1. Greenburgh to pay crack convict to settle suit
2. Charges dropped against owner of Coopersburg eatery
3. Kinks Galore, for All to See
4. The accidental 'friend' finder
5. BDSM and Consent
6. 'Mr. Wonderful' or a monster?
7. 'Submissive' lifestyle at issue in trial
Greenburgh to pay crack convict to settle suit
by Jonathan Bandler
The Journal News (Lower Hudson area, NY)
April 2, 2007
GREENBURGH – A former police officer is criticizing the decision by town officials to settle a lawsuit brought by a convicted drug user against the officer and his partner.
The Town Board on Wednesday authorized a $7,500 payment to settle the $1.5 million lawsuit by Fred Wall, who claimed he was injured when Officer Erik Ward and Detective Paul Fertig arrested him two years ago.
Ward wrote Supervisor Paul Feiner and the other Town Board members last week after he learned of the proposed settlement:
"As I have just depleted my life savings on legal bills defending myself against crimes and actions that I have not committed. And as I work as a truck driver earning $239 a week in what seems like a futile attempt to keep my home and on occasion feed myself. You want to pay off a habitual crack addict and violent offender for his pain."
Ward was fired this year after his involvement with a dominatrix. The dominatrix said that when they met after her arrest on a marijuana charge, she had defecated for him as he masturbated.
Ward insisted she made up the allegations, and he was acquitted of a misdemeanor, official misconduct, in Town Court.
But the Town Board fired him after finding him guilty of disciplinary charges brought by Chief John Kapica, because he did not follow the proper procedures for dealing with an informant and brought discredit upon the Police Department and the town.
Wall made a complaint to the police in November 2005 that the officers had used excessive force.
Thomas Troetti, Ward's lawyer, said Wall saw an easy payday and sued after he learned Ward was embroiled in the dominatrix scandal beginning in January 2006. Wall and his lawyer could not be reached for comment.
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To read this entire article, go to: http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070402/NEWS02/704020367/1018/NEWS02 To respond, write to: the author at jbandler@lohud.com or the editors at letters@lohud.com
Charges dropped against owner of Coopersburg eatery:
But Lehigh County district attorney's office says it will refile counts
by Kirk Beldon Jackson
The Morning Call (Allentown, PA)
April 2, 2007
Arson charges have been dismissed against the owner of a Coopersburg restaurant who allegedly started a fire in the borough last year to distract officers so he could avoid a drunken-driving arrest.
District Judge David Harding of Coopersburg said he dropped the charges against Steve DiDonato, 46, who owns Abruzzi on Main, last week at the request of the defense after witnesses failed to appear.
However, the Lehigh County district attorney's office said it will refile charges against DiDonato, who allegedly started the fire on E. Station Avenue on Feb. 18, 2006.
District Attorney James Martin said he is confident the witnesses will testify against DiDonato even though at least one — the bar manager of Silhouette Showbar — allegedly was threatened with physical harm by DiDonato's brother, Albert.
Albert DiDonato, 42, a former Coopersburg councilman who resigned in January, has been charged with intimidating witnesses and has a hearing before Harding scheduled for Thursday.
In September, the Silhouette Showbar became the headquarters for parties hosted by a swingers club. In December, the borough and the owner of the bar struck a deal to end the swingers parties, the last one of which was held in October. Steve DiDonato tipped officials off about the parties.
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To read this entire article, go to: http://www.mcall.com/news/local/allentown/all-b3_5didonatoapr02,0,7346194.story?coll=all-newslocalallentown-hed To respond, write to: the author at kirk.jackson@mcall.com or the editors at letters@mcall.com or comment at bottom of article
Kinks Galore, for All to See
by Steve Walker
Camp (Kansas City, MO)
March 31, 2007
For those of you not easily offended, here's a quick lifestyle quiz you won't find in the Sunday paper:
1. What ranks atop the list of most prevalent sexual fetishes? 2. What most excites a "popper"? 3. What natural substance is involved in "sploshing"?
