Newbie Guide to Vetting, Reference Checks, and Why You Should Do Them

Written by Kai Brave. Originally posted on Fetlife

Disclaimer and foreword

For those of you with lots of experience in the scene, this writing is not for you. I ask that you please refrain from nitpick comments and writing paragraph long comments critiquing this writing. If there is something blatantly wrong, please do send me a DM me about it and I will do my best to correct this writing. The goal of this writing is to create a straightforward and simple guide for newbies to understand vetting and reference checks - and to understand the limitations of vetting and reference checks.

If you're new to kink or new to the kink scene, this writing is for you! I hope this guide gives you some context and helpful information on how to approach playing with new people, including strangers, and gives you some tools to better keep yourself safe.

What is vetting? What are reference checks?

Reference Checks Let's start with the obvious one. A reference check, much like you might see in a job interview, is when you talk to a third party about the person you are considering playing with or engaging with - let's call them the "person of interest" or POI. The POI will typically (but not always) provide you with their references. You would then proceed to contact those references and ask them some questions about the POI. When you talk to a reference, that's a reference check.

Vetting is the general process of evaluating whether you want to play and/or engage with a person. Reference checks are not the only way of doing vetting. In this guide, I'm going to describe a variety of ways you can go about vetting. It will be up to you to decide which methods work best for you and your risk profile (for the definition of risk profile, please see the references at the bottom of this writing).

Why is vetting important?

Vetting is important because kink is risky, ESPECIALLY with strangers! The primary purpose of vetting is to either reduce your risk or increase your awareness of the possible risks of playing with someone. Here are some of the possible risks with playing with strangers:

  • The person is a predator. Predators (unfortunately) exist in almost every kink community

  • The person is a bad fit for you. Maybe your kinks don't line up or you disagree on certain core values or ethics

  • The person is not skilled enough (and therefore unsafe) for the kink you want to do

  • The person has poor communication or negotiation skills

  • The person has a poor understanding of consent

  • The person has a pattern of inadvertently harming the people around them (and potentially you!)

  • For a worst case scenario, see the writing by Meat in the references section below

Vetting gives you a chance to evaluate and potentially gain more knowledge about some of these risks. Vetting will never completely eliminate risk but it may allow you to be more prepared for certain cases or to save you lots of time and turmoil by filtering out people that aren't a good fit for you.

Before vetting, you should…

Make some friends in the scene and be part of the community! Your friends will be your allies and the first people you will want to ask about an unknown person. In general, vetting becomes more effective the more people you know in the community. So you should make as many friends as you can.

You should strongly consider not playing until you've built a foundation of friends and allies in the scene. One of the most risky things you can do in the kink scene is try to go it alone. This opens all kinds of risks - and if you do get caught by a predator, you won't have anyone to lean on or bail you out. You can meet people by: going to munches, parties, socials, or events like Kinky Speed Dating.

How can I do vetting?

There are many ways you can collect information about folks you're interested in. In this writing, I will provide you with a non-exhaustive list - there are always more ways of gathering information. These are the methods most convenient for me and I hope you can benefit from some of these.

Caveats to these methods

There are a few caveats to the methods I'm providing in this guide.

Folks that are new to the scene often do not have references, may not have fetlife and/or kinky social media, and may not have much information about themselves other than they are interested in kink. That's OK. You may not be able to find out a whole lot because they are really an unknown quantity in the scene. It doesn't mean you shouldn't play with them. But you may want to approach them with more caution.

Folks that are on a social media detox have often deleted lots or all of their content. Some of these methods may not work for them.

Reading into online content will only tell you so much. Some people are notoriously mismatched with their voice or imagery online - either in a good way or a bad way. Just because somebody's bio has poor grammar doesn't mean they are unknowledgeable or going to be a bad fit for you. Be careful with how you read into folks' writings and bios. Over time, you will gain your own "radar" for which things to look out for and which things correspond to red or green flags for you.

Direct Method for Vetting

The most direct method of vetting is to talk to the person of interest yourself! Obviously there are some flaws with this method and you won't be able to gather every type of information. But applying your own social skills and intuition can be a very effective way of filtering out people that are not a good fit for you. For folks who are not comfortable with direct confrontation or don't feel they have the skills to properly evaluate another person in a direct way, I do not recommend this method.

Regarding safety with talking to a person of interest, this depends largely on your risk profile. Here are some common methods / locations for communicating:

  • Over Zoom or in an online forum where your legal name can be obscured

  • Over coffee in a public / highly visible cafe

  • At a public kink event

Other safety recommendations include:

  • Not giving out any personal details (like name or phone number) until further vetting has occurred

  • Using a scene name

  • Using Fetlife for communication

  • Giving a friend your location and proposed plan of action in advance

  • Having a "spotter" (nearby friend) to monitor you while you chat

Recommendations on what to ask someone

This is a non comprehensive list of things you can ask somebody you are vetting. Their answers may give you good insight as to whether they will be a good fit for you or not.

