The director of the Civil Aviation Authority cancelled the man’s Air Traffic Control Licence following an inquiry, where it was alleged he was handcuffed to his chair while on duty in the control tower while having sex with a married woman, the New Zealand Herald reported.
The decision was appealed and a judge has ruled in favour of the man, finding while he did have sex while on duty, it wasn’t as risky as the director believed.
Judge Chris Tuohy found the man hadn’t been handcuffed so was not physically prevented from doing his job, following a three-day hearing in the Wellington District Court in December 2021.
The judge imposed strict suppression orders, meaning the man and other parties cannot be identified, and neither can the location of his workplace.
An affair between the woman, who lived in another part of the country, and the man, who was also married, began in early 2017 after the pair met on a dating website.
The sexual liaison between the pair involved pre-planned meetings at hotel and motels and was uninhibited, including an exchange by text of short videos and consensual recording of their sexual activity.
While the duration of the relationship was disputed, there was no argument it had ended before the woman texted the man’s wife to disclose the affair. His marriage broke up.
The woman later called the man’s wife detailing how the pair had sex in the control tower and how she had performed a sex act on him while he was handcuffed to a chair in the control room.
Concerns were raised with the CAA, which launched an investigation into the allegations.
The woman repeated her claims about the sexual encounters, including having handcuffed him to a chair while he worked in the control room, to the investigator.
A decision to suspend the man’s ATC licence was conveyed to him in December 2018 and, in March 2019, notice of a proposed decision to revoke his licence was made.
In an interview in February 2019, the man admitted the affair and said he had been alone in the control tower with the woman on three separate occasions during two days but denied sex had taken place.
“He acknowledged that [a sex act] while he was in handcuffs had occurred during the sexual relationship but in a hotel room, not in the control tower.”
He also detailed how the woman had tried to blackmail him by threatening to ruin his life if he didn’t pay her $50,000.
The CAA director recorded that “on the balance of probabilities” he believed the woman’s account and was concerned by the man’s risky behaviour while he should have been focused on what he was doing.
“He categorised this behaviour as highly irresponsible, intolerable and demonstrating extremely poor judgment.”
The decision to revoke the man’s licence was made mid-2019, and was subsequently appealed.
While Judge Tuohy said he had reservations about the woman’s credibility and reliability, he maintained her core allegation the pair had sex in the tower while the man was on duty was inherently plausible.
The evidence was however not sufficiently strong or cogent to satisfy the judge of the most serious aspect of the allegations, that he allowed himself to be handcuffed in his chair while on duty.
“The appellant voluntarily engaged in distracting behaviour which must have impinged on his capacity to react but, in my judgment, it is not sufficiently proven that he engaged in the even more risky and irresponsible behaviour of allowing himself to be physically prevented from doing so.”
Judge Tuohy ruled it had not been established the man was not a fit and proper person to exercise the privileges of his ATC Licence.
“I have reached that conclusion despite my finding that he did undertake risky behaviour while on duty, although not quite as risky as that which the Director relied upon.”
The judge had taken into account the relatively short duration of the man’s behaviour, it was unlikely he would engage in such behaviour in the future and his successful and incident-free career as an air traffic controller spanning many years.
Judge Tuohy reversed the CAA director’s decision to revoke the man’s ATC Licence.
These submissives are sometimes called finsubs (financial submissive) or money slaves.
While the relationships often involve other BDSM practices, there is no requirement of intimacy in a findom relationship.
Although this is similar to a sugar baby or other monetary fetishes, those are often not a dominant relationship whereas this is based on a total power exchange.
In extreme dynamics, the finsub might grant all their money and other aspects of their autonomy to the dominant.
Why is it called findom?
The name findom comes from the blending of the two key aspects of this fetish – financial domination.
In fetish communities, dominance and submissive relationships are the basis for a lot of other fetishes.
The dominant narrative today about men, women, and power is that men prefer women to be subservient.
In truth, many men respect, love, and are excited by strong women.
Most people, regardless of gender, seem to desire a lover who can hold their own both in and outside the bedroom.
USA – A dominant narrative today about men, women, and power is that men prefer women to be subservient. But in my sex therapy practice, I frequently hear otherwise. Many men respect, love, and appreciate strength in women. They enjoy interacting with strong women, having sex with them, and fantasizing about them. But guys in my therapy room aren’t the only ones with these sentiments. Here are a few other examples.
