BDSM RTV NEWS!!!!

30 april 2009


The Truth About Kink.com


Source: www.sfgate.com San Francisco Chronicle - San Francisco,CA,USA


If you were to take seriously Matt Smith's inflammatory SF Weekly article on kink.com ("Whipped and Gagged -- Is Government Spending Obscene?" ), you would think that all sorts of nefarious things are going on at the huge old armory at 14th and Mission that is kink.com's home.


Smith claims that kink.com -- which turns out 60-70 SM-related porn films a month and operates 14 websites focused on different BDSM themes -- produces "torture-based pornography." He is openly delighted that his revelation that some kink.com filmmakers have received training from the California Entertainment Training Program has resulted in those filmmakers being eliminated from the program.

Anti-porn activist Melissa Farley apparently agrees with Smith. Acting in BDSM porn films, according to Farley, "is something women would rather not do, but they feel they have to." Working for the filmmakers like kink.com, she says, only happens when women are subjected to "economic coercion."

I recently had the opportunity to go behind the scenes at kink.com, and I have to say that my experience there offers a very different understanding of the people at kink.com, what they are doing, and why the people who perform in their films do what they do.

Long curious about kink.com, I was delighted several months ago to have an excuse to be shown around the armory for an article I was writing for Cupido, Norway's uniquely intelligent and progressive erotic magazine.

Thomas Roche, an old friend and a talented writer of erotic fiction, then kink.com's PR director, took me on an extended tour of the themed filming rooms, the prop-building workshops, the huge military assembly area, and the offices that lie inside the armory's three-foot-thick brick walls. I even got to see where Mission Creek really does wend its way through the basement of the building on its way to the Bay.

To give me an opportunity to witness kink.com in process, Thomas also arranged for me to be in the audience for an upcoming filming of Public Disgrace, a series of kink.com films focused on public sex, directed by an enthusiastic and encouragingly intelligent domina whose scene name is Princess Donna. Public Disgrace films follow submissive women as they are led by Princess Donna through BDSM scenes staged in public places, or indoors before audiences of assembled onlookers.

I have now been in the audience for three Public Disgrace filmings -- one at a neighborhood bar near Potrero Hill, and two at the armory itself, where the public consisted of 30-50 invited guests, seated in a circle to observe and (if they wished) participate in the scenes that Princess Donna would stage.

I had never been to a porn shoot before, let alone a BDSM shoot, so I really didn't know what to expect. In the hour before filming began, I watched people arrive, fill out release forms and legal disclaimers, get photographed for the records required by federal legislation, and sit around making small talk. It was a rather typical group of Bay Area folks, evenly divided between men and women, ranging in age from 20 to 60 or so. It could have been a group of people coming together for anything -- perhaps a medical technology convention.

When we moved to the room where the filming would take place I was immediately struck by the integrity, honesty, passion, and general good cheer of everyone involved -- actors, film crew, technical staff, audience, even the woman serving drinks, and the security guards showing the disoriented the way to the restrooms. Everyone was friendly, focused, relaxed, and simply enjoying themselves, without any obvious embarrassment or pretensions.

Make no mistake about it, the scenes orchestrated by Princess Donna are intense -- with submissives subjected to a wide variety of sexual and sensory acts, often coming at the hands of half a dozen people at once. But there is order to this mayhem, as Princess Donna made clear before the shooting began.

To begin with, each submissive specifies exactly which acts she will or will not allow during the course of the evening. Each person in the audience, as well as the paid performers, must read and sign her list, assuring that they understand and agree to respect the limits she sets. In addition, Princess Donna makes clear to all concerned that she will have the final word on what is permitted at any given time, and that participants will do whatever she tells them to do during the shoot.

As the first scene was set up and filming began, I was impressed with the care that Princess Donna displayed toward her submissive, arranging for her to generate good film footage of course, but also making sure that she was being well taken care of, both emotionally and physically. The not-incidental trials that this woman would be subjected to this evening were to be erotic and intentional, not accidental or the result of carelessness.

Kink.com rules for webmasters specify that submissives are always to be in ultimate control of their situation. They can call an end to any scene if they feel physically or emotionally unhappy with what is going on, and webmasters are specifically directed to ensure that submissives never feel pressured to continue a scene if it is no longer working well for them.
Whenever a submissive requests that a scene be stopped, it must be stopped immediately, and can only begin again if and when the submissive says that she (or he) is ready to proceed.

Indeed, at one filming, when a submissive complained (in the midst of a truly intense scene) that her wrists were being twisted badly, the scene stopped abruptly, she was quickly untied, and her wrists were adjusted accordingly.