  • Why are you interested in playing with me?

  • How long have you been in the scene?

  • Do you primarily do kink publicly or privately? Why?

  • Can you tell me how you think about consent? What are your preferred consent frameworks?

  • Can you tell me about one of your favorite scenes? What did you like about it?

  • Can you tell me about a time something went wrong during or after a scene? What happened? How did you manage the situation?

  • Have you ever been accused of a consent violation? What happened?

  • Do you have any current partners in the scene?

  • If you had a recent breakup, why did the relationship end?

  • Have you ever safeworded or had a play partner safeword during a scene? What happened?

  • What are your primary skillsets in kink? Impact? Rope? D/s?

  • What does kink mean to you?

Fetlife-specific Methods for Vetting

Read their Fetlife bio and writings

This is a very accessible and easy one to do. You can learn a lot by reading someone's bio. Do they have any blatant mismatches with your ethics or worldview? Do they have any "isms" in their bio such as sexism, racism, xenophobia, fatphobia? People also tend to reveal a lot about their thought processes, ethics, worldview, and experiences in the scene in their fetlife writings. This is a great way to peer into their headspace and look for any red flags.

Check their friend list

To see who they know and what circles they run in. This is useful for a few reasons:

  • If they have zero or very few friends and claim to be "experienced" in the kink scene, that should be a red or yellow flag. Fetlife is the de facto standard social network and most standard method of communication for kink. Most established folks in the scene are very intentional about curating their friend lists and will almost never have zero friends on Fetlife.

  • If you have zero friends in common, this might be a flag for you. For me personally, I am extremely involved in the Seattle (and formerly San Francisco) scene and know a lot of people. If somebody doesn't have any friends in common with me, I can presume they either: run in entirely different circles (either they aren't in the public scene / only do private parties) or they are brand new to kink. In either case, I can draw some information from this. If you don't have anyone in common, it may also make it more difficult for you to do reference checks on this person.

  • If they are friends with somebody who is a known predator, there are a few possible cases here. A) They are actually friends with the person, which makes me very nervous. B) They are Fetlife friends with the predator so they can track their activity and keep themselves safe or C) They have no idea the person is a predator. In any case, I'm going to want to ask about this to see which case they fall under.

Look through their Fetlife photos

In some cases, their photos will reveal lots of information including:

  • People they have played with (potential reference checks)

  • What some of their kinks are

  • Information about their style of play (that you might want to ask about)

  • Things they might be into that are hard limits or look dangerous for you

Look at what events they RSVP to

In some cases, they might be interested in events that are unappealing or totally appalling to you. If they consistently RSVP to events with titles like: "Anonymous unprotected sex gangbang in motel parking lot, no STI testing required", you might want to reconsider play with that person.

In a more nuanced case, they may consistently RSVP to parties thrown by known predators or problematic organizations. As you gain more scene knowledge, you'll gain more "radar" for which parties and organizers tend to attract the folks you enjoy (and exclude the folks you want to avoid). Checking RSVPs is a good way to quickly gauge if your POI is on the same page as you.

Background Checks and Social Media for Vetting

If you have access to their legal name or media besides Fetlife, there are additional vetting options for you including:

  • Background checks (see resources below for more on this)

  • Looking through their vanilla social media - this may contain information beyond what you'll see in Fetlife that could be helpful in evaluating any red flags

  • Googling people is sometimes a great way to find out more information

In-Person Methods for Vetting

In person methods are perhaps the most effective method of vetting. With these methods, you can collect real-life data about a person from your own perspective and make more informed decisions about whether they are a good fit for you.

Social Interactions

Watch the person interact socially with others. Are they awkward? Do they often make party fouls? Are they acting creepy?

Play Interactions

Watch the person play! Do you like their style? Are they engaging in particularly risky behaviors? Are they skilled at what they do?

  • With this one, just remember that even if you don't like the particular scene they are doing, you can still evaluate their skill and risk profile objectively. Just because they are doing a particular thing with one person doesn't mean they want to or have to do that thing with you - so don't worry if it's not your kink. Try to evaluate things that will be relevant to you like general risk, demeanor during the scene, and skill level.

Reference Checks

Who to ask

There are 3 categories of people you can ask for reference checks on a person of interest (POI) each with their own pros and cons.

