informational

My brother quit his job last week after five years at the same company. He loves what he does—he’s in human health services, and the families are great—but he’s been pretty mistreated. His really reasonable complaints have been brushed off, and he was often berated for things not his responsibility. He stayed as long as he could stand it, but when he started to look for somewhere else to work a month ago, he found out his skills are incredibly in demand. He got three job offers, all at least double his current salary—and so he quit.

I often hear my and younger generations criticized for… well, for a lot. But a big one is a “lack of loyalty”. I’ve seen it said we have “no sense of what it means to have a career with a business” and that we’re just willing to pick up and job-hop whenever. I don’t think that’s untrue. But the thing is, it isn’t about a lack of loyalty at all. It’s about wanting to be valued and treated well.

When my brother sent in his notice, the company announced the closure of that branch the next day. Turns out, he was the only reason they were sticking around in that area. Which begs the question, I think: why weren’t they better to him? Why would he stick around? Of course his complaints not being addressed would eventually cause him to leave. And this company decided they’d rather cut services and jobs for a bunch of people than just listen to him. They just… let it die. And let his subordinates blame him, of course.

I see the same thing happening in kink. I’ve been around seven years now, and it seems like any time a venue shuts down due to low attendance, there’s an outcry about how the younger generations caused this. They just don’t care about their community space. They just don’t want to give back and build something good the way people used to. They need to show up for everyone. It’s their fault, and other finger-wagging.

And I think every time… but we do. We do care about community, very much. We do want to give back. We’ve tried to build something good. We’ve been cut down at every turn.

So why would we be loyal? Why would we keep trying with those venues who say it’s a “community space” but don’t value us as community members? Why wouldn’t we go to the places that will instead?

Methodology and disclaimers

Over the last few days, I’ve reached out here, on Twitter, and on Instagram to get personal accounts from those in the Millennial and Gen-Z age ranges on why they no longer go to venues they see as primarily an older crowd. I got over forty answers to this, from people who span a range of genders, ages, and kink roles. This isn’t about one specific place—the responses came from coast-to-coast in the US, as well as a few from Canada and overseas—but they in many ways echoed each other. The reasons we stop showing up? They’re the same reasons. The ways we’ve felt mistreated? They’re identifiable. And none of it is about a lack of willingness to give back.

I’ve compiled the most common themes in these stories below—many overlap—and will mention a few of the important other one-off answers at the end. Anything in quotes is directly from an answer, though bolding may be mine. As this is a note that is sort of arranged as a letter informing older venues of why they’re really lacking in youth attendance, I may use “you” to refer to those spaces, and “we” to refer to people in my age group.

When I posted this, I also got a few unsolicited messages from self-identified Boomer friends (no, no Gen X-ers, actually) who felt they knew the answer to my question and wanted to give their input. They told me how my generation is entitled—“no offense”—and about the trends they’ve seen. But I’m an open-minded little ethnographer so where relevant, I’ve included these answers as well.

I initially expected this writing to be about public venues dying in favor of private home parties, but that isn’t what ended up happening. To this end, “the owner” and “management” should be seen as interchangeable with “host,” “party-thrower,” or whatever version of that fits best.

Finally, though I don’t mention it every time, many of my conversations included an acknowledgment that these issues can happen anywhere, including majority-younger spaces. However, people seemed to agree that they’re much more likely to occur at the older ones.

We don’t feel like our safety will be protected.

“If I avoid an event, it is […] because the event has utterly failed to create a space that feels safe (by failing to exclude toxic or violent individuals)”

Over 85% of the answers I received included some semblance of the above theme. Their failing venues, people told me, were places with “a rep as a rapey space where newbies get preyed on”, where consent wasn’t really valued by the main crowd and violations weren’t handled by the management. 1 in 4 of these answers also included that they felt (or had first-hand experience that) they would personally be attacked and shunned if they were hurt and spoke about it. “No drama” policies were mentioned often.

Sometimes, there were explicit issues with the attendees’ ideas surrounding consent:

“An older Kinkster, apparently a community leader, lectured the crowd about how they didn’t believe in long term abuse or domestic violence. If you stay, you’re consenting and the result is a D/s dynamic, negotiated by your continued presence. Absolutely no one argued.”

The bigger issue, however, was there being no established protocol for reporting consent violations. Since there was nothing in place to follow if a friend of the management violated consent, there was no trust any action would be taken at all.

