hello !! first off i just want to say i really enjoy your blog and your humor, and i really respect the way you don’t compromise on your morals and push for kink education and destigmatization. ironically, my favorite posts you make are of the ‘buzzkill sadist’ variety— as fun as the kinky stuff is, i think the advice column is soooo important and you always do a really good job answering people’s questions.
on that note, i have this growing concern about… tumblr etiquette??? i suppose??? that i have been dealing with on my own blog, and i would love your take on it. for context, i run a kink blog as well, as a fem!submissive who is into bdsm, questionable power dynamics, and some more taboo kinks like kidnapping and cnc (obviously i practice RACK and it is mentioned in my pinned that everything is fantasy and consent is non-negotiable).
so, up until now (as it has become increasingly obvious to me that i needed to implement this) i did not have a clause in my pinned specifically barring people from sending unsolicited photos or trying to engage with me sexually in my DMs without so much as a ‘hello.’ i didn’t think or know it was necessary, and now when people do it they get blocked immediately.
i would receive rape threats, requests for nudes, or even orders such as “i want you to edge three days before you cum next” <- copy/paste example btw.
i know it’s bound to happen from non-kink blogs here and there. however, for those kink mutuals who were doing it before i edited my pinned… is that something that is regular/expected amongst kink blogs unless you state otherwise? most have stopped now, which tells me they respect my boundaries now that they’ve been stated, but i’m more put off that it was happening at all, and so frequently. it all feels a bit jarring and violating, and maybe this is naive but i sort of figured that wasn’t something we’d do to each other in the kink community without a discussion beforehand.
am i making a mountain out of a molehill here? i just wonder if these are people i should remain mutuals with, or if it was a red-flag that they were doing this in the first place. my blog got very popular very fast, and maybe since it’s still relatively new i’m just not caught up on the kink etiquette yet.
thanks for reading !! i know this was a super long ask but if you get a chance pls lmk your thoughts :)
Hi anon, thanks for your ask and kind words.
To be honest, I think you may be giving a bit more grace to people than they deserve. Your boundaries are essential, and you deserve to have them respected. It is violating to receive unsolicited messages like that, and it's not normal to send sexual content to someone without communication beforehand.
I disagree with the implicit assumption that you need to specifically prohibit receiving nudes or sexual messages in order for people to stop sending them to you. In fact, the opposite is true. Unless you explicitly invite those things in your dms or askbox, it is sexual harassment to send them to you unsolicited.
Secondly, the idea that someone, mutual or not, just assumed that they can give you edging instructions or send you threatening sexual messages just because you didn't expressly state your desire not to receive such things is deeply problematic. Would it be acceptable for them to approach someone on the street this way? At a play party? In a dating app? Absolutely not. That's not how consent works.
Communication happens first, actual sexual activity happens second. As anything else is both disrespectful and unsafe.
I don't think you should ever just expect to be harassed, and I recommend blocking people who do that to you every time. So yes, it's a huge red flag if someone doesn't care enough about consent to ask first. If they assumed they could treat you like that out of the gate, what else are they assuming they can do? Block them. Their loss.
