Scene name

What is a scene name?

A scene name is the name someone is known by in the scene: on profiles, at a munch, and in conversation. It keeps your work and your private life apart from what you do in your free time. Dutch has no word of its own for it.

Why people use one

Because work and BDSM don’t go together for almost anyone.

In the interview study by Bezreh, Weinberg and Edgar in the American Journal of Sexuality Education, the majority had told no one at work. Two participants who otherwise called themselves fully “out” made an exception right there. That same study shows the self-help literature already recommended it back then. The Kinky Girl’s Guide to Dating from 2004 spends seven pages on reassurance and warnings about coming out, and its one concrete tip is to use a pseudonym when signing up for mailing lists.

Karolynn Siegel and colleagues call that kind of choice information management in Archives of Sexual Behavior: not lying, but steering who knows what. A scene name is the simplest form of it.

Where the word comes from

From the nickname, not from the stage.

The name for a name you choose yourself is a handle. That slang sense “nickname,” according to Etymonline, is recorded from 1870 in American English, and goes back to older phrases about adding a handle to your name, a title of address like Mister or Sir. That is exactly what a scene name does. It puts a grip on your name that others can take hold of without getting the rest of you along with it.

What I see myself

I am Victor, a gigolo, twenty-five years active in BDSM and trained as a psychotherapist. Victor is one of these names. It exists because my work is my work and the rest of my life is the rest of my life.

Pick a name you can say out loud without blushing, and use it the same way everywhere. And count on it shielding nothing the moment you walk in somewhere. The name is there to let you start, not to make you invisible.

What you can do yourself

• Pick something neutral you can still say years later without discomfort.
• Use it consistently, on every profile and every sign-up list. Two half names are worse than one whole one.
• Tie a separate email address to it that you use for nothing else.
• Don’t expect anonymity at a party. At a munch you see faces, and faces don’t lie for you.
• Read outing before you say someone’s real name out loud. It covers what the law says about that.

Sources

• BDSM Disclosure and Stigma Management: Identifying Opportunities for Sex Education. Tanya Bezreh, Thomas S. Weinberg & Timothy Edgar, American Journal of Sexuality Education 7(1), 37–61, 2012 (authors and source checked against Crossref). Gives the finding that most of the twenty adults interviewed had told no one at work about their BDSM interest, with the note that even two participants who called themselves fully “out” made a reservation there, and the summary of Luna Grey’s The Kinky Girl’s Guide to Dating (2004), which spends about seven pages on reassurance and warnings about coming out and recommends using a pseudonym and discretion when signing up for mailing lists.
• Perceived Stigma and Stigma Management Strategies Among Online Male Sex Workers. Karolynn Siegel, Anne E. Sundelson, Étienne Meunier & Eric W. Schrimshaw, Archives of Sexual Behavior 51(5), 2711–2730, 2022 (DOI 10.1007/s10508-021-02266-4, checked against Crossref). Gives the concept of information management as the most-used strategy for handling stigma around a stigmatized activity, and the description of participants who deliberately keep their activity separate from the rest of their lives.
• handle (n.). Online Etymology Dictionary. Gives that the slang sense “nickname” is recorded from 1870, originally in American English, and goes back to older phrases about adding a handle to someone’s name, that is, a title of address like Mister or Sir.

Related terms

• Scene. The world where such a name means something, and the word that means two things.
• Outing. What happens when someone lifts the name off to show who is under it, with the Dutch law alongside.
• Munch. The place where you say it out loud for the first time.
• FetLife. Where most Dutch scene names live.
• Kinkster. The word for the person behind the name.
• Protector. Who does sometimes know your real name.
• Hard limit. The other thing you write down before you meet someone.