How do you create a place where nobody gets hurt? You make lots of rules. In traditional Jewish life, people usually know the rules and this creates a safe space. The same principle holds true for swinging.
Inside an unmarked warehouse in downtown San Francisco, a woman greets guests with a riding crop. She is not there to beat them, but to initiate them with a set of firm and binding rules. A chart posted on the wall reads:
State your boundaries.
Play safely and consensually.
Have sensible safe sex practices.
Respect our space and each other.
Don’t linger unaccompanied in play spaces.
Don’t cruise aggressively.
Don’t get too intoxicated.
Don’t take photographs.
Don’t use your cellphone.
Don’t gossip about what goes on here.
Using the riding crop as a pointer, she lays out the basics for guests entering Mission Control’s Kinky Salon, a monthly San Francisco sex party that dates back to 2003. “Kinky Salon is a global movement that promotes sexual liberation by hosting community gatherings where sex is integrated into the social fabric of the events,” reads the Kinky Salon manual, a guidebook to on how to safely construct a sexual play world where no one gets hurt. That means a strict set of boundaries.
