This story takes place over several years. It was not always a tale of animosity.
I joined Fetlife many years ago. Just about five now. I was one of the first 300,000 members of a site that now has over 3.3 million members. It was smaller then, so the good was exacerbated as well as the bad. We were so small then that getting labeled as anything was a risk.
One of the first groups that I joined was Black Dominants Tops/Black Submissive Bottoms. At the time the group was run by a young woman whose name I can not recall at the moment. It was a discussion group that allowed you to speak of not just kinky things we were all there to explore, but other issues that affected people of color.
As Fetlife grew and the group grew, as it happens, personality clashes occur. As those clashes increased in frequency the group owner looked to the membership for other moderators to manage the group. She chose an online acquaintance… Hafez. Her vizion was that his nocturnal habits would keep the group in check overnight. The reality turned out to be something different.
Participating in an online community can be difficult. In world where all you have in common is your sadomasochism, the reality is that people who would rarely congregate and socialize in the “real world” are thrust together and expected to get along. The human condition does not fail, and no we do not all get along.
As more people found Fetlife, and found the group, the constant refereeing of alleged adults began to wear on the group owner. Her stress was compounded because her new moderator, known online as AMP Sir EZ, did not help matters. Regardless of if you like him or not, one reality of his online persona is that he can be polarizing. The questions he asks can be controversial. His style of writing is confusing. He can ramble at times, and produce obscure references at times. When the person ‘in charge’ beats the hornets nest in the unique way he is capable of, it can be a challenge to remain in his presence. Eventually the group owner grew weary of Fetlife, of managing the group, and she left. With her departure, AMP found himself by default the group owner of the largest collection of kinky Black men and women on Fetlife.
That type of responsibility can cause one to elevate themselves to be better, to do better, and to know better. The other alternative is that one can become drunk with the perception of power, and wield it without caution. With AMP for a period of time it appeared that he was conflicted as to which path he would take. Eventually, the road became clear, and paved, but it was not always this way.
My earliest interactions with AMP were not unpleasant. We debated politics, kink, social cliques and there were times we agreed and other times that we did not. I met him face to face for the very first time at a kinky event called Black BEAT – Survivor Saturday.
While we did not interact very much at the event, or at the hotel afterwards, we were introduced to one another. Prior to that first face to face meeting he and I exchanged polite if not pleasant conversation in private messages. These messages were not sexual in nature, it was conversation about events, the dungeon that existed in Philadelphia at the time, and other inconsequential things.
We must all navigate through this kinky life the best way we know how. That includes me, that includes AMP. At this stage of his development contained within his BDSM house (a word used to define a social construct and at times can signify ownership) he owned more than one submissive woman, he was in the consideration process with another, and there were various women who he shared both sexual and sadomasochistic contact with regularly.
Within our collective lifestyle it is not uncommon for poly households to exist, and his was one.
One of his submissves was given the name of My Little Fuck Up or Mlfu. I never met her during my time at Survivor Saturday, but I knew of her existence.
Where things between AMP and I started to go sideways can be found in that weekend. The weekend of Survivor Saturday and the ripple effects its had on all of our lives since.
Aphrodite Brown