“The community leader assured us that we could tell them if we were sexually assaulted, but that no one had ever complained of a sexual assault before, because they were so safe. It wasn’t until after I was sexually assaulted that I realized how uncomfortable it would be to be the first drama causer ever who complained about a sexual assault.”

“When I asked what would be done if my assaulter RSVPed, I was told that the venue was large enough that *I* could avoid *them*, and that the owner would use “gut feeling” to deal with any issues arising.”

“Somebody was raped in a private room and the management said that unless there was a witness, they couldn’t do anything. Of course they could do something! It’s their place!”

“No sexual assault policy had been mentioned, so I reluctantly headed towards the community leader, trying to decide whether to tell them about a sexual assault I had experienced a few minutes before, wondering if they’d believe me. When I saw they were too busy having sex to be bothered, and I knew of no one else available to get feedback like this, I gave up and just left.”

The responses also recognized that this is a difficult thing to navigate and that it isn’t necessarily even an age specific problem. “I get that the volunteer community leaders aren’t at fault for this problem,” someone said about an event they used to attend. “I feel for them.” But, multiple people told me, the idea of a “community protected” venue left a bad taste in their mouths. “It doesn’t make me feel safe or valued, in hindsight, being a human shield against strangers’ stalkers multiple times.”

Additionally, people told me they don’t feel their futures are safe when around these venues, with five accounts of people believing they were being photographed while in a dungeon. One person told me “a community leader tried to pressure us into putting face pictures onto our profile, insisting our bosses wouldn’t care if they found them”, and someone else spoke of the owner of a venue alluding to [the younger person’s] sex life when running into them at their restaurant job.

Perhaps this is universal. This same issue is actually something one Boomer told me is an issue with us:

“Kink still isn’t acceptable in most custody cases, divorce cases, work related cases, and some family cases. But the prevalence of people who don’t appreciate that fact has risen. […] The newbies who were more tasters than kinky started making it party central or a casual trial place. […] I really started to get scared when they brought in a much more casual attitude toward discretion.”

Ironically, I discovered while writing this that a majority-older venue local to me has been cavalier with the face photos of many, though I believe this to be primarily a technology/security knowledge issue and not a malicious one (though carrying no less risk).

We experience a blatant disregard for boundaries, negotiation, and our own agency and knowledge.

What did come out as an age specific problem was a blatant disregard for the agency of a young person (most often someone femme-of-center) when it came to their bodies and their kinks at all.

“I don’t want to be in a space where people just come and put their hands on you” or some semblance of that statement was in almost ¾ of my Millenial + Gen-Z answers.

Some of the stories I found absolutely horrifying, though not unexpected:

“My partner shared [a] possible kink. The community leader proceeded to yell out to a random person who shared this possible kink with my partner and told them loudly what they had in common (something extremely vulnerable for my partner to admit aloud). While my partner was occupied with the resulting more intimate than intended conversation with a complete stranger, the event leader asked me if they could try something with me. Before I could answer, they were behind me running sharp nail points over my back. They told me this was a mind fuck because I didn’t know if it was a knife. […] They pulled out a furry thing and asked me to hold out my hand. I wasn’t informed about what could be under a furry thing then. I was still very new to this. Something soft seemed harmless enough. Sensation play, right? I didn’t want to piss this person off who knew where I worked now. I was surprised to feel needles pricking my skin. I wondered who else’s blood I might have just exposed myself to. Did the needles break my skin? No blood, just red marks, but I still felt very uncomfortable and creeped out. Did I need an STI test? I wasn’t sure.”

The people who told me these stories did believe this had to do with a perception from older people of why young people are in the scene in the first place, as well as a perceived “innate knowledge of what [we] want by the older-and-wiser Boomer crowd.” Though not always in terms of consent and boundary violations, the older-and-wiser assumption came up in over half of the answers I received.

“When I first joined, many looked at me, spoke […] as if I’m not here for anything other than reckless fucking. […] A lot of men at my first event held me in a way that I was absolutely uncomfortable with at the age of 18.”

“It seemed as if they believed age automatically equaled wisdom, and therefore I was devoid of any, but my mentor spoke of his mentor groping whatever rope bottom came his way as if it was some hilarious thing.”

“I stopped going to the Power Exchange group stuff because it was 100% cis-het male dom run and they kept mansplaining our kink to us, talking down to the femme organizers, and telling us we would “pick a side because switchiness wasn’t real.””

