The Dark Side of the Sex-Positive Scene Nobody Talks About

*This piece was originally published in Petit Mort Vol. 13

The kinky scene as empowerment.

A pair of mid-thigh shorts and a plain strapless bra. After a long consideration, that was the outfit choice for my first time at a kinky party. The basic, modest, low-key apparel of the inexperienced, who, nonetheless, obliviously feels special and transgressive.

The shyness of the countryside girl with a religious background dissipated quickly when I shared the dancefloor with other half-naked people. The body-image anxieties became nonsense in that landscape of countless bodies of different shapes and flavours.  

“I don’t feel naked at all,” I told the friends who came to the party with me.

The unimaginable - strangers having sex in the club, naked bodies hanging from ropes, people spanking each other while others were minding their own business, sipping drinks and dancing, was not nearly as much of a big deal as my expectations had predicted. It was beautiful. It was liberating. The more layers of clothes I took off, the more social norms, patriarchal expectations, and externally imposed insecurities I was peeling off of my skin.

That first night and the ones that followed at several other sex-positive parties succeeded in washing away the years of oppressive shame and forced self-restraint not even therapy had made me overcome. The kinky party wasn’t just a party, it was a lecture. The teachers I had never met before were whispering a word whose meaning had been kept from me by the obscure patriarchal philosophers - no, they weren’t whispering, they were shouting, overcoming the noise of the techno beats, of the slaps and the moans, to make sure none of the students misunderstood: consent.

Manipulative persuasion was not consent, having changing boundaries was valid, and my pleasure (and comfort) was as important as my male partner’s. Such simple concepts, yet unknown to me, the eternally-people-pleasing girl, before that night.

Years later, the shorts and the bra have become nothing but an everyday street outfit.

The kinky scene as the dark side nobody talks about.

Years later, the shorts and the bra have become nothing but an everyday street outfit. Years later, the idealisation of the kinky scene is a nostalgic memory I don’t relate to anymore.

For the past decade, I have lived in Berlin, one of the most notorious cities when it comes to sex and sex-positive parties. Berlin’s kinky scene has gained an international reputation, attracting both locals and tourists. I am amazed whenever I meet someone from overseas who casually knows the names of our clubs. Berlin is also where I took my first steps, evolving from a baby raver exploring her sexuality into a full-grown sex worker with access to backstages and deeper insights.

The further I stepped in, the more dirt I found - not only in the backstage corners, but also in plain sight. The words “consent” and “safe space” often became empty words printed on papers hanging on a wall. Experience in this scene, for me, has meant not only empowerment, but also the realization that the scene has been glamourized to the extreme, shushing its dark sides and abuses. When the clubs turned on their lights, shadows formed on the floors.

I had my first bite from a rotten apple when I modelled for a guy who was the resident photographer at several Berlin kinky parties. After an uncomfortable shoot session, where he repeatedly asked me to “tuck my belly in”, he showed me his camera roll, unsolicitedly.

“I took some great pictures recently. Look. This girl was great, she took off her clothes in the middle of Alexanderplatz. Just like that. She didn’t care that there were people all around her.”

I looked straight into the beautiful stranger’s eyes trapped on the screen (they were blue), then I looked at her naked breasts (they had implants), then at her groin (it was shaved), and I wondered. Did she know that the person she had trusted with her material was showing the pictures around? Was he showing everyone’s naked pictures around? 

Soon after that incident, I heard complaints from several female dancers who were hired to perform at a recurrent sex party. Another photographer, also very prominent in the scene, took photos of one of them after she expressly asked him not to. On another occasion, the same photographer asked a dancer half his age why she didn’t take off her panties during her performances. The apple I had bitten didn’t seem to be the only rotten one.

The biggest shadow of it all, the elephant in the room, is the groomers. Everywhere I see (predominantly) cis men preying on people who were barely legal, usually new in the scene, very open to experimenting with their sexualities, and exploring their boundaries for the first time. Now, I don’t think age difference is always problematic, but it becomes so when it establishes a power imbalance that can easily lead to manipulation. Especially when looking out for younger, inexperienced girls seems to be a pattern.

Within this frame of reference, I wasn’t surprised when I read in the newspaper that the city’s most famous kink club didn’t deny entry to Rammstein’s singer Till Lindemann, who had just been accused of abusing several young women at the afterparties organized following his concerts.

Everyone knows who these men are, we know them by their name, yet they are still allowed in these “safe” spaces. 

The kinky scene as us.

What about us? Why do we continue to protect these men with our inaction?

These issues don’t seem to be exclusive to the Berlin scene. Whenever the conversation was brought up, both locally and with international peers, the most predominant concern often seemed to be the fear of a lawsuit for defamation. I believe that, in this case, numbers are what make a difference. I’ll repeat myself, with an emphasis on the subject: everyone knows who these men abusers, and everyone talks about them behind closed doors. If plenty of people in the community unite to speak up publicly, to call them out and ban them from our spaces, are they going to sue us all?

The sad truth is, most mainstream kinky space owners simply don’t care, and what we have left is to take care of each other. But I also see a lot of emerging spaces that, on the contrary, really care, and that have implemented some great solutions to make sex-positive spaces safer (because of their public nature, no place can ever be one-hundred percent safe).

In the first place, a screening of who we let into these spaces is important. I believe this screening shouldn’t be based so much on appearance and on what people are wearing, but should be more focused on asking them questions on how they’d behave and react in certain situations. Once you enter the space, having an “awareness team” always present makes a big difference. Not only can they keep an eye out for discriminatory behaviour and harassment, but they can also be addressed at any time to get help.

We should stop thinking that we don’t have the power or the right to kick abusers out. We can, in fact, and should do that. The question is how we go about it in order to have a constructive outcome. A colleague spoke to me about the concept of rehabilitation: some people (depending on their offence, in my opinion) should be given the chance to be educated, take accountability, and show a change. Some are capable of change and redemption, others are not, and we should find that out before “cancelling” someone on the spot.

The concept of rehabilitation is crucial especially for queers and people belonging to other marginalized identities - this needs to be highlighted: queer people can be abusers too. Being further excluded from their community, after being excluded from mainstream society, couldn’t possibly have very positive outcomes, and, in these cases, a process of rehabilitation could avoid a downward spiral that would lead to more exclusion and, potentially, more abuse.

These reflections are for those who care. These reflections are also for the people new to the scene, especially the young ones who, like me on that night, are exploring their sexuality for the first time. Because we shouldn’t focus only on what to do with the abusers: we should also care about those who are at most risk. In this matter, education on boundaries and consent is key. If I could go back in time and meet the younger, inexperienced version of me, the one who felt so much adrenaline from walking around a public space in her bra, the one who wanted to be edgy and transgressive and say fuck the norms, I would ask her these questions. What kind of people are you surrounding yourself with in these spaces? Are there power dynamics in play? If there is a big age gap, are you shaping your identity and your decisions around them? We should listen to our gut feeling: our discomfort is the indicator of a potential abuser.

The kinky scene is a precious space where so many people have the chance to explore different sides of their sexuality, where they can discovered what concepts like consent and boundaries and safety really mean. And it’s only if you know what the word means that you can identify when consent is violated. At the same time, the extreme glamourization of the scene is tiresome and, most importantly, not constructive. We need more nuanced conversations, more honesty, we need to call things for what they are - and we need actions.