Why Are Kink Spaces So White?

An Interview with P.E.T.E., an Anti-Racist Kink Educator in Boston

P.E.T.E. (whose kink name stands for Pedular Enthusiast Ticklee Extraordinaire) is a kinkster, educator, and organizer with a focus on social justice. He is active in anti-racist, anti-oppressive men’s work, and fetish communities in the Boston area.

Being in one of P.E.T.E.’s classes feels like having your humanity—and the humanity of everyone in the room, including P.E.T.E. himself—brought to the forefront in the most affirming way as you learn how to navigate whatever fetish or social justice issue he is there to teach you about.

We asked P.E.T.E. what he loves about kink, how racism and sexism show up in kink communities, and more.

Pleasure Pie: What do you get from kink that you don’t get in other parts of your life?

P.E.T.E.: Kink is a language and embodied opportunity for me to express and take in sexual and power dynamic experiences that I generally can not in other spaces with the level of clarity, consent, support, and validation that I can achieve here. It allows me to be counter-culture on purpose and by default. It allows me to have sexy and sensual fun with a creativity and novelty that is often frowned upon in other circles. It allows more to externalize and internalize parts of me that the rest of the world stigmatizes and marginalizes, or outright dismisses.

It allows me to deepen interpersonal relationships and integrate as many of my parts as possible. I can speak freely about many things that are important to me, find others that resonate, and then possibly have the opportunity to embody the experiences that live within me as ideas and share them with others with integrity. I get to talk about feet (feet!) and tickling as sexy and powerful, impact play and bondage and religious kinks, and create conversations that increase our engagement of our fantasies and embodied pleasure. What’s not to love about that?

PP: What’s one thing that you want all kinky men to understand?

P.E.T.E.: I would want kinky men to understand the same thing that I want all other men to understand: that patriarchy as a system is real and we are all affected and weaponized by it. Many of us knowingly, maliciously and deliberately use power and privilege to prey on women, non-binary and queer folk, even each other. So many others fight the idea that we are complicit, and in doing so, join the ranks of those that deliberately prey on others by quietly (and not so quietly) supporting misogyny, trans and homophobia, and intersectional oppressions like racism and ableism.

As men, we have to understand the nature of how we transmit violence and harm through our unwillingness to engage the voices and lived experiences of queer people, women, and even other men. We need to see how our behaviors (both individual and communal) as a gender group empowered by unearned and oppressive power (both historically and in the present) cause harm.

Particular to kinky men is the use of BDSM as a cover for blurring lines of consent. Men who use BDSM in this way need to see their own emotional immaturity and how they depend on violence and manipulation to gain access to women’s, queer, and other marginalized bodies.  We must approach kink and BDSM with negotiated (and then delivered) reciprocity, openness, and integrity.

PP: What's one thing that you want all white kinksters to understand?

P.E.T.E.: Systemic racism in the kink community does not disappear—or lessen its power and harm—because we agree upon a culture of consent, openness, and egalitarianism for the sake of sexual and sensual freedom. It’s that greater sense—just a sense—of freedom, and those privileged perceptions, that continue the harm of racism in kink and BDSM spaces.

White kinksters refuse to do deliberate anti-racism work, just like so-called vanilla white people do. The pathologies of the larger society are very much a part of kink spaces. Harm, fetishization, dismissal, micro-aggressions, and refusal of resources and support occur just as often in the kink world. BDSM spaces have mirror-image levels of resistance to change, white saviorism, direct and indirect violence, and indifference. These dynamics are not hard to see by BIPOC kinksters.

It may even be harder to navigate these oppressive dynamics given that, to some extent, all of us in the kink community know that we are existing in a context where we often require discretion from the larger society, where there may be many more resources for support, learning and advocacy. BIPOC kinksters come from a larger social context in which racism is a fundamental feature into a cultural silo where racism is a fundamental feature.

PP: How do you see racism show up in local kink spaces?

P.E.T.E.: I’ll answer with questions. Who runs most major kink organizations? Who sits on the boards, committees and has access to funds and executive decision making and power? Who chooses presenters, teachers and speakers? Why are so many kink spaces predominantly white? Why are the spaces and events with the most BIPOC kinksters ones in which BIPOC kinksters work twice, three and four times as hard to set up and create foundations for? Why do white people all too often complain that their organizations, events, venues and classes are so white, but seem unwilling to enact systemic change or accept and support BIPOC kinksters and educators to assist in the necessary changes to those spaces and organizations? These are not even the complete list of the questions that should be asked and answered by the larger community.

PP: How have you seen the kink scene change in Boston over the years?

P.E.T.E.: I’ve seen kink/BDSM venues and organizations, groups come and go and also grow. I've seen kink community opportunities and options increase. I’ve seen the community deepen, become enriched, be compromised, resurrected and deeply in question about its integrity.

PP: What’s a change that you want to see in the kink community?

P.E.T.E.: As with the larger society, I would like to see the kink community not only commit itself to learning about and embodying greater social justice around intersectional and systemic oppressions, but also to engage the needs of disabled people, larger bodied people, speakers of various languages (including sign language). I would like to see those with still marginalized and stigmatized kinks and fetishes be more centered and supported. I would also like to see a deeper understanding of how different cultures approach sex, sensuality and kink, fetish, and BDSM practices.

PP: What makes your approach to teaching kink different from others in the scene?

P.E.T.E.: When my co-presenter, GRLee, and I teach tickling, foot fetishism or other subjects where there are demos and experiential dynamics, we are always working concepts and presence of consent into how we relate with each other and pre-arranged and spontaneous demo volunteers. Even if there is something GRLee and I have done with each other for years, we make sure we let participants know that we have a history of consent and understanding of each others’ needs and boundaries. We like to have out loud conversations about limits, boundaries and desires with pre-arranged demo volunteers also, sometimes not for the theater of it, but we will usually mention how consent makes kink experiences, if not all experiences, safer and more pleasurable and harmonious due to shared information, intent, and trust.

In addition, my approach is to be transparent about how I feel about the class content and practices, what goes on inside for me and others that I am able to talk about so that people can understand ideas in more embodied ways. I like to bring in experiences of others and engage ideas and sharing from the participants so that there is a greater energy of support, openness and acceptance. Sharing how I feel and respond to sexy and sensual experiences allow for another level of fun and excitement to enter the room and invites others to share and be in greater validation and acceptance of sexual and sensual practice that can be marginalized or wrongly fetishized or stigmatized in the larger and sex-negative society, but also in many ways within the kink community itself.

PP: Where can people find your kink education online? 

P.E.T.E.: I have a neglected and somewhat dusty website where people can see what I and GRLee, my co-presenter, offer. I am reachable on Fetlife as PETE210 and Instagram as @pete.210210.

Also, I was the first video instructor on Kink Academy and therefore the highest trending instructor—until they got more instructors! I don’t have instructional videos otherwise, but have taught and am open to classes online, but really invite others to engage around creating educational and conversational opportunities in embodied and communal spaces. I feel that it’s in those spaces where the most engaging and energizing learning experiences happen. It's where not only the light inside of us turns on, but our bodies also turn on. It's beautiful to shine together.

Other articles you might like:

• Intro to Boston's BDSM Scene
  
• Why Is It Important To Talk About Pleasure in Sex Ed?
• Sex Ed Isn’t Just for Teenagers
  
• The Importance of Learning to Say No