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Porn studio puts city in a kink
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By LISA LEFF,
Associated Press Writer
SAN FRANCISCO - It takes a lot to make San Franciscans
blush, but a video porn company has managed to do it.
A studio that makes S&M movies recently took over a
historic building that once housed the National Guard,
unleashing a rare public debate about decency in a
city famous for sexual permissiveness.
Kink.com, which distributes its videos on X-rated Web
sites with names such as Hogtied and Men in Pain,
bought the old State Armory in the Mission District
for $14.5 million, saying the vacant building's dark
Moorish architecture would make a perfect backdrop for
fetish films.
"The basements in particular have a creepy, dungeony
feel that is quite appropriate," said Kink.com founder
Peter Acworth, who planned the first leather-clad
shoot this week in the building where troops trained
for six decades.
Acworth, 36, negotiated with the previous owner
quietly to avoid a backlash until the deal was done
earlier this year.
Although city planners said the studio meets zoning
requirements, residents and civic leaders have
reservations about allowing people to be tied up,
spanked and poked with mechanical implements in the
working-class neighborhood.
"While not wanting to be prudish, the fact that
kink.com will be located in the proximity to a number
of schools gives us pause," Mayor Gavin Newsom — who
is caught up in his own sex scandal, admitting he had
an affair with the wife of his campaign manager — said
in a statement this week.
He planned to organize a public hearing on Kink's
plans, even though city leaders acknowledge there is
little they can do to stop production at the Armory.
Adding to the outrage: The building — erected in 1912,
empty since 1970 and added to the National Register of
Historic Places in 1978 — was sold after low-income
housing advocates killed proposals to develop the
Armory into offices or apartments.
The Mission Merchants Association is in a bind, with
some members arguing the studio would provide an
economic boost and others worried it would attract
perverts, said Jean Feilmoser, president of the group.
"The mayor's office is weighing in because they are
perhaps buckling to pressure, but that place has stood
empty for over 30 years and all the different entities
in the Mission District tried to get something going
there and ended up fighting each other," Feilmoser
said.
Acworth said he is tad surprised by the squeamishness.
When he was a Ph.D. candidate in finance at Columbia
University, he chose San Francisco as the place to
build his bondage empire because "it's a fetish
capital."
Acworth has hired a lobbyist, met with unions and used
his British charm to try to disarm critics.
Unlike a nearby sex toy shop and a club where people
have sex, Acworth's company and its 70 employees
typically attract little attention and would be an
improvement for a property where people made war, not
love, he said.
Until he started hosting "sex positive" parties
several times a month at Kink.com's current location
across the street from the San Francisco Chronicle,
few people knew porn was made there, he said.
"Under no circumstances would they know more about
what goes on in the armory than they do about their
neighbors' sex lives," he said. "The walls of the
armory are so thick, the idea that anyone would have
any idea what's going on inside is ridiculous."
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