I’m no longer new to kink, so I’m not smarter than everyone else anymore

When I was new to kink, I was smarter than everybody else. Other people arranged safe calls and got references, but I knew shortcuts. I was clever. Want to know my trick? Stick to the popular set. Socialise with the event hosts and consent activists. They basically have references from 90% of the kink scene, so further vetting has been rendered unnecessary. No problemo.

You may now shag Domly Jack without the hassle of tracking down his ex-girlfriends for references.

I was the Donald Trump of kink. I knew shortcuts nobody else knew, so I didn’t have to do the work everyone else did. I had found The Lazy Method of Finding Trustworthy People. I got myself a boyfriend everyone else seemed to know and trust. I befriended consent activist Fetlebrities and gave my trust to anyone who said the right things.

You have to trust someone, so why not trust lazily? That was my motto, and my method had three important hypotheses:

1. If everyone is nice to the man, everyone trusts the man.
2. There are no secrets in kink relationships. What you see is what you get.
3. People will tell you their values, so all you have to do is believe what they say. Other people waste time vetting when all they really need to do is read people’s internet posts. Simples.

These were the greatest, best, most excellent methods. For the life of me I couldn’t work out why I was the only one using them.

I’m sure you know how the story ends: The consent activists were just saying the right things to pick up more victims. The popular guy had just expelled his exes from the scene. People were nice to predators at parties because they were keeping their enemies closer than their friends. After my relationship shattered, I did what I was supposed to do before it began: Speak to his exes.

Their references were less than stellar.

If I’d gotten them from the start, I could have taken a shortcut called “Measure Twice. Cut Once.” That’s a famous carpenter’s adage that requires you to double-check your measurements for accuracy before you wreck your wood. If you don’t, you will need to cut twice. We have a similar adage in knitting: “Take time to save time.”

I don’t take time to save time. Not ever. That's why I have two boxes of yarn and zero completed jerseys: I buy a random amount of yarn, spend three months knitting something that doesn’t fit, then run out of wool. Inevitably, the manufacturer has discontinued the shade, and this is how being lazy can lead to months of pointless work.

My ex was a jersey that didn’t fit, and if I’d taken time to check his gauge from the start, I would have had more time for being lazy. If I’d questioned the consent activists and bothered to vet the popular set, I would have saved myself a world of chaos.

These days I measure twice because I don’t want to cut twice. I’m no longer new to kink, so I’m not smarter than everyone else anymore. I know there are no shortcuts. You have to take time to save time.