The first time I searched online for specific information about rainwear in a way unrelated to its normal function must have been years before I started this site in 2018. While the pictures that popped up were probably very intriguing, it was mostly the specific sites and message boards where people shared stories and experiences that were the biggest eye opener. It might have been a relief, or maybe excitement, to realize I was not the only one with these specific interests in certain materials, their protective features, and the thrill of being encapsulated in them.
My first interactions with this community of rainwear enthusiasts were very positive which made it easier to accept my own feelings, better understand the origins, and start experimenting to find my personal likes and dislikes. Compare that to the possible struggle people in the past must have gone through when any form of deviant behaviour would be quickly condemned by the church, the government, medical professionals, and parents.
In this article I would like to further focus on the rainwear community in general. And my message is probably a call to action for everyone to try to improve the overall community at least a tiny bit with their participation.
The importance of having a community
With the risk of sounding repetitive, I would like to bring up the 5 phases of kink identity development, from Samuel Hughes, once more. The first and second phase most people go through, early encounters and exploration with self, are focused inwards on discovering your own feelings. The third phase, evaluation, is where you start to look at the impact your feelings will have on your identity and life in general. The focus becomes much more an interaction between what you feel and how the outside world would react: both an inward and an outward look.
The fourth phase, finding others, is the point I described in the introduction. This phase is mostly outward looking; you have a decent idea of your own feelings and start exploring them by going online and trying to find more information. Here the realization comes you are probably not the only person in the world with these interests as you read about the experiences of others who have walked the same path as you are now on. This is where you make your first contacts with, what I would like to call, the rainwear community.
In his research Samuel Hughes mentions this phase often happens at an age of 11 and older and it is safe to say it’s a very sensitive point in one’s development. From feeling weird and possibly freaking out about your interests you come to the realization that having a kink is actually pretty normal. In many cases you will even be able to find likeminded people online who share your exact interests and fantasies; it might feel like finding your family or tribe after having felt lost before.
One should be able to easily recognize the importance of positive experiences during this initial period. Think a community of friendly people who simply share their own experiences and are willing to help others out who are new to the community. The initial experiences can have a huge influence on the following development of feelings regarding your kink. A positive experience will lead to acceptance and enjoyment while a negative experience can result in insecurity, mental problems, or worse.
Social media communities
There are several open access social media communities regarding specific fetishes, including rainwear. These communities are not very close-knit and mostly have meaningful one-way interactions only where someone creates (visual) content and others react by giving likes. Most social media lends itself badly to have more in-depth conversations. Below a quick overview of my own experiences with social media platforms and rainwear related content, ranked from worst to best.
Please notice I will not cover Facebook as I stopped using that a long time ago due to bad experiences. Problems might arise from being on the social media platforms mentioned below, including feeling pressure to share and upload your own pictures, feelings of missing out, or simply becoming addicted to them. Be aware of these risks.
Youtube
While I actually enjoy Youtube as a platform, the amount of rainwear content is very limited on there. If you stroll around on message boards you might regularly find people linking to rainwear specific content on Youtube, but the reason they put it up there is mostly because youtube offers free hosting, not because they are so happy with the way content is promoted or subscribers can be reached. The majority of the content showing rainboots or rainwear would be “vanilla” accounts that just happen to have rainwear in there based on its functionality, and a small portion would be shorts or teasers for content that would be available elsewhere on the internet.
Youtube can be fun to spend some hours searching for interesting rainwear related clips, but in my experience the amount of original content is quite low meaning it will be a lot of searching and little finding. The only exception I can think off that is worth checking out and actively following would be Rainwear Girl Next Door. This account is currently almost updated daily with interesting videos, gear, and talks about rainwear.
Pinterest is a platform where you can upload and collect pictures onto boards. The homepage will refresh every time it is reloaded showing you tons of new material that you want to look at and save as well. In the end you very likely end up with boards filled with hundreds, if not thousands, of pictures with which you will do nothing besides collecting them. While it is a great place to find images and get ideas, it often does not evolve much from just adding more pictures to your boards to collect. Like below my own (hidden) board for things to look further into containing a whopping 1,493 pins and me almost never scrolling through them anymore.
