Wondering what this is? Start here.
So, in response to making the allegations public, at my current count we have one well meaning unrelated interloper doing the false accusations hurt people shtick and 4 our so people directly connected to Urban Dungeon or Herr Kommadant, 3 of those who acknowledge that he has a reputation, whether or not they choose to take it seriously. And an outpouring of support. Yaye guys.
I am actually inclined to be patient with the former, as bystanders have less obligation to speak for anyone other than themselves, but I can say in my perspective, Opal (Co-owner of Urban Dungeon), Happy Boobologist (the “Happy Munch”) and Shawts (25 to 45 Munch) have made it explicitly clear they will happily organize events at a venue owned/run by someone with multiple allegations outstanding.
Urban Dungeon’s Associated Persons are Not Handling This Well
All these individuals are more concerned with silencing dissent about the venue than dealing with the problem. They are not at all concerned with taking steps to address these allegations other than insisting a higher standard (police reports, in particular, which you know are scarce even in vanilla circumstance) although they are happy enough to pay lip service to the idea that they are totally open to victims talking to them, nothing about their behaviour or actions has indicated they plan to take anything seriously.
Perhaps none of these persons is aware that they are making a hostile environment that is contributing to the issue at hand. I will say if at *my* munch it was discovered that a volunteer or fellow organizer have numerous allegations outstanding I would (and did!) consider it way more of a priority than shutting up the person who brought it to my attention so that my business or parties were not impacted.
I know first hand how upsetting it is to discover that not only was someone you trusted not who you thought they were, but also the feelings of guilt in being complicit by legitimizing someone who did not respect consent. But you have to do the right thing because if you are going to make yourself responsible for hosting or organizing, you are 100% responsible for putting people at risk.
Meanwhile…
Alleged survivors/victims remain frightened of consequences. I would like to see due legal process followed, but it is understandable that asking someone to out themselves (remember we can use pseudonyms here, but the cops will not accept anything but legal names and the intimate details of your private life, something that they are under zero expectation to understand or accept) is a tough order of business. Police were talked to, but proved to be somewhat difficult to gain the attention of- remember that our entire way of doing the public sexy stuff took relatively recent legal challenges, and at this time buying sex, profiting from the sale of sex and third-party advertising are all illegal– Montreal is a generally liberal area, but it would be foolish not to say there is a stigma attached to what we do.
Yes, there will probably be further attempts at police but that is entirely up to the victims. And FFS people, the reason why I am doing this is because right now many of the people who believe they were victimized feel there is a consensus supporting Herr Kommadant. I am having a hard time arguing that it would be safe for them to go public when multiple organizers acknowledge his terrible reputation, but don’t care and are annoyed I’m talking about it.
Ok, so what does Miss Pearl want from this?
I want nobody with any degree of power in the Montreal BDSM community to be able to say they didn’t know about the allegations. I want to call out people who make a hostile space to discuss abuse within the BDSM community, or for that matter insist that we are a healthy, safe space while trying to force truly toxic things into the shadows without acknowledging them.
If you want to help…
- If you have survivor resources in Montreal, leaving them in the comments would be a good idea.
- If you have been victimized or witnessed victimization I will listen.
- If you want to affirm that you respect the right of survivors not to be re-victimized, leaving a comment is more than welcome.
Follow along here:
- Part 1: Urban Dungeon & Montreal Fetish Scene Issues
- Part 2: Herr Kommandandt + Urban Dungeon
- Part 3: Urban Dungeon & Herr Kommadant
- Part 4: Herr Kommadant Abuse Allegations & Montreal Fetish Weekend
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