Vetting

What is vetting?

Vetting is checking out a possible play partner before you meet: looking at profiles, asking questions, checking references and sometimes a video call. The goal is to gauge whether someone is a safe partner for you. In the kink and swingers world, vetting is the counterpart of screening in sex work: the same idea, but between two people who want to get to know each other.

How vetting works

It turns on gathering information before you make yourself vulnerable. Vetting is the process of deciding whether someone feels like a safe play partner and fits you, with open questions, honest talks about limits and experience, and a first meeting in a public place. The scene around it counts too: ask mutual acquaintances for their impression and find out which community someone comes from. How someone reacts to that checking says a lot already: anyone who refuses it often hands you exactly the information you were after.

What vetting is not

“If you trust someone, you don’t have to vet them.” The other way around, in fact. Vetting isn’t distrust but care, and it belongs in the process by default, even when someone comes across as nice. Charm is no proof of safety.

What I see of it myself

As a gigolo I’m often on the other side: it’s a good thing when you check me out. I don’t mind if you ask who I am, how I work, or what others have experienced. In fact I encourage it, because transparency is where safety begins. I do a light form of vetting myself too: a short conversation up front, so we both know where we stand. If you only feel at ease after a video call or a few extra questions, that’s completely fine. Someone with nothing to hide is glad to help with it.

Related terms

• Screening. The same care, but at a booking in sex work.
• Safety call. An added safety step for the meeting itself.
• Swinging. The scene where vetting of potential play partners is common.