In my experience the communications between users of Pinterest is one of the weirdest experiences of all platforms. While there are people who genuinely use the messaging function to talk to others, it is mostly people sending you a picture they found somewhere and sometimes adding the comment that they really like that picture. It mostly feels strange and I have no idea how to react to that.
The worst part of Pinterest would be two major flaws in their Guidelines. First they do not protect copyright in any meaningful way. That means everyone can just steal images and upload them there without links to the source. If you search online you will even find content creators who got all their material copied to Pinterest and losing a dispute about the copyright meaning the thief became the “new owner” in the eyes of Pinterest.
Another problem is the way they sometimes randomly remove images and boards you created. It happened to me twice that one of my pictures was flagged for “nudity / fetish” resulting in my complete board of over 100 pictures, with description and links, being deleted. And neither time did I get an explanation or decent chance to defend my content; they just removed hours and hours of work.
Tumblr
It is hard to explain what Tumblr exactly is, but it is mostly used as a microblogging site where people upload clips, pictures and sometimes text. And while most content is pictures there are sometimes gems of text in there of someone sharing interesting experiences or insights. Where Tumblr sets itself apart from many other platforms is that is pushes little not no content creators you are not following already and is very progressive towards adult content. And that combination is interesting as you can follow users offering content up to a limit you feel comfortable with but you will not quickly be exposed to profiles that go further.
Interactions between users are very minimal on this platform in my experience; people like and share your content but barely anybody asks questions or adds comments.
Flickr
Flickr is a photo sharing platform where you can upload your own pictures and “fave” pictures of other content creators. The atmosphere on Flickr is quite nice with several skilled photographers sharing rainwear related content regularly. The interactions are generally very pleasant in my experience and it is really recommended to create a free profile and upload some content or just make the best content you can find your favourite. Below a small sample of my faves as an indication of the high quality and original work available on that platform.
The number of interactions might be relative low on this platform though: if someone faved your content it can be seen as a more genuine compliment than the “mindless likes” you will get on some other platforms.
The hardest thing to get used to for me is the name of the platform as it closely resembles a derogatory term in Dutch. That makes referring to it and saying the name in my mind kind of strange.
Fetlife
While I thought Fetlife was mostly a dating site, I would now more liken it to a platform like Facebook. You build a profile, become friends with other users, and can leave likes and comments on the content that other people post. Since the platform is for kinky and fetish people, there is no way you can avoid explicit content and most users are very open about their likes and interests.
My main problems with Fetlife are concerning privacy. They require a mobile phone number to sign up, something that is not needed on any other platform, and next there is the expectation you share as much of your kinks as possible. There are huge lists available of everything someone can be interested in and you can indicate if you want to participate on those kinds of activities and in what role. Great if you are looking for a very specific partner with an exact match in interests, but it actually makes going through the profiles of people kind of boring. Isn’t part of the fun to find out what someone else is into, instead of just reading a long list of every possible sexual activity and their opinion about it?
Another issue is that all your activities on the platform become visible to others. If I start following somebody, comment on a picture, or maybe press the “love” button it will show up in my feed and everyone who follows me gets to see that. So you can forget about exploring some kinks you are not too sure about yet as everyone will know exactly what you are up to.
Of course it is not all bad; there are also groups where people have interesting discussions, which I have not found anywhere else before, and of course a lot of interesting people who you can have private talks with. Plus the function to post texts, as in stories or thoughts, although that part is rather unutilized regarding rainwear.
I will not be explaining IG as I think everybody knows how it works already. IG is the platform where I have had the most and best interactions with other users. People regularly comment below pictures and many communications take places through the (private) messaging system. The two biggest downsides of IG would be their policy regarding “adult content” where they try to keep it clean and the number of copied profiles. While the adult content clauses will not be an issue for my very boring and plain profile showing protective gear to stay dry, the sometimes arbitrary application of the rules do keep other content creators on their toes. Another problem is the number copied profiles, where someone downloads all the pictures from an existing profile and creates a lookalike profile claiming to be that person.