At all the filmings I witnessed, both Princess Donna and Mark Davis (the male dominant) were constantly alert to the emotional and physical state of their submissives. These were not people pretending to be into BDSM for the purpose of making a porn film. Rather they were experienced BDSM players who understood the importance of being responsible while being dominant, administering pain, or arranging humiliation in a scene, and they fulfilled their role and responsibility well.

I felt that I was in a group of mutually-appreciative friends knowledgeably doing what gave them all a great deal of pleasure, while making good money at the same time. (Standard pay for a four-to-five-hour Public Disgrace shoot, which kink.com makes a point of posting publicly on its website, is $1,100 for the submissive, with bonuses for performing specific acts that can raise the evening's pay to $1,500 or more.)

Between scenes, dominants and submissives sat together, chatting and joking casually in their bathrobes, coming down from whatever intensity they had just experienced, and waiting for the often elaborate physical preparations for the next scene to be completed by an admirably efficient and savvy tech crew.

I've been told many stories of directors in the porn industry who treat their actors and actresses badly, having little on their minds but getting film in the can as quickly and cheaply as possible. What I witnessed at kink.com was quite the opposite -- a group of people caring about the film they were producing, but caring about each other at the same time.

It was no surprise when Bella Rossi, a 23-year-old kink.com performer whom I spoke with at length, spoke enthusiastically about working for kink.com.

"The people here are awesome," Rossi told me. "It's basically a women-run organization. Peter [Acworth] is the CEO, but if you look around you'll see that it's really all about the women. They make all of us feel comfortable, and genuinely care about us as people."

Indeed, it's clear from a perusal of the statements of purpose on kink.com's website, that founder and CEO Peter Acworth is a man who is genuinely sex-positive, determined to produce material that honestly expresses the emotions and power of BDSM sexuality, and who feels strongly about treating his staff and models with respect.

"We encourage people to explore their kink and feel no shame," says Acworth. "We provide clean, comfortable working conditions. We treat our models as professionals, ensure that they fully understand their rights, and compensate them generously for their talent."

How can it be that people who make films in which people are whipped, spanked, slapped, prodded with electrical devices, ordered to do all sorts of embarrassing things, and served up to strangers as sexual playthings -- that these same people can be caring, sensitive, generous, and genuinely interested in the well-being of the people who perform and work for them?

As is so often the case with BDSM, the reality of what is going on is quite different from the stereotypes and misconceptions prevalent in the world at large. An old friend of mine, a professional dominatrix, puts it this way: SM is like a stained glass window. When you're inside the church, it's incredibly beautiful. But from the outside you can't tell that there's anything beautiful about it at all.

What "outsiders" have trouble understanding is how something they would experience as distasteful at best, and painful or disgusting at worst, could possibly be experienced as pleasurable by someone else. This inability to understand and accept the diversity of people's sexual perspectives and tastes is what leads ignorant sensationalizers like Matt Smith to equate BDSM with torture, and crusaders like Melissa Farley to imagine that only desperate, economically-coerced women would ever choose to perform in BDSM sex films as an occupation.

The key that distinguishes BDSM from abuse is the simple but fundamental issue of consent. Having something done to you that you do not want or choose is abuse. Having something done to you that you willfully choose, that gives you pleasure, even if it's something that would be abusive to someone else, is nothing more than sexual preference.

One person's horror really can be another person's ecstasy. So it all comes down to whether one group of people gets to impose its sexual beliefs and preferences on people whose sexual desires differ from their own.

Gays, lesbians, and bisexuals have long been struggling for the right to have their sexual orientations and preferences acknowledged and respected by the rest of society. People whose sexual orientation or preference runs toward BDSM now find themselves on the same path, struggling against fear and misinformation for social legitimacy. As the likes of Matt Smith and Melissa Farley demonstrate, there's still a lot of work to be done before all consenting adults get to be sexual in whatever way brings them the most pleasure and fulfillment, without fear of stigmatization and retribution from others.

One thing that was very clear to me in my experiences at kink.com was that the women who chose to perform as submissives were thoroughly enjoying themselves, even though what was being "done to" them went far beyond anything I would ever want to experience myself.

This was brought home at one filming, where submissive Dia Zerva was being pinched, penetrated, poked and prodded by an uncountable number of people for quite a long time. I was amazed that she could tolerate, let alone enjoy, all that was being done to her. Out of nowhere, in recognition of the magnitude of what was going on, someone called out teasingly from the sidelines, "Hey, Dia, how're you doing?"

Raising her head above the flurry of activity, Dia called back loudly and convincingly, "I'm doing just great!" -- calling forth a burst of understanding laughter and delighted applause from the entire group.

See complete article with more photo's.