Summary
Interested in kinky dating or exploring bondage with a sexy partner? Let’s check out Fetish.com and see what it offers for users looking for something spicy.
Fetish.com for BDSM – Editor’s Summary
Fetish.com is a decent flirting website, but it fails to establish enough of a niche to be a serious contender in the rankings for the top-rated BDSM dating sites.
The primary letdowns are the complexity of the premium membership options (which could do with being massively streamlined!), the vague fetish groupings that create a diluted membership pool within each category, and the global nature of the site.
If you’re keen to meet people online, chat in a chat room about your kinks, and flirt a bit, it’s great. However, for proper BDSM networking, meeting genuine dates or partners and connecting with men and women in your local area, we’d expect better results from a more specialized platform.
Pros & Cons and Fetish.com Membership
Pros:
- Fetish site for any users over 18.
- Profiles tend to contain a fair amount of information.
- Covers all age ranges from 18-24 up to 55+
- Free public chat rooms.
- Private photo upload features.
- Design and functionality are slick and professional.
- Multiple options to sort contacts into friend’s lists.
Cons:
- Premium account structures are complicated.
- No mobile app is available on any operating system.
- Limitations on access with a free account.
- Lots of apps and pop-ups pushing VIP membership.
- Broad spectrum so can be hard to find the kink you’re interested in.
- Not much security aside from 18+ age verification.
- Recurring subscriptions remain payable till the end of the term even if you cancel your membership.
US Kinky Member Structure at Fetish.com
The positive about Fetish.com is that it has an extensive membership base of men and women across the US. You’ll find users of over 18 years old (since BDSM is strictly adult only!) and:
- Around 16,000 active weekly users.
- A range of sexualities, genders and fetish enthusiasts.
- Mostly men, with around 63% of site users being male.
It’s worth being aware that Fetish.com doesn’t have a specific niche, per se, so you’re likely to find members from all over the world, and a range of gender identifies across the spectrum of kinky interests.
If you’re keen on BDSM, you might need to search through other fetishes to find what you’re looking for – and be aware that there’s a good chance that a member will be in another country!
Fetish.com does offer an instant messages option, although you’ll need to be a premium member to send the first contact. As a free user you can respond to a message, but not send one to somebody you aren’t already linked with.
Other options include:
- Joining the chat rooms – open to free members.
- Starting conversations through the IM by upgrading from $6 per month.
Be aware that if you decide to use the free chat rooms and don’t participate in the conversation that you will be kicked out after a certain period.
Ease of the Sign-Up & Login Process at Fetish.com
As with a lot of dating sites offering a free membership option, the sign-up process is relatively fast but unfortunately falls short of providing much in the way of account verification or security.
This does cause concern as, if you’re using a bondage-dating site and sharing private photos; you want to be confident these will remain secure and not be available to people you’d not like to see them!
However, you can create an account with just a little basic information, but you will need to select from the following categories to specify what you’re looking for:
- BDSM lovers
- Kinky dates
- Friends
- No-strings-attached sex
- Long-term relationships
- Swingers
- Photo exchanges
- Cybersex
- Events and networking
It’s great to see such diversity but, as we say, with a membership that isn’t yet up in the millions and with so many fetish options to choose from, you might find that compatible matches in your particular area of passion are very limited.
Fetish.com Special Features for Premium Members
There are two different membership categories on Fetish.com; Premium and VIP. If you’re not interested in either, you might find that it’s not easy to do much with your membership aside from look at the profiles of men and women and participate in chat rooms.
Upgrades include various benefits, such as:
- Creating your own chat room and controlling the topics.
- Having a priority listing when users search to see who is online now.
- Seeing read receipts when your messages have been read.
- Initiating private chats with users, you aren’t already connected with.
- Leaving comments on other member’s timelines.
Membership upgrades can be paid via a credit or debit card, invoice, or PaySafe with different rates depending on the duration of your subscription, and which payment method you choose.