I freely admit that I live life on the “easy” setting — I’m a white cis male. As far as kink goes, I’m on the left side of the slash — dominant, top, spanker, whatever. So I’m not the person who usually gets mistreated.

On Fetlife over the past few weeks, two people have been exposed as being assholes. One of them I kind of knew was one — I’d heard stories about him. The other was, I thought, just a dude who was pretty into the spanking community, had been for a while, and had gathered enough social capital to start his own party. Apparently he’s an asshole too. Like I said, I’m on the “easy” setting, so I personally have not experienced this assholery, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. I trust that people who are reporting stories about both of these assholes are being honest. (And, interestingly, I follow one of them, and his wife, on Fetlife, and both have been conspicuously silent these past few days.)

Why do people have to be assholes? Why do they have to ruin everything for everyone else? It makes it exponentially harder to be a part of the spanking community, and logarithmically harder to even consider starting up a new national party/gathering. I mean, what are the odds that a bad actor is going to show up? Pretty high. What are the odds that the organizer isn’t going to know about every bad actor before they show up? Also high. And the odds that, after the party, threads will go around on Fetlife excoriating the party host for allowing a bad actor to show up? Highest of all.

Look, I’m not saying that I want bad actors at my spanking parties. I certainly don’t. I go to them to have a good time, to see my friends, and to spank lots of people. I want them to be safe for everyone who attends, both from a kink perspective and a personal one. But as more and more bad actors get exposed, it makes it harder for those who are not bad actors to stay engaged in the community. I don’t want to go back to the days when all of this was swept under the rug, but I also want there to be a thriving, fun spanking community that I can be a part of.

Unfortunately, it seems like that’s not going to be a thing anymore. All because some people have to be assholes. (And when I say “some”, I mean “a lot more than you think”. Because there are a lot of assholes out there.)

I guess I’ll just keep writing about the ideal spanking parties: the kind where there are no bad actors, where everyone is safe and has a good time, where people get spanked and don’t have to worry about being mistreated.

It would be nice, though, if that was reality.