If you didn't know that the respective answers are feet and toes, a popping balloon, and mud, perhaps you're overdue for a trip to New York City, where these and other fetishes are being celebrated at the Museum of Sex's latest exhibition, called "Kink: Geography of the Erotic Imagination".
Curated by Katharine Gates, author of "Deviant Desires: Incredibly Strange Sex", the exhibit unapologetically invites visitors to step outside their comfort zones for a jaunt across the landscape of most of what is sexually possible to the discriminating adult. (It has to be "most" because there's nothing featured that would violate any laws.) Gates has spent the last decade researching and documenting the sexual palette and "Kink" is, according to Gates, intended "to introduce the world to some of the amazing people I have met in my travels". She goes on to encapsulate the show by explaining of those she studied, "Their erotic fantasies may seem odd, but they act on them in conscious and conscientious ways". And from the poppers to the plushies, indeed they do.
Upon entering the exhibition on the museum's first floor, one is greeted (or, perhaps, warned) with a quote from Tom Lehrer, saying, "When correctly viewed, everything is lewd". The fetishes chosen for a salute are each given a Plexiglass booth containing a representative object — such as, for the adult baby fetish, the larger-than-usual high chair complete with foot restraints — and adjoining wall space where text, images and television screens illustrate and map out, should there be any difficulty making the leap from concept to reality, each kink you can think of and more. For the section on pony play, for example, there are video clips of saddled and reined people (mostly women) being ridden around a dirt-floored arena.
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To read this entire article, go to: http://www.campkc.com/campkc-content.php?Page_ID=487 To respond, write to: the editors at cirqlate@earthlink.net
The accidental 'friend' finder
by Joel Stein
CNN Money
March 30, 2007
You know how you'll be trying to do work, and the Internet will inexorably drag you into porn? That's exactly what happened to Andrew Conru's career.
A mechanical engineering doctoral student at Stanford who grew up with churchgoing Lutheran parents in northern Indiana–the kind of guy who holds the door for everyone until he gets stuck there so long that someone has to make a joke so he can let go–Conru started the first online dating site, WebPersonals, in the early '90s. He sold it in 1995, pocketed a minor windfall, and started all over again.
Now he owns 27 sites under an umbrella company called Various, controlling twice as much online dating traffic as better-known rivals Match.com and Yahoo Personals. But his clients tend to be much more fun. That's because most of them post pictures in which they're having sex. When you've already seen your date naked, it's a lot easier to focus on what she's saying.
Of all the dating sites Conru has launched–ones for Latinos, seniors, Asians, Jews, churchgoers–the biggest by far is AdultFriendFinder, which accounts for more than 60 percent of Various's revenue. Conru says his privately held, 450-person company brings in well over $200 million in annual revenue, averaging 40 percent growth for the past nine years. With more than 35 million visitors in 2006 and 75,000 new users registering each day, AFF ranks among the 100 most popular sites in the United States.
This coming from a gawky, bespectacled guy nicknamed the Professor who collects 1930s movie posters but whose AFF profile states "I've had a minage ` trois." If that's the least bit true, AdultFriendFinder is a very effective service.
This is a good time to segue out of the adult market and online dating, because both of those industries are hurting. Not only has the Web dating niche matured out of its growth phase, but the porn gold rush is over too. "People used to go to bulletin boards, but now they go straight to the search engines, so there's this tollbooth effect," Conru says. "All the money is going to the search engines."
But Conru can't sell his business and start over, even though that's exactly what he would have done years ago if he hadn't slipped into the adult world. He can't sell because AFF is far too big for any adult company to afford and far too dirty for any mainstream company to stomach. And because most investment banks don't want to get involved with pictures of people having sex in their own bedrooms–let alone kitchens, living rooms, motel rooms, airplane bathrooms, and Renaissance fairs–he'll likely never get a fair price for going public.
