Friday, May 11, 2012

Dating in the BDSM Community

After years of being in the BDSM community in Toronto, one thing become clear. Everyone likes to be known in some form. Some go the route of joining social media sites and posting pictures of themselves in fetish gear for shock value to friends, others lurk and hide behind online personas.

With each passing year it seems the same mindset keeps infecting the lifestyle like a virus. Its become not about the lifestyle, but a circus of who can stand out the most, while preaching they know the best ways of doing things and name drop every chance they get. These online forums become a haven for this behaviour and its become acceptable and it shouldn't. I recently ran into an old friend I use to hang out with at Hybrid and Velvet Underground. He was walking with his new submissive on route to a Subspace event, case of toys in tow. He moonlights as a webmaster and I asked him why he even bothered with the events anymore. As we stood there we say the usual cliche characters walking in the front door of the Great Hall all doe eyed and flaunting.

He told me it was no longer about the community. He went with his new lady friend because they could "play loud" in the dungeon there. The have 5 children and being able to have "playtime" was few and far between. Turns out he met his new lady friend on plentyoffish. I nearly died laughing when he said it. I laughed because he basically runs one of the largest dating sites for the GTA. I asked him why he wasn't looking on fetlife, he said it was almost impossible. Profile weren't really searchable. You basically had to stalk someone to get to know them. This made me question him as to why he didn't take the dating site and add in the kink side. He laughed and said he was thinking about it. We shot the shit for awhile and then we bid farewell.

About a month later I was at a munch in Oshawa and I saw him again. BDSM gear in tow he walked up to me with a smile and smacked my arm. He said he'd finally put together a BDSM dating site and community for those into fetish. He had just launched it. I browsed it a bit and it being a startup it was a bit sparse, but the idea was there. The url is Deviantside.com. It really is a BDSM and fetish oriented dating site with forums open for discussions you'd see on any standard vbulletin based fetish forum. Profiles are searchable, customizable and VERY specific. He really did his homework into what people want in a fetish site. I'm really hoping it takes off.

Saturday, May 5, 2012

Devaintside.com

A new site has been added for the BDSM community. Deviantside.com

Deviantside.com

Its labelled as a BDSM Fetish community thats free for all users. It also has close ties to Ozone Night Club in Mississauga. A swingers hangout.