Shaking the Cages
April 26th,Police raided the Hidden Chamber on Thursday night and arrested all six women there on charges of prostitution. Everyone is out of jail and safe.
I was not there. In fact, I showed up all unwitting the next morning to find the place empty and things strewn about, one lonely pair of red shoes abandoned in a corner.
Come on! I wished I could say to the police. This is ridiculous; this is unfounded; this is nothing more than harassment. At least dignify it with some nitpicking interpretation of a service we actually offer. No one offered you “sexual intercourse”. These girls didn’t deserve to spend the night in jail. They aren’t guilty of what they are charged.
It’s been eighteen months of working with these marvelous girls, of sharing pizza and Pinkberry and buying each other coffee, of splitting bottles of cheap Champagne late at night, smoking each other’s cigarettes; of hearing about boyfriends and girlfriends and roommates and lovers; of going in on their sessions, teaching them, training them, meeting their clients and talking about their others. Eighteen months I’ve had to befriend them and gain their trust. You’d think I’d have noticed if they were fucking.
Many things I have seen these girls do, but hooking? Not so much.
I’d have at least an inkling, right? I’d be suspicious. I’d have seen an errant hand, a little sneaky masturbation, an abandoned condom, maybe a footjob here and there. But nothing. You’d almost think we were telling the truth and it was all on the up-and-up.
I mean, for fuck’s sake! I have been to brothels, and they have beds. Where would we fuck, on the loveseats? Would we snuggle up on the PVC-covered bondage tables? This is Manhattan; we’d have to wear earplugs to maintain that level of ignorance. Please.
For a year and a half I thought I had found a safe and cozy sex-work haven. We were doing legal activities, and that meant we’d be left alone, or so I thought. I guess I am still pretty naive.
If you want to help for now, please keep the gossip down. Ignore the daily rags; they’re printing lies. And refrain from linking to anything with the women’s names, as I feel it’s a massive intrusion of privacy.
April 26th, at 2:22 pm
Hugs!!
April 26th, at 4:54 pm
I’m glad you weren’t one of the dommes caught.
I’ve had some good times at HC. I was NEVER offered sexual intercourse, and I heard the phone girl TURN DOWN a request from a caller asking if they gave handjobs. These charges are completely bogus. I hope they fight them (they probably don’t have much to loose-I don’t know what they’d plead down to, as prostitution is already a B Misdemeanor, and, as this is probably a first offense, they probably wouldn’t get worse than community service if found guilty downtown, which is what they’d get if they plead guilty in Midtown Community Court).
April 26th, at 7:32 pm
I think they’d get sex education classes, which is pretty laughable, considering.
April 26th, at 9:21 pm
I remember the Nutcracker fiasco and feeling sorry for the girl, but also being sort of amused by the language employed. Slander is more fun when it’s no one you care about.
This:
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/BDSM_as_business:_An_interview_with_the_owners_of_a_dungeon
I feel it might be appropriate to post comments w/ excerpts or a link on NYP and Gothamist and anywhere else posting the story with a comments forum. I think the term is “counter-spin.”
What thinkest thou?
I await further news with bated breath. Rebecca will be in my prayers (yeah, I do that). I think the other girls will be OK, but what about the business?
April 27th, at 6:12 am
I’m glad you weren’t there, I wondered about you when I read about it. I had considered posting a “best wishes/I hope you’re ok” on your Breathless thread (great post btw)but thought I probably shouldn’t raise the subject if you didn’t.
I’ve been to the HC and the charges are, of course, baseless. It’s too bad anyone even feels the need to say that. If I was looking for sex, I wouldn’t go to a dungeon, but, sadly, the great unwashed can’t imagine the distinction and slurp up the titilation.
I hope that your friends/co-workers come out of this ok and that this doesn’t upset things in your life too badly. Take care.
April 27th, at 6:32 am
I think if anyone figures out who the “former customer” and “one married male customer who asked not to be identified” who talked to the New York Post are, they’re in big trouble.
Talk about being blacklisted!
