Consent Guidelines

Overview

Kinky Match helps a group figure out where their interests overlap. What happens with that information — whether you talk about it, try something new together, or just file it away — is entirely up to you and the people you invited. This page is our attempt to be a genuinely useful part of that conversation, not just a legal formality sitting between you and the quiz.

None of this is medical, psychological, or legal advice, and it isn't exhaustive. It's the baseline framing we think matters most, with pointers to people who go much deeper than a single page ever could.

RACK

We use RACK — Risk-Aware Consensual Kink — as the baseline framing for everything on this site. It has three parts: everyone involved is genuinely informed about the real risks of what they're doing, everyone gives clear, freely-given consent, and what you're doing is treated as a legitimate form of intimacy — not something to apologize for, joke away, or downplay.

PRICK

We pair RACK with PRICK — Personal Responsibility, Informed, Consensual Kink — for the personal-responsibility half of the same idea. You're always the one deciding what's right for you, with full information, freely given consent, and nobody else's say-so. That includes the right to say no, to change your mind mid-scene, and to set limits your partner(s) don't share — none of which needs justifying to anyone.

Why not "SSC"

You may have seen "SSC" — Safe, Sane, Consensual — used elsewhere as the standard kink framing. We deliberately don't use it here. "Safe" gets read, often unintentionally, as a promise that a well-negotiated scene carries no risk — it doesn't, and pretending otherwise leaves people less prepared, not more. RACK's "risk-aware" framing says the same thing more honestly: real risk, clearly understood, consciously accepted.

Negotiate before you start

A match on Kinky Match tells you two things: something you're both into, and roughly how into it each of you is. It doesn't tell you how to actually do it safely together — that conversation has to happen separately, every time, even with a partner you've done similar things with before. At minimum, that conversation should cover:

• What specifically you're both agreeing to, and what's explicitly off the table;
• A safeword or signal that means "slow down" and one that means "stop, now" — and what happens the instant either is used;
• Anything relevant about physical or mental health, medication, or past experiences that changes how safely something can be done;
• Who's checking on whom, and how, both during and afterward.

Hard limits in Kinky Match

When you flag something as a hard limit in the quiz, that's private to you — it never blocks a match between two other people in your session, and no one else ever sees that you set it. It exists purely so you can say "not this, ever" without it becoming a topic of discussion you didn't choose to start. Treat a hard limit the same way in real life: once someone tells you it's a hard limit, that's the end of the negotiation for that item, not the opening of one.

Checking in & aftercare

Consent isn't a single checkbox at the start — it's something you keep checking on as things happen, and afterward too. "Aftercare" is the term for however you and your partner(s) come back down and take care of each other once something's over: physically (water, warmth, a place to rest), emotionally (reassurance, space to talk or not talk), or both. What good aftercare looks like varies a lot from person to person and scene to scene — the only rule that matters is agreeing on it, or at least raising the question, before you need it.

Some activities carry more physical risk

Kinky Match's question bank spans a wide range of intensity, and some categories — impact play, restraint and rope, breath or circulation restriction, sensory deprivation, and primal/rough-play scenes among them — carry meaningfully more physical risk than others if attempted without real technique. If a match surfaces something in one of these categories that's new to you, treat "we're both interested" as the start of homework, not a green light to just try it: learn proper technique from real instruction (in-person classes or reputable, detailed guides — not a five-minute video), understand the specific warning signs for that activity, and consider starting far gentler than you think you need to the first time.

We're not a dating or introduction service

Kinky Match never introduces you to anyone — you only ever compare results with people you've personally invited by sharing your own link. We don't run background checks on anyone (including the people you invite), and we have no way to verify anyone's identity, intentions, or the accuracy of anything they tell you outside the app. That's true even between people who already know each other well, and it's true regardless of how long a session's link has been sitting in someone's messages before they open it.

If a match here leads to exploring something together in person, everything above still applies — negotiate, set a safeword, plan aftercare, and tell someone you trust what you're doing and when you expect to be finished, especially if anyone involved is new to the specific activity or you're meeting in a new context. None of this is unique to Kinky Match; it's the same baseline care any real-world kink activity deserves.

Where to learn more

A single page can't replace real education or community. The National Coalition for Sexual Freedom is a long-running, sex-positive advocacy and education organization with detailed, practical resources on consent, risk reduction, and negotiation for kink and non-monogamous relationships — a solid place to go deeper than we do here.

If something goes wrong

Kinky Match itself has no chat, messaging, or way for anyone to contact you through the app beyond the session you're already in — but if something about the Service itself was misused against you (an invite link, a display name, session content), tell us about it via the feedback form or privacy@kinkymatch.app. For anything involving immediate physical danger, contact local emergency services first.