Pornhub is the most popular English-speaking porn site in the world. It publishes an annual report categorizing who is searching for and watching what kind of porn. In the 2019 list of “porn searches that define 2019,” guess what slid in at No. 10? Femdom porn. In case you don’t know, femdom porn is exactly that—porn depicting a person identified as female assuming the dominant sexual role. Out of the hundreds of porn categories out there, femdom is strikingly high on men’s list of favs. If men really preferred passive women, it’s very difficult for me to believe this would be such a popular outlet for their arousal.
The simp phenomenon
Urban Dictionary defines simp in several ways, including “when a male is overly submissive to a female and gains nothing from it. So overly submissive that other guys cringe and feel ashamed when seeing them. This applies to males in relationships when they are so submissive that they say literally anything to be in favor with the female.” This phenomenon has been getting a lot of airplay in the last few years. “Simps” are considered hetero guys who take pleasing their dominant female partner very seriously. Again, not a group of men who we would generally describe as disliking powerful women. Instead, pleasing a powerful woman becomes a priority in their lives.
The younger guy trolling for older women
It seems increasingly common to hear stories of a 30-something guy on dating apps trolling for older women. So often when 40- or 50-something women enter the online dating scene, they are hit up by younger guys. Some women find it appealing and complimentary, while others find it offensive or pitiful. Nonetheless, the fact of the matter is that it’s hard to be a confident, independent woman on a dating site and not get this kind of male attention. Men who dislike powerful women would not seek to date or hook up with more mature females.
The sexual challenges of couples in long-term relationships
I work with many couples trying to keep their long-term relationship sexually satisfying. So often I hear hetero guys tell me they love their wife’s or girlfriend’s power and intelligence—they like the challenge of being with a strong woman both in and outside the bedroom. They are excited by a lover who knows what she wants in bed and isn’t afraid to get it—a woman who has sexual experience and isn’t shy or careful between the sheets. If anything, these men hope that their partners will gain sexual power from seeing me for sex therapy. In my close to 25 years of private practice, I recall very few men who felt their partners needed toning down in the bedroom.
Ironically, I often hear these same sorts of comments about power from hetero women in my therapy room. Women tend to want more confidence and assertiveness from their men in bed, not less. I rarely hear women say they want their partners to be more careful, more polite, or more passive between the sheets. Instead, I hear women wishing their hetero partners would take charge in the bedroom, lead rather than follow, and touch them with confidence and passion. It’s unlikely that I’m the only sex therapist hearing this message. Yet, sadly, this is not our cultural narrative, and it’s not how we are guiding men today.
Today, most people seem to desire a lover who can hold their own in the bedroom. Of course, there will always be a subset of people who identify as male and people who identify as female who prefer submissive sex partners. But I don’t hear most men (or women) say that they want more passive, subservient lovers. If anything, it’s the opposite. Let’s look at the facts and recognize that many modern men love and are turned on by dominant women. It’s time for our cultural narrative to reflect reality.
AUSTRALIA – SIDNEY -A deconsecrated church once used for “wild parties” organised by notorious Sydney dominatrix Gretel Pinniger will be turned into an entertainment venue, co-working space and cafe/bar under plans approved by the City of Sydney.
A 26-room boarding house will also be built behind The Kirk on Cleveland Street in Surry Hills “designed with the motif of a dragon in mind”, according to planning documents, to symbolise new life brought to the historic church building.
A local planning panel last week approved Ms Pinniger’s $5.6 million plans to redevelop The Kirk – despite objections from some residents concerned about the overshadowing, noise, privacy and parking.
Ms Pinniger said she hoped The Kirk would once again be a venue for musicians and artists where “we can have all the fun we used to have”.
Ms Pinniger is best known for her outrageous alter-ego Madam Lash, but she also dressed up as the Virgin Mary to become the Immaculate Lash. The reality, she said, was “I’m a bit of a recluse”.
“I’ve led a fortunate life, and I’d really like to share it,” she said. “I’d like to be remembered for the girl I really was. I’m an art lover by my own definition.”
Ms Pinniger said she had fond memories of “totally wild parties” at The Kirk, which was used as a gallery and concert space from the early 1970s until she purchased the gothic-style building in 1986, using it for burlesque shows and sex parties.
AC/DC’s Let There Be Rock was filmed inside the church in 1977, with Bon Scott standing in the pulpit.