Stupid people!
and $220? where did they get that random number. How strange!
April 27th, at 10:41 am
$220 was the price of a medical session, the most expensive of the rates. Sometimes people assumed that if $165 would get you a session, $220 would get you “extras”. They were wrong.
April 27th, at 10:54 am
Stupid people
*shakes head*
I’m sorry you guys are having to deal with this nonsense
April 27th, at 1:45 pm
Glad you weren’t among the six.
April 27th, at 3:55 pm
It is bad that this happens, but I would say that this presents a wonderful opportunity to make the distinctions between prostitution and professional domination. I would love to read the police report and what will be said in a court of law. There has to be a witness, police officer, or some kind of explicit offer for sex for them to make a case. Glad you weren’t arrested.
April 28th, at 8:11 am
Good god. That sucks.
Are you completely sure about things being legal? I know in Cali a lot of people think Domming is legal but technically anything “lewd” is illegal- which can include Domme work. Is it similar in NYC?
April 28th, at 4:03 pm
Kitty - Maybe so, but lewdness illegal in the way assault is illegal. Prostitution is is about the agreeing, not the just act.
It’s kind of like a mini conspiracy charge that way. Technically, I suppose that both the clients and the prodommes could be charged with conspiracy to commit assualt, and the johns might be charged with solicitation to assault (with themselves as the victim)
… it’s just never been done before.
April 28th, at 6:12 pm
This may turn out to be a long comment, sorry to take up a lot of space on your blog Calico. But I couldn’t stop myself from doing some actual legal research. Here’s what I turned up in about 30 minutes
It looks like the three main issues to deal with are prostitution, obscenity, and assault.
Some applicable New York case law on sadomasochism as prostitution:
People v. Georgia A., 621 N.Y.S.2d 779, 1994 held that a professional sado-masochistic relationship was not prostitution under New York law, explicitly mentioning spanking, footlicking, and “domination and submission.” But no issue of assault was raised in that case, and the under cover police officer never actually received services of any kind from the professional he visited.
Another case that addresses prostitution, and also sheds a little light on how bdsm play could fit into obscenity law:
In 31 West 21st Street Associates v. Evening of the Unusual, Inc., 480 N.Y.S.2d 816, a tenant running a BDSM club was evicted for maintaining a “house of assignation for lewd persons,” (one of the legally permissible reasons to evict someone) though the court seemed potentially open to the argument that BDSM itself was not prohibited behavior, however in this particular case “the sadomasochistic conduct at Club O did not occur in isolation, but rather was so necessarily intertwined with sexual conduct (such as exposure and fondling of the genital areas, and although disputed, sodomy, sexual intercourse and the use of dildos) as to render the sadomasochism inseparable from the sexual conduct. ” It should also be noted that the court found the landlord failed to make a valid claim for prostitution, even though the tenant charged entrance fees for visitors.
This case also partly addresses the question of how sadomasochism fits under New York State’s obscenity law, but doesn’t clearly answer it because in that case the sadomasochism was too closely entwined with sexual activity for a meaningful distinction to be maintained. But looking at the obscenity statute (New York Penal Law Sec. 235.00(1)) it seems entirely possible for a court to hold that such activity is obscene, as sadism and masochism are on the list of obscene acts so long as the performance as a whole’s “predominant appeal is to the prurient interest in sex” and “it lacks serious literary, artistic, political, and scientific value.” I don’t think that would be a problem for private sessions, as obscenity requires an audience to kick in, but people doing bdsm presentations might want to be aware there’s a chance they’re guilty of obscenity in the third degree if they “produce, present, or direct an obscene performance.” Penal Law Sec. 235.05.
Seek a competent legal opinion, don’t rely on me, but it appears at first glance that in New York professional bdsm does not fall under prositution statutes, and although certain acts might be considered lewd or obscene if done publicly, done privately are probably ok.
Bdsm is on shakier ground when looked at as possible assault. It’s a pretty generally applicable rule of law that you cannot consent to an illegal act being performed on you. So certain standard types of play likely constitute assault.
