Guest Post: FetLife and Sex Trafficking
It’s often been said that FetLife’s promises of safety are hollow. One community member found this out the hard way. The social network was involved in one of the most traumatic experiences of her life — and when it came time for them to fulfill what one might consider their duty of care, leadership did nothing.
“I remembered my main goal in starting FetLife. It was to create a safe and accepting environment for kinksters to be themselves. Safe always being at the forefront.” – John Baku, 09/03/2008
It is no secret that Fetlife is a cesspool allowing beings of less than stellar alignment space and time. Argument can even be made that those operating it are of similar alliances and in my personal experience on the site- a combine period of fourteen years- I would not disagree.
One of the biggest issues you will find on Fetlife is their need to sweep things under the rug. They will claim a desire to address things, to prioritize the safety of users, while doing the opposite. A complete smoke and mirrors trick. They will give timeouts and lockout accounts labeled as problematic for a short period of time as a Band-Aid to the much larger issues at play. They will remove photos, statuses, and every other bit of evidence provided to showcase someone is harmful in order to keep that individual around; especially if they are a supporter to the site.
In the fourteen years I have been on and off of Fetlife, I have reported hundreds of profiles for trafficking activity. How do I know it’s trafficking? Because I was trafficked.
I was a victim in my early twenties. In many ways, I am still a victim because my abusers are still out there, one of which is still threatening me... And both are still sleeping with the belief that what was done was something I asked for.
If you were to search his profile and compare it to the photos I have of him and I from back then that were shared with a trusted friend to confirm I wasn’t insane, the first thing you would notice is the smirk on his face. To most on Fetlife, it would scream sadist and they’d be right.
They just wouldn’t know how right they are.
It wasn't.
On February 21, 2025 I was sent a follow request by one of the individuals who had assisted in my trafficking. He is currently going by the username Jmaed and claiming to be from Richmond, Virginia. This man and his wife that he claims is unaware of his presence on Fetlife yet was also a part of my trafficking posed as a friend for years, luring me into a false sense of security so I would move away from my family. He set me up for failure for his own profit, selling me for an undisclosed amount into a life of forced servitude, daily and sometimes hourly rape, forced impregnation, brutal beatings, and more.
While the block feature offers me some protection, what it fails to offer is protection for others. With Fetlife’s spotting rules, I was and am limited as to how I can properly share this information with those who need to know about the dangerous individual lurking in their midst.
Whisper networks have become the only means of truly protecting ourselves and others on that site, yet they don’t stop these types of individuals from creating multiple accounts and many of them do. And because this man does not work alone, not only do I have to attempt to warn people about additional accounts that may be acting with him without knowing if they exist on that site, but I have to risk stumbling across them. Or worse, having them stumble across me… The same can be said of the location listed on his profile; is it the most accurate or is the one I have from my attempt at justice from a few years back the one to give? My process has been to give all areas I know he and his “team” lurk in hopes of protecting as many people and communities as possible.
I hate that I can't just out him on fet, that I have to rely on messages and word of mouth to let people know that someone this dangerous is frolicking about. I hate that Fetlife’s response has been to completely ignore my email about this. Most of all, I hate that I now have to be afraid that despite my hypervigilance, my speed in blocking him was not enough. I don't show my face and I edit all of my obvious markings out of my pictures so I can't be easily identified by them or anyone who found/bought the photos/videos of me from back then that I worked my ass off to scrub from the internet. My body has changed so it's unlikely that'd even be a giveaway but there is still that fear. That worry that one of them will notice a pattern of my freckles or the shape of my nose or something and then it's back to that place I was in when I first got out all over again. Only worse because they will send people to watch my moves, they will create profiles to come after me.
