1. A Neighbor Moves in With Ropes and Shackles, and Some Are Not So Pleased
2. Assault at sex-party site
3. Sick sex case trial set
4. Porn studio says armory filming has begun
5. Sex, Lies, And Videotape In "Swinger" Arrest
6. Roxy gets freaky . . . err, geeky
7. Fire damages 'swingers' house
8. Swingers: Lifestyle More Common Than Most Think
1. A Neighbor Moves in With Ropes and Shackles, and Some Are Not So Pleased
2. Assault at sex-party site
3. Sick sex case trial set
4. Porn studio says armory filming has begun
5. Sex, Lies, And Videotape In "Swinger" Arrest
6. Roxy gets freaky . . . err, geeky
7. Fire damages 'swingers' house
8. Swingers: Lifestyle More Common Than Most Think
A Neighbor Moves in With Ropes and Shackles, and Some Are Not So Pleased
by Jesse McKinley The New York Times
February 11, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 11 – It is hard to imagine a city prouder of its sexuality than San Francisco, a place with an active strip club district, a union for erotic dancers and an annual parade on Folsom Street where those not wearing leather and chaps are the odd ones out.
So it came as something of a surprise when a kerfuffle arose because of the newest addition to the city's sexual landscape: the State Armory and Arsenal building, a 200,000-square-foot landmark in the Mission District that was just purchased by Kink.com, an online pornography company devoted to bondage and sadomasochism.
Peter Acworth, the company's founder and chief executive, said he planned to turn the armory into a full-fledged film studio, with dirty movies shot in the basement and less-dirty ones shot upstairs.
"I want to make films like 'Secretary'", Mr. Acworth said, referring to the 2002 mainstream hit about a woman who has a kinky love affair with her lawyer boss. "But with more sex".
But somewhere between his purchase and the first paddling, Mr. Acworth has run into strong opposition from a group of neighborhood activists who long feared that the armory, vacant since 1975, would be converted into something truly taboo: condominiums.
Some of the previous efforts to use the armory were derailed by anti-gentrification forces who wanted more affordable housing in the Mission, an economically and racially mixed area where hipsters and the homeless are represented in equal numbers.
But this time around, opponents insist they are not being prudish, just prudent, considering the building's proximity to schools and families.
"Everybody thought it was going to be housing, and then mid-January, we get this bomb", said Anita Correa, who runs an arts theater in the neighborhood. "Everybody was taken by shock".
The company's current downtown offices are filled with editors and Webmasters who sit before row after row of large-screen computers, while bored-looking crew members haul lights, cameras and cat-o'-nine-tails from set – dungeon, jail cell, suburbia – to set.
Mr. Acworth said he was looking to expand his fast-growing business and fell in love with the castle-like armory the moment he laid eyes on its lower levels.
"The basement had a series of rooms that looked like dungeons", said Mr. Acworth, who bought the building from a private developer for $14.5 million. "It just has such character".
The Kink.com plan is the latest chapter in the long and somewhat tortured history of the armory, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. Built between 1912 and 1914, the brick-and-mortar building has long been a redevelopment challenge for San Francisco, with its landmark status and the city's famously vociferous activist set derailing plan after plan over the last three decades.
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To read this entire article, go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/12/us/12armory.html?ref=us To respond, write to: letters@nytimes.com
Assault at sex-party site
by Elizabeth Dinan
Portsmouth Herald (New Hampshire)
February 10, 2007
PORTSMOUTH — A man warned by the city to cease a long-running swingers party is now charged by police with assaulting two tenants of his Cutts Street triplex.
Joseph Ranguette, 71, of 42 Cutts St., was arrested on two misdemeanor counts of simple assault following a Jan. 12 police call to his residence. One week after the Herald published a story about Ranguette's bi-weekly swingers parties, officers were dispatched to the property where, according to police records, a dispute became physical.
Police Sgt. Russell Russo said when officers arrived at about 10 p.m., one of Ranguette's tenants reported the incident began after she told Ranguette she was moving out. Russo said the Police Department received complaints about television trucks, cameras and reporters in the neighborhood in the days following the Jan. 5 story reporting the property was under police surveillance related to zoning concerns about sex parties.
Ranguette's tenant told police that after arguing about her intended move, Ranguette "ended up pushing her," said Russo. The police sergeant said the woman's 26-year-old son then came to her defense, after which Ranguette is alleged to have punched him in the face.
