How Do we Build Safer Kink Communities?
Time to talk volunteers, trauma, and policy. Whose responsibility is it anyway?
Society has a consent problem. Most people that I’ve met through kink don’t shy away from using this kind of critical lens to examine the consent practices of wider society. Many of us regularly take part in sex-positive events and those who don’t still occupy space that is significantly more open to sex, sexuality, and sexual expression than the average vanilla dinner party. It is, in part, this desire to build communities whose shared interests are sexual, that has led to the development of consent culture in kink communities. After all, we are socialized to believe that sex is risky - even the vanilla kind - so much more should we protect ourselves if we want to dive into the dark fairyland of kink! We talk about what consent means and how we can make consent sexy. Hours upon hours of classes are taught on consent and some play-based events might even require guests to attend one of these classes before allowing entry (though I’ve never experienced this myself).
But for all the focus we give to the topic of consent, I’m here, We Survive Kink is here, because of one thing: I’m not convinced that kinksters (as a whole) are any better at consent than the average American. What’s more, these groups and communities are also not the bastions of awareness and advocacy that I, and many of my friends, were led to believe when we entered “the community” as bright young Millennial kinksters. While this is not exclusive to the Triangle area, or even North Carolina (pay attention long enough and outcries will be heard from Atlanta to Maryland to Los Angeles), we change the world by changing our backyard. And here in my backyard, we have spent decades collectively failing to protect ourselves and each other.
An honest and hard look at why these failures are taking place is needed. And since we’re being honest, there are people with better qualifications than me to speak about the systemic issues faced by our local communities. However, I’d be doing a disservice to myself and everyone else, if I pretended as though I wasn’t qualified to at least take up part of this conversation. While these may not be the most important, biggest, or worst offenses, the following three issues are ones that I believe will need to be addressed if we want to begin building safer communities that prioritize consent and the well-being of those who have experienced consent violations.
We Need to Believe Survivors
While this is a hard pill to swallow, I want to start by pointing out that collective discourse around the issue of believing survivors has increased exponentially in the past several years. Most of us reading will have been told at some point that victims and survivors should be believed. Most of us have seen the periodic posts online and maybe we’ve even posted something reminding those in our communities to believe victims when they come forward. Unfortunately, many of us are survivors and when deciding to speak out we’ve had to confront what feels like an endless stream of barriers.
As with consent, I feel this is an area where kinksters think of themselves as more competent than reality shows. Telling survivors that you believe them is an important first step, but it isn’t enough. Believing in survivors means that you need to flip the assumptions you have about justice, the accused, and the accusers on their heads. This is because the assumptions you have were likely given to you by a system that is here to protect the accused, not the victim. The American justice system tells us that we are all innocent until proven guilty. I’m not here to critique our justice system (at least not yet), but I am here to say that this system is a shocking failure at protecting victims and holding perpetrators accountable. If we want to do better then we need to stop placing such a high burden of proof onto our victims.
Does this create an entire laundry list of new challenges and issues? Yes. It creates plenty of new problems and concerns. There are likely consequences that would cause harm to innocent people and we would need to find ways to protect ourselves and each other from the consequences of these inevitabilities. However, I believe this labor is worth it. Ripping down these assumptions and building something new will always be worth it when the result is that our biggest risk is ejecting an innocent person from the community. The highest risk we face when we don’t believe victims and survivors is that dangerous perpetrators are allowed to continue trolling our communities for vulnerable victims.
We Need to Leverage the Professional Expertise of our Communities
There are three things we can count on in this world: Death, taxes, and event organizers/group runners reminding us that they are “just volunteers,” when we offer critique. And honestly, I get it. For most organizers, there is no financial benefit to running an event, it takes a significant investment of time, and navigating various issues that community members bring to you can easily suck the last ounce of joy from the whole damn thing. Many who offer their time to run groups and events operate at a financial loss and, since this is part of their hobby, can’t realistically be expected to become experts at every single in and out of organizing. After all, they really are just volunteers who are trying their best to give back to the communities they call home!
The way this debate often plays out online goes something like this:
Person 1: Event staff at “X” handled my report of consent violation poorly!
