Why is it so hard to acknowledge that they made a mistake and seek a path to avoid repeating it? Damn, even as an individual, I have needed to do that in some of my scenes. Not acknowledging errors destroys trust instead of preserving it.

It is explicitly said to be a behind the scenes tour at Darklands, not just crossing Darklands to view Kink Responsibly.

Interestingly, their own brochure doesn't mention anything g about the Kink Responsibly exhibit, it mentions Darklands as a whole: bsky.app/profile/rope...

Had an email too, let me know the best way to share with you. Only the quickest of looks and it’s a load of shit but offering to meet online at least.

so they are hiding behind the "study visit" definition then? how do they (and Darklands for that matter) explain the presence of 120 researchers when the events for the day were already begun? Shouldn't that have paused them and go "maybe we should come back another day?"

My response to @itmantwerp.bsky.social's internal review process, calling out a continuation of the same pattern: concerns raised by community members are absorbed into the institutional process and returned as findings of no formal fault.

Here is the follow up from @itmantwerp.bsky.social around their ethical breaches at Darklands. I’ll analyze over the next coming days how their response is insufficient, but please take a moment to read 🧵

Sharing a slide from my intervention on Wang, S., Wang, N.-C., & Lee, W.-C. (2026). Methodological and ethical considerations in LGBTQ-focused online ethnographic research: A systematic review and a human-centered framework in the International Journal of Qualitative Methods.

It’s time that @itmantwerp.bsky.social responds to us about transparency. After sending a letter telling our community that photographing people in states of undress without consent was fine, actually, their staff are on here promoting an article about what a great ethics culture they have. 🧵

Campus is secure

Still okay, still locked down

Currently barricaded and on lockdown at UOttawa. Stay safe everyone!

@anthropic.com's Claude and Deepseek flagged ethical problems differently. Claude cited specific queer scholars by name and questioned whether the IRB system is even calibrated for this kind of research.

This slide from my presentation is one I keep thinking about. Claude and DeepSeek verbally refused to help with an unethical research design. Neither said, "You're right, let's proceed." Claude offered alternatives, and DeepSeek hallucinated findings AND claimed to be a Queer researcher.

New tattoo, red ropes inspired by @ropesbyasher.bsky.social

What needs to happen is an acknowledgement of wrongdoing by ITM and Darklands. Retraining in medical ethics and enforcement of ethical oversight policies. Explicit language in Darklands participation agreements to prohibit such external observation and data collection without informed consent.

I'm not saying ITM's conduct falls to that depth. But this is the reason why medical ethics is important. To treat people like laboratory curiosities, with the tacit approval of Darklands organizers, is DEEPLY insulting. Bringing outsiders into a safe space you claim to provide is a betrayal.

It doesn't matter if the objectives and intent are honorable if in the conduct of one's research the participant's rights are violated. In medicine, the ends cannot justify the means. That's how we got Mengele; Guatemala and Tuskegee; Unit 731. The list is a lot longer than most people think.

While Darklands isn't my cup of tea, I recognize that there is a long history of dehumanizing and stigmatizing attitudes toward marginalized groups by the medical sciences, and that everyone would benefit from learning about that history, so that we do not repeat those mistakes.

When I read that part of the response, my immediate reaction was "WTF?" followed by intense revulsion. It brought back traumatic memories I had as a closeted gay kid during the HIV/AIDS crisis and how even supposedly objective scientists used language that framed us as plague spreaders.

This is helpful to hear! I've not been to Darklands before, although I've been a bit tempted - I think I come from a similar strand of kink and this suggests more strongly that it probably wouldn't be my sort of scene

Can darklands be really called a kink festival? Honestly my experience is: - A gear market (barely any kink toys) - Loud parties with industrial level of darkrooms, mostly about sex and fisting. - very limited space for kink

I come from the BDSM part of kink, so I might bias. But I would not call darklands a kink event. It’s a gear event during the day and a club party with darkroom during the nights. And with that in mind, the safe information area makes sense.

Just an aside— I’m a software engineer with over a decade experience. This is a long shot, but if you know of any part-time remote roles while I finish my studies I’m all ears. Prefer working in LGBTQ+/adult media.

