Byline: Abanga Shandile
Following the release of 50 Shades of Grey there was a massive decline in interesting conversations about sex. As if suffering through both the book and the film adaptation of E.L James’ poorly written cult ‘classic’ about domestic abuse wasn’t bad enough, everybody wanted to talk about their poor interpretation of kink. Now if you are someone who actually had heard of BDSM before Anastasia Steele tripped, sniffed and sobbed her way into our hearts, you were faced with two choices. You could either sit there and stew silently in anger as myth after myth was regurgitated as fact, or decide to #WellActually the conversation. However, the second option is ill-advised because in an ironic twist of fate you will probably kill the conversation. How dare you try to have a nuanced conversation about BDSM? You must be some sort of sexual deviant.
Now E.L James isn’t entirely at fault here. I mean she did introduce millions of people to the idea of BDSM sex, as well as to the world of sex toys and sexual interplay. I guess. But even that introductory class lacked something: reality. Where are you going to meet a billionaire playboy unicorn? Whose son is he? Has he declared his wealth? Why is he not married? Even if you were to find this mythical creature, your face would be plastered on every skeezy tabloid in circulation paired with words like GOLD DIGGER and SOCIALITE. The church would of course find a way to get involved and there would be a national conversation and debates on The Trend. It could also just be my over-active imagination, but I’m not willing to take those risks.
So what happens when you’re actually interested but have no opportunity to discuss it freely? Where do you even meet these people who won’t hiss and throw holy water in your face? Reddit threads can only get you the bare minimum. The kink community congregates in sites like Alt.com,CollarMe.com andBondage.com. While they all serve their purpose, and have thriving forums, they are first and foremost a meat market — their focus is on getting you laid. That’s cool and everything but getting laid should be the bonus, not the first thing on the agenda.
Just when I was about to give up, I discovered FetLife. If Facebook and Twitter met and had sex, FetLife would be the product of that steamy affair. FetLife isn’t about instant gratification, but rather it is about making a deeper connection. You can find what you want, but instead of it being served up on a platter for you, you have to do some looking and talking and meeting people — kind of like the offline world. Imagine going to an event where you walk up to the organizers and say, “Hey, show me all the attractive 25-32 year olds who live 25 minutes from me.” That isn’t how the real world works. That isn’t the way FetLife works. You are going to have to join groups and interact with people.
The Kenya kink scene is relatively small, there are 1027 kinksters signed up to the site, with several of them being from the Nairobi area. Majority of users are male exhibitionists, meaning that there are loads of phalluses as profile pictures (did I mention it’s insanely NSFW?). Of course there are badly behaved pervs as would be expected; a couple of hours after setting up my account I had solicitations from someone wondering if I’d be willing to perform an Alabama Steamer (don’t Google that.) However there are good kinky people who have found a sense of community, far away from prying and judgemental vanilla eyes and I can’t wait to get my feet dirty!