Still, creating an Instagram account is very much worth it for the interactions with the rainwear community. You just need to get used to that annoying aspect ratio (1:1) for pictures.
In my view Twitter has the most to offer even though I started using it relatively late for my content. Similar to Tumblr it is very progressive regarding adult content meaning very few accounts get purged for nudity or kink content. Another advantage over IG is that Twitter seems more popular around the globe giving access to the rainwear community outside of western countries.
The interactions with other users might be quite limited on the public side of the platform but that is mostly because people tend to go for private messaging there. And my experiences with those private interactions are very positive. The main problem twitter has is the same one as Instagram has: fake accounts of people copying a current account and pretending to be them.
Rainwear dedicated communities
In this category would fall any dedicated forum or board where people have to make a profile and almost exclusively communicate about rainwear. Currently there are 3 main places with a decent number of active users and they are listed below in sequence of creation. And finally one more link to a smaller group that is worth mention in my view.
Keep in mind there are more communities, sometimes specifically focusing on a certain aspect of rainwear, but they are harder to find, require an invite, or are just less active than the ones mentioned here. In general I would recommend everyone to just create a profile on all and see which matches what you are looking for best.
regnfrakker.dk
The oldest archived pages of regnfrakker are from 2006 but as they already had over 2500 members back then they have to be older. It is free to create a profile on the site but a free account is limited by the number of pictures and videos one can view a day. The picture sharing seems to be the biggest feature of the site, with discussions taking a back seat and getting less engagement.
rainwearcentral.com
Rainwearcentral is almost the opposite, as there are much more active discussion going on there but fewer pictures are being posted. Several members are very dedicated to specific information and keep certain topics alive for years with new links to clips and pictures. Where regnfrakker seems to be more Scandinavian orientated, rainwearcentral is more focused on the UK and US.
waterproofs4you.com
Next there is Waterproof4you which was introduced recently and is more based on social media with the ability to post any content on a “wall” to which other people can react with text or likes. The unique feature of the site was that it would be free for active members but if you do not participate you will need to become a paying member to have full access. At the moment the site is still growing and this functionality gets possibly introduced at a later stage.
groups.io/g/MBRW
And finally one smaller group that moved from Yahoo groups (MuddyBootsandRainwear) and is mostly text based although people share pictures there also. The greatest thing about a smaller group is that it gives a more safe and personal experience with members knowing each other.
Improving the community
Everybody reading this is in a way part of the rainwear community. That can be as a content creator or simply someone who actively or passively follows the content being created by others. And it is perfectly fine that people are interacting in different ways with the community as a whole: the last thing I would want is that people feel they are being pushed towards sharing information or pictures they do not feel comfortable with. Especially with social media interaction this can easily become problematic as it might normalize certain behaviours and people who are not ready for that step might experience peer pressure to join in.
Also keep in mind that content once shared on the internet is very hard to remove again. While you can delete your own pictures and online profile, it is very well possible that someone else already copied and saved some of your content and uploads it somewhere else. My general advice would therefore be to create a new account for your kink related content to at least keep your regular and kink life separated. It would make it easier to not only delete your content later more easily but it would also avoid unintended sharing of your personal details to people who might misuse it.
Below several ways you can contribute to the rainwear community.
Create content
The most obvious way to contribute directly to the rainwear community is creating your own content. If you like looking at pictures of rubber boots or wet raincoats you could easily grab your own camera and start making similar content to share. There is demand for content of very different quality levels, so do not worry if you do not have a professional camera and a photo studio. A simple mobile phone also has a camera and the best lighting you will find outdoors on a light day. Below a quality image that would be out of reach for many, showing Rainweargirl in glossy gear.
