SLO County community center planned to host a fetish ball. Violent threats shut it down
A Los Osos festival centered on the safe exploration of fetishes and kinks was canceled following threats of protest and violence, organizers said.
The Central Coast Kink Community canceled its May event, SLO Fetish Ball: The Future of Kink, after a social media maelstrom erupted on platforms such as Nextdoor and Reddit.
Cynthia Ardman, one of the event’s organizers, said the event was intended as a means of bringing together the local kink community to teach and explore concepts such as consent and how to engage in fetishes safely.
“Honestly, we’re just disappointed and heartbroken, because I’ve been in this community, I love the people in the community of Los Osos and SLO, and it hurts to think that some of them don’t want us around or don’t want us to be part of their community,” Ardman told The Tribune.
What is the SLO Fetish Ball?
The event was initially planned to take place from May 5-7 at the South Bay Community Center, and was restricted to adults over the age of 18, Ardman said.
The group had run social events and get-togethers in the area prior to the May event, Ardman said, but had not attempted an event of this size before.
Marketing was intentionally minimal, to prevent people who did not want to see or engage with kink-related content from seeing it unintentionally, Ardman said.
That didn’t stop around 300 enthusiasts — the majority of which come from San Luis Obispo County — from applying for tickets, she said.
“It’s an event that a lot of people looked forward to,” Ardman said. “Being able to not only have this social event with people who are of like mind, but also to learn all these new skills — that maybe there’s no other really good way to learn — is huge.”
The majority of the event’s activities were intended to be educational, from teaching safe kink techniques to classes on consent, Ardman said.
An event called the “Exploratorium,” which would have taken place in the evening, would have also allowed attendees to try out the skills learned from the day’s classes in a safe and consenting environment, Ardman said.
Ardman said safety for attendees and members of the Los Osos community was a priority when planning the event.
Alcohol and drugs were strictly prohibited, as any form of intoxication would have made it impossible to give consent, Ardman said. Sex and nudity were also prohibited, which Ardman said was intended to keep attendees safe.
In addition to posting four security guards at the event and requiring proof of identity to get in, the South Bay Community Center’s windows were going to be blocked off so onlookers would not see inside during the event, Ardman said.
“There were no tickets sold at the door, so even if you happened to wander up, and were over 18, there’s no way to get in without getting an a ticket first,” Ardman said. “But even with all that being the factual way we organized this event, it didn’t change the outrage that existed.”
Violent backlash caused cancellation
Ardman said the event would have proceeded as planned were it not for posts on Nextdoor and Reddit that threatened the event and its organizers with protests and violence.
“I’m fine with consenting adults doing whatever they want, but our community center is NOT the right venue,” a person wrote on Nextdoor in a since-deleted thread. “This is OUR community center. Where we go to see local theater, listen to musicians, in summer the library hosts kids’ events. .... Are we OK with it being used in this manner?”’
Ardman said much of the backlash online stemmed from that first post, which was made by an account that was created that same day, with seemingly the “express purpose” of raising outrage.
It was disheartening to see the backlash against the event and its organizers as the online discussion “spiraled out of control,” Ardman said.
The Gala Pride & Diversity Center — one of the event’s sponsors — was threatened with violence, as well as “a breadth of legal action,” which stopped the event from taking place, Ardman said.
“In the Nextdoor thread, there were many, many calls for large-scale protests of this event, which we don’t want the people who are attending this event to have to deal with,” Ardman said. “We don’t want anyone from the South Bay Community Center to have to deal with those kinds of things.”
Ardman said she and organizers were thankful for the support and understanding of the South Bay Community Center, which also received backlash when management attempted to clarify the terms of the festival on social media threads.
The South Bay Community Center board members were “nothing but kind and thoughtful and generous” through the application, approval and backlash, Ardman said.
The biggest losses from the event were the conversations and education about consent that were lost in the cancellation, Ardman said, noting those apply as much to sex and kink as they do to everyday life.
“I value the kink community being able to educate people on what active consent looks like,” Ardman said. “We’re talking about consent that is enthusiastic, informed, non-coerced, ongoing, revocable — things of that sort where you can actively say, ‘I want to do this.’”
Ardman said the event has not been rescheduled and there are currently no plans to find a new date or location.
This story was originally published April 22, 2023 at 12:13 PM.