“It was really hard for me to go to events at specific venues because the majority of people who go have an unspoken air of contempt for me, and it makes me feel out of place. I feel awkward, like a little child. I get it, I’m inexperienced, and I’m young. But I believe we all were this age once, right? […] I got, and still get the “you’re too young to know this” thing.”

A Boomer respondent let me know that they think the younger crowd has “an unrealistic idea that they can just come and not participate” and that they are “too sensitive about permission for everything in a sexual space.” They did not respond when I asked for more information on this statement. They and another Boomer both mentioned they believe the youth have a paranoia over something that’s not an issue.

The “old guard” community is worrisome to us.

A Boomer said: “VERY few younger folks are interested in that lifestyle. That lifestyle is all about service/honor/and commitment. Something that younger generation hasn’t developed an appreciation for yet.”

Millenial and Gen-Zers said:

“When someone tells me they’re “old guard”, I know immediately that they’re about to treat me like meat.

[Assaulters don’t get banned, and] “some of why they might still be allowed to go could be the association with the “old guard” mentality”

“The old guard is incredibly rude to any dynamic that doesn’t look like male/female M/s.”

“I don’t need to call anyone by a title whether they “earned” it or not. That is an expectation in Old Guard mentality that needs to be gone away with. There should be no expectation of hierarchy within kink as a whole.”

“Old guard kinksters are people who I know will never protect me.”

Our scenes get interrupted.

“There’s no universe where I’m going drive an hour and pay money only for a microcelebrity with a following of 10ish to interrupt my scenes needlessly.”

A number of stories pointed to experiences of basic scene etiquette being ignored both by attendees and by venue management. Though not in every case—the above answerer is male—these most often came from female and femme tops.

“I was mistreated, disrespected, and patronized as a young femme top. [..] It got so bad I literally couldn’t do a scene without being interrupted and “corrected” by DMs/random strangers. That’s really why I stopped going. It was super upsetting to my bottoms.”

“A male rigger my height and weight could have his scene entirely left alone, but people would literally step into mine and put their hands on my rope and even my bottom to lift them. They said I was “too tiny” and that I needed the help.”

“As a female topping another female, my play was not taken seriously. Men would gather and shout out suggestions of where I should hit my bottom next, or ask if they could have a turn. Or they’d tell me after what I should do next time. This included DMs. […] It was as if we were giggling sorority girls, not people having a serious power exchange. I never saw this happen with a male top.”

We only exist to be other people’s fetishes.

“There are perfectly nontoxic (usually older) attendees who have a real talent for making either me or my partner feel like a piece of meat by virtue of existing in their presence. That might be nice, if only they could hold off for long enough to say hi, and negotiate something that targeted that more deliberately.”

In addition to the stories in the last section—which I think in many ways aligns with this—I got both direct and subtler accounts of younger people being fetishized. In addition to the personal experience accounts below, there were a handful of stories of youth being used as an advertising factor, where potential attendees are told in visible online spaces that management will find them a “cute young toy”, or the presence of college-aged kinksters was discussed in event descriptions.

Indirect ways people saw themselves as fetishized at majority-older events included:

• ”Private and vetted” [meant] any girl got a link no questions asked but dudes needed references.”
• “They welcomed 2 girls together, but 2 guys would never be seen”
• “If the runner who was also the event photographer didn’t want to fuck you they would never take your photo at the event”
• “It seemed to be expected that since we were ‘unattached’ bottoms, we would play with their doms.”

Fetishizing things younger kinksters told me were said to their face include:

• “I’ve never been with an Asian before.”
• “Girls your age like to experiment, but it’s just because they haven’t experienced what an older man can do.”
• “It’s good to see bodies like yours here. Your tits are where they should be!”

While I haven’t had this conversation, I think that many of the older kinksters doing this may genuinely think they’re complimenting us. It seems to be part of the perceived over-sensitivity culture. The issue is that when you turn us into advertising, we get the message that you prioritize your own generation’s opportunity to play with young bodies over the young folks’ autonomy.

One of my Boomer responses “the youth of today are more “me oriented” Whats [sic] in this for me?” (He did acknowledge that this was once said about his generation.) Ironically, a common thing keeping us away is that we feel these older generations put themselves and their sexual desires above ours.

We are told we aren’t driven to be a part of the community, but when we are in community, we are not treated like a part of it—we are treated like something for it.

Our identities themselves aren’t respected.

