss online forums!? RIP, Yahoo Groups). Again, the spaces here dedicated to dong-addicts like myself are fewer than those dedicated to hetro-ID’d men and women. But “scrotal weights” still returned a respectable amount of results on search, so it’s not all bad news. Perhaps weights aren't strictly a gay thing, after all.
Fetish.com is most often referred to as a way to meet users, or a "kinky personals" site. And this is probably accurate. That’s not super high up my personal list of important facets (what with me being a bit of a lookey-loo), but it can be difficult to connect with other folks in your area who enjoy or get off on the same things you enjoy or get off on. I’d say anything that connects sex-positive strangers in a safe environment like this is probably a net positive thing, and Fetish does it well.
Mobile App
The site’s mobile app is where it really shines, though. So often anything even approaching this industry/area/interest scope is just flatly banned from the Apple and Android app stores, that seeing a fully-functioning (and beautifully designed) mobile app for something like Fetish feels just rare af. I haven’t spent a ton of time there yet, but I already like it better than Discord’s mobile app, and I can tell that this is likely how I will most often engage with this site.
Bottom line, Fetish.com is beautifully and thoughtfully constructed, and is attracting new users all the time. As we watch spaces for sex-positive and Kinky folks drop like files in the era of FOSTA, it’s significant that a company like this is investing in trying to do it right and serve this community.
Give it ago – it’s free to join, and VIP (very worth it, IMO) is only 7 Euros a month. You could do a lot worse with 7 Euros.
