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August 22, 2013 by Snarksy

A Brief History of Kink Online: The Serial

(It’s almost like a Brief History of Time, but way more obscure and a bit less fundamental!)

So, if you’ve made it to this blog, there is a decent chance you’ve heard of Fetlife. If you haven’t heard of Fetlife, you certainly are aware of the existence of everyone’s favorite/least-favorite social-networking site, and it’s not-so-utilized competitor. I like to joke that Fetlife is Facebook for perverts*, and that’s basically true.

Most of my friends are under the age of 35, and I think it’s fair to say that they don’t have a clear idea of what the kink community had goin’ on in this here Internet prior to Fetlife. Sure, most folks are aware of the troll-ridden cluster-fuck that is now CollarMe, but before that?

I’m pretty much still a spring chicken, especially in the kink community, but I also happen to be an incorrigible academic. In the past year I’ve discovered a thing or two about the history of kinky socializing online, and I would like to bring that here to you.** In the next few weeks or so I will be fleshing out the events below with individual posts, explaining what the kinky community has been up to, when, and why.

I’ll start with the ever-nerdy and now-a-days generally-unheard-of Usenet, and move my way to Fetlife and present day. Along the way, please shoot me any questions, let me know if I my facts r wruuung, and help me find any relevant things I’ve left out!

  • 1989 – Alt.Sex.Bondage (Usenet Newsgroup)
  • 1994 – Jan Hall’s Anti-Domestic Violence Document
  • 1994 – Richard Kadrey shares Usenet with Wired Magazine
  • 1996 – Soc.Subculture.Bondage-BDSM (Usenet Newgroup)
  • 1997 – Kink.com is created 
  • 1997 – AOL introduces Instant Messenger 
  • 1998 – Alt.Sex.Story Text Repository formed
  • 2001 – BDSM gets a Wikipedia page
  • 2002 – CollarMe is formed
  • 2006 – The Kinky Aware Professionals list is turned over to the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom
  • ~2007 – The advent of activist, kinky bloggers
  • 2008 – Fetlife is formed
  • ~2012 – Activist kinksters make mainstream news outlets
* If perverts are defined as people whose sexualities are marginalized for shitty reasons.
** Folks who know more than me: if you catch any mistakes or omissions, please shoot me an e-mail or leave me a comment setting me straight! I will love you forever/hat-tip you in an update post/encourage you to feel a smug sense of intellectual superiority/send you an image of Rainbow Yak.
Posted in Snarksy and tagged with history, kink, look at me - kinky+nerdy, online. RSS 2.0 feed.
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Watch my Kink Academy Video!

My presentation on Narratives of Sexual Assault in the BDSM Community from the CARAS conference last September is now up on Kink Academy! Thanks so much to Princess Kali for recording my workshop, and CARAS for hosting the event.

Click the link above to learn about how our scene has handled rape through time, and where those conversations are today.

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