Event staff: We did our best!
Person 1: You didn’t do it right! You should have done better/more/different things!
Event staff: We’re just volunteers, if you don’t like it then go build your own event!
And here the conversation is ended through the use of thought-terminating cliches. While the use of this tactic to shut down complaints is toxic and deeply harmful to victims and survivors, calling hosts and organizers toxic isn’t going to fix the issue that “Person 1” had when making their report. On the flip side, shutting down victims and survivors who are telling us that the systems we’re using aren’t working is doubly unacceptable. Ultimately, we need to recognize, and validate, the reason community volunteers respond this way in the first place. They (most likely) really are doing the best they can with what they have and they don’t want to see anyone hurt.
The solution to this lies in a willingness to invest in the systems that we want our communities to have. If we want people trained in emergency medicine at events, effective reporting procedures, and the ability to navigate challenging zoning regulations that make events difficult to host - it’s possible. But if these are things we want, then we need to stop expecting volunteers to become First Responder Human Resource Lawyers and pay kinksters who are professionals in these fields. Many of us don’t even know what professional resources our communities have access to because the idea of paying for each other’s expertise isn’t celebrated or supported by a system where power is held by volunteers.
And this is something we can’t just brush past. Many volunteers express feeling overworked, underappreciated, and as though their altruism is going unnoticed. However, volunteering in kink communities is not a thankless task for many who do it. Running events gives the host/organizer increased social status and often the base assumption is made that they are safe and knowledgeable. These are privileges afforded exclusively to those who are seen as providing access to play space. With privilege comes power, and for our community to truly benefit from the professional resources at our disposal, we need volunteers to be willing to loosen their grip on that power. We need our volunteers to be willing to collaborate with kink community members who aren’t hosts, community members who don’t attend their parties, and community members they may not want to be friends with. You don’t need to be friends with someone you are hiring to make your event guidelines safer!
If you want your communities to trust you as a host, and be forgiving when mistakes happen, then you need to accept your limitations as a host and organizer. Allow collaboration and bring in experts who make their careers by managing the task at hand. For everyone else, if you want your events to have the safest, most up-to-date understanding and policy, then you need to be willing to contribute to the cost of professional involvement.
We Need Groups and Events with Trauma-Informed Reporting/Banning Policies
One of the easiest ways we can build safer communities through professional collaboration is through the development of trauma-informed policies and procedures. By turning our focus towards creating trauma-informed spaces we have the opportunity to greatly reduce the risk of re-traumatizing those who have already experienced consent violations and of reducing the risk that new traumas will occur. This is crucial for finding ways to keep victims and survivors in our communities, but realistically, a huge percentage of the general population has experienced some sort of trauma throughout their lifetime. Policies that account for this reality don’t just benefit those who have suffered from consent violations, they benefit everyone.
Well-meaning and highly educated people could have a reasonable debate about what trauma-informed policy means for kink events, however, the basic principles remain the same. The four pillars of being trauma-informed can be summarized as:
Recognizing that trauma and its impact are widespread
Recognizing signs and symptoms of trauma and how they might show up for different individuals and groups
Integrating the knowledge we have about trauma into our policies, procedures, practices
Actively avoiding re-traumatization
Over my next several updates I will share more about what it means to be trauma-informed and how we can leverage this framework to build safer and more inclusive communities for victims and survivors of consent violations. I will be exploring ways that victims and survivors can recognize when an event may or may not be taking a trauma-informed approach. This assessment can be used to help you make informed choices about which venues, groups, or events are within your risk profile. I will also be exploring ways that organizers, group runners, hosts, and all those in proximity to policy can begin assessing whether your group’s policies are trauma-informed. I will be offering tips and tricks to revamp your systems with a victim and survivor in mind. This is not a substitution for working one on one with a professional!
If you are interested in my rates for a one-on-one consultation focused on how you can make your group or organization’s events more trauma-informed, please reach out to me directly at wesurvivekink@gmail.com with the subject line: Trauma-Informed Consultation
If you are interested in my rates to asses your group/organization’s policy and create a proposal for trauma-informed updates then please email wesurvivekink@gmail.com with the subject line: Policy Rewrite Request