Two days later, Ranguette was arrested and released on $1,500 personal recognizance bail, according to police.
Internet postings list Ranguette as the host of "The Middle Door" parties and claim they been conducted for over 17 years at the same address. City records show the property was under police surveillance for over a year, prompted by a letter to state police from an irritated neighbor.
The citizen complaint reported the timing of the parties, directed police to The Middle Door Web site and said "the neighbors want it stopped." It also reported "people arriving in bus-like vehicles from out of state," parking problems and the opinion that charging an attendance fee for swingers — with the exception of single women — constitutes prostitution.
In January, City Attorney Bob Sullivan told the Herald he advised Ranguette by letter that the conduct represented on The Middle Door's site "appears to be in violation of city ordinance and needs to be ceased."
"The bottom line is that it's zoned for residential use, and this kind of activity is not considered by the city to be normal residential use," said Sullivan.
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To read this entire article, go to: http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/02092007/nhnews-ph-p-ranguette.html To respond, write to: the author at edinan@seacoastonline.com or the editors at news@seacoastonline.com
Sick sex case trial set
by John Marzulli
The New York Daily News
February 10, 2007
A Long Island man didn't just create a sadomasochistic Web site – he lived the twisted life to a fault, prosecutors allege.
Jury selection begins tomorrow in the trial of sex perv Glenn Marcus, who ran slavespace.com on the Web. Federal prosecutors accuse Marcus, 53, of sex trafficking, distributing obscene materials on his Web site and forced labor – allegedly ordering one woman to repeatedly click the links on his Web site "for hours on end" so he could earn fees from other Internet sites.
"If [the victim] took a break from working on the Web site, the defendant beat and tortured [her] as punishment," according to court papers filed by the government.
The stomach-churning charges allege that Marcus placed the woman naked in a large plastic bag and choked her, that he mutilated her genitals, locked another woman in a dog cage and posted images of them on his Web site, which was shut down after his arrest in May 2005.
He also allegedly threatened to send the images of the two women to their parents and newspapers in order to humiliate them, prosecutors contend.
The women are expected to testify under their first names only to protect them from embarrassing publicity.
The defense will argue that Marcus' relations with the women was consensual. "If the jury is willing to look beyond the bondage, dominance, sadomasochism context of this case, and examine the evidence, it will be very clear that my client is innocent," said his lawyer, Maurice Sercarz.
Marcus faces up to life in prison if convicted.
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To read this entire article, go to: http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/496566p-418471c.html To respond, write to: voicers@edit.nydailynews.com
Porn studio says armory filming has begun:
Protesters surround building in Mission where Kink.com says 3 videos were made
by Steve Rubenstein
The San Francisco Chronicle
February 9, 2007
Fifty soggy yet passionate pickets marched Thursday in front of the old armory on San Francisco's Mission Street to protest the movies being shot on the other side of the brick walls.
Carrying signs reading "Shut it Down" and "Stop Sex-ploitation,'' the protesters demanded that Kink.com, an online pornographer, stop its plans to make X-rated bondage videos inside the building.
But instead of backing down, Kink boasted that it already had shot three videos inside the 93-year-old armory building, featuring porn star Princess Donna, who was "expertly suspended above the drill court … with no complaints from anyone."
"This is oppressive and inappropriate for our community," said Sam Ruiz, executive director of Mission Neighborhood Centers. "It's not OK to promote acts of degradation and violence. We don't want this kind of stuff here."
Protesters complained that Kink degrades the neighborhood, demeans women and offers "dead-end'' jobs that no decent person would want.
Kink, which bought the building in December for $14.5 million and announced plans to turn the 200,000-square-foot landmark into a pornography production palace, said it wants to be a good neighbor and that no one need ever know that adult movies are being shot inside.
None of the protesters Thursday seemed aware that filming at the armory already had begun.
"Is that right?" said Roberto Hernandez, the artistic director for the annual Carnaval parade. "Maybe we have to go to court to stop it. This neighborhood is already plagued with enough violence and prostitution as it is."
Acworth said he understood the protesters' concerns and said his studio was a "closed shop." He promised that residents would "have a better idea what's going on inside their neighbor's bedrooms than inside the armory."
The company, he said, has already removed graffiti from the armory walls and is arranging to replace broken windows and install outside lighting. There is no Kink sign on the building.
