Belonging Is A Practice, Not A Door Policy | S4 EP107

Ever walked into a new community and felt the room go quiet? Julius takes a match to clique culture and lights a clearer path to belonging, blending real talk, humor, and a little tequila to explain why groups can feel icy and how to melt the wall without losing yourself. We explore the tension between upbringing and chosen identity, the pull of religious guilt, and the liberating power of explicit consent and negotiation in kink and queer spaces. The big idea: most people aren’t gatekeepers by intent—they’re cautious, introverted, and watching to see who stays.

We break down the “social probation” window that many newcomers experience across scenes—kink munches, swinger meetups, queer board game nights, theater troupes, improv teams—and why consistency beats charisma. If small talk drains you, activity-first events become the secret weapon: classes, workshops, and games create shared focus, organic conversation, and chances to contribute. Along the way, Julius names the difference between healthy vetting and toxic gossip, with a candid checklist for red flags and green flags so you can choose safer, warmer rooms.

You’ll leave with practical steps: introduce yourself once, return often, share a slice of your personality, and offer a small service that lifts the space. Respect boundaries. Negotiate clearly. Keep notes on tiny wins—getting out of the car, staying five more minutes, starting one conversation—so you can see progress even when the room still feels stiff. If a group thrives on drama or leaders mock newcomers, take your energy elsewhere; the right circle exists, and it’s easier to find when you show up as your consistent, kind self.

If this resonated, tap follow, share with a friend who’s finding their scene, and drop us a note with your best “day-one” advice for newcomers. Subscribe, rate, and review to help keep the fire burning.

Got a burning question about kink, BDSM, relationships, and/or navigating the wild world of alternative lifestyles? 

Send in your questions. No topic is too taboo, no curiosity too small! We’re all making mistakes, growing, and exploring together!Submit your questions anonymously at aroundthekinkykampfire@yahoo.com or slide into our DMs at Twitter-KinkyKampfire, YT-AroundtheKinkyKampfire, IG-KampfireKinksters. Let’s keep the fire going! 

Chapters

• 2:18 Host Check-In And Setup
• 3:53 ASMR Tequila Ritual
• 4:45 The Problem With Clique Culture
• 6:34 Identity, Upbringing, And Shame
• 8:15 Consent, Negotiation, And Guilt
• 10:00 Choosing Adult Communities
• 10:54 The Social Probationary Period
• 15:52 Not About You: Introverts And Filters
• 19:47 Sticking It Out And Showing Up
• 22:12 Activities, Personality, And Social Value
• 24:39 Vetting, Vibe Checks, And Red Flags
• 26:49 Simple Rules: Be Nice And Stay

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:37

Welcome to Around the Kiki Campfire. Grab a seat or a drink external. This is the podcast where we explore the wild, wonderful, sometimes we get world of kick BDSM and alternative lifestyles. Whether you're a seasoned player, curious newbie, or just here for the story, we've got something for you. Join us on Thursdays on your favorite podcast platform as we share experiences, dive into deep discussions, and maybe spark a little fire of your own. No shame, no judgment, just real talk around the kinky campfire. Let's get lit. Welcome back everybody to another episode around the king campfire.

SPEAKER_00: 1:24

Hopefully I didn't blow the mics out. We're still testing this little joker out here and see how that turns out there. But I have backup audio, so we'll see how it goes.

SPEAKER_02: 1:35

This is your host, the phenomenal HH Julius Marquise, or just Julius, as you can see, at least on a Friday, I'm here on my couch once again for another episode of Round the Kiki Campfire. And for those listening, it is Thursday where we have new episodes. We are testing the video. So thank you to everybody that downloads the Thursday and then watches the Friday and all that in between. Before we get started into the episode, y'all know what time it is. We are doing our ASMR five seconds, and once again, not sponsored. I have the Piedra Azul uh Agave Azul 40% Blanco. Hecho in Mexico. Hecho Piedra Azul. Piedra. 100% agave. Not sponsored, but still very amazing. And we'll get into the SMR in two seconds. In three, two, one.

SPEAKER_01: 2:52

Oh, oh. That's so cold. We almost made it to the whole ten seconds there. Yay! Oh boy. Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 3:01