So unless he can diversify himself out of the vice niche, something not even Philip Morris has been able to do, Conru is destined for a life in porn. He's at peace with that, though. "I never thought I'd be in the adult business," he says. "But the people are more fun. They're less stuffy." Besides, if he hadn't, it's a fair guess that he would never have had that threesome.
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To read this entire article, go to: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2007/04/01/8403370/?postversion=2007033011 To respond, write to: talkback@business2.com
BDSM and Consent
by Mistress Matisse (opinion column "Control Tower")
The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
March 28, 2007
I've been reading in the news about Glenn Marcus, a member of the BDSM community recently convicted in federal court on charges of sex trafficking and forced labor. A woman who'd been in a dominant/submissive relationship with him accused him of forcing her to bottom to him and refusing to remove kinky photos of her from his website. His defense argued that Marcus and the victim had a "contract" to engage in a master-slave relationship, and that the victim had given up her rights to refuse his orders. The jury didn't buy it, and now Marcus is awaiting sentencing.
No one but Marcus and the victim know exactly what happened, but based on what I've read, I'm not surprised the jury convicted him. Absent some more compelling rebuttal of the victim's claims, I would have, too.
What is the difference between BDSM and abuse? Kinky people would like to be able to draw a clear line, but like vanilla sex, it all spins on consent, and consent is a fluid, dynamic thing. You don't give it once and that's it for all time. You give it, either tacitly or overtly, every time you play.
It's not always obvious. I have bratty play partners who mouth off to me. One partner likes to scream, "You are a sadistic fucking bitch, and I hate you!" And I generally laugh and say something like, "Why, yes, I am a sadistic bitch, and you fucking love me for it." I don't stop what I'm doing because I know, from both previous experience and clear negotiation with her, that she isn't really withdrawing consent.
But I never lose sight of the fact that she could withdraw her consent. Anyone I do BDSM with could, at any time. No matter what he/she said they wanted, or whether he/she signed a "slave contract," or took a blood oath, or had my name tattooed on his/her ass, the minute someone says, "Stop, I don't want to do this anymore" and really means it – well, that's it. Game over. Continue past that point and you're not doing BDSM, you're being abusive and you've lost my moral support.
Did Marcus cross a line? The jury thought so. But when cases like this happen, certain people in the BDSM community will invariably contend that consent was not clearly revoked at the time, but rather was retroactively – and maliciously – withdrawn. That's an unsettling idea for dominants. It makes us think: Can I trust my partners to tell me the truth? Or will they say, "Yes, yes!" now, but turn on me tomorrow?
The lesson for dominants: Know your partner. Negotiate and get clear consent – and, yes, it can be done without being a buzz-kill. And be aware that no matter what someone says, you're taking a leap of faith when you pick up the whip. For submissives: Even if you call yourself a slave, the person primarily responsible for your safety is you. If something's going wrong, say so – promptly. A good dominant will want that information. Someone who doesn't care isn't someone you should belong to.
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To read this entire article, go to: http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=187270 To respond, write to: the author at matisse@thestranger.com or the editors at editor@thestranger.com
'Mr. Wonderful' or a monster?
by Sue Lindsay
Rocky Mountain News (Denver, CO)
March 24, 2007
Jimmie Wellmon terrorized a string of women across the country, conditioning them through sadistic acts of degradation and violence to obey him, call him "Daddy" and become his sex slaves, court documents allege.
Wellmon, 39, faces trial April 2 on charges that he severely beat one of those women in a Denver hotel room last year.
Because he fired his attorney and is representing himself, Wellmon is in a position to exercise the ultimate control over his alleged victim at his trial – subjecting her to his own questioning.
Wellmon is charged with attempted first-degree murder and assault in the Feb. 11, 2006, attack on the 26-year-old woman, who was beaten, bitten, kicked, strangled and burned with cigarettes in a room at downtown's Adam's Mark Hotel.
Wellmon says he is innocent and that someone else beat the young woman.