Even if the quality of your work is not as good as the content you enjoy most online, you probably will be able to make other people happy with what you produce. You can create a profile for free on any of the mentioned online places and upload your content. Trust me, someone somewhere will like the content you create and otherwise you at least had a nice excuse to gear up and take pictures.
And even if you do not want to be the focus of attention in your own pictures, you can always follow what Greenjoker has done. As he was looking for a specific combination of rainwear and beautiful women he decided to simply find the women to model the rainwear he liked for him and he would take the pictures. Of course there is a learning curve and it requires some investments but it is one of the most impactful ways to create a stream of content perfectly matching what you are looking for.
Support other content creators
Besides creating your own content, you can support content creators who are already active within the community. This can be simply by following them on social media and clicking like on the content they put out. As a content creator myself I can say that one of the motivations to keep posting and trying to improve is the positive feedback that comes as a result of a new post. It is not just the dopamine being released by getting a lot of likes, the comments, shares, and faves make it worth the effort. From experience I would like to add that especially the more meaningful comments make the biggest impression. It works similarly to compliments in real-life: make it specific and sincere and the effects will be much greater.
For a lot of people the content creation is also a way to make a living. If you have the means to support them financially, and you think their content is worth it, you could consider gifting them money, becoming a paying supporter, or buying some of their content. Many content creators have content behind a pay wall and the more people pay to get access the more they will be inclined to create even more and better content. That does not have to mean you need to subscribe to OnlyFans for explicit content, it can simply be becoming a paying member of one of the mentioned forums or purchasing some new set of Farmerrain gear because you like the pictures they create.
Actively participate in discussions
Finally you can always put in time to help the community as a whole. Become a follower of social media profiles or create an account on a forum and actively participate in discussions, write stories, share reviews, or try to help others with anything they are asking. Especially the dedicated online communities where like-minded people come together can be extremely valuable but these communities can only survive if enough people keep participating. This is something I could really improve on myself as well, I regularly read and view the content other people put out but click it away as soon as I am done. A simple text with a thanks can sometimes be enough already for the other person to feel valued and continue what they are doing.
Community killers
Needless to say there are also things that would have a negative impact on a community. The worst thing that I can think of is being judgmental. Most people within the rainwear community are at different stages of their journey; where one has just found they are not the only one liking to wear a pair of rubber boots, another person might be fully suited up standing in the middle of a kink event proudly drawing attention. And where one just wants to wear a pair of rubber boots, the other wants 3 suits on top of each other and roll around in the mud. There is no way to know what anybody else’s journey will look like or what their endpoint will be, so don’t be judgmental or try to push them a certain way. I think it is extremely important to be acceptable to all kinds of people with different kinks, interests, and fantasies without having your opinion ready. And if you don’t like something, just move on to the next post.
A second problem I regularly hear about is content stealing. Luckily this is quite limited within the rainwear community, especially compared to for example the latex community, but it is still a problem that mostly hits the content creator. Imagine putting in time and effort in writing a story, taking pictures, or shooting a video only to find out someone copied it and shared it as if they created it. You will possibly miss out on income or at least feel unfairly treated by having your content stolen. While it is in some cases not possible to ask permission for every image you want to share, you should at least try to give credits where due. In my experience most (small) content creators actually see it as a huge compliment if you share their content to a larger audience, as long as you properly credit them and backlink to their profile. For many people it is a way of feeling validation and getting free advertisement.
Finally I would like to stress that not everybody who posts some rainwear content is automatically in the rainwear community. With this I mean that there are many people who just own a raincoat or a pair of fashionable Hunter boots and post pictures of them wearing it from time to time. Before you start interacting with a stranger online through a social media platform, be aware that many people are not waiting to be sexualized based on the rainwear they wore in a specific photo. In general I would recommend not personally approaching somebody on social media about their rainwear as it might come across as creepy when they look at your profile and it is filled with kink-related content. In case someone is part of the rainwear community you will notice it quickly enough based on their posts, and when in doubt hold back. The last thing the rainwear community can use is a reputation for bothering “vanilla” people with kink related questions and sexual insinuations.