You’ll find professional play spaces in all sorts of neighborhoods, in a wide variety of buildings and decorated in a lot of different styles. However, there’s one very consistent feature that applies to all of them – discretion in how you approach. When I’m playing with someone new, they’ll often spend a lot longer on the protocol for getting into the space than on the actual pre-scene discussion. Nobody wants a horny guy in a gimp suit wandering up and down the street knocking on doors and asking if anyone knows where Mistress Whiplash lives.
The perils of attracting the attention of the neighbors is highlighted by this recent story in the NY Times. While technically it might be totally legal to set-up a BDSM playspace, the reality is that the neighbors actually have a lot of leverage. Most people aren’t going to want to run the gamut of loud and disapproving locals when they’re trying to scratch a kinky itch. In this particular case it seemed one particular crazy religious neighbor (who suggested submissive guys would want to snatch kids off the street) was enough to torpedo a location.
Charlotte Taillor – the domme in question – did eventually manage to successfully relocate, but only after a lot of hassle and expense. It’s a tale worth keeping in mind for anyone visiting a professional space. You really don’t want to be the one to catch the eye of the local morality police and create a lot of problems for your domme.
This is Charlotte Taillor and the site for the Taillor Group is here. It’s billed as supporting ‘Female Empowerment & Education for the Kinkster or the Curious’.
I’ve known Charlotte Taillor for years. I’d been to the old space, and then to this space, but not yet to the next one.
Charlotte Taillor is the epitome of “good people”. She’s kind and generous, and helps women recognize their power. The women of her collective are outstanding.
I’m sorry to learn that some closed minds have forced her out. She works so hard in building her business and helping others.
Thanks for supplying some background on this. Good to hear those positive things about Charlotte.
I have to admit, I was surprised to see some pro-dommes on twitter taking the other side on this, and suggesting she’d messed up by standing out and not blending into the community. That seemed strange to me. It’s obviously tough to tell from news articles, which only ever give a fraction of the story, but it seemed like one crazy religious person poisoned the area for her.
Hopefully she and the collective have managed to find a better space with less obnoxious neighbors.
Thanks for stopping by to comment,
-paltego