He points to forensic tests that concluded blond hairs found at the scene are not his or the victim's.
Fingerprints found on a broken wine glass don't match his, either.
Wellmon concedes that his sexual relationships may be unconventional, but he says he didn't beat any of his partners.
The relationships were consensual, undertaken with women who shared his passion for bondage, domination and sadomasochism, he says.
"Lifestyle choices between consenting adults are protected under the U.S. Constitution," he said. "The key word here is 'consenting.' "
But a domestic violence expert says that assault can't be consensual.
"The whole issue of whether women like it is irrelevant," forensic psychologist Hannah Evans said.
"He is charged with a physical assault, which is illegal in this state. It's not something that can be consented to."
The woman in the Denver case told police that Wellmon broke a wine glass and cut her with it, threatening to slash her throat and make her eat glass.
She alleges that he burned her eyelid and other parts of her body with a cigarette. He also put her in a tub of scalding water and tried to drown her, she said. Clumps of her hair were found in the hotel room.
She suffered a broken eye socket, and her body was bruised.
Previously, she told police, he stabbed her foot with scissors.
Wellmon was enraged, she said, because she used money she earned as a stripper to pay their room service bill.
Wellmon contends that she blamed him for the beating because she left her shift as a Diamond Cabaret dancer to have sex with a patron who beat her up and she feared she would lose her job.
When police asked her to identify her attacker, she told them, "I don't know his real name. I only call him Daddy."
The court file includes passages from notebooks in which Wellmon allegedly detailed his training methods for the woman, who was instructed to remain nude when they were alone, to kneel before him, walk behind him and never speak without permission.
"When spoke to directly by anyone, you will look to your Father for permission to speak. Any deviation to above rules will be issued at Daddy's discretion."
Wellmon said the victim supplied the notebooks to police and that he didn't write them.
Police also found a notebook in which the woman completed an assignment to write, "I love my Daddy" 200 times.
She also wrote him letters signed as "your slave."
Prosecutors said Wellmon required the woman to study passages of Anne Rice's erotic retelling of Sleeping Beauty.
"The defendant used this book as a training tool to indoctrinate (the victim) into the worlds of bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, sadism and masochism," prosecutors said in court pleadings.
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To read this entire artcle, go to: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5439777,00.html To respond, write to: the author at lindsays@RockyMountainNews.com or the editors at letters@RockyMountainNews.com
'Submissive' lifestyle at issue in trial
by Laurie Mason
The Intelligencer (Phildelphia, PA)
March 22, 2007
A Bucks County jury deciding the case of an Upper Makefield man accused of raping a 12-year-old girl heard details Wednesday of the defendant's participation in a bondage-sadomasochism "scene" from a woman who lived with him and his co-defendant as their "submissive".
Antoinette Lineburner's candid account of her relationship with Robert Gress and Doreen Stoia raised many eyebrows in the courtroom, but she did not testify that she saw Gress sexually molest the alleged victim.
Lineburner said she never heard Gress, whom she called "Brad" or "Master", refer to the girl by a slave name, as the child has told police.
But Lineburner did corroborate the child's description of items in Gress' bedroom, including a large black suitcase filled with sex toys such as whips, floggers, feathers and other items. She said she willingly wore a dog collar in the home, another item the child described.
Gress, 48, of Dolington Acres Road, was charged in August with 18 crimes, including rape of a child and involuntary deviate sexual intercourse. If convicted, he could be sentenced to more than 10 years in prison.
[Gress' attorney Laurence] Narcisi also asked Lineburner to describe an incident that occurred among the trio at Leather Retreat, an annual gathering of 500 to 800 members of the BDSM "scene" held, Lineburner said, at a Boy Scout camp.
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To read this entire article, go to: http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/113-03222007-1318338.html To respond, write to: the author at lmason_court@yahoo.com or the editors at akerr@phillyburbs.com HOW TO WRITE A LETTER TO THE EDITOR
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