Reasons to never attend anything run by Jeff Mach
We’ll let him speak for himself. Published on Medium on 2/25/19. Not directly linked because he shouldn’t get the clicks. TW: Rape, consent violations, general grossness
TL:DR as posted elsewhere by David Christman: Jeff Mach, the former owner of Steampunk World's Fare and Wicked Faire, boasts about how being accused of sexual misconduct has made him more sexually desirable.No. Really. He brags about it. That he's more desirable since being labeled a sexual abuser.This is the kind of person Jeff is. This is the twisted pile of flaming garbage he truly is. And he's no longer trying to hide it.
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Jeff Mach
Feb 25
So when I was a Fetlife darling, one of the top ten Kinky and Popular writers, running well-known fetish events, I got quite a lot of offers — partly due to those things, partly due to my book on submission, my visible skills, and the knowledge you earn after 25 years in the kink world. And partly, of course, due to my politics, my strict social-justice, ban-’em-all-and-let-God-sort-’em-out stances.
When I was accused of horrible misconduct and “Jeff Mach allegations” became the phrase which followed me on Google, all that stopped.
…YEAH, RIGHT!
I can’t begin to describe how many more offers I get from people, now that I am “banned”. As it turns out — and this is not public knowledge — I’m recovering from my divorce; I have trust issues; and I have dedicated myself to rebuilding things like Evil Expo and recovering from the ending/divorce of a 13-year relationship. I am actually a celibate. But that’s not the point.
It’s true. I have experienced a 90% drop in offers short-haired (and blue/pink/green-haired) women who wear politically progressive t-shirts. Which is a pity, because I’m a fan of those people.
But I’ve received about a 200% increase in somewhat more traditional women who have asked if I’d like to “get together”, “spend a weekend”, or, in many cases, “take a quick trip to the restaurant”. I thought “want to try my new whip?” and “I’m not wearing panties” were pick-up lines of the 90s. But no, they’re quite real.
I’m NOT denigrating people who are offering my sex or play — not by any stretch of the imagination. I feel grateful, I feel flattered, and some of them have been the most interesting, articulate, attractive people I’ve met in almost three decades of the scene.
I’m just fascinated.
I embarked, by choice, on a trip of semi-celibacy, and semi-monogamy, especially during the first year of my exile, while I was working hard on myself.
But I simply had no idea what was going to be offered to me.
And I don’t go to kink parties — I wasn’t a big partygoer back in the day. Doesn’t matter. Happens at Goth events. Happens at concerts. Happens online. And these aren’t people who are ignorant of the allegations, or even people who think they’re not true.
They think the allegations are true, they think I’m a Dangerous Top, and they consider it HOT AS F*CK.
I’m not sure how to feel here. I was never a “consent advocate” to get laid. I expected that I’d date people with similar politics. But those things were never part of how I met or played with people; those things tended to rely on short discussions in person, then long, long correspondences, long negotiations, long discussions in person, more negotiation…
…..a lot of people dropped out during this process. Or were pretty much picked up in front of me by people who said, “Hey, let’s go do a thing. Just tell me where I can’t leave marks and what I’m allowed to penetrate.”
Now that I’m labelled a Dangerous Top, an Unsafe Dominant, a Manipulative Monster Who Forces His Will On Those Around Him…
…..I could start a Japanese vending machine with all the panties that get handed to me. I could take a vacation just travelling to the places where people invite me to their homes and hotel rooms.
Here’s a thing, O best beloved:
The Kink Scene of 2017 was a time of shakeup, power plays, and redistribution of authority. Applying current social norms to kink events of five or ten or fifteen years later meant that most people who’d done a reasonable amount of play were now considered Guilty of Abuse — and the more people who label you guilty, the more others are encouraged to come forward. It’s natural; they see others getting acclaim and support and status and (frankly) social media clout and influence by taking you down; they hear you’re a Horrible Person; and suddenly, they remember that scene they had with you ten years ago, when you did That Unmentionable Thing.
(Current favorite moment of irony: I have a very vehement accuser who claims that I did [nonsexual] play with a [legal] sixteen-year-old college student. I’ve got a picture of him beating her — in public. It’s ironic. And it’s sad. But his friend runs the website that’s gone after me; they’re not going to post stories about him.)
And it doesn’t matter, because this is all a sidenote. To the proponents of Social Ostracism and Shaming, I say:
It ain’t working.
Or — I definitely know some of my brethrin who, like me, are heartbroken, unsure about the world, traumatized, and spending their time in self-recrimination.
But we don’t have to be. We COULD just be screwing our brains out.
And those of us who are accused, but just plain don’t care? (Yes, Tim, you’re the first person I look at.) Well, everything he said is starting to make sense. Is he giving submissives what they want? Does he deserve to be at the top of everyone’s playlist?
I don’t know. All I know is that M has gone silent and underground. I’m here, writing books. But it’s really, really clear that there are a LOT of bottoms who were turned off by my bland, hyperconsent-focused, heavily-negotiated, cautious, “Let’s talk more” kink, who figure that now that I’ve left that world, I’m DTF, hardcore, and ready to give them erotic satisfaction like Robert Downey, Jr. being paired with the Winchester brother’s in someone’s 300-page erotic BDSM novel.
So now I know a secret. I’m not sure I wanted to know this. I don’t know what to do with it — so far, I’ve done nothing (except, of course, write):
Being taken down for #MeToo allegations, in the kink community, has opened up the doors to more kink opportunities than I’ve had in the past 25 years combined.
In addition to all the other problems — the witch hunts, the mob mentalities, the cultures of fear, the damage to (and death of) kink events, the discrediting of kink in news media, the disillusioning of a younger generation —
— it’s just possible that the “punishment” of exiling a dominant for being “too much like the sexy, rapey protagonist of the stories to which we get off” might not actually work.
If I could sail, do needlework, or take vacations, I’d be able to hoist a mast made of panties sewn together, and set off for Tahiti.
I really feel like that’s not what was intended when people decided I was a monster.
Here’s the bottom line:
Mob justice doesn’t work. Social shaming is a blunt instrument which does extraordinary harm, whether or not it also does good. But even if you ignore those things —
Calling #MeToo and shutting off kink practitioners, trying to remove their voices, attacking them and never having conversations —
— simply results in a world where they have more opportunities than you can imagine.
This is a bad method for dealing with consent issues. We need a better one.
Jeff Mach
(author, educator, dominant)
