John: My name is John and I was born and raised in Montreal where I presently live. I prefer to answer the question of where my interests in the BDSM world started... it would probably be more interesting.
TDV: Go ahead.

John: I come from a very traditional Greek family and from as early as I can remember I just had these fantasies about making girls do what I asked them to do. I really thought I was fucked up for being that way because I sure was not brought up to treat women this way so I repressed the feeling for a very long time. This was even before I had any clue what sex was. I would just make girls do things in my fantasies and it would just excite me to no end.

I spent the large majority of my teens suppressing these feelings but the more I suppressed them the more depressed I got. I was mad at myself for feeling like this because a respectful Greek man would never treat a woman they way I wanted to in bed, especially a woman I loved, but I still had this animalistic need to do it.

I felt really alone. I thought something was wrong with me because I did not know anyone else like me or could even imagine someone else was like me out there.

Then the internet "came out"

I found IRC and I just meet people who felt the same way as me. It felt good to know there were other people out their just like me.

TDV: I think there are a lot of us who felt that way...
John: Is this going to become a therapy session?

TDV: I wasn't planning it that way.
John: LOL

TDV: So once you found the internet folks the rest was history?
John: Yes and no... I still suffered a lot for many years and if I wanted to be really honest with myself I have to say that the feeling comes back i.e. the feeling of being mad at myself for having the animalistic needs that I have.

TDV: Yet you started a website regardless of your own conflicts with BDSM?
John: LOL... no... I started it because I wanted to create something for the other John's and Johanna’s out there!

When I reached my 20s I was like, if I can do anything about it I don't want any other person to ever feel like they were fucked up because they had sexual needs that were "different" or not accepted. I wanted to create a community where people can meet other people who had similar sexual fetishes and learn from each other.

TDV: And that’s prompted you to start FetLife?
John: My objective was not to create a dating site. I am not sold on the concept of a dating site. My idea was to create something that I needed and the friends I have in the BDSM community needed. A place where they can be themselves. A place where they could go to separate themselves from the vanilla life.

TDV: You mention MySpace and Facebook in your FetLife profile will you be offering the same or similar features?
John: I am on Facebook and have my 200 friends from high school, university, and work and I really do not want them to know about my fetishes. So FetLife is my social utility for my fetish life and Facebook is my social utility for professional/vanilla life.

I am a huge social network and Web 2.0 geek and I sign-up to all the sites, play with them and for all the features that I like I ask myself how they can be tailored to benefit the BDSM/Fetish community on FetLife.

I am picking a fight with the ALTs of the fetish world. They are faceless sites that do not give a crap about their users, what they need or what is best for them. They treat each user as just a number. This is not what the fetish community wants or needs. I was a member of ALT. I hated the experience.

TDV: So you anticipate adding more features as time goes on?
John: Once you launch a site it is just the beginning. I have received great feedback from all the people I have meet on FetLife and I have been working with them to constantly improve the experience. I do at least 3-4 new deployments of the site a week. Some things are really small like just changing the title of a section because people complained it was not intuitive to just last weekend making it so now you can bulk add fetishes to your profile.

When we launched one month ago their were no photos, no commenting, no mini-feed for everyone, no specifying your D/s relationship status, no specifying cross linking between two people's profiles who are in a relationship/D/s relationship. All these things have been added in the last month based on feedback

TDV: So for new members, this is a good time to join as they could help impact how FetLife works?
John: It takes under 2 minutes for someone to create an account and get a feel for FetLife to see if they like what we are doing with it. Some might find it perfect for them now and come back to the site everyday and some might say it’s just not there yet. But for both sets of people I would love to get their feedback.

TDV: That sounds great. It's nice to be able to access something like FetLife and not have to fork over a chunk of change to do it.
John: My priority is people's experience with the site. If people are happy and they refer FetLife to their friends then everything else will fall into place.

TDV: And on that note I shall thank you for doing the interview John. It’s been fun getting to know you.
John: I really appreciated the interview as well.

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