Vetting 101

In kink, vetting is standard and expected. Essentially it’s a way to keep yourself safe by finding out if someone you’re interested in is a decent person.

Vetting is seeking out information on potential safety concerns and how honest someone is being with you. Things like they ignored someone’s safeword or they lie about themselves to get closer to people faster are things that may come up in vetting.

Vetting is not gossip, drama, or petty bullshit. It is not “they stayed friends with someone I fell out with” or “our relationship didn’t work out and I did nothing wrong so they’re the bad guy.”

This is a key distinction and knowing what are red, orange and green flags for you in advance will really help to get the most use from information you gain through vetting.

In vetting you are looking for red, orange and green flags.

Red flags are big warning signs that the person is dangerous to play with or dangerous for you to play with. Learning that they have a pattern of being abusive in relationships is a big red flag. Pushing you when you say no is a also a red flag.

Orange flags are smaller issues that don’t on their own mean danger but if someone has a bunch of them, that’s probably a red flag in itself. These are things you might want to ask more questions about. An orange flag might be never having taken a kink education class – you can dig into that and discover if it’s because they didn’t know they existed or have been nervous, or if they just don’t want to at which point it becomes a red flag. It might be that they have a primary partner who doesn’t know what they’re up to – for some people that alone is a red flag, for others that would require a discussion on why.

Green flags are signs that the person knows what they’re doing and is trustworthy, that they care about safety and see the other people they play with as humans. People may tell you things like this person was great at negotiation and communication, they made a mistake in scene but dealt with it really well and offered appropriate support. Things like accepting your no easily and happily, asking insightful questions to get to really understand you and listening to the answers, or encouraging you to take classes and get educated yourself.

What is a flag for you will be different than for other people based on your personal preferences and risk profile.
While I would argue that someone being a known abuser should be a red flag for everyone, it is ultimately up to you to decide where your lines are because it is your safety that is on the line.

References

Some people will give you references so that you can vet them, it’s good practice to contact those people but keep in mind that they’re only going to offer references of people they’re confident will say good things about them.

You can gather your own references and start to get an understanding of who they are and what they’re like through several different avenues.

• Local kink event organisers are a great starting point for finding out if someone is safe and being signposted to useful groups and resources for your area. Some areas have safety groups either online or in person.
  Vetting is often most effective at a local level so if you’re looking to play with someone outside of your area, it’s worth reaching out to organisers in the area they are actually in to vet too.
• Building a network of friends on the scene who you can speak to and discuss things with is also really helpful. You can of course ask if they know the person or have heard anything about them, but you can also discuss how they’re behaving to you, share messages for a different viewpoint on them, and generally make sure that your excitement or emotions aren’t meaning that you’re missing some signs.
• Checking out someone’s Fetlife profile and contacting those they have photos of or people they seem to be engaging with on Fetlife is a great option to discover more about their reputation and skills.
  You can also often spot some red flags from just checking out their profile, like them only following people of the gender they’re sexually interested in, fantasy pushing on people’s posts, and just general behaviour.
• I also recommend UK Safety Alerts which you can request to join through Fetlife.

It is incredibly important to also vet organisers, educators and other people who are well known in the scene. Just because someone is teaching a class or running an event does not mean that they are safe. If you engage in vetting and someone, especially someone with some reputation or power in the community, asks you why or tries to stop you subtly or overtly, that is an enormous red flag.

It also doesn’t matter which side of the slash you are on or how you’re playing. Tops need to vet bottoms just as bottoms need to vet tops. Anyone can be dangerous, unsafe, or abusive, it is not reserved for one side of the slash or any specific gender.

No vetting system is perfect, but having things in place can help you avoid some of the awful humans who kink among us.

How vetting looks

Vetting can look different depending on the circumstance so let’s have a think about how that might be.

If you’re at a play party and get chatting with someone for some pick-up play, your vetting might look like asking their experiences and some key questions that might tell you if you’re a good fit or bring up some issues. Asking for examples of a time something went wrong or someone safeworded and how that was dealt with can tell you a great deal about someone.
If that person was playing at the event before or has plans to play, you might watch them and see how they interact and what their skills are like.
Maybe you ask for their Fet name and have a peruse of their profile for any glaring red flags.
Importantly, trust your gut. If it feels wrong or doesn’t feel totally right, don’t play. There will be other opportunities.

If you meet someone at a munch and are hit it off you can immediately ask around, speaking to the munch organiser and other locals to see if they know the person. You can also see how they interact and, specifically, if they choose to only interact with people they might be interested in sexually or if they’re trying to socialise more broadly (even if they’re a bit awkward about it).
If they seem really interested in going home together that night, see how they respond to you suggesting to delay it to another night or going for a coffee together during the day.

Remember that if you are playing somewhere privately, the risk has already increased exponentially so it is incredibly important to be as sure as you can be that you have done your due diligence.

Vetting only works if you are prepared to reject someone. If you are invested in playing with someone and are vetting purely to check it off and are not truly engaging with the information being provided, that may be a sign that you do not value your own safety or that you are allowing your own issues with rejection to impact how you engage with the vetting process. In my opinion this means you are not a safe player yourself.

Yes, frenzy is hard to deal with and emotions can make us do very silly things, but we are adults with a responsibility to ourselves and each other. This is another area where having friends and a community can help – they may notice that you are writing off red flags because you just really want to play with that person, or at all.