"Popular on Etsy- Submissive Kit"

[pachyderm]

So I click on Etsy looking for some last minute Christmas gifts and when I'm about to type "Homemade jewellery" into the search bar, a "Popular Searches" list appears and the first one is "Submissive Kit"

www.etsy.com/ie/search?q=submissive kit&ref=trnd1

Pages of bondage gear, gimp masks, wtf? Is this more depressing internalised porn culture and "Submissive Kit" actually is the most popular search on Etsy, or is something creepy going on with their algorithms? Because I'd hate to think of someone like my young daughter stumbling on this if she wanted to search for an embroidery kit. It's horrible.

I think it's being pushed on us if this stuff didn't used to come up when you weren't searching for it and now it is. It's being deliberately normalised.

Someone in your household has searched for something related.

Algorithm are written by people. There's no reason why searches for non kink stuff have to bring up kinky results, and yet people are saying they consistently do.

It is being pushed on us and normalised. I was searching for a sofa on eBay the other day.. sorted by nearest first and it turns out 15 odd miles away there are umpteen 'sex sofas' all with pretty explicit photos and references to BDSM.

Shouldn't be happening.

So do you not agree with kinks? I get not wanting your kid to see it but the internet is full of stuff like that. I mean just look at all the brony stuff 🙃 If consenting adults want things like that though, surely that’s alright?

Kinks which normalise violence against and degradation of women? No, not in favour funnily enough.

Bloody hell, this has just reminded me that I was searching for underwear online the other month (on a website not a general google) and got a search result with a picture of a woman in a pose and equipment that must clearly have been a kit of this nature. FFS.

And that sofa thing is grim nopockets

I got this list. Does somebody else use your computer? If so, I'd be asking questions

@Antibles I see where you are coming from but if explored in a safe place (safe words, limits, etc not like 50 shades of grey which is hella problematic) I don’t think it’s too bad.

I’ll admit I am into BDSM, so maybe my viewpoint is skewed, but for all my teenage years I thought I was disgusting and horrible. I hated myself so much, and I was already depressed so that didn’t really help much! Being able to explore some of it in a loving relationship has helped me come to terms with myself and what, to put it crudely, turns me on. But the important thing is consent. That’s the big part.

ACat I don't think the problem is kink in the bedroom, the problem is sex/kink stuff coming up as results from the most unrelated searches.
Sex stuff in its place isn't a problem; pervasive sex stuff everywhere else starts to look like a pattern. If consent is so important why do I see so much of this stuff when my searches are clearly non-sex, non-kink-related?
I buy vintage on Etsy and suddenly there are photo of bulging crotches in women's underwear. I mean really suddenly, I've been using Etsy for years and this is something I've only seen in the last month or so.