I expected a number of responses would have to do with a lack of willingness from older generations to accept nonbinary pronouns or some expressions of sexuality, but what I wasn’t prepared for was the number mentioning casual (or aggressive) use of the f-slur (and not in a spirit of reclamation). Being made to feel unwelcome as a minority in gender, sexuality, race, and ability were all brought up multiple times.

It doesn’t seem from the answers I got that we necessarily expect immediate total understanding and acceptance, but we do want leaders who will do the work required to figure it out.

“I was there to learn, but was constantly held directly responsible for educating about my identities and/or my partner’s identities. […] I’m here for a break, selfish as that may be.”

When we do try and make things better, we’re met with terrible responses.

And this brings be back to the issue at the beginning. We’re trying. We try to bring up problems, and often suggest solutions. We are then turned away, laughed at, or ignored. “If we complain, we’re snowflakes obsessed with identity politics” was a common theme. I firmly believe that the number one thing that majority-older spaces can do to get younger people in is to show they’re willing to change with their communities. People mentioned how often their local older leaders make fools of themselves when presented with new ideas:

“They give me a laundry list of excuses why they can’t/don’t/won’t. […] Which tells me that frankly, they don’t want to, and they genuinely don’t care. If they did they would take the criticism graciously and implement the solutions. They want to put on airs as if they do and advertise as if they do, but the bottom line fact of the matter is that: they don’t.”

This is where I expect to get the most backlash, because I know how this will be responded to: we don’t agree with their politics (of wanting to be accepted). We don’t agree with their idea of what being violated is. We don’t agree with language changing. Why should we have to? Why do we have to respond nicely and take these suggestions we don’t agree with?

And the answer is, you don’t. But I think it’s telling that companies like Starbucks and Coca-Cola are now featuring indicators of their acceptance of NB identities and the like in their advertising. Don’t get me wrong—it is advertising. But it is an important sign that some of the biggest companies out there have decided that the money of the people who appreciate these things is worth more than the money of those who are against it. If the money and attendance of young people is important to your space, this is important to consider.

Other answers

The main categories I gave certainly weren’t the only answers, but none of what I heard was “I don’t want to give back to the community.” Some told me of ways they felt the community didn’t really exist at all (something which I think connects back to the fetishization topic):

“When we started to pull away from the BDSM community, we lost our friends, too. We found out how little we meant to friends that we thought cared for us. Turns out, they only cared about the fact that we were pleasant to talk to at BDSM events.”

Others told me that they want community, but not the one the majority-older spaces offers.

“The first thing that happened was that groups started valuing play time over discussions. Even if there were discussions, many wanted to just get the discussion part over with so they could start playing. I enjoyed the discussions most of all, but the demand for play parties outnumbered those of us who just wanted to talk about BDSM.”

Several people brought up how the majority-older venues tend to be too expensive for them, and acknowledged this may not be something that they can control—though simple economics does mean that if they took steps to solve some of the above problems and more younger folks came to their events, these prices could go down and this problem could be solved.

And finally, I do want to mention I got one answer who said that while they didn’t relate to older generations, they also found Millennial-led spaces to be overly political and unwelcoming to any kind of political moderate, and therefore didn’t attend much at all.

Conclusions

“I just can’t find enough reasons to participate. Maybe if the cost wasn’t so high, or I was guaranteed to get something out of it, or the people were genuine, or the leaders cared about more the community than themselves, I would come back.”

Something that is true about younger people—in jobs and in kink—is that we have learned to take care of ourselves. Something else is that a lot of us are very busy. Or we live far. Or we’re ill. Or we have too much student debt and a limited social budget. And that isn’t the fault of older people.

But what it means—at least for me–is you can’t give me any opportunity to say no. I can play at home without getting interrupted, so why would I go to a venue where I know the interruption is likely to happen? I have my own community that supports me and my kinky pursuits, who knows me and loves me, so why would I go somewhere that only sees me as eye candy?

And people learn from experience, and repeated experiences do turn into (informed) biases. And that’s where you come in, older venues who are looking to increase your younger attendance.

Here are our experiences. You own your own spaces, and you have a right to do whatever you want with them, to make the changes and the rules and the culture you’re happiest with. So are you going to do it in a way that makes us want to attend? Or would you prefer to just let it die?

I offer my utmost gratitude to all who participated in this. Should you want to join in on the conversation in the comments of my writings, you can find the original Fetlife post of this one here.

If you wish to be a part of future “research,” be sure to subscribe to my substack. I do also post calls for responses on Fetlife several times before I finalize my posts.