A friend just moved to Alt-Tempelhof. The apartment is a dream, with high ceilings and lots of sun. My friend told us there's a BDSM fetish club just around the corner. Everyone laughed β what kind of weirdos must hang out there? But I had a nervous smile. Sure, I've been to Insomnia. I guess I'm one of those weirdos. While working on the prostitution issue of Exberliner , I did an interview with two dominatrixes about sex work. I had been a boy scout, but it turns out this requires a completely different skill set.
So why not go to Insomnia to learn the ropes, so to speak? I remember I was nervous as hell, but it turns out a fetish club can be a very relaxed place. In some part of my mind, I was thinking the whole club would be old men. But most of the visitors were young women. In fact, when we had to break up into pairs to practice knots on each other, there was a shortage of men.
So how do I explain that I went to a class to learn, amongst other things, to restrain women for sex?
The trick is: Sadomasochism, or SM, doesn't have anything to do with abuse. Some of the stuff you find on the internet can look really creepy, but it's based on adults doing things they enjoy.
People should be able to do whatever they want, as long as they're doing it with people who give their informed, enthusiastic and ongoing consent. Even the most mundane-looking sex can be rape if there's no consent β and with consent, even the most eye-popping acts of humiliation can be a fun sexual experience for everyone involved.
