San Francisco, USA –The tall man dressed in slacks and polo shirt stood at the center of the room as the people began to gather around him. 

“Are you all here for the anal fisting workshop?” he asked, as a way of welcoming everyone.

The question was greeted by nervous laughter from the group, who cast furtive glances at the pictures of people in various stages of undress and contorted body positions that hung all around the room.

“Oh, that’s a serious question. You don’t how many times we’ve had little old ladies expecting a historic tour only to find out what this tour is really about,” said the tall man, who introduced himself as Nick.

The confusion is understandable, and Nick’s quick-witted introduction made for a good icebreaker. For many people in the group, this was going to be their first porn studio tour.

Bondage at a historical landmark 

The ads and travel guides will tell you that this is a 90-minute tour of Kink.com studios – a company that makes BDSM porn – located in the Mission district, in the heart of the San Francisco Bay Area. But this particular porn studio is located in The Armory, a castle built in 1914 and previously used by the San Francisco National Guard.   

When public funds required to maintain the 200,000 square foot structure began to dwindle, the city was set to tear the building down. This didn’t sit too well with the Mission residents who protested and fought for the building to be preserved.

There protests were heard and The Armory was declared a historical landmark and listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

The question now was what to do with it? Who would possibly have use for such a building and be willing to make no architectural changes to the building in compliance with its classification as a historical landmark?

One businessman had just the answer.  Peter Acworth, bought The Armory for $14.5 million (a bargain considering its prime location in one of the most expensive places for real estate in United States) and set up kink.com, an Internet-based porn business that specializes in BDSM porn.

Acworth, a former PhD student from Columbia University, combined his business sense and his own personal interest in bondage to come up with the “alternative sexual experiences” captured by kink.com. 

Most, if not all, of the tour guides of The Armory are “models” or those who have appeared in kink.com films. “We’re not called actors because I’m not sure about what kind of acting skills are really needed in porn,” Nick deadpanned, as he began the tour of more than 50 rooms, multiple dungeons, meat lockers and some seemingly innocuous sets like kitchens and bedrooms, where porn is shot, staged and filmed.

“Watch for flashing red lights,” Nick warned. “This indicates that a scene is actually being shot on that set so you cannot enter the set and I ask that you lower your voices as you approach.”

Safety on the set

The first studio that we enter is a room done in brown wood and bathed in yellow light. There is no furniture in the room and Nicks asks us to sit or kneel on the floor and then asks us to notice how soft the floor is.

“This is a foam-core based floor with a soft finish,” Nick explains. “Perfect for 4-6 hours it takes to shoot a scene when you need to lie down or kneel a lot. 

The next studio is the dungeon room, which is more furnished. A cage is in one corner of the dimly light room and chains of various lengths and weights hang from the wall. The chains used hang or suspend someone during a scene are latched on the steel clamps built into the walls and ceilings.

Electronic maps to monitor stress and pressure points are built into the studio walls to match the chains’ strength with clamp used to secure it and the model’s weight.

Porn with rules

All throughout the tour, there are questions from the group. Nick, who earlier disclosed that “There are no questions that cannot be asked,” welcomed them.

And answer them, he did.

Just about the only thing they will not do is anything with minors and acts that require cutting or bleeding.

There are 120 full-time employees that run operations, production and the art department and other parts of the business. 40% of the employees are women.

Models are not full-time employees, but are independent contractors, who are hired based on a project-basis. “Scenes are customized to what the model likes and is into, to give the film an authentic feel,” he said.

Models are required to take regular STI and HIV tests, which the company pays for. “The company paying for the tests is not a standard in the porn industry so we models appreciate that kink.com does. We’re more likely to get an STI from dating in the real world than shooting porn.” 

Workshops

Apart from the tours, The Armory also hosts sexuality workshops hosted by models and sexuality experts. Topics range from “fetish, fellatio and spanking ” to in what may be vanilla to some, “rough sex,” – and yes, there is an actual anal fisting workshop—all with demonstrations.

“Most people don’t really care how their porn is made,” said Nick, “But we know that if you watch our movies, you’re likely to try the things you see at home. We just want people to be able to do it safely.”

As they say, there’s safe sex and then there’s safe porn. At The Armory in San Francisco, the two meet to make for a leveled up sex ed lesson, mixed in with some history. –Rappler.com

 Ana P. Santos writes about sex and gender issues. Seriously. She is a regular contributor for Rappler apart from her DASH of SAS column, which is a spin off of her website, www.SexAndSensibilities.com (SAS). Follow her on Twitter at @iamAnaSantos.