Yeah, that's cold. Alright. So today's episode, we're gonna get very serious right into it. Okay. It is about communities. Y'all were very clicky. Uh when I talked about communities before, so we're gonna talk about it again because I, Julius, am very opinionated about communities and social groups or whatever. Stop the clickiness. I'll tell you that right now. Stop with this all clickiness bullshit. I realize that most of us lost our social skills during quarantine, but we still gotta get over this clicky shit, okay? Welcome the new people and stop being so goddamn judgy when they try to come in and learn information. And I'm talking to you, queer people, kinky people, actually, everybody. You fucking swingers do that shit. Everybody does this crap. But theater kids, everybody wants to stick to their clicks and not welcome in the new people. And I realize a lot of these communities are turn style based, so they end up like cycling through people, which is something that just happens. You know what? Can't control that shit, but you can control you being nice. And I'm firing off the bat now because I already recorded one episode, so I'm a little bit warmed up. So now we get spicy language a lot more cussing. Uh more tequila was consumed. Uh not sponsored. So, yeah, the the cookiness really needs to stop. So, hopefully, once you get done with this listening to this episode, at least somebody will just go out and you know, bring the new person in and welcome you, welcoming. Not just the leader of the group. Thank y'all for leading the those that do these different groups. Your work is greatly appreciated. Good lord. The rest of y'all though, god dang it. Welcome in the new people. Okay, so why am I passionate about the community stings? Because most of us are born. Yep, I would say all of us are born. If you're listening in this, you were born, and you were indoctrinated into a culture, a community that you had no choice in. I know for me, I was I didn't have a choice in being born, I just was. One day, I came out and I was stuck into this world, and as you can see, I'm a certain skin tone, so I got indoctrinated into a certain uh culture. Once again, the lights are not on, so still work in progress. I got indoctrinated into a culture that I had no um uh opinion about, and I grew up in that culture for the most part, it was it was pretty good. Um, learn life lessons and use that in life, that's just how it is. Um, yeah, there, you know, and religion was part of it, and uh yeah, there's the pros and cons of that particular religion. Um, if y'all don't know, I am a guilty Christian kid. I have that Christian guilt from many long years of being in it, and yeah, still working on that stuff. The the fucking is it's terrible, and it's like I feel bad about it, and the kink stuff is, you know, there's all kinds of stuff going along with that as well. And we, you know, we embrace it now. We we working through it, working with it, and that's where you know the meditation talked about that last episode. Meditation helps with that kind of shit too. Shame and guilt. It's like, ma, they want it. Without going into details, there's negotiation, we have a talk, and we talk about hard limits and soft limits, and they request it. It's consensual because consent is sexy. So stuff happens, and uh they uh consent to it. And uh, I still have trouble with that, but that's um yeah, that's not so much the community thing, it's just uh part of the communities, and a lot of people that are part of the communities are wanting this stuff, and I'm obliging because it's negotiated and we talk about it. Yeah, that's what I wanted to say about the the other stuff that stuff, the previous history. Um now, back onto the clickishness of it all, is that I chose this community. So I was raised with certain communities and cultures that I didn't necessarily chose. As I said, I was not I didn't choose to be born, but I will say that the non-monogamous, the queer, that one I didn't choose. That doesn't really count. Being part of the community is I did choose. Uh also kink. King community I didn't choose. And the geek. I chose to be part of those communities, but as far as like my identity is uh didn't really choose that part of it. But the communities I chose to be in, I voluntarily voluntarily, I voluntarily went into those communities and became part of them and did the whole rigging role of to get into there, the social formation period and all that stuff, and made friends. A lot of those friends had for many years, have had, have, have and had, both. And uh yeah, it was it was it was a struggle at first trying to trying to make friends, but if you stick around long enough, you make it through that social preparationary period, or even two years after, five years after, eventually you make friends. So just gotta stick it out. Yeah, it's simple. That's it. Episode over. No, I'm just joking. That's not it. Uh that's not all I gotta say in this episode, but the community, especially as an adult, you get some choice in it. You get to choose kind of sort of uh how you want to present yourself and who you want to hang around. And the tribe that you uh you you bring in, is uh yeah, that's uh that that's something you choose for the most part as an adult. And I just want to talk about that now. So I was just gonna talk about some of the things. Um go more specifically. Uh, first part is this the probationary period, the social probationary period. I don't know about uh well, no, no, no, there's some people that don't know about making friends. That's a whole nother episode. I can go kind of into that a little bit, but for those people that don't know, when you enter a group for the first time, people are gonna act like they don't want you to be there. And there's gonna be people gonna be nice people in there as well, so it's a mix of all that stuff, but you're gonna probably get a general feeling that uh they might not want you there. I'm just gonna tell you now that that is not the intended case. They're probably just be insecure and introverted and not being very welcoming. But I will say, if you bear it, bear, bear with it, bury your head through it, force your shit in there into the stuff, whatever you want to call it, stick around, and eventually they will begin to accept you. It's like uh uh your first 90 days at a