WIITWD (also written WIIWD) is scene slang for “What It Is That We Do”—or, shorter, “What It Is We Do.” In alternative-sexuality communities it is a deliberately wide umbrella for activities mainstream culture would call “kinky.” The acronym rose on Usenet when people argued that BDSM only named a slice of the room: bondage, dominance/submission, and sadomasochism do not cover everyone who still belongs at the same parties, lists, and munches.
Why BDSM Alone Was Not Enough
Some adults are primarily into age-play or infantilism, cross-dressing, certain fetish uniforms, or other practices that never touch rope, floggers, or formal D/s protocol. Those people often refuse the BDSM label because it misdescribes their nights, yet they still claim membership in the broader alternative community. Many also reject “fetish” or “kink” as too clinical, too porny, or too small. WIITWD was coined as an all-inclusive placeholder: if you are doing the non-vanilla thing with consenting adults, you are inside the circle even when the alphabet soup of BDSM does not fit.
Vague on Purpose—and the Trade-Off
The term is intentionally vague and broad. That is both its strength and its recurring complaint. Critics note that almost any sexual activity could be shoehorned under the acronym if you stretch hard enough. Scene etiquette therefore treats WIITWD as a rare tool: use it when you truly need the widest possible group—list policy, conference framing, “is this person part of our community?”—not as everyday shorthand when bondage, leather, or power exchange is what you actually mean. Precision still wins for negotiation; umbrella language wins for inclusion fights.
Usenet Origins: Davis, Bohrer, and “Our Thing”
The earliest recorded mention of WIITWD appears in the Usenet group alt.sex.bondage on 9 January 1995, in a summary and critique by Steven Davis of writer Jon Jacobs’s theories about what counted as “real” kink. Davis explicitly credited another poster, Bill Bohrer, for the coinage. In that post Davis mapped competing vocabularies: Jacobs talked about D&S; Davis preferred “our thing”; Bohrer said wiitwd (what it is that we do); and most people on ASB said BDSM. Jacobs held that most people interested in that space cared about power exchange—even though power exchange is often pictured only as the D/s leg of BDSM, it can appear in any encounter where one adult cedes power to another. That early thread already shows WIITWD doing double duty: naming the whole community without forcing every member into whip-and-collar branding, while still sitting next to serious talk about power and authenticity.