SOUTH AFRICA – CAPE TOWN – Over the past two decades, rope bondage has grown in popularity and mainstream visibility. Maverick Life caught up with Astrid, a Cape Town-based bondage practitioner and teacher, to chat about her bondage journey, as well as her work towards building a safer and more inclusive bondage community.
y approach is actually quite wholesome. Bondage can be shadowy work, there’s a lot of stuff there that is revealed with the rope. But my sort of entry point, especially for new people, is to communicate that this is actually about communication; it’s about trust; it’s about self-advocacy; it’s about creativity and joy and pleasure. Those are the kind of words I use when I talk about bondage,” explains Astrid, a Cape Town-based 29-year-old bondage practitioner and teacher. In July 2020, together with her wife, Simone, they founded Embodiment, a rope bondage practice as well as a physical space based in an industrial building in Salt River, Cape Town, where they run workshops, rope jams, private lessons, sessions and photoshoots.
Astrid’s journey into the world of “kink” began in 2015. Her boyfriend’s sister at the time invited her to a kink party in Tokai. “I thought: Oh, that sounds very exciting. Let me go and do some, like, anthropological research,” she says. Once there, she found herself drawn to the “honesty” and the way people were “just expressing themselves at kink parties”. However, she had some reservations; she was uncomfortable with the homogeneity of the parties. As she describes it, “the kink scene was, and is, very white, cis, able-bodied, heteronormative, straight, middle-aged”. Still, she found the essence of it to be very wholesome, pleasure-centric, body-positive, “and also problematic, there were problematic elements, but there was a lot of beauty there as well”.
She continued attending the parties, “getting spanked and tied up”. The following year, she moved to Australia, at first for three months as part of her studies towards her master’s degree, and later her PhD. As a way to meet people and socialise, she explored online kink forums and found her way into the kink scene. “And that’s when I discovered Shibari,” says Astrid, referring to the Japanese practice of rope bondage. Upon her return to Cape Town, she founded Ropey Things in 2017, a “sort of peer-to-peer learning environment for rope”, together with other people in the city that knew were into bondage. “We started giving these workshops together, where we would teach specific ties, and a little bit about consent, safety and negotiation. From the get-go, it was a very educational thing for me… I’d discovered this thing that I love, and I wanted to bring it back and teach other people how to do it in a safer way. We tied and taught around the city for a few years and then eventually this collective morphed into the physical rope space we have now,” says Astrid.
The word Shibari literally means “to tie”. According to the book, Essence of Shibari: Kinbaku and Japanese Rope Bondage, “in current English vernacular, shibari often gets used in reference to Westernised Japanese aesthetic ropework, while kinbaku is used for Japanese work done in Japan. However, both terms are used in Japan at this time.”
“When I was first [introduced to bondage] here in South Africa, I was exposed to a more Western-style bondage. The Japanese aesthetic is more sort of perfectionistic… there are certain aesthetic principles,” Astrid explains. While the eroticised practice of bondage is a relatively recent practice, having been established in the late 19th to early 20th century, its roots are often traced back to Japan’s Edo era, the period between 1603 and 1867. Back then, captives we restrained and sometimes tortured using rope. At the end of the 19th century, rope bondage started popping up in kabuki theatre. By the mid-20th century, bondage photography and illustrations were published in fetish magazines on both sides of the Pacific.
When asked about the differences between Western and Japanese bondage, Midori, the sex educator and mononymous author of the 2002 title The Seductive Art of Japanese Bondage, largely regarded as one of the most influential books on Shibari in the West, advises caution about making too much of Shibari’s military origins: “Every culture has its darker part of its history of human conflict, and that also echoes into our darker erotic desires… So when you think of conventional BDSM like handcuffs, right? What’s the origin of handcuffs? Origin of handcuffs is law enforcement and incarceration by police… Those tools end up becoming tools of fantasies for our kinky little sex games,” Midori explains.
She argues then that the aesthetics of Japanese Bondage are culturally specific because of the role that rope and knots have played not only in the restraint and torture of prisoners but also in Japanese culture generally: “Aesthetics are different indeed. And that’s also culturally specific as well. So don’t so much look at.. okay, the tools. The tools that are used are different because of the cultural framework. In the West, you have metal-based bondage because think in terms of medieval use of metal implements. Metal and wood. Right? Think medieval as the Spanish inquisition… And you get the handcuffs because of cops. So the tools are the tools of incarceration specific to the culture… Whereas in Japan think of rope as an extension of wrapping. Or rather a subcategory of wrapping. Everything in Japan is wrapped… Gifts are wrapped, origami is wrapping, the national traditional garment, the Kimono, is actually a series of wrapping. It is a culture that is obsessed with wrapping. And so, why wouldn’t you also wrap your sweetie before you have hot, dirty sex?”
