# Vetting a partner > Checking someone out before you meet, in both directions: references and how to use them, a consistent history, video calls, and the questions to ask first. - Canonical URL: https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/vetting-a-partner/ - Section: Safety and practice - Updated: November 2026 (2026-11-01) - Audience: consenting adults over 18 only. Everything on this site concerns consenting adults over 18. I'm a mature man who writes a website about hitting people. Most of the people reading this are women working out whether it is safe to be alone in a room with someone like me. This page is written to be used against its own author, and I mean that literally. It also works the other way round, and the second half is about that. --- ## In short - Ask for two references from people who have played with them, and contact those people yourself. Anyone genuine expects it, and annoyance at being asked *is* the answer. - Check for a consistent history: how long the profile has existed, whether they turn up at real events, whether anyone knows them offline. - A ten-minute video call before meeting catches misrepresentation and tells you how someone talks about limits. - It runs both ways. If you are the one holding the implement, check age, health, medication, and whether they will actually use a safe word. Do all of this to anyone you are thinking of meeting, and expect them to do it to you. Ask for references. Ask for a video call. Tell someone else who you are talking to. Nobody decent will be offended, because being asked is the normal cost of meeting strangers for something that involves being hit, and anybody who has thought about this for five minutes understands that the risk is not evenly distributed. ## What vetting can and cannot do Vetting is not a background check. You are not going to find a register, because there is no register, and any site that implies otherwise is selling you comfort. What you are doing is much simpler: checking whether the person in front of you has a consistent history that other people can vouch for. That catches a specific and common category of person. Not the rare calculating predator of the newspapers, but the far more ordinary man who has burned through four or five people in eighteen months, left each of them upset, moved to a new platform, and started again with a fresh profile and the same photographs. He is not hard to detect. He is only hard to detect if nobody looks. ## References, and actually using them Ask for two. Ideally one recent and one from further back, and ideally at least one person they are no longer playing with. A current partner will always say something nice. Somebody who stopped and still speaks well of them is worth considerably more. Then message those people yourself. This is the step that gets skipped. A screenshot of a glowing message proves nothing at all, and neither does a list of names. Open a conversation with the referee directly, and when you do, ask questions that are difficult to answer vaguely: - Did you actually play with them, and roughly when? - Did they do what you had agreed, or did things drift? - Did they stop when you asked them to stop? - How were they afterwards, and the following week? - Would you send a friend of yours to them? That last one does most of the work. People are reluctant to accuse anyone directly, particularly in a small scene where everyone talks. They are far more willing to go quiet, or to say "I would probably want her to be careful", and a hesitation there is worth more than a paragraph of praise. Look at the referee as well as the reference. Is that account years old, does it interact with a range of people, does it look like a person with a life? Two accounts created in the same month that only ever talk to each other are not two references. They are one person. ## A consistent history Somebody who has been part of this for years leaves a trail, and the trail is boring, which is exactly the point. Look for a profile that has existed for a long time. Comments and posts that go back and read like a person rather than a shop window. Photographs at events. Friends who post about seeing them. The single most useful question is whether they exist in person. Do they go to [munches](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/uk/munches/), workshops, play parties? Has anyone stood in a pub with them? A man who has been "in the scene for fifteen years" and has never been to anything, knows nobody you can find, and only ever talks one to one over messages has not been in the scene for fifteen years. He has been on the internet for fifteen years. Mutual friends are the strongest signal available to you. If two people you already trust have met them and are relaxed about it, you are in a substantially better position than any amount of message-based charm can put you in. ## The video call Ten minutes, camera on, before you agree to meet. It is a low bar and it filters a surprising amount. Obviously it confirms that the person is who the photographs say they are. More usefully, it tells you how they sound when they talk about limits, and whether they can hold a conversation that is not about what they want to do to you. Ask them something ordinary. Ask what they would do if you used a safe word early. Listen to the answer rather than the tone it is delivered in, because a good voice is not evidence of anything. Someone who will not do a short call, at all, ever, while wanting to meet you alone in a private flat, has ordered those two things in a way you should think about. ## Search the handle Put their username into a search engine in quotes. People reuse handles across platforms far more than they realise, and a name that turns up on a forum, a Reddit account and an old profile gives you years of unguarded writing to read. Reverse image search their photographs, using [Google Lens](https://lens.google.com/) or [TinEye](https://tineye.com/). If the pictures belong to a model, a stock library or some unrelated man's Instagram, you are finished and you have lost ten minutes. And ask quietly at events. Whisper networks are real, imperfect, and occasionally unfair to people, but they are the closest thing that exists to an early warning system. Phrase it neutrally. "Has anyone had a bad experience with X?" gets better information than "is X alright?", which people answer politely by default. > **The reaction is the test.