My first hour on Fetlife and I was already finding predatory behavior. I went on to start and contribute in discussions and some of the things I heard people saying made my stomach turn. There are things that the website claims to ban, but it’s obvious they don’t enforce it. Incest, beastiality, and pedophilia are not allowed but the forums are littered with discussions about these fetishes. There are members who point out that the website doesn’t really enforce their rules all the time. I’m just going to make a list of comments and discussions I actually saw on here, and I saved them to my computer so these are word-for-word.

• There is a forum for people who get turned on by actual news stories of rape. “Documentaries about sex trafficking are just the best. Not only do you get tearful interviews with the victim, they’re practically how-to videos for the aspiring collector or entrepreneur.” Or “I absolutely LOVE the thought of old men taking advantage of/raping little girls.. the reasoning behind it is that I love the idea of wanting someone SO BADLY that they just can’t stop, no matter how sick it it – they just HAVE to touch them and take their innocence away.” Someone even said “these people just had to the guts to follow what comes naturally to them, nothing that ends in an orgasm can be bad.” Yuck.
• One forum is so people can talk about their perfect society and what laws they would abolish. Literally every single person that answered wanted forms of abuse to be legalized. Rape, sexual harassment, domestic violence, verbal and physical abuse were mentioned by every responder. One even said that they wanted it to be legal for men to “abuse cunts to death,” and people agreed. Another person said that they don’t think rape is wrong because “it’s been around since the dawn of time and we just live in a society that says it’s wrong.”
• There is a forum for female subs to talk and one section was discussing when their dom punishes them when they aren’t supposed to. Like, if they aren’t in a 24/7 dom/sub relationship sometimes the dominant forgets and punishes the girl anyways. Most of them talk about how they did something that made their boyfriend mad and he punished her. Hitting, pepper spray, and shoving things in the girls mouth were all examples I read. And the sad thing is that these girls all said that they deserved it and shouldn’t have made him mad.
• To me the most problematic group was on that talked about raising their daughters to be submissives. Men and women both saying that if they have daughters they would teach them from an early age that they are inferior to men and that they need to be submissive to males sexually and otherwise. Some even talk about how it’s their fantasy to have their “own little fucktoys in the house.” And this is seriously a response I got for speaking out against it. “Honestly if he is going to fuck my daughter it wouldn’t make much of a difference. I’d rather know about it and be there to make sure everything is safe!!!” Disgusting mentality.
• The most active group I had discussions in was one saying women should have no rights. Most posters think that women shouldn’t even have the right to say “no,” when it comes to sex. “A woman should NEVER have the right to say no. It’s her duty to be sexually available to men whenever.” Some say that the only value women have is to be a “cook, maid, and whore to her man.” Viewing women as nothing but property was the reoccurring theme here.
• “Anorexia – The Closer to the Bone the Sweeter the Meat,” is another group on Fetlife. It’s a group that is for anorexics and people who are sexually aroused by them. But the group also says that they allow “people with bulimia and other forms of self-harm and low self esteem.” It’s mostly a bunch of posts of girls asking if they should stop eating or how much they should lose. And of course all these men are telling them that they should be anorexic and should be thin enough to see bones. Of course they request that they get to see pictures of the process. This honestly pisses me off, convincing women to starve themselves and damage their bodies just to get off.

It’s interesting that the arguments I always see defending BDSM is that “it’s consensual,” or that “nobody actually wants to rape someone or have sex with children, it’s just fantasy.” Clearly that’s not how everyone thinks and this website proves it. I’m especially curious about the people who think that a perfect society is one were rape and abuse is legal. Mainly because the big argument is BDSM is about consent, but if all rape was legal it wouldn’t be about consent, would it?

Honestly I left a lot out, I could probably double this with all the stuff I had saved to my computer. Race Play was equally disturbing. People wanting to “beat a n*****,” but claimed they weren’t racist in any way. Or the people talking about how they would let a convicted sex offender into their life, even if they had kids. Saying that the danger would be a turn on. I could go on and on, and some of the things I read will be etched into my brain for a long time.