L.A.’s BDSM Power Couple, and Their Sex Dungeon

An excerpt from a new LA Weekly profile of our friends, BDSM Power Couple Nina Hartley and Ernest Greene —

Nina Hartley and Ernest Greene never have sex in the bedroom. Their MacArthur Park loft has seen more than its fair share of intertwined naked bodies in the 15 years that the veteran porn star and the legendary bondage filmmaker have lived, swung and shot here, but the bed is for sleeping.

To see where the magic happens, a visitor must walk through the living room, past the bedroom and past an overflowing walk-in closet the size of a classroom to arrive in the dungeon wing.

Equipment is scattered around the space like board games in a rec room — a cage here, a sex machine there. Racks and drawers hold whips, nipple clamps, fetish boots, gags, collars, butt plugs, dildos (rubber, steel, silicone, Lucite), belts and what Hartley describes as “suction thingies and electrical thingies.”

Hartley’s favorite part of the dungeon? The bounce wall, made of high-density foam, for people who like to be tossed around. On a humdrum Monday in September, just before dinnertime, Greene throws Hartley against it to demonstrate it for a guest, and she puts on a little-girl voice: “No! No! No! Stop!”

But don’t confuse that particular “No!” with a lack of consent. According to Greene, far too many people conflate domination with abuse, often a result of the one cultural artifact that has also, in the past few years, transformed BDSM’s reputation from scary or disgusting into normal, even trendy: Fifty Shades of Grey.

“We’ve finally become visible after all these years, and this is the form in which we become visible?” Greene asks, exasperated. He speaks in the kind of comically imperious, bass-filled voice you might imagine a jack-o’lantern having, if pumpkins could talk. His face is pale and doughy, punctuated on one side by a droopy earring, and he is almost always wearing black, leather or both.

Keep reading…