While sex and eroticism form a big part of Midori’s practice, Astrid notes that the experience of bondage and the expectations are different for everybody. “But I would say there are some general themes. We call our rope space in Cape Town, Embodiment because we wanted to sort of reflect the sensation of being contained, being embodied, being brought into your body and out of your mind. So I would say one of the overarching themes is this presence within your body, almost like a mindfulness practice.” That said, she emphasises the validity of different approaches to rope bondage: “It can be erotic, playful, creative, shameful, subversive, soothing, reassuring. Emotion is output by the person tying, through their movements and how they lay the rope. The job of the receiver is to be present in their body, be aware of what they are receiving and transmit emotion back. Rope is a lot like dance in this way. There is a leader and a follower, an exchange of emotion and co-creation of something meaningful.”
Similarly to mindfulness practice, she notes that intention plays a key role in each session. As bondage is an integral practice in her relationship with her wife Simone, upfront negotiation around intention and consent is also an important part of each session. Says Astrid: “When Sim and I want to tie together, I’ll be like, ‘What are you feeling today?’, and she might express that she wants a loving, celebratory, caressing tie, or she really wants to be pushed. So then whatever we do, flows from that intention; however long I might leave her there, in that predicament, in that challenging position, will flow from that intention. Tying is almost as intimate as someone picking your clothes for the day, and then putting the clothes on your body and then…” Simone finishes the sentence, “… taking them off at the end of the day, and you have to walk around and whatever they’ve put you in. And it could be something like absurd, it could be something really uncomfortable.”
However, some practitioners also like to practice self-tying as a solo experience. The popular Shibari subscription app founded in 2019, Shibari Study, offers a wide range of videos to stream, including performances by advanced practitioners, as well as beginner lessons covering theory, the rope itself, types of knots, and a diverse section of Shibari practices from suspension to floor tying. In one of the videos, presented by Shibari teacher Anna Bones, and titled The Pleasure of Self-Tying, she states: “I like self-tying because it’s a space where I can be with myself, without judgement, and being fully present and not really thinking about anything else other than what I’m doing… It’s really creative as well, and you can take a lot of liberties.”
Simone also enjoys solo tying because she likes to push herself mentally and physically. “And there’s a lot I can do by myself. But there’s an element to introducing another person and relinquishing the control to them, that enables me to dig deep into myself and access places that I can’t normally access by myself. I think it’s the same for a lot of other people, and it gives them that sense or feeling that they are embodied; a feeling of mental clarity and a deeper sense of being in touch with themselves, as well as the people around them.”
While the couple says they work to engender a spirit of trust, respect and communication in their practice with each other, in the community that is part Embodiment, as well as with private clients looking to either be tied or learn how to tie, they emphasise that the world of bondage is not without its issues. “People tend to think that kink is like a utopia where everybody is superconsensual and supercommunicative. It can be, but for the most part, I would say, kinky people are just like vanilla people in the sense that they also struggle with communication; they also struggle to set boundaries. There are also predatory people in that scene,” Astrid explains.
Another concern for the couple is the tendency among some participants to want to separate identity and politics from their pleasure, specifically the way some people speak about their kink online, seek out potential suitors and organise events, is not with inclusion in mind. These range from people who might want to see the space as one where classism and racism doesn’t exist, through to the kind who might want to indulge in racialised slave-master role play. “When you start to challenge them, they’re like, ‘No, no, no, this is a space of utopia. This is our sacred safe world, and everything is finely negotiated and perfect’. They want to dominate a woman, or they want to dominate a queer person, or they want to be sissified. Play that involves identity is fine — sometimes playing with tropes or stereotypes in a conscious way enables you to challenge them. The issue comes in when the assumptions you have about those identities go unchallenged and you are literally indulging in racist, sexist, classist, ableist stereotypes,” says Astrid.
Much like the controversial “No fats, no fems, no Asians, no blacks” disclaimers sometimes seen on profiles on dating and hook-ups apps like Grindr, in the “broader kink community” there are also practitioners who express a strict preference to only “play” with people of their race. “However, one wonderful thing about the kink spaces is that there is a lot of focus on building community because community does keep us safe. That way you’re able to get rid of the toxic elements, and it does work. But that only happens when somebody already sort of oversteps a boundary. It’s very reactive rather than proactive,” Astrid explains.
As part of the mission to build a safer and more inclusive rope bondage community, together with collaborators, she has been offering introductory workshops, “where self-care, consent, boundaries and negotiation techniques are discussed and explored with practical examples. We have also launched a kink market that happens once every two months where people can come and browse kinky wares, chat to practitioners, get spanked, tied and practice consent all in the light of day rather than at a kink party where no effort is made towards education. We are working really hard to make our scene more proactive about safety and consent than reactive to abuse.”
