FetLife

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Adult social networking website

title: "FetLife" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["bdsm-organizations", "canadian-social-networking-websites", "fetish-subculture", "internet-properties-established-in-2008", "2008-establishments-in-canada", "blog-hosting-services", "image-sharing-websites", "video-hosting", "canadian-brands", "freemium"] description: "Adult social networking website" topic_path: "geography/canada" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FetLife" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Adult social networking website ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox website"]

Field	Value
name	FetLife
logo	FetLife_logo.svg
logo_size	100px
logo_alt	FetLife logo, a heart with horns
screenshot	FetLife user page 2025.png
screenshot_size	255px
screenshot_alt	John Kopanas' user page
collapsible	on
foundation
founder	John Kopanas
location	Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
parent	BitLove, Inc.
url
programming_language	Ruby on Rails
website_type	Adult social networking
language	English, Dutch, German, French, Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, Italian, Polish, Norwegian
registration	Required
current_status	Active
users	12,632,253
::

History

FetLife was launched on January 3, 2008, by John Kopanas (also known by his username John Baku), a software engineer in Montreal, Quebec. Frustrated by attempts to find women who had the same sexual interests as he did, Baku created a website in 2007 called "FriendsWithFetishes". While working on release 2.0 of FriendsWithFetishes, Baku decided to launch it as a separate site and named it FetLife. James Golick served as chief technology officer. In 2009 Baku received the Community Choice (Man) Award as part of the Pantheon of Leather Awards.

In January 2017, FetLife deleted hundreds of groups – including anything with the words blood, needles, rape and incest – and temporarily shut down the ability to create new groups following pressure from their payment processor. The action by the payment processor was criticized by the Electronic Frontier Foundation as censorship.

Features

All members have a profile with the option to display one or more sexual orientations, D/s roles and fetishes from respective lists. Profiles can also list relationships with other members.

Members can create and join groups which function as internet forums, send direct messages to one or more other members and advertise and organize events. Members can also post blog entries, photographs and videos, either publicly or only to members in the poster's friends list, along with comments on other members' posts.

The search feature is deliberately limited to prevent members from finding users with specific characteristics, such as age and gender, and blog posts can only be searched via tags specified by the poster.

Criticism

In 2012, FetLife found itself at the center of a controversy regarding its policy that users pledge not to "make criminal accusations against another member in a public forum". This policy has been objected to by users on the basis that censoring posts of sexual assault victims that name predatory users prevents them from warning others. FetLife's reasoning behind this policy is that it allows users to accuse others of a crime, which could be libelous if the allegations are false or unprovable.

In April 2017, FetLife was accessed by Brendt Christensen, the killer of Yingying Zhang, to explore discussion forums on topics relating to abduction and kidnapping. Following this and other similar incidents, FetLife removed several hundred fetishes.

Racism controversy

While the site's terms of service prohibit promoting racism or hate, FetLife has faced criticism for not adequately addressing the increasing prevalence of racist content. During the George Floyd protests, members reported an increase in racist hate speech and extremist content, including "white power" symbols, posts glorifying Nazi imagery, and discussions promoting white supremacy and antisemitism. Additionally, the inclusion of "race play" on the "official" fetish list has divided members, with some defending the practice as a consensual exploration of historical trauma and others criticizing it as a form of racism and fetishization.

References

(May 7, 2025). "Norwegian Bokmål [language added]".
"FetLife".
"FetLife Home Page".
"JohnBaku". FetLife.
Bell, Niko. (February 9, 2017). "What just happened to kink social network FetLife is a bad sign for web freedom". [[Daily Xtra]].
Zanin, Andrea. (2008-09-04). "Facebook for the kinky: Montreal-based FetLife.com networks fetishists of the world". [[Montreal Mirror]].
Baku, John. (2008-01-10). "FetLife.com Launches - The First Social Network for Kinksters". Sexual Deviants Living In A Web 2.0 World.
Golick, James. (September 5, 2012). "Moving On". jamesgolick.com.
"Pantheon of Leather Awards All Time Recipients - The Leather Journal".
Kale, Sirin. (January 25, 2017). "Kinky Social Network Fetlife Deletes Thousands Of Fetishes to Stay Online". [[Vice Media.
Baku, John. (2013-02-06). "The Next Steps - The Big Four". FetLife.
Malcolm, Jeremy. (March 15, 2017). "Payment Processors are Still Policing Your Sex Life, and the Latest Victim is FetLife".
Montgomery, Maria. (March 22, 2024). "FetLife: How does this social networking site work?".
(February 19, 2024). "FetLife - Safety Tips".
Baku, John. (2009). "FetLife, now with improved search". FetLife.
(April 22, 2016). "Terms of Use". FetLife.
Clark-Flory, Tracy. (2012-06-03). "A BDSM Blacklist". [[Salon (website).
J.M. Baker, Katie. (2012-11-08). "Kink Community Tells Sexual Assault Victims It's All Their Fault". [[Jezebel (website).
White, Rachel R.. (2012-11-16). "The Story of 'No': S&M Sex Clubs Sprout Up on Ivy Campuses, and Coercion Becomes an Issue". [[Observer Media]].
Morris, David Z.. (March 3, 2015). "How Kink's Largest Social-Networking Site Fails Its Users". [[The Atlantic]].
Flox, Anaiis. (2011-08-27). "FetLife Is Not Safe For Users". Sex and the 405.
Weinberg, Jill D.. (May 31, 2016). "Consensual Violence: Sex, Sports, and the Politics of Injury". [[University of California Press]].
(July 1, 2017). "'Nobody saw this coming': Arrest in Chinese scholar's disappearance stuns U. of I. community". [[Chicago Tribune]].
(July 4, 2017). "Man who tapped 'Abduction 101' forum denied bond in kidnapping, suspected murder of Chinese scholar". [[The Japan Times]].
(October 16, 2020). "Users On A Site For Kinky People Say The Racism Has Become Unsustainable".

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