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| BDSM as business: An interview with the owners of a dungeon |
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| Sunday, October 21, 2007 |
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| Operating the business |
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| The costs |
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| Clothing supply closet. |
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| There's a misconception in this industry. |
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| Your exposure to this is probably primarily what you see in movies, scanning magazines, scanning the Internet, just snippets everywhere. |
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| It's portrayed as though it's dark, black and evil. |
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| And -- |
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| Oh man, well? |
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| What's up? |
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| I do wear a lot of black. |
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| It's anything but that. |
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| If you look at the rooms, there's all the accouterments you'd find in these types of places -- but more than anything, there's a lot of good feeling around here. |
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| We hire the opposite of what you'd think we would hire, what the average person would think we would hire. |
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| We hire educated, nice people. |
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| I remember one of our ads that I had put in said, 'If you think nice girls don't do S&M,' -- I forgot what the rest of it said -- |
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| '-- think again.' |
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| Yeah, 'think again' or something like that. |
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| And that ad had pulled so many girls, because they -- I think they all thought that nice girls don't do this. |
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| And a bunch of them had called and they said, 'Wow.' |
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| And I think I remember, a bunch of guys called because of that also. |
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| Do you remember? |
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| I sure do, I sure do. |
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| What are the startup costs involved? |
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| It varies; look around Manhattan, look around rents, look around build-outs, look around hiring, look around advertising ... |
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| What's your greatest non-fixed cost? |
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| The single most costly thing we spend on is rent and advertising, those two together make up the bulk of what we spend. |
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| There's supplies, and there's wear and tear and maintenance, and bookkeeping and things like that that you have to do. |
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| That's about it. |
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| The hardest thing in running this business, which is why people can't do it, is the relationship that my wife has with the gals and with the customers. |
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| Where do you advertise? |
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| A lot on the web, we've used most of the local city papers, New York Press, things like that, L Magazine. |
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| In the back of the paper? |
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| Typically in the back of the paper. |
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| Magazines constantly change their policy on it; they want it, they don't want it ... |
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| Depending on the election year -- |
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| Who's buying the paper, who's selling the paper. |
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| So it changes, so one year we got to be in the Press, but they have now stopped adult ads. |
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| Completely. |
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| So now we'll be in the Voice for a while. |
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| We're moving more towards the Internet at this point, because the Internet is a much easier, safer way for a person to look at sensitive material and not get caught with it. |
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| Hiring employees |
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| Personality test questions given to prospective mistresses. |
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| Pursuant to your business question: we only hire nice people. |
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| I don't care if a girl is absolutely exquisite looking -- |
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| My husband has met beautiful, beautiful girls -- |
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| -- beautiful girls -- |
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| -- and he's in the end, he would say, 'Well, I won't hire them.' |
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| I'm like, ‘Are you insane? |
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| I won't hire them. |
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| I hire -- |
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| Why not? |
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| Because I want someone who's going to treat people nicely and well. |
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| We have -- |
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| How can you tell whether they will or will not? |
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| Just by talking to them? |
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| Having been a psychologist for a number of years gives me a leg up on it. |
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| And he's been right. |
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| And I have made him hire these girls, and ultimately he's been right |
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| They've been complete pain in the asses! |
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| I also have a profile they fill out for me, a mini-MMPI that I developed, so that I have an idea -- Rebecca and I put it together |
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| I don't know if you'd like to see one. |
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| No, no, no. Just -- |
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| I could show you. |
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| So I have a mini-MMPI that I -- |
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| Could I have a sample, not necessarily one that's filled out, but just one that you -- |
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| I'll show you. |
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| The questions are -- |
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| Be careful. |
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| He'll make you fill one out. |
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| You'd be scared. |
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| You wouldn't hire me. |
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| Is it only girls you hire? |
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| Yeah. |
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| What would a question like 'the greatest woman in the world' reveal to you? |
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| No question would reveal anything independently of all the questions together -- |
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| Sure. |
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| -- but I have a chart that I'll go through; the MMPI. |
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| The baseline data that I use to -- |
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| How did you originate these questions? |
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| Where did I make them? |
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| You get a baseline from asking girls and refining profiles -- |
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| And it's an amalgamation of questions. |
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| Of many, many questions -- |
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| What's your favorite question? |
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| I don't know, the O.J. Simpson …. |
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| Yeah, I see O.J. Simpson. |
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| What would that be an indicator of? |
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| I'm not sure which one you gave him, but there's a brief, brief, brief IQ test there. |
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| Very brief. |
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| Do you ask for references? |
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| No, because I really can't call and tell them I'm yeah, so-and-so's applying here for a position. |