The La Fong Archives

The Coming of Kink

A few weeks ago, someone very kindly brought me a copy of the San Francisco Bay Guardian featuring a 3 page article on the Donald Trump of Fetish, Mr. Peter Acworth.

The article centred on Mr. Acworth’s $14.5 million purchase of the former San Francisco Armory which, at 200,000 square feet, is the largest space devoted to the production of fetish content in the western world.

Fascinating information was revealed about Mr. Acworth and his Kink.com empire, not least that he is English (and aren’t most fetish pornographers?), his Mom is a sculptor and his Dad is a former Jesuit priest.

Delicious stuff. But wait, there’s more. Mr. Acworth, as followers of the Archives know, has built up his bondage/BDSM business into a $16 million/year empire. He started out in his rented Marina District apartment, finding models via craigslist and shooting the content himself. He launched Kink.com in 1997, and built sites around the fetish content that most interested him – the results being Hogtied and  Fuckingmachines.com

As others joined the fold, they brought their own passions and fetish interests to the content and more sites followed. Each webmaster/mistress is the producer/director/talent scout and web developer, with many also being participants in the productions.

In some respects, this is a stroke of genius and is one of the primary reasons for Kink.com’s success. It’s hard to make something that everyone will like – but if you make something you like and understand, chances are you’ll find an audience that aligns itself with you. And the beauty of the web is that audience feedback is instant and audience involvement and interaction possible.

In the SFBG article, Acworth also claims a further benefit of his approach to fetish. The models used on his sites are not acting. I quote, because this is an important distinction for me: “Just as directors are expected to be interested in the fetish they’re promoting, so are participants supposed to enjoy the scenes they’re in.”

This is the Kink.com policy. This is why Acworth insists that every scene ends with the participants sitting as a couple in front of the camera with big smiles on their faces, telling the viewer how much fun it all was.

Acworth told the SFBG, that he’d experienced “trouble in the past working with models from Los Angeles, trying to get them not to act.”

In other words, Kink.com seeks ‘reality’. It’s a company policy they believe in so fully that they are working on launching a 24/7 fetish lifestyle reality show.

And this is where Carl La Fong has a problem. No, not with the reality show. My problem is that I can really appreciate a great deal of what Kink.com does. I love the production values. I love the diversity of content. I love the cutting edge technology. I respect the sense of community. I respect the sincerity of  the fetish enthusiasts that provide the content. I admire Acworth’s business acumen, and his good sense in staffing his company with smart computer-savvy folks who’d been put on the street following the dot.com bust.

But I don’t agree with his approach to fetish, because no matter how ‘real’ he tries to make it look, no matter how “into” the fetish the participants are, no matter how bizarre the activity… it all looks fake to me.

Fetish is drama. It is ritual. It is enactment. It requires a Director and a Player. It requires a Script. Even in ‘real life’, a bdsm fetish scene is a Performance. A Performance with a script that goes deeply into private sexual fantasy.  To try to bring it into the ‘normal’ and ‘real’ world diminishes its power.

When I watch TV and want to be totally engrossed in a ‘story’, I tune into a good drama series rather than a reality show. It’s that simple. When I watch fetish, I want to see a drama acted out, not a grinning couple who’d be doing this at home anyway once they’ve done the dishes. This homespun – ‘hey we’re into fetish, but we’re just a loving couple like all the normal folks out there’ – well, it’s gruesome! It’s just too damn ordinary. I don’t want ordinary. I want something that moves the fetish synapses in my brain dramatically and emotionally. With power.

I know, I know. You’re thinking that models working in adult entertainment can’t act – so how can they be expected to perform dramatically in a fetish scene.

It’s called direction. If you can direct talent, you can get award-winning performances even out of ‘non-actors’. Now, I’m not claiming to be Fellini (a great Fetishist, by the way) or Speilberg (probably not a fetishist). But I am claiming that in the hands of creative artists, dramatic and powerful fetish imagery and storylines can be made with ‘non-actors’.

And let’s face it. Los Angeles is crawling with people who came to the city for one reason. And one reason only. To act. Over the years, many gravitated into the adult industry. I happen to know some damn good actors who regularly perform in x-rated productions. With the right direction, there are hundreds of actors and models in LA who are potential fetish superstars. It falls to your humble servant (me)  to find and develop that talent.

A final thought. An analogy. We live in a world where gay men and women no longer have to hide their sexuality. Despite the gay marriage controversy, gays and lesbians are out in the mainstream and they aren’t going back. That’s a wonderful thing.

But I know gay men, mostly middle-aged, who miss the good old days. The secretiveness of their sexuality added to its thrill and its power. The danger of discovery made the activities sweeter.

Consider for a moment that what has already happened with gay sexuality is now happening with fetish sexuality. It may be interesting and even welcome when fetish pops into the mainstream. Everybody, including fetishists, should be able to express their sexuality without fear. But any movement forward into the mainstream, as Kink.com has already achieved with its high-profile success, will have an effect that Mr. Acworth may not have anticipated.

Fetish will lose its power.

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