You may not know that one of the biggest internet BDSM porn producers is based right here in O/our lovely city. Peter Acworth has been operating Kink.com in a VERY low key location on Mission Street in downtown SF for ten years now. He recently purchased the old SF armory building at 14th and Mission, which has been vacant for over 30 years, for production of his BDSM videos. This has outraged the local community, who demanded the government do something about the “torture” that is going on behind closed doors in their neighborhood. So Mayor
Gavin Newsom gave in and a public hearing was held yesterday at City Hall by the planning commission.

T & i went with O/our friends from the SF Citadel Dungeon. It was absolutely amazing to see all the kinky community out in force supporting Peter and Kink.com. The speakers in
support of Kink.com were eloquent and straight forward, while those in the Mission community who were there in protest all showed their asses! Those opposed all went over their time limit for speaking, were trying to use scare tactics, and were generally rude to the commissioners and accusatory in their statements. Tell me if I’m mistaken, but if I want something from someone, I wouldn’t stand up in a room full of people and media and tell them everything they have done is WRONG! One of their speakers even brought a side by side picture of one of the prisoners from Abu Gharib and one of the Kink.com girls
tied up, and told the commission what Peter was doing is basically “sexual torture”. Half of the commissioners hid their faces as they tried to hold back laughter at her statements. It
was great to see them bury themselves in their own anger and misinformation. The commissioners took about 20 minutes to speak at the end of the 2 1/2 hour hearing. They were very supportive of Peter’s rights and basically told the Mission activists he had followed the law and was doing nothing wrong. I’m including a link to the SF government’s website where you can view a complete video of the hearings. You want the special
hearing on March 8th, 2007. It is over 2 hours long, just so you know. I’ve also included some links for news stories to read about the issue, which has been in the news here for at
least a month now.

It was great to be able to participate in such a historical event. Just as the GLBT community’s grassroots organizations started out here, the kinky community here is also very proactive in ensuring all O/our freedoms. I am proud to be a member of the
community and I hope our presence yesterday showed at least a small portion of the world that we’re just like everybody else and we’re NOT going to give up O/our freedom to be kinky in O/our own time!

Links:

Public hearing
http://sanfrancisco .granicus. com/ViewPublishe r.php?view_ id=20

News links:
http://www.ktvu. com/news/ 10891121/ detail.html

http://www.nytimes. com/2007/ 02/12/us/ 12armory. html?
ex=1173589200& en=62865c0a9c5db 7ba&ei=5070

Enjoy the reading!

~a

P.S.

This blog was written by My girl …………. Peace!!!

It would have been a formality for any company purchasing the Armory and using it within zoning regulations and without making any significant structural changes. The commissioners said as much at the start of the meeting, and then during their response time.

Influence did buy that meeting, but not in the way that you think. It was held precisely because the activist obstructionists were having a loud tantrum over the unpleasant realization that not all uses of the Armory would require their input. The Planning Commission’s hearing was meaningless from the start. It was San Francisco political theater at its best, nothing more.

Also, while I’m certain that my support for Kink.com has me biased toward those who spoke in support, the opposition did seem to be stacked with more than a few ranting loons. The one who belted out “They don’t talk about what they do because they don’t want people to know,” right after admitting that everything the company does is listed for sale on its namesake Web site (later, she tried to rush the microphone for a second go-round), was my personal favorite.

It would bother me less if the world were fair, actually. Since they don’t need my support, I feel like it’d be better to play devil’s advocate and question things. It’s not like it’d make any difference.