  • Your friends

  • People who know the POI

  • References provided to you by the POI

Reference checks via friends

Pros

  • Your friends are likely to gear the information towards what is most helpful for you

  • Your friends are less likely to lie or withhold information from you

  • Hopefully your friends have your best interest in mind and will share accordingly

Cons

  • Your friends might be biased for or against the POI and/or have personal agendas

  • Your friends may purposefully bias the information out of overprotectiveness or other reasons

  • Might not know the POI or not have a lot of information

Reference checks via people who know the POI (who are not your friends)

You can find these people in a variety of ways. Your friends may know of people who have played with or know the POI. You may notice these people in the POI's writings, pictures, or friend list. You may notice these people talking to the POI at an event or party. Reaching out via Fetlife is the standard method of contact but you can use any contact method with their consent.

Pros

  • More neutral towards you than your friends or the people given to you by the POI

  • Have fewer incentives to lie or bias the information for you specifically

  • If they can share information about play with the POI, this is the best info you can get

Cons

  • May still have their own personal agendas

  • May be less willing to talk to you (a stranger) or provide you with constructive information

  • Are potentially unknown quantities themselves

Reference checks via POI-provided references

These are folks given to you by the POI. If the POI refuses to give references, this could be a red flag. Most established kinksters should have references or at least a short list of people they have played with (even if those people are partners). If somebody is new to the scene, they may not have references yet and that's OK.

Pros

  • Most likely to engage with you besides your friends (presuming they consented to being a reference check)

  • Definitely knows the POI personally and has some information

Cons

  • Are almost certainly biased towards the POI

  • May withhold or lie about certain information

What to Ask

This is an extremely non-comprehensive list of questions to ask. You are highly encouraged to come up with your own questions and to ask questions that are most relevant to you. You may be able to find other resources on Fetlife and elsewhere with more sample questions. These are some of the questions that have worked for me.

Community

  • Does this person primarily play publicly or privately? How often do they attend local events in the primary / popular community dungeons in their area?

  • Has this person ever been involved in an incident with a consent violation? How were they involved?

  • Has this person ever had a consent violation report filed against them in their local community kink org?

Personality

  • What do you like about their personality? Do any characteristics stand out to you as especially positive?

  • What do you think they are skilled at as a top / bottom?

Play

  • What is your relationship to them?

  • What type of play did you do?

  • Did you enjoy playing with them? What were some of the highlights?

  • Were there any instances of safewords used? If yes, why? How was the situation handled?

  • Did they seem enthusiastic during play? How could you tell?

  • Did anything happen during play that wasn't negotiated? If yes, what happened afterwards?

  • Would you play with this person again? Why or why not?

Negotiation

  • Did you like their negotiation style? Why or why not?

  • Was there anything you felt that was missing from the negotiation? How did that play out later on?

Flags

  • Are there any flags I should be aware of or look for in their play or negotiation styles?

Limitations of Vetting

Vetting and reference checks have some limitations that you need to consider. It is almost always better to have more information than less (having less can only increase your potential risk) but in some cases information can be misleading, wrong, or not as helpful as anticipated. Here are some limitations that you should think about with regard to vetting and reference checks.

Your own internal biases

Will almost certainly come into play during vetting. This is unavoidable and something you can work on by recognizing when you have biases and questioning them. I'm not going to go super deep on this one but here are some common biases to look out for:

  • Bias towards physically attractive (and usually conventionally attractive) POI

  • Bias against marginalized groups (such as BIPOC, trans/queer, fat, immigrant, etc.)

  • Bias against neurodivergent people (such as dyslexia or other reading/writing related disorders in the case of Fetlife writings, or autism / ADHD, or people with other neurological issues)

  • Bias towards information given by your friends

  • Bias towards more dramatic or extreme interpretations of information

  • Bias towards people in positions of power or authority

  • Bias towards people who are particularly skilled at certain kinks

Biases of third parties

Anyone you ask for a reference check will have their own biases AND personal agendas that you may have to contend with. The best thing you can do is to ask multiple people and try to average out a perspective on the POI and recognize when people are trying to push their own agendas or vendettas.

Lack of information

Especially for people new to the scene, there may be a lack of information about them, and that's OK. Vetting is an extra precautionary step but it doesn't need to be an "elimination factor" for somebody who is new. It's still OK to engage with that person if you feel comfortable with your own boundaries and negotiation skills.

This doesn't apply as much for people who are established. And again, if somebody claims to be "experienced" or "established" and fails to provide references or an established-looking Fetlife account (with friends, a bio, and some content), this should be considered a red flag.

Final Word

Thank you for reading and I hope this guide helps you better understand vetting and reference checks and gives you a jumping off point for keeping yourself safe in the scene. Feel free to leave a comment below with any questions or suggestions and also check out some of the additional resources below.

References and further reading