Finding Other Kinksters and Organizations

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Finding Other Kinksters and Organizations

There are always other kinky people near you. However, they may be rather closeted, even to themselves, and that makes them harder to find. Here are some suggestions for kinky folk having trouble finding others nearby.

Lists of Organizations

There are several on-line attempts at comprehensive lists of kinky organizations. Among the best are under:

Be prepared for some organizations and contact info to be out of date on any such list. A listing does not constitute a recommendation.

Social Networking search

Join fetlife.com. Fetlife is a free, all-adult, all-BDSM site. In the search box, enter your geography, e.g. New-Orleans. This will produce lists of individuals, events, and discussion groups. From here you can find local face-to-face events and organizations.

You could also try tribe.net, a vanilla, all-ages site where many kinksters used to hang out.

Web search

Go to google.com and enter your geography and a kinky word. E.g. ï¿½New-Orleans BDSMï¿½ (without the quotes). Use a dash (ï¿½-ï¿½) to connect words that must go together. Try several versions of your geography - city, state, county, region, etc. Combine these with a variety of kinky words, like ï¿½BDSMï¿½, ï¿½Leatherï¿½, "bondage", "fetish", "spanking", "kink", "kinky", "wiitwd", "dominance", "domme", "domestic-discipline", "underground", etc.

Go through other local alternative organizations

People outside of mainstream sexuality often know each other, even if they're into different things. Network into any part of the sexual "underground", and you'll improve your access to whatever you seek.

Find a local gay bar. People there are more likely to know about, and talk about, the leather scene. There's often a weekly or monthly leather night at gay clubs. If there's no straight or pansexual clubs, then everyone (straight, bi, lesbian, trans, etc.) will be at the local gay bar's leather night.

Broaden your search, to include other non-mainstream sexualities, e.g. "polyamory", "tantra", "swinger", "sacred-sexuality", "queer". Most people in these groups won't be into leather, but some will know leather folk.

Get to know people in these groups first, don't just show up demanding addresses like an investigator, journalist or stalker.

Go one town over

If people are afraid to out themselves in their local community, they sometimes travel a hour or so to another city to begin networking into the community. This can give more confidence, and less chance of running into a neighbor. Once you're connected in the kink world, you can find it in your own town with less chance of exposure.

Join a national organization

Groups like Society of Janus welcome members world-wide. It helps you learn, feel a part of something, and get more resources.

Attend a national event

Most weekends of the year, there's a weekend leather conference somewhere in the country.

One of the better lists of events is at TheBdsmEventsPage.com

Join Mailing Lists

Find an on-line discussion group anywhere, if it has thoughtful discussions about things that interest you.

Find the on-line events listings for events nearest to you. Even if most events are far away, this is where your more local events will eventually appear. Also, some of the far away events may be worth the travel.

Start an On-Line Discussion Group

Start a mailing list for like-minded people near you. E.g. "Peoria kinsters". If you create it and advertize it (on line), people will eventually find it and join. They'll find it safer at first than meeting in public.

You probably should do this from a kink-specific email account and scene name, rather than from your work or home account and vanilla name. Later you can decide to out yourself, if you like.

Some better places to host your list for free are:

Which one is best seems to vary over time, and according to your purposes. In our case, as we grew, we eventually created a list on all of them, using Tribe mainly for discussion, and Google/Yahoo mainly for announcements.