I voiced all of these concerns in my email to the support team and have received nothing but links to their official TOU regarding Registered Sex Offenders... For those not in the know, in September of 2008, when discussing the matter of Registered Sex Offenders on Fetlife, John Baku had the following quote to share:
“But since FetLife has such a strong sexual component to it having RSOs on FetLife compromises the safety of its members and even the safety of the RSOs themselves. If someone has any tendencies in them to be sex offenders FetLife can easily be a catalyst for them to act on those tendencies. It would kill me to find out that a rapist was on FetLife hours before they committed their crime. What would I say to the woman, to the woman's family? So, I made a decision for the safety and sanity for all people involved. RSOs are not welcome on FetLife. If an RSO is a member of FetLife and brought to our attention, with proper proof, we will nicely ask them to leave and ban them from FetLife for everyone's safety.”
Sounds good, right? Promising even. Sadly, this has never been the way they handle things. I even called them out for their lack of concern in my follow up explaining when I was first linked back to the TOU that this was a flawed system. One that allowed individuals like myself who had been denied justice to be forced to have moments like this, to either be forced to live in fear, or leave Fetlife altogether. Despite attaching images of J and explaining why they should consider another means to protect people, which likely didn't win me any brownie points, I am not holding my breath for them to actually do anything regarding him being on Fetlife.
I mean, these are the idiots who attempted to tell another woman attempting to get her intimate photos posted by another user removed that she didn’t know her own genitals… Not exactly a lot of hope to spare. And while I know I'm safe, know they have very little idea of where I am and the like, it's the knowledge that they not only have a new and virtually limitless hunting ground but that they could find a way to have access to me again that is what is the most terrifying...And that is the major difference between users like myself, Baku, his supposed caretakers; people like me don’t ever want others to suffer as we have, they could give two shits.
According to Fetlife’s Sex Offender Guidelines, they will only the following as proof of dangerous individual:
A link to a public RSO listing within the US territories
Court or LE documents showing obvious links
Or links to news articles about the instance/person in question
While they claim that they will accept other “clear and obvious links” such as matching pictures or personal information that matches the account, all of this is up to their own discretion and 9.9/10 they play a heavy handed game of CYA instead of actually helping others. Have pictures but can’t confirm their name listed on their account? Not good enough. Have documents but the names don’t match? Too speculative.
For most people, a survivor being able to point out a person, provide verification it’s the same person whether with or without an actual police report would be enough to raise a few eyebrows at the very least. The response I have received from the Fetlife team with not only my own case but the hundreds of others I have reported to them after speaking with authorities off site has been predominantly shrugs of apathy.
Whether I have had report numbers, links, or other evidence meeting their criteria has never mattered, not even in the matter of a well-documented pedophile, S; a then-75-year-old with multiple images of teenagers at a Chico, California high school, and the admittance that he had three 14 year olds- his latest projects- living with him.
Thankfully Chico Police were more assistive and a few months after I had reported S, I received a call confirming that not only had they managed to protect his latest projects but they were able to obtain justice for other victims of his. His profile remains in a deactivated status. Whether this is Fetlife’s doing or the users is unknown.
These are but two major instances of Fetlife’s failure to properly uphold its own TOU, to keep their word about properly protecting the community they claim they keep the safety of at the forefront, and their inability to fully understand the gravity of situations like this. They have consistently proven to myself and anyone else who has had to go through the re-traumatization of being asked if what we’re claiming actually happened or not that safety isn’t at the forefront for anyone but those lining their pockets. By allowing people like J and S to continue to have profiles, whether deactivated or not, on a site where the founder has made public claims of safety being of the utmost importance, Fetlife’s team has shown that that is not only a bold face lie but a manipulative ploy to placate those who have any concerns regarding using the site.
Instead of actively working with users like myself to create better avenues of combating a very real problem that has led to not only people being trafficked through the site but full on murders taking place, they would prefer to bury their heads in the sand so as not to disrupt the flow of money.
I do not know what the outcome will be regarding my case with J. If things go the way they did with S, I know it will only be a matter of time before another account with that same smirking face attempts to follow me again. Even if it’s not the exact same one, the one on the other end of the screen will be and that is perhaps the most terrifying aspect of Fetlife and always will be.