new job, they have to see if you're serious about this. There's so much of a correlation between those two things, it's not even funny. I will just say, as somebody that goes to a bunch of different drink as for a suspense, somebody that goes to a lot of different social groups, that shit happens all the time, and it's not just a swinger thing, non-monogamy thing, it's not just a queer thing, kink thing, geek thing, uh, improv thing, theater thing. All the different groups are gonna be like, oh yeah, uh, we like new people, and then they're gonna act like they don't want you there. What the fuck is going on? Uh I can confidently say this is a thing in America. Can't really say that about any other country, but they do that to you all the time. And this is what the social probationary period is. It's literally like 90 days. Hopefully, it's not like six months. Sometimes it is. Depends on how frequently you go, and it fucking sucks. I tell you that right now. Oh, board games too. Those are all introverted motherfuckers. Um, a lot of them all, they all they all have introverted people. They just gotta see that you're gonna stick around. That's really what it is. It has nothing to do with you, so take your ego and shove it up your ass if you're one of those people, because uh they're not gonna welcome you. It doesn't matter who you are, you gotta stick around. So if they act like um they don't want you there, it's really just them and it has nothing to do with you. Them being insecure and just like they see you there, you're like, oh yeah, you're a person, but it's not really um uh like a thing about you, more so. I'm not I'm not, I'm just gonna not even talk about the creepers. If you're one of those people, that's like a whole different training for you. I'm just talking about people in general, I'm generalizing in in general, and sometimes it has to do with gender, but in um I'm speaking in general right now, so we're not attaching any gender in there, and we're just gonna forget about the creepers for now. Y'all, some creepy motherfuckers, and you gotta work on that shit. Uh I say it really simply, but it's really if you don't know, then it's like um if you have trouble making friends and it's been years, then you might be a creeper. That's all there is to it. Uh I just have a lot of experience with this in different groups, and you know what? If you have more experience, then let me know in the uh in the uh Instagrams or whatever. It's really an unwritten rule, too. You don't realize it uh if you've been socially isolated for a while, especially most of us coming out of quarantine, it's like fuck. You have it's like it's it's it's not has nothing to do with you. That's the rough part. So if you're listening to this camsters and you like, oh, I tried to go out and make friends, nobody wanted to talk to me. I stuck around for like five, ten, twenty minutes, and nobody said a word to me, so I just left. It's like you gotta keep going back. It's not about you. They're all in their head and be like, oh, I couldn't talk to this person because I'm not cool enough, or I'm not the leader of the group, so I really shouldn't be introducing people, so I'm not gonna say anything, or I'm just like creeped out in some way. This person has black hair or some shit, and they just didn't want to talk to you. Hopefully, I didn't bump the mic there, and uh, it's it's really not fair. It's not fair, it sucks. Gotta go through it. Yeah. And it's really um to give them the benefit of the doubt, sometimes you have not just creepers, it's just people just trying to sabotage shit and and um put stuff out on purpose. Not put stuff out on purpose, just they have to like see the world burn because they're they're just they have a shitty life, and it's like, okay, we gotta filter those people out too. So it's almost like a preservation thing, too, because you have to like uh uh judge the person. No, not just judge the person, but you have to like valid, verify that that person is not an asshole, and then they're gonna stick around and actually contribute to the group in a positive way rather than suck out the energy in a negative way. I don't know how that would be a positive if you're sucking out energy, just sucking out energy in general. So I I get it. That is this person cool, but once again, it has nothing to do with you. Okay, so that's it with the probationary period. You stick around, making it seem simple, I'm making it seem simple, but literally just stick around and show that you're not a creeper, you're not an asshole, and people will start to accept you. Try that first before you uh run away from the group. And we've all been there going to the place or even like being out in the parking lot, we turn around and go home. I've done that myself. Was going to the thing multiple times to the event and then just end up going to like Burger King or some shit, getting some dinner and then going back home. And it's like, we'll try again next time. Did that for many years, even at the local water home. Went there and just turned around and went back home. That's uh that's a thing. And talking to a lot of people, um, certain social groups will help people out. They're actually sending somebody to the car to come get you. Like, all right, you'll be safe. And those people are nice. Uh learned that recently that uh a lot of people go through that same thing of like staying in the car and not going to the thing. It it it sucks, but it you know, keep going back and it'll be better. Trying to tell you, you just gotta keep trying. I mean, that's really all the episode is is like stick through it and eventually you'll be able you'll be able to make friends. And I'll tell you, once you find that group uh that's uh made for you, I mean it was most of it was like king for me, uh, and board games, is uh the people there are most people are actually pretty cool if they've been socialized. And uh, especially like the leaders of the group, most of the time they're pretty cool. Uh if you don't, yeah, the no, not gonna talk about the dramas and stuff going on, but sometimes that happens. But for the most part, uh especially if you keep going to different groups as well, you know, get out of that comfort zone and try to uh find new people and make new friends on a repeated basis. You will realize that most people are actually