A space for new and experienced kinksters to get information about kink and the kink scene.
Welcome to
KinkDojo
To provide some context, it is good to understand a bit about kink culture before you dive into the actual Fact Sheets. In kink people participate in individual scenes with each other, but there is also the wider 'Scene'. The Scene is the social structures, culture, and collective identity many kinksters subscribe to. But what is it?
The Scene
There can be a tendency in the Scene to put people in categories, particularly as to whether they are a top (a doer of actions), bottom (receiver of actions), or switch (doer and receiver). There is a lot of overlap across the kink, fetish, polyamory, LGBTQIA2S+, and swinger communities, with many people belonging to more than one. The norms and language surrounding kink, sex and consent can differ across them, so there is no single set of rules out there.
People
Negotiation sets the agenda for a kink scene and establishes boundaries among the participants. There are many ways people go about negotiation, from an informal chat to a written contract. There is no perfect way to negotiate. Even well intentioned people will, on occasion, breach a boundary someone has set be it through an accident or a misunderstanding. Negotiation is as imperfect as the humans doing it. While a scene often starts with negotiation communication needs to continue even after a scene begins.
Negotiation
Lots of people enjoy doing kink at home in an intimate setting, others like to go out to events. Events can be about being social, a voyer or an exhibitionist. Each event will have its norms, especially around consent and negotiation, and it can take some time to work them out. Many events are advertised, but others are private; you only find out about the private ones over time, so be patient and social, people will let you know about them once they get to know you.
Events
Negotiation is about setting the agenda and boundaries before participating in kink, consent is about everyone's real time willingness to continue participating in a kink scene. Consent involves all participants doing (at least) two things: (1) describing how they are feeling about what is happening, (2) listening to and thoughtfully responding to what the other person/people are saying about their feelings. Making sure all participants are speaking/listening effectively has many approaches: safe words, traffic lights, checking in, etc. A part of the negotiation usually involves making sure everyone involved in the kink scene has the same understanding of consent and are all speaking/listening in the same language when communicating about consent.
Consent
One of the main reasons to participate in kink is to take risks. Kinksters want to participate in an activity that gets close to personal boundaries, heightens emotions and provides new experiences. By definition noone can be completely safe, and by definition things will go wrong. People will misunderstand what someone likes/dislikes. People will be injured by accident. How much risk is being taken can somewhat be controlled, and a lot of time is spent finding people with compatible risk profiles, be that more cautious or more carefree. Even the most cautious will have accidents though, especially when learning new things! Planning for misunderstandings and accidents is important, we cannot remove risk but we can plan for how we will respond when accidents inevitably happen.
Risk
For some people kink is completely seperate from sex and sexuality, for others they are inseperable. Just like everyone has preferences for kink so too do people have preferences for whether it includes sensuality, eroticism and outright sex! It is not surprising if some people suggest sexual contact or sex as a part of a scene. Expectations around sex are often brought up during negotiation, and the big differences in preference can often be a sticking point for people.
Sex
One of the main currencies in the Scene is reputation. Does a person navigate negotiation and consent well? Do they have good skills at rope bondage or impact play? Asking other people about a person's reputation is common. But it is incredibly flawed so do not rely on it for your safety. Popularity can be confused for being skilled, risk profiles may differ across people, communication styles may not be compatible, and sometimes the person being asked may not know everything about the person.
Reputation
Dungeon Monitors (DMs) are usually people with some experience at kink, and tend to take leadership roles in education or at events. They are often volunteers, so be kind to them. Their main role at events is to monitor general safety. Some can be quite cautious, as they have very strict risk profiles themselves, so ony permit mild kink activties and interject in peoples' kink scenes regularly. Others are quite carefree, bringing a more 'its your body, do what you like, just try not to die' attitude to risk. Over time you will find the venues with the DMs that match your risk profile. Know that they cannot monitor negotiation and consent, there is too much going on and they won't know enough about the dynamic you have with your partner(s), so the presence of a DM will never make a venue 'safe', so look after yourself and your friends!