Original subtitles

- Humans are such easy prey.

- So the first time my ex showed me the Insex website, I was horrified.

What is wrong with anyone

that they would want to do something this horrible to women?

I freaked out and was like, "What kind of pervert are you?"

Okay, a more extreme one than me, 'cause, you know, we all pass judgments.

But me being the kind of pervert that I am, I thought about it,

and I thought about it, and I thought about it, and I thought about it.

And eventually I started looking at the preview stuff while he was at work.

And after a while, what I figured out

was part of the reason that Insex horrified me so much

is because I really wanted to be doing those things,

but I had a lot of shame-based reactions

because those are not things that are socially acceptable in any way.

- This very piece sent FBI people to my door.

My wife answered the door, and I wasn't there.

They asked if they could see my work or something.

She brought them in, showed them the dark room and stuff,

and I think they realized that there was nothing really criminal going on,

so they decided to turn it over to the local vice squad.

And I ended up having to get a lawyer to extract myself from that

because they would not leave me alone.

This is when I knew that my work was somehow fucking weird.

You know what I mean? Like, beyond porn.

See her moving? She's very much involved in it.

See her trying to emote and act in the thing?

Finally, when I got to Carnegie Mellon in 1995,

I was able to really put it all together because they had fantastic access there.

I'd already gone through graduate school doing live performances

at these places in Buffalo, New York, called Artists and Models.

It came to a climax, though,

because it was clear that they weren't going to allow me tenure

with the kind of work that I was doing.

This bondage subject infused euphemistically

and the various methods into my work.

I had a meeting with a dean, and it came down to a final statement from me that...

if they're not going to allow me to teach their children, then I will corrupt them.

- I was really nervous and really anticipating it a lot.

I had looked at this stuff on the website, and it looked really terrifying,

but I kind of knew that it was edited to be...

you know, to have a certain amount of shock value or something.

That, you know, it's a creation, you know?

Anything is like that that the reality of how something is made doesn't necessarily

correlate with what it looks like.

- Can we have some close ups of that?

Star, how are you doing, honey? - Okay.

- You're just acting, right? - Uh-huh.

That's great.

Fucking great. This is what I want.

It's like, it's gonna be a lot harder to copy this. It's more like gore.

- Can you get her drinking? - I can try.

- Can you pretend for the 35?

- Christine, this is what I want, this struggle like this.

You know what I'm saying here?

- Mm-hmm. - It's good.

- It's like, to me, this is... - Okay. Action.

You're... you're getting water.

- You're out of focus. - I know.

You're getting water and then...

- It's out of... - Okay. Go ahead. Action.

- Cut.

Okay. - Okay. Can I have a shot straight down?

- Like this? - Uh, sideways.

The whole thing began with one of my cousins.

She had a lot of wonderful Wonder Woman books

who was always using a lasso.

And she had this desire to tie me up,

which is precisely what she did one night.

And she also had her friends over, her girlfriends over.

And instead of letting me out when I became alarmed over the fact that

I had to go to the bathroom, they continued to tickle me.

And all of a sudden, I felt like I went to the bathroom

and my tone really changed at that point.

And they became nervous and they did let me out.

And when I went to the bathroom, in my pants,

lo and behold, was probably my first...

orgasm, I guess you could say.

And that was really the imprinting

that endeared me to the subject of bondage.

It was really reinforced by my Vietnam tour of duty.

Up until then, I was full of guilt and...

fright over the fact that I had these thoughts in the American society.

The ship went to Yokosuka, Japan. I went to a club.

These beautiful Japanese girls in kimonas were serving sake.

The girl that was talking to me, a couple of guys came over and grabbed her,

and next thing I know, she was hauled up onto the stage

where she was tied up, she was stripped, and it was very sexual,

and she was very excited by it.

And they made a point of showing that very graphically.

It was such a cultural shock, if you will,

an alien society where bondage was just another kind of sexual expression.

The most pervasive quality of that performance

was the artistic aspect of it.

The kimonas, the lighting, the attention to the rope technique.

An elaborate tie that had its own meaning, its own form.

And I vowed, I think, at that moment

to try to bring that idea to the United States.

I ended up doing a lot of painting when I was in undergraduate school,

trying to pass that off as art, which was very difficult.

It became a major struggle to try to introduce this subject matter

or to actually study it within my own society.

This was up in the