As for the filming that already has taken place, Acworth said in addition to Princess Donna being suspended above the drill court last week, two other bondage videos were shot this week in the basement boiler room.
"No neighbor noticed," Acworth said. "There were no complaints from anyone."
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To read this entire article, go to: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/02/09/BAG7LO1HPN1.DTL To respond, write to: the author at srubenstein@sfchronicle.com or the editors at letters@sfchronicle.com
Sex, Lies, And Videotape In "Swinger" Arrest
by Taylor K. Vecsey
The East Hampton Star (NY)
February 9, 2007
In an abandoned parking lot in Herrick on Jan. 28, Nassau County police slapped handcuffs on Shawn Payne, a 38-year-old female graduate of East Hampton High School who was raised in Montauk, after a Garden City man, whom she had taped without his knowledge during sex, claimed she was attempting to extort about $50,000. What unfolded was a sex scandal that involves the Internet, prostitution, and possible exposure of the bedroom secrets of swingers.
Police set up the "controlled exchange" with Ms. Payne after her 43-year-old former lover told them he was being "blackmailed" by a woman he had met on the adult Internet Web site Adult Friend Finder. Police thought they were just taking down a greedy ex-lover, but, they allege, they found that Ms. Payne and her current lover, Michael Largue, a convicted con man from Franklin Square, had met men and women on the Internet, had consensual sex with them, and videotaped them to later extort money from them.
Ms. Payne gave up Mr. Largue, who was not before known by police to have been involved in the case, according to Sgt. Anthony Repalone. In Mr. Largue's house, police found "well over 100 hours of recorded sex on video, and spreadsheets with names" of possible sexual partners. The sergeant wanted to make it clear that the videotape is of "consensual sexual encounters" and that there is no indication that any "sexual offenses" occurred.
A police department press release issued last week said the two acted in concert, meeting people online, "engaging them in sex acts, videotaping their activities, and, later, threatening to reveal the illicit tapes to the victims' family members unless the victims complied with the defendants' monetary demands". Only two victims have been identified, according to Sergeant Repalone, who noted there might be more in the tristate area.
Adult Friend Finder, which touts itself as "the world's largest sex and swinger personals community", is a Web site for single or married, gay or straight men and women looking for other singles, couples, or groups. Ms. Payne used "Gina" as her name on the site, and Mr. Largue used the handle "Mr. Nice" (rather ironically, in Sergeant Repalone's view).
During Ms. Payne's arrest, police found identification that does not belong to her, according to Sergeant Repalone. The identification was for a 47-year-old woman from upstate New York, who police discovered was another victim, the sergeant said.
That woman, whose identity police will not disclose, told police that she had met Mr. Largue on Adult Friend Finder, as well. "She thought she was forming a companionship with him, but he preyed upon her", Sergeant Repalone said. "She confided in Largue that she wanted to protect her assets", as she was going through a divorce. According to the police, Mr. Largue said he could introduce her to someone who could help, and set up a meeting between the woman and Shawn Payne, whom he introduced as a financial consultant. Ms. Payne "convinces her to withdraw all of her assets and place them in one account on Long Island", Sergeant Repalone said. After the woman handed over about $50,000 to Largue, he "sprung upon her" that he had a videotape of them having sex.
Sergeant Repalone would not give the details of the tape, but would only say that it would cause "anguish and humility" for the victim. In fact, the woman was so scared of what was on the video that Ms. Payne was able to "coerce" her into having sex with other men for money. Although the woman acted as a prostitute two or three times, she is not being charged, police said. Ms. Payne is, however, charged with promoting prostitution, as well as fourth-degree grand larceny, first-degree scheming to defraud, and second-degree grand larceny, all felonies.
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To read this entire article, go to: http://www.easthamptonstar.com/DNN/Default.aspx?tabid=1262 To respond, write to: letters@easthamptonstar.com
Roxy gets freaky . . . err, geeky
by Roxy Sass (opinion and advice)
The Daily Stanford (Stanford University, CA)
February 9, 2007
When it comes to geeks, Stanford is full of them – studying in Green on Friday nights, talking about computer programming at dinner, enjoying their assigned reading. In middle school and high school, many of the geeks were probably teased mercilessly, until their tears fogged up the lenses of their thick glasses. The thing about social isolation is that it forces people to turn inward for entertainment. And by this, of course, Roxy means that it forces people to buy Maxim and masturbate furiously in the nearest bathroom.
