Fetlife is Dead

And so are you, if you give them your phone number.

Regrets come in all shapes and sizes. This might not be one of them. What a domme!

Never cared much for Fetlife. Last login was when Mr. Obama was President of the United States. I exactly have one connection, some lonely [dominant] lady who bombards random strangers with friend requests. Don't know why. It also makes her feed terribly uninteresting. "Lady Bomber is now friends with someone."As a smart slave myself , I saw that one coming.

Unlike the news, Fetlife is all about - please pick what best describes you:

1. I'm so horny;
2. I'm so submissive;
3. I'm a [dirt poor] highly successful alpha domme [whom the world unfairly ignores];
4. I'm all about no limits [buy/sell];
5. I'm a lifestyler who hates pro-dommes. Send ME a [large] tribute before you dare to contact ME, worm [that one is a freebie to show you, I can be kind when I choose to].

Whichever one you prefer, it's basically more of the same. The interface is terrible, the conversations [see above] even worse. But with kink more or less eradicated from every other form of social media, it's your only option.

Whether it's a good one, one wonders. Social media companies are like a flock of sheep or perhaps like one trick ponies. The stallion among them [please don't look at Mark'z picture when you read this] is Facebook. If their recent history is anything to go by - just read the latest devastating profile in billionaire nastiness published recently in the New York Times - it won't be long before you regret sharing your even more intimate details with Fetlife than you ever did with "Mark they-trust-me,-dumb-fucks Zuckerberg." And yes, he actually said that early on in his career. We all have regrets.

Given the sorry state of my one connection on Fetlife, you might think, I signed up only recently, but you're wrong. I joined long before you needed to give John Baku your phone number so he could send a "verification code."

"Verification time!" Sounds so happy you almost believe it is a good thing to hand some random stranger the keys to your life. Don't worry, the State of Antartica isn't listening in. Unfortunately they are the only ones, you freak!

A database is basically a combination of a set of lists. Each list has at least two columns. Imagine one list with your first name and eye colour. A second one with your first name and the fact that your are a vegetarian or not. Combine them and you have a new list comprising of all vegetarians with green eyes. Sounds innocent enough doesn't it?

Now imagine Fetlife has a truly unique way (99 percent accurate) to know who you are in the real world. There is hardly anything more personal than your phone number. Email addresses can be shared, phone numbers not. How many people use a burner phone anyway? So from the day you sign up to Fetlife, they have this unique identifier. Not that it offers any additional safety. Fetlife is also very careful not to promise you anything. All they are saying is that they'll send you a one-time anonymous text message. They are not promising your phone number won't be used for anything else. Neither are they guaranteeing never to sell your unique identifier and all the dirt that comes with it to other parties. Think Google, Facebook or perhaps some political party that has issues with your unique definition of happiness and sexuality. After all, their vision of the truth is the only way to set you free.

Fetlife's excuse for asking a lot is that it strives to create a healthy and vibrant community. It makes you wonder what healthy exactly means in the world of Kinkbook. Vibrant on the other hand is DOA. Dead on arrival because you don't need to join Fetlife to know that male submissives are always horny and even more desperate. So horny and desperate they are willing to do anything, to serve a mistress, any mistress. Often these desperados are willing to consider a male doms [part-time only, it's a pride thing] once their arousal becomes pretty much unbearable. Don't worry, I'm an equal opportunity insulter. Fetlife is also flush with dommes complaining about where all the good 'n' riel submissives have gone. For some of them, the fact they demand an Amazon gift card before you can talk to them in a relaxed, humane environment, perhaps has something to do with it. Like I said, Fetlife vibrant?, my ass. As in before it's first ever spanking.

So basically you hand over your phone number to a company you know nothing about. Don't worry, you're no longer a virgin when it comes to that. First there was Facebook, then Google. You hesitated when it comes to Twitter, but only because you wonder what's the point in using the service. By now you realize it no longer makes any difference. That is, until you run into Fetlife. They don't know you [but that'll soon change, massively so.] You don't know them either [same old, same old.]

Yeah, yeah, their security is top notch. Remember that scene from the TV show Billions where the dominatrix brags how her stolen laptop is secure because it is encrypted by some guy who works for the NSA? Let's assume she is an "elite" domme with high value clients [targets]. How much do you think an uncracked laptop with the most intimate details of the deviant sexual behaviour of powerful men goes for these days? If you're afraid it falls in the hands of domestic security services, you clearly haven't read the papers lately. Even if you convince yourself Russian and Chinese intelligence arent't interested either, there is always other people's divorce lawyers. So that laptop won't be secure much longer. Even if they cannot crack the code today, they definitely will crack it long before you loose all interest in femdom.

Now back to Fetlife. Handing them your phone number isn't worth it. The content is terribly (see the bullet list at the beginning). The chance of you finding someone through it is next to impossible. One day, the people that started Fetlife, retire. That's expensive and also the reason they didn't make any promises regarding your phone number falling into commercial hands. Even with the best intentions, once they sell their company - Whatsapp anyone? - somebody else will be in charge. People like that are called investors and they want to recoup their money. The easiest way - you've guessed it - is not to invest in your happiness, but to sell - and combine - your Fetlife data with other information about you out there. The best thing about it? It isn't even hard, after all you're the sucker who gave away your unique personal identifier, like you did many times before.

If Fetlife doesn't suffer from a massive hacking scandal, it may take a few years. But when it happens you will regret the privacy vs Fetlife trade-off of you made back then. After all Fetlife is dead - and with your personal life for sale on the dark web, your life is over too.