pretty nice. Contrary to the social medias, most people are pretty nice. My ice has melted. Yeah, most people are pretty nice. Um, I guess I'd talk about uh differences in some of the groups. Obviously, there's more sexual activity in certain groups. Um but other than that, there's really not super I mean the dynamics of being an attached person versus a single person might make a difference, but as far as I've seen, uh most groups are diverse-ish for the most part, and uh that's that's pretty much it. Uh I know for me it's more like personal stuff that I find different. Uh if somebody's throwing an event or something's going on, it's like I make my choices based on the activity that's going on. Um, but uh, there's people that are good with just open social uh landscape and can just talk to random people like that. That's totally a thing. Not so much with me, still on the introvert side as far as I'm concerned. I will go to the place, but I can't handle just sitting there and just talking. That's like the worst. At least stand up and start talking because you can move around or whatever. But for me, it's like, oh, okay, that's tough. I like a good board game because you can be entertained for hours and you don't have to like talk the whole time. You actually have an activity going on as well, it sparks a conversation. But I will say, look for opportunities to increase your social value, uh, show off your personality. So hopefully, you have something going on there. If you're having trouble making friends with people, that's probably because they don't know who you are and you just haven't opened up yourself enough. So keep going and eventually find a way to have a conversation so you people can see your personality. That is a big thing. A lot of people think that they can show personality without uh um talking, which how are they gonna know your personality if you don't have any conversations with anybody? That makes no sense, people makes no sense whatsoever. So, yeah, be able to have a conversation with people. And remember, especially if it's a public event, you are allowed to be there. You are allowed to be there in a public place. So have a conversation with people, be able to talk to people because that's uh something you're gonna have to do, and it's uh necessary evil if you want to make friends. It's yeah, it's just uh something you're gonna have to do there. And let's see, I'm just looking at my notes and uh just gonna skip to the end because we're running out of time. Uh yeah, patterns across all the different communities, talked about that. Uh and vetting and vibe checks, uh, red flags. If there's a lot of gossip going on, a lot of judginess, I'd rather just not. Especially if you see the leader being very clickish and not opening up to people, that's really rough, too. I would not recommend really being all around that kind of group, especially if there's sparking drama. Oh god, drama is the worst. Don't just stay away from that. That's horrible. Yeah, uh, and then uh gossip and all that stuff like that. Horrible, horrible. Find yourself a welcoming group, okay? Stick to a welcoming group. That is uh one of the things. But if nothing else, keep it going. That that social that social probationary period, that's really just uh that's that's the rough one. I've not had it where I stuck around for whatever the probationary period was and didn't make friends. Even my intraverate ass still made it managed to make friends. So I will say that that's the easiest takeaway out of anything from here. If anybody uh takes anything from this episode, just stick around and be friendly. Uh you don't even have to go around and be super social. Um, introduce yourself, that's pretty much it. And uh just be nice. That's really all it is, right there. Just be nice and stick around. I cannot explain that enough. I don't understand, I don't know how I can make it any more simple than that. Uh especially me. I mean, I described myself before, and y'all can see me now. I've been called intimidating more than once, and I was just trying to be nice. And yet I still made friends. So I can do it, y'all can do it too. And I bumped the mic again. All right, really tame couple episodes here from Around the Kinky Campfire, HH Julius, Julius Marquise. Uh, wanted to calm it down and towards the end of the year, as y'all know, it's about that time to do rankings. I'm excited about rankings because we're gonna do rankings on video. Uh, and then uh, probably not from the couch because I'm gonna need my computer and the screen and all that. But y'all know how it is with the rankings. We gotta do other rankings for 2025, see if they change from last year. Future episode or future talking. Okay, that's it for now. Around the King of Campfire, new episodes on Thursdays, videos on Fridays now. I gotta start saying that in the thing, and then rate that and like and share and subscribe on the videos. And uh there's something else I was gonna say, and I forgot what it was now, but uh oh, hit me up on the Yahoos and message me on Instagram if you have anything to say about communities. Let me know because I like talking about all these different things, especially all the metrics and stuff like there. Make sure you're doing the experimenting, go out there and try shit, write it down, and then show yourself gratitude because you at least you got out the parking lot out of the car and went to the thing. Either you stay there for five minutes. Let me know how that goes. That's it for now.

SPEAKER_00: 24:10

Hello.

SPEAKER_02: 24:14

That's a wrap for this episode of the Around the Kinky Campfire podcast. We love having you by the fire and we'd love to hear from you. Got a kinky question, a stevie story, or topic you want us to cover? Slide into our DMs and send us a message at AroundTheKinky Campfire, Campfire with a K at yahoo.com. Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review wherever you're listening. Your support helps keep the flames burning and the conversations flowing. Follow us on Twitter, Kinky Campfire, Campfire with a K, YouTube, Around the Kinky Campfire, Campfire with a K, or Instagram, CampfireKinksters, Campfire with a K. To stay in the loop, join the community and keep the kick alive between episodes on Thursdays. Until next time, stay safe, stay sexy, and keep that fire burning.