** Everything above is secondary to one thing: watch what happens when you ask. Genuine people are used to it. Most will hand over references before you finish the sentence, because they would rather meet someone who checks. > > > > The responses to watch for are the ones that make the asking feel like your problem: "you clearly do not trust me", "I do not do references, I am very discreet", "after everything I have told you". That is not hurt feelings. That is a test of whether your conditions can be talked out of you, and it is being run early because it works better early. ## When there is genuinely nothing to check Some people are new. They have no references because they have never done this, which is not a fault, and if we treat it as one then nobody can ever start. The difference is what they do about it. A new person who says "I have no references, I understand that makes this harder, would you rather meet at a munch first" is behaving well. Somebody with fifteen years of claimed experience and no references is a different proposition entirely, because the absence needs explaining and the explanation is usually that the people who could speak about him would not say anything good. With a genuinely new person, the answer is not more vetting. It is to shift the weight onto the parts you control: meet in public, do not play the first time, and follow the protocol on [meeting safely](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/meeting-safely/). ## If you are the one who will be doing the spanking Everything above is written from the side most people arrive on, and it leaves out half the job. If somebody has asked you to hit them, you have your own checks to make, and they are not a courtesy. I have turned down more sessions for these reasons than for any other. Age first, and without embarrassment. You need actual confidence that the person is over 18, which means a video call and, if anything about it is unclear, a straight question and a willingness to walk away from a vague answer. Nobody genuine is offended by this. Then health, because it changes the physical risk and they are the only one who knows. Blood thinners and anticoagulants, clotting disorders, anything that affects the skin, fainting, epilepsy, a recent operation, back and hip problems, pregnancy, medication that changes blood pressure. People withhold these routinely, partly out of embarrassment and partly because they are afraid the answer will be no. Ask directly, ask again on the day, and say plainly that an honest answer changes what you do rather than whether you turn up. Then whether they will actually use a safe word. Ask them to describe a time they stopped something, or said no, or told a partner it was too much. Somebody who cannot produce a single example, or who says with some pride that they have never used one, is telling you they intend to endure in silence, and enduring in silence is how people get hurt by someone who was watching carefully and believed what they were seeing. Then what they are actually here for. Wanting a hard session is fine. Wanting to be punished for something real, in the middle of a bad month, is a different proposition, and I would ask gently what has been going on. If somebody is reaching for this in place of help, the kind thing is to say so and to point at it: Samaritans on **116 123**, free, any hour, and Mind at [mind.org.uk](https://www.mind.org.uk). See also [why do I like pain](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/why/why-do-i-like-pain/), which sets out the difference between this and self-harm. - What have they done before, with whom, and how did it end? The same reference questions work in this direction and are asked far less often. - Does anyone know where they are going to be? Someone who has told nobody is a risk to both of you, not just to themselves. - Are they in a relationship, and does that person know? You are entitled to decide you would rather not be part of somebody else's deception. - Alcohol and anything else. Neither of you plays if either of you has been drinking. Somebody who wants to loosen up first is not in a position to consent to anything and you are not in a position to read them. - What do they want afterwards, and how are they getting home? A person who has no plan for the next two hours will become your responsibility whether you agreed to it or not. Watch for the specific pressure. "No limits", "you can do whatever you like", "do not stop even if I ask", "the last person was too soft". Those sound like enthusiasm. They are an invitation to hand over your judgement, and the person swinging is the one who has to live with what happens next. In the UK that is also the practical legal position, since consent is not a defence to actual bodily harm after *R v Brown*. The person holding the cane carries the exposure. See [is it legal](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/uk/is-it-legal/). None of this makes you suspicious or unkind. Someone who has thought about their own health, their own limits and their own way home is someone you can have a good evening with. If you are new to this side of it, there is more at [topping for the first time](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/topping-for-the-first-time/). ## What this does not solve I want to be straight about the limits of it. Almost everyone who has ever hurt someone in this world had references, because they were fine with the first few people and reputation lags behind behaviour by a year or more. Vetting shortens the odds. It does not close the question. So it sits alongside the other two things rather than replacing them: a [negotiation](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/negotiation/) done properly beforehand, and a first meeting arranged so that you can walk out of it at any point without needing anyone's permission. Those are the parts that stay in your hands. ## Read next - [Red flags](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/red-flags/) - [Meeting safely: the actual protocol](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/meeting-safely/) - [Topping for the first time](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/topping-for-the-first-time/) - [Negotiation: working it out beforehand](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/negotiation/) - [Munches and meeting people in person](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/uk/munches/) ## Sources 1. *R v Brown* [1993] UKHL 19, holding that consent is not a defence to actual bodily harm in England and Wales. [bailii.org](https://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKHL/1993/19.html) > **Not legal advice.** Where this page mentions the law, it is general information written from an England and Wales position unless it says otherwise, and it is not legal advice. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own law. If your own legal position matters, speak to a solicitor. ## Common questions ### How do I check someone out before meeting them for spanking or BDSM? Ask for two references from people who have actually played with them, and message those people yourself rather than taking a screenshot on trust. Check that the person has a consistent history: an account that has existed for a while, a presence at real-world events, people who know them offline. Have a short video call before you meet. Search their handle and reverse image search their photos. ### Should I feel awkward asking a dominant for references? No. Anyone who has been doing this for any length of time has been asked before and expects it. A person who is genuine will usually offer references without being prompted. Irritation at being asked is information about how they respond when someone puts a condition on their access to you. ### What should I ask someone who gives a reference? Ask whether they actually played with the person and roughly when, whether the person stuck to what was agreed, whether they stopped when asked, and whether they would send a friend to them. The last question gets the most honest answers, because people who are reluctant to accuse someone outright will still hesitate before recommending them to somebody they care about. ### Should I vet someone who has asked me to spank them? Yes, and for reasons that are just as serious. You need to know they are over 18, that they have told you about any medical condition or medication that changes the risk, that they will use a safe word rather than endure in silence, and that they are not using this in place of help they actually need. In the UK the person swinging carries the legal exposure as well, because consent is not a defence to actual bodily harm.