Choosing a Scene Name
People new to kink may want to consider choosing a scene name for themselves. A "scene name" is an alias, used instead of your birth/legal name.
It's like a stage name ("Madonna"), pen name ("Saki"),
or monicker ("Joey").
Unless you are sure you can be 100% out with everyone in your current and future life, we recommend that you start with a scene name, and use only it for at least your first year. At a minimum, don't use your last name - just first (or middle) name and maybe initial (if your given name is common).
Later you can decide if you want to "out" yourself. It's hard to "un-ring the bell". Before you out yourself, read the short book "When Someone You Love is Kinky".
The main reasons for a scene name include:
A scene name should not be about shame. If you feel that your needs, desires, or behavior are shameful, get help with that.
A scene name is not an effective cover for misdeeds. If someone behaves illegally or dishonorably in the scene, they get outed promptly.
Think of a scene name much like a pen name, stage name, alter ego, pet name, or nickname. It distinguishes one part of your life.
Often people use only their scene name for everything in the scene. Other people use it on-line and with strangers, and offer their birth name to closer friends. If privacy is important, then when on-line only use your scene name.
Since there are a lot of people using realistic scene names, it's not clear which names are birth or scene. And it shouldn't matter to anyone. Some people have eventually adopted their scene name as their legal name, finding that it fits them better. Do you want your name to sound "real" or exotic?
Do you want it to express gender? Scene role? Sexual orientation? (Careful - many newcomers end up with a different scene role than they anticipated.)
It is OK to change your scene name over time. Usually this happens mainly in the first year or so, as someone gets to know themselves and the scene. Sometimes people modify their name to distinguish from another player, e.g. "The Good Emily", "Pat5", "Other Alice", or "little john".
(Caveat: Occasionally, established people have changed their scene name after serious misbehavior, in an attempt to hide. This accompanies changing which community and/or city they frequent. The hiding doesn't work. It's easy to check in their past community to see how honorable they are.)
It's OK if you're in the scene a short while with your vanilla name, then change to a scene name. Many people have. Just tell people "I go by X now."
Some people have more than one scene name, for various reasons, e.g.:
Avoid taking names straight from well-known kinky stories. While it might seem like a tribute, it's more likely to be seen as unimaginative, pretentious, or even theft.
Avoid names where the pronunciation is not easy or obvious from the spelling.
Think about both how the name sounds and how it looks. To some people Big vs little letters matter, so you should choose how you want it written. Tops always use Upper Case. Some bottoms choose to use lowercase, some do not. However, make sure that cAsE or un��0n�un��d $�mbo1� don't mess up the spoken or written versions. Or you could go with "The kinkster formerly known as Princess".
Choose a name you're comfortable hearing a lot, both in whispers and shouts.
Some scene names cause snickering, e.g. "Master Bates".
Certain prefixes have specific implications:
Starting as soon as possible, you'll want a scene email account, separate from your work or vanilla accounts. Anonymous free accounts are available at mail.yahoo.com, gmail.com, and elsewhere.
If you use facebook, you'll want a separate account for your kinky persona, if you do any kink on facebook. For this, use your scene email account (different from your vanilla email address) and scene name. Do not do kinky activity on your vanilla account, unless you're sure that you'll be 100% out to all future employers, neighbors, governemental administrations, and law-enforcement personel. And that you'll never have any enemies. Or stalkers.
Note that scene names and anonymous accounts won't prevent people from finding you, they just increase the effort and skills required.
Use your scene name and scene email address when you open a fetlife account.
At this writing, google-plus requires birth names, and is punitive, so don't use it.
There are a few people in the scene rather prolific at giving people suitable scene names. Ask around for them. Some mentors can help with this too.
There are lots of ways to get ideas for scene names, e.g.:
However:
Note that the use of scene names is less common in certain sub-communities. In particular, leather-identified gay men in large kink-tolerant cities (SF, LA) seem less likely to use them.
There are those who insist that everyone should be out to everyone about everything at all times. These are usually people who have no children, are self-employed, and live in a large kink community. In contrast, we believe that everyone should choose for themselves the amount and timing of being out.
Some say that if you're not using the name on your birth certificate, you're not being yourself.
We believe that if you use a consistent identitity within the community, reflecting your thoughts, beliefs, and experiences, then you are being honest and yourself.
A name is just a label.
The more of us that vanilla people know (as kinky), the less likely we are to be oppressed. At least in theory.
Having the community out and accepted would require decades of effort and conflict, if we look at the history of other repressed sexual minorities.
Under the radar has worked fairly well for some of us. We should choose our battles, and their timing.
We know some people who used scene names, then came 100% out once they had been in the scene for a long time, all their children reached 18, and their future livelihood was less likely to be damaged by bigotted people. In our opinion, their scene name became their "real" name long before the court paperwork.