Under New York State Penal Code § 120.05 it’s assault in the 2nd degree to recklessly cause serious physical injury to someone else with a deadly weapon. A lot of things count as deadly weapons: as Calico told me herself, in a case in Attleboro Massachusetts a wooden spoon was considered such. It should also be noted that “physical injury” as defined in New York state law includes “substantial pain.” McKinney’s Penal Law § 10.00.
Leaving aside deadly weapons (which almost certainly would be construed to cover a vast array of standard toys), there’s still third degree assault, which in part is defined: “With intent to cause physical injury to another person, he causes such injury to such person or to a third person.” Keeping in mind that substantial pain is one definition of physical injury, this seems to cover most scenes that involve a certain amount of pain.
I can’t seem to find any caselaw covering this issue. But just looking at the statutes above….screwed up as it is, it seems that spanking someone consensually in New York is technically third degree assault, and using a paddle and leaving some heavy bruises or using a single tail and leaving welts might be second degree assault. Something to bear in mind.
April 28th, at 7:04 pm
Yeah.. I saw an update with charges and names and just shook my head. Sadly it was reposted by a community member on LJ, which is how I stumbled on it…
I had dinner the other night with friends, 2 of whom are pro dommes… they jumped to the assumption that someone ore more than one of the girls said something to piss the cops off, but there wasn’t any assumption that the pros allegations were true… the mentioned one dungeon actually known for it, but it certainly wasn’t HC.
Good luck to the girls… I certainly won’t passing on rumours.
April 29th, at 11:00 am
Last bit of legal blather, I promise. I missed a relevant case last night that addresses the assault question squarely: People v. Jovanovic, 700 N.Y.S.2d 156 at 169 (N.Y.A.D. 1 Dept., 199).
“There is no available defense of consent on a charge of assault under Penal Law §§ 120.00[1] and 120.05[2] ( contrast, Penal Law § 120.05[5] [where lack of consent is an element]). Indeed, while a meaningful distinction can be made between an ordinary violent beating and violence in which both parties voluntarily participate for their own sexual gratification, nevertheless, just as a person cannot consent to his or her own murder [citations omitted] as a matter of public policy, a person cannot avoid criminal responsibility for an assault that causes injury or carries a risk of serious harm, even if the victim asked for or consented to the act [citations omitted]. And, although it may be possible to engage in criminal assaultive behavior that does not result in physical injury [citation omitted], we need not address here whether consent to such conduct may constitute a defense, since the jury clearly found here that the complainant was physically injured. Defendant’s claim that there is a constitutional right to engage in consensual sadomasochistic activity is, at the very least, too broad, since if such conduct were to result in serious injury, the consensual nature of the activity would not justify the result.”
So that judge, to my dismay, read the statutes the same way I did. I’m saddened by what’s happened to these coworkers of yours, and hope that the establishment as a whole is able to stay in business, you make it sound like a really positive place, doing good for people regardless of what morons write in the paper. I hope the women involved get some good lawyers and beat this bullshit.
April 29th, at 3:24 pm
BB - I’d venture that jury nulification is significantly higher with in cases of consentual BDSM than, say, for domestic violence cases where the battered woman decides not to press charges.
April 29th, at 4:44 pm
SW: I’d be really surprised if assault charges are ever brought in the first place outside of the context of one party accusing the other of rape or abuse, with the previous consensual bdsm tucked into the proceedings as lesser assault charges. But I don’t like that they could be.
April 29th, at 9:51 pm
BB-Luckily, they were NOT charged with assault or obscenity, only prostitution.
April 30th, at 12:42 am
So sorry that you’re going through this.
Best wishes to you and your colleagues.
May 1st, at 12:26 pm
It’s sad that your friends are subject to this pointless hassle. Best wishes!
May 2nd, at 7:02 am
I’m almost willing to bet that someone forgot to pay someone else off, so they found a bogus reason to shut the place down.
Kind of like that scene from Casablanca.
Again, I’m so sorry.