By what name / handle / initial would you like to be referred during the interview?

You can call me Mr_Rahul, that’s what people know me as.

Did you attend a munch before you organized it yourself and if not, what prompted you to take the initiative of organizing a munch?

Kink runs in my blood; I eat, sleep and breathe kink. I find different ways to incorporate kink into my lifestyle from the most basic things that lie in every household to the overly complex gears that are made for kink. My kinky curiosity started when I was 11 years old. My curiosity  kept on developing from that time on. As I grew older, I sought out like-minded people to first talk with and hopefully meet eventually but the topic was mostly taboo and so the internet was the safest place to find like-minded people. I started out on the net and eventually I am now on Fetlife, the world’s largest kinky Facebook-like website. 

I slowly realized that only being a voyeur towards online content was not what I wanted, I really wanted to play and experience kink in real life. I always thought that there would be more kinksters waiting in the shadows perhaps for someone to take an initiative like I did. So, I thought that I should try my hand at meeting people at least or creating an environment where something like this would be possible.

I then decided to go through the different minutes of different munches of Mumbai and Delhi since they seemed to be handling it with a certain vigour. I decided to contact the various admins but unfortunately nobody wanted to perhaps respond to a novice like me and so  I did not receive any positive response from the then senior kinksters who were familiar with the scene. I was completely clueless about how munches could be conducted but I knew that I had to start somewhere.

When did you organize your first munch and in which city? (Approximate date/month/year will suffice)

My first munch was the one I conducted 11 years ago in 2009 all the way at Bannerughatta zoo. I had to personally invite people to come together just to meet in a small group. I managed to invite 11 people but only 3 people turned up, all men. I had prepared myself with all kinds of contingencies in case anything went wrong and chose the most convenient public place that could provide me with shelter. I remember being worried that the people I was meeting might possibly rat me out to the authorities or something. At that point, I believed that kink was illegal though it wasn’t, of course, now I know the difference.

How did you get in touch with people for attending the munch and how did you choose who all to invite?

In the initial stages there was nothing happening in southern Bangalore since there were a lot of cynical people. The group was small mainly because people would get cold feet at the very last moment, hence, it was extremely hard to get people to open up and attend munches. The whole process became smoother and more open in time as the community grew.  I had to build the process by myself with whatever limited knowledge and experience I had. In time, there were more and more people who became involved in the process. Initially, there was no one I could rely on and meeting personally was risky. I had to travel from one corner to another just to validate individuals.  Now, there is a mixed set of coordinators for the munches.

I got in touch with people on fetlife who I directly communicated with and was limited to the website. In the initial days, we would individually call people, now we put up a thread  with info and people now contact us instead. Before we meet them, we go through the ‘about me’ section of their profiles and see whether they are really interested in this lifestyle. Their ‘About Me’ section gives a direct insight into the person but of course a lot of people who are genuine don’t fill it out as well. If they seem genuine and interested in meeting, then they will get validated by one of the coordinators to attend the munch. In the validation, we try to understand if their attention is towards being part of the community and not for their own personal gain i.e not just to find play partners. Once a person is validated through a call, we have a chat about their kink lives and understand their reason for attending the munches or events. 

Tell us a little about your experience of the initial few munches and the hurdles/ challenges that you faced?

During the initial days, we had only 4-6 members but now the highest has gone up to 40. It was mostly always men who attended those munches. I believe the women found it more difficult to come out into the open given the fear of society and the taboo the lifestyle held. Over time as the safety of the environment was ensured, we saw more and more women attending the munches and events.  Now we have around 12-15 women who come for munches, but still the number is low. The most essential was ensuring the safety of the female attendees and ensuring that they felt welcome. I had to ensure that no personal details were shared, people kept their distance and didn’t push themselves onto the lady. I eventually made the women admins for validating other women.

Did the munches change over time in terms of number of people, venue, age group, sex ratio, or any other way?

The youngest of the kinksters who we’ve had was 19-20 and the oldest goes above 50. The ideal age group is between 22-27 years of age. The venues are chosen to maintain safety, ensure convenience to travel home and are mostly in the middle of city.  The venues were always meant to be safe and friendly;  we ensured the location wouldn’t be expensive so that more people would be encouraged to attend. There was no entrance fee charged, only a cover charge towards the actual items consumed. We ensured that munches are usually spread out over different places to ensure safety and security and not encourage unnecessary visits from non-validated people. During munches we talk about different aspects about kink, we play games, drink, eat, karaoke, etc. It’s never a constant theme. One major aspect however is that we don’t encourage the sharing of personal details like name, locality you stay in, place of work, etc.

What are your favourite memories associated with the initial munches?

You can never know a person with such few details and so my fear was always people having hidden intentions because you can never know a person’s real intention. I would always suspect that people were cops or undercover and did my best to understand people to try to uncover whether this was true. After a pointof time, I, however, realized that my fears were unwarranted since the kinksters who met me came with the purest intention and were often very excited. The reaction and the glint of joy is almost like they are meeting a celebrity even though we all were equals.

We’ve tried to keep the munches as much fun as we can by involving multiple types of people and trying multiple types of venues, We’ve had good laughs over drinks and food and shared a lot of stories amongst us. I remember each and every detail of every munch and for me all of them are memorable because of the lovely people who attend them.

Did you have any bad experience while organizing a munch?

There wasn’t anything bad in particular that happens. But sometimes people let slip out of excitement, their real names, their company, the area in which they stay, etc. There are instances where people have had lapses in judgement and met unnecessary people in the first meet itself but with having people to talk with and discuss all these factors there haven’t been much bad memories. Although we’ve had to remove a lot of different people from kink groups because of toxicity they’ve brought.

Is there anything else that you would like to share?

People know me for kink being in my blood with pride. I make my own way with and without fetlife. I could easily have practiced it on the side but I also wanted people to come out and enjoy their own kinks and I hoped to be that spark in South India. People don’t believe that kinky relationships could even exist just because they have had no push, they have major fear of the unknown and think they might be choosing the wrong person, etc. I knew that if there was a small community, it would push more and more people to open their minds and provide kink at peoples’ doorsteps. This is the reason that I started organising different kinds of events, etc. I needed people to be practically educated, hence workshops. Once you attend workshops you then find out your kinks and are able to discuss it in a safe environment with likeminded people. Moving from munches, workshops and now events have constituted a major growth in the kink scene in South India, which I am proud of. We have moved from theoretically talking about kink to playing in real in an open forum. 

I think after 50 shades of grey was released there were more and more people vocalising their kinks. I only wish that there were more people practising kinks and talking about their desires than just reading about it. .

Few Thoughts:

I don’t believe that age is a true indicator of experience of a kinkster. A novice could be more kinky than older, experienced people.

A person needs only humility and an open mind to pursue any kind of kink journey.