Another visible advantage of the growing community around bondage is perhaps the decreasing stigma around the practice. Fellow practitioners and members of the local bondage community have open Instagram and Facebook pages where they are able to share images and insights from their practices. For example, Embodiment’s own Instagram page, @embodiment_ct, or their collaborators and friends such as sex educator and bondage practitioner Tapiwa’s page, @sungakonji. And unlike the homogeneity Astrid experienced upon her entry into the kink scene, this community is far more diverse. That said, and even though both Astrid and Simone are quite open about their practice, they did ask that we use only their first names for the article, as certain prejudices towards rope bondage still prevail, and as Astrid puts it, “If I’m doing freelance work, and someone happens to google me for that, I don’t necessarily want ‘bondage girl’ to be the first thing they see about me. But I am really proud of our community and the work we have collectively done to make it safer and more wholesome.” DM/ML
USA – Julia Enright, 24, was sentenced to the maximum penalty under Massachusetts law on Friday for the 2018 murder of 20-year-old Brandon Chicklis, a former classmate and boyfriend.
Worcester Superior Court Judge Daniel Wrennsentenced the defendant to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years after hearing victim impact statements from nine of Chicklis’s family and friends, according to MassLive’s court reporterErin Tiernan.
One after another, each of the nine described the hole that was left in their lives following the young man’s brutal murder. And, in turn, each asked for the judge to return the harshest penalty against Enright.
Chicklis’s mother, Trisha Edwards-Lamarche, explained her grim and daily predicament, according to reports from the courtroom.
“Every day when drive to work, I get to choose: Do I drive by where she dumped my son’s body today, or do I drive by where she dumped his car?” the grieving mother told the judge.
“I love you Brandon, you’ll always be my bumble bee,” the deceased man’s grandmother, Louisa Rocha, said in court.
Chicklis was stabbed at least 10 times inside the Enright family’s Ashburnam, Mass. treehouse on June 23, 2018, the trial revealed. His body was found by a jogger on July 10, 2018 on the side of Route 119 in Rindge, New Hampshire, a town just across the state line from Massachusetts. The corpse was in an advanced state of decomposition by the time it was discovered — which became a key point of discussion during the trial due to Enright’s uncontested fixation with dead animals, decomposition, and death, in general.
During trial, one witness reportedly testified the defendant would occasionally try to speed up a dead animal’s decomposition by leaving its body out in the elements and wrapped up in a tarp. Prosecutors tried to use the testimony to suggest a parallel to how Chicklis may have been treated.
In her defense, Enright told jurors her occult-adjacent interests were a side effect of her then-obsession with shock rocker Marilyn Manson.
The trial also featured some focus on the defendant’s side business as a dominatrix – much to the defense’s chagrin and prior protestations.
Enright herself lodged an unsuccessful claim that she killed Chicklis in self-defense in response to an alleged attempted sexual assault in the treehouse. Jurors didn’t accept that version of the story.
Prosecutors argued the slaying was a “gift” for John Lind, the defendant’s then-boyfriend. Lind was indicted by a Worcester County Grand Jury for accessory after the fact to murder, misleading a grand jury, and perjury earlier this year. Originally charged in December of last year, he is alleged to have shared many of the same macabre interests as the convicted woman.
Lind first made waves in the case months prior.
In October 2021, Lind pleaded the fifth during one of Enright’s pre-trial evidentiary hearings when asked to account for what, exactly, moved his girlfriend to replace part of the carpet in the treehouse. Previously, he allegedly told police the textile had been replaced due to a sex act between the two that resulted in damage from human feces.
Evidence later suggested there was never any carpet in the treehouse before the murder at all. And, in the area where the carpet had allegedly been replaced, investigators found Chicklis’s blood and DNA.
“His DNA is in your treehouse,” a state trooper told Enright during her second interview with the Massachusetts State Police on the day she was arrested. “How could his DNA, his blood, be in your treehouse?”
She got up and tried to leave at that point but, from that point on, would remain in the custody of law enforcement.
As for Lind, during trial she testified he helped her get rid of the body.
“There is not a day that goes by that don’t think about this or don’t wish I could go back,” Enright said in a bid to lessen her sentence. “Maybe you need to hear me say this: I’m sorry to everyone. His parents, his siblings, his loved ones, my parents, friends, everyone.”
According to MassLive, she never said her victim’s name and only turned to slightly address his family in court on Friday.
“I want you to know how much I’ve thought about everything,” she continued. “I need you to know I mean it. I need you to know that every night I pray for my family. I’m praying for yours too.”
“I won’t lie and pretend like being with my family and loved ones isn’t the only thing I want,” she went on.
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