So yeah, if you want to deal with missing stairs, unfortunately one of Montreal’s more popular fetish venues is in the middle of one of those scenarios. Urban Dungeon, a play space that hosts numerous events and is closely affiliated with Montreal Fetish Weekend, is run by someone with a known reputation for abuse. It is not challenging to find people who will tell you Herr_Kommandandt is a dangerous person. Nonetheless tons of people who are aware of this continue to hang out there including people whose friends (whom they believe!) have had alleged consent violations or other abuse happen to them.
I avoided it personally, because I got a bad gut feeling about the whole thing, one of those intuitive guesses that something seems off- maybe it was the pile of people with resumes for profiles about all the things they are involved in, which I always see as a bad sign because it means they want you to respect them off the bat and award them authority.
And because I run the 18 to 35 munch, people tell me shit. It wasn’t unsurprising to get given a FYI about eight separate incidents and people. But still, it’s really fucking thorny to deal with. There’s literally no way I can stop this, no matter how much social capital I have and the best I can hope is to close ranks with the TNG style stuff I do run and tell my friends and guests to be careful.
But other than that, it’s not like I can go to the police and say “oh by the way there’s alleged alleged abuse going down between kinky people who use psuedonyms, and probably none of the people this happened to will testify because they are utterly fuck terrified of the social or legal consequences and because he preys on people from marginalized populations (sex workers, the mentally ill whom he can say are just “crazy”). Nobody believes or trusts that they’ll be heard in any meaningful way. I sure as fuck don’t- it’s not like anyone listened about Dunter.
I’ve told my fellow organizers at MEOW and the secret TNG play party. I even told someone connected to the Urban Dungeon who has clean hands, in case he’s simply been oblivious. I mean I doubt it, but I’m clinging to the idea that he’s not an accessory because I need some innocence to stay motivated.
But it’s a rock and a hard place, because it’s nearly impossible to get anyone to publicly admit this shit happened to them. They’ll talk, candidly, and off the record, but… eugh.
All I’ve got to go on with this is fleeting social capital, so I guess if I end up publicly known as that crazy vindictive bitch in Montreal I guess you guys know what happened. It’s not like I ever go to Montreal Fetish Weekend anyway.
Siiiiigh. Sorry guys, it’s not a sexy anecdote, it’s one of the harsh realities of the BDSM scene that the terror of being outed and the limited pool of events make things a lot darker than they should be. They’re bigger than me, they have a larger pool of social capital and they have more money than me, but fuck, if I can’t use my popularity to tell people about this what good is it?
If you believe me as a reliable source, stay away from Urban Dungeon.
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