We've all come a long way since then. Roxy should know, because even she has a geeky side. And she thinks it's time for her to let you in on a little secret. It's the geeks who have the freakiest, kinkiest sex. After years of Maxim and no satisfying outlet for sexual expression, the geeks are certainly living it up in college. Read on for Roxy's version of "Revenge of the Nerds".
Even if you're perfectly satisfied with your sex life, you never know what might make it simply blast off. Literally. Roxy, however, knows very well. Here are a few of her favorite freaky fetishes, for your viewing, and hopefully "doing", pleasure.
Spanking.
Don't get her wrong, Roxy is not talking about whips and chains. Unless you're into that – in which case you've probably had the extraordinary fortune to have hooked up with her. Remind her of your name, please?
But anyway, there's a kind of spanking for everyone, from bondage to a couple of friendly smacks to the tushy. Hardcore bondage implies a rigid dominant/submissive relationship and usually requires a lot of leather and metal equipment, while spanking can be done spontaneously whenever someone is in the mood. Use the open hand or a flat object and be sure to mix spanks with rubbing to ease sore areas. And/or extremely aroused areas.
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To read this entire article, go to: http://daily.stanford.edu/article/2007/2/9/roxyGetsFreakyErrGeeky To respond, write to: opinions@daily.stanford.edu or comment at bottom of article
Fire damages 'swingers' house
by Audrey Parente
The Daytona Beach News-Journal
February 9, 2007
HOLLY HILL — Things got hot last night at a house overlooking the Halifax River where Never Ending Bliss swinger parties recently incited neighbors' complaints.
A fire broke out about 6:45 p.m. in the kitchen of the house at 746 Riverside Drive, said Holly Hill Mayor Roland Via in a phone interview. That 2 1/2-story house recently was the subject of a special magistrate hearing against tenant Matthew Early, who was found to be breaking city code by operating a swingers club.
"Evidently there were some teenagers cooking in the kitchen unattended," Via said. "The fire was contained to the first floor but smoke damage to the second floor was extensive."
Neighbor Sheila Hancock, who has been vocal in the media about her opposition to the swingers activities, said five fire trucks were on the premises when she arrived on the scene.
"The fire guys just inundated the house with water. It was coming out of the eaves," she said. "The whole neighborhood was out."
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To read this entire article, go to: http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/News/Local/newEAST02020907.htm To respond, write to: the author at audrey.parente@news-jrnl.com or the editors at letters@news-jrnl.com
Swingers: Lifestyle More Common Than Most Think:
Mental Health Counselor Sees Problems With Swinging Lifestyle
by Emily Pantelides
WJXT TV (Jacksonville, Fl)
February 8, 2007
Some couples in Jacksonville who are married but also sexually active with other couples — swingers — said the lifestyle may be more common than many people think.
They said everyday couples are swapping partners. In the River City, there are clubs, magazines and even fliers that are dedicated to promoting what's called "the lifestyle."
Channel 4's Emily Pantelides talked to Jacksonville couples who swap partners. All of them asked that their identities be concealed and that the voices be altered.
"It's not embarrassing. It's just a part of our life we would rather not share," said one husband.
He and his wife said they are like every other married couple in Jacksonville. They have kids, normal jobs and a normal sex life together.
"She never has to worry about me cheating on her," he said.
However, the self-proclaimed normal couple is living the swingers' lifestyle. They keep it a secret and said thousands of others in Jacksonville do the same.
"There're more people than you would think," one husband said. "You go, meet a couple, y'all dance, have drinks. If everything works out and everybody likes everybody, you take it to the next level and you go back and you all four have sex."
Ann Hawthorne, a licensed mental health counselor who has provided therapy for regular couples and couples who swing, said she disagrees that the lifestyle actually keeps marriages together.
"To watch your partner in a compromising position of intimacy with a third or fourth party really does ruin respect for each other," Hawthorne said. "I think any marriage that needs that type of enhancement is in trouble to begin with."
She said the main problem she sees is a difference in what each partner wants when he or she swing.
"Some partners get jealous because their partners are actually enjoying it more than with them," Hawthorne said.
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To read this entire article, go to: http://www.news4jax.com/news/10967619/detail.html To respond, write to: jaxnews@news4jax.com
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