In other news, my final presentation of this term is shaping up 💪! (You can probably tell I’m passionate about ethical research)

On MSM +Chemsex: @itmantwerp.bsky.social’s response contains a line that needs to be read carefully: they cite ‘a high prevalence of chemsex and sexualized drug use among MSM communities’ as context for why using our images was acceptable. Read that again. 🧵

Yo @ropesbyasher.bsky.social I did the thing.

Checking @itmantwerp.bsky.social’s chemsex conference site, it’s worth noting that the presentation has been taken down, which is the right call. But removal doesn’t retroactively address the harm. The people in those photos may still not know their images were ever up there.

People need to understand that these are supposed to be safe spaces not merely in a physical sense, but also an emotional one. These spaces exist to provide a means of self-expression without the fear of judgment or mischaracterization. For the organizers to allow this is a breach of that trust.

I also find it deeply disturbing that Darklands organizers seem to be willing to have academics characterize a marginalized subculture in historically and contemporaneously offensive terms, though I am not terribly surprised. I hope people considering attending future events will keep this in mind.

I find it more than a little ironic that substance use as it may relate to impairment of judgment and ability to consent, should be a topic of academic research by researchers who themselves seem to not value informed consent, and whose reaction to being called out is to gaslight the community.

Urgh. Not impressed. We are not a zoo, and for people to gawk and research us. Thanks to @ropesbyasher.bsky.social for highlighting this....

Forgot to send you a screenshot from Insta. Here it is. No-one asked though.

It’s probably buried somewhere in the tickets t&c’s, can’t find anything other than a wee paragraph in house rules about people taking their own pics

If @itmantwerp.bsky.social response to this community's concerns has left you as unsettled as it has me, please write to them. Institutions respond differently when one voice becomes many.

I'd like to know what the Darklands organizers think of their collaborators at the ITM painting festival attendees and the entire MSM population with the broad brush of being sexualized drug users.

To be clear: not every use of publicly available imagery requires individual consent. But those contexts have conditions, and this situation, with partially nude participants associated with stigmatized behaviour, is one that @itmantwerp.bsky.social should have paused on before (re)publishing photos

Exactly this. I have always done every sexual health study, queer mental health study etc. I’ve pretty much considered it my “duty” to help those who are trying to help our community. This leaves a really bad taste in my mouth and makes me wonder how I’ve really been seen by researchers.

When a public health institution crafts such a transparently weak excuse and stereotypes the very same marginalized group they purport to serve, it should call into question whether other violations are occurring in the name of medical research and public interest.

It's CRAZY to me that they think this is okay. Such behavior at a legitimate institution would absolutely get people fired.

Research ethics isn't about whether one thinks the research is good or valid or interesting, it's about ensuring participants are protected. Full informed consent. Ability to withdraw. Studies designed with enough statistical power. Vulnerable groups and individuals protected.

I've never been to Darklands. But I can fairly confidently say after this it's just completely off the table for me.

Let us know how we can best support you in this. I wasn’t even there and I’m steaming mad about this.

This whole fiasco is a case study in how to not follow research ethics principles. I do research. If I did this, I'd be severely disciplined by my institution. Thanks to @ropesbyasher.bsky.social and others for doing the heavy lifting

Excuses..excuses…excuses.. however, at least they had the decency to reply, while the real responsible (DARKLANDS) keeps ignoring every message, email, story etc It’s also interesting that people and events keep talking about pillion while this remains completely “unnoticed” 🤡🎪🎡

Another take would be "Darklands put these photos on their website, and then showed them to us, and then shared a PDF of them" - so blame Darklands.

Well, thats another bag of worms. How does one consent to pictures at darklands? Is it part of the small print? I admit I’ve never read the small print.

@itmantwerp.bsky.social responded to a formal complaint about identifying images of Darklands participants used at their chemsex conference. Their conclusion: “no formal mistakes.” Let’s talk about what that response actually reveals. 🧵

I can't believe this. @itmantwerp.bsky.social says attendees "clearly consented" to having their images used because photos are on the Darklands website. Consent for festival promotion ≠ consent to be featured in an academic chemsex conference presentation.

Tuck, E., & Yang, K. W. (2014). R-words: Refusing research. Humanizing research: Decolonizing qualitative inquiry with youth and communities, 223(2014), 248.