Good Vibrations Magazine

While politicians gear up to outdo themselves sounding like each other — another election year, mostly banal but with real implications for those of us in the sexuality communities — a case in Attleboro, Massachusetts reminds us how close we are to the bad old days when sex was dirty and if you engaged in it, you deserved what you got. Just last month a group of private individuals in Attleboro, a suburb of Boston, were having a friendly little private play party, engaging in dress-up, fetish play, and S/M. This sort of party has become common in urban areas all over the country — I’m going to one in Seattle this weekend, there are sometimes several going on at once in San Francisco, one of the best in the country is thrown every year about this time in Denver, and I’ve visited similar get-togethers in towns as all-American as Columbus, Ohio. With the proliferation of fetish and BDSM support groups on the Internet, this formerly underground play scene has gotten practically commonplace, with more people exploring it all the time. “Safe, sane and consensual” S/M play is the watchword almost everywhere as people teach and monitor each other to ensure responsible play.

But apparently the word hasn’t gotten out to the Attleboro police, in spite of the fact that the Boston area has one of the best-organized and active BDSM communities in the nation. On July 8th a play party being privately held was raided — without a warrant — by cops who apparently stumbled onto it in the course of entering the building on unrelated business. It’s not clear if they knew what sort of place they’d happened upon and disapproved, or if they really thought people engage in torture in large groups and that they had discovered an actual crime scene. What is clear is that people were arrested and clothing and gear was confiscated from those in attendance; many area papers made much of the raid, including printing peoples’ names. In short, the police turned the scene into a nightmare for the folks who’d gone to the party to have a little fun, maybe a sexy time, and to connect with like-minded friends and community members.

One of those arrested was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon: a wooden spoon. This reminds me of the time Canada Customs officials stopped a book titled Hot, Hotter, Hottest at the border on suspicion of obscene content. Why can’t you order it through Good Vibes? Because it’s a chili cookbook. Who knew the kitchen was such a nasty, sexy place?

And shades of Alabama and its notorious anti-sex toy law: dildos and vibrators and such are classified as items of “self-abuse” in Massachusetts, and one party attendee was charged with possession of such an item. This is a state that still has its sodomy law on the books, its archaic language dating all the way back to colonial times, but who knew “self-abuse” was even a legal category these days? That’ll come as news to Kim Airs, the spunky proprietor of our Boston-area sister store Grand Opening! — she’s been purveying things like that to everyone she can, helping Massachusetts catch up to California in the self-abuse department. I have to say, I much prefer the Chinese euphemism: “self-comfort.” It’s a shame Massachusetts residents have had to inherit, legally at least, the awful Puritan attitudes of their forefathers (I imagine their foremothers didn’t even get a word in on this particular topic).

The fact is, although such a raid would probably not happen here in San Francisco, there are laws on the books that could be mustered to prosecute (most likely unsuccessfully) anyone who might be arrested — yes, even here. Vague Victorian-era (or older) legal language, still on the books in almost every state, outlaws “bawdy houses” or “disorderly conduct” — these are barely-definable offenses so they can be used to sweep up the maximum number of folks, whether the offending activity is a house party or an S/M party, and whether the conduct is public or private. In fact a raid like the one in Attleboro could happen anywhere in the country, if an event were stumbled on by S/M-ignorant or -prejudiced officers, with or without a warrant or a citizen complaint. The fact that the cops didn’t have a warrant will probably mean the arrested people will get off (unless their lawyers talk them into a plea bargain). But the damage has been done: they’ve been harassed, humiliated, arrested, named and pictured in the Boston Globe. This is the sort of thing that can still affect child custody and employment, freak out friends and parents, and seriously impact a person’s life.

Are you thinking that folks who do extreme behaviors like S/M ought to be prepared for things like this to happen? Well, in one sense you’re right; but on the other hand, most S/M really isn’t that extreme. And the same sorts of things can happen to folks who come together with utterly “vanilla” sexual interests: swingers have been raided like this in the last few years, too. Well, then, why leave the house to have sex? Remember, once in a while cops just show up at your door. One state’s sodomy law was upheld 15 years ago in just such a case, while another’s just fell. And once in a blue moon a married couple gets in trouble for having oral sex or some such “unnatural” form of pleasure — and that’s once in a blue moon too often. The state has no compelling interest in our private, consensual erotic pleasures, whether we perform them solo or in groups of one hundred. That’s a point we’re likely to have to reinforce during the next few years, whether “Hail to the Chief” is playing for Bush or Gore.

If you’d like more information about the Attleboro case you can check out the website run by NELA, the New England Leather Association: http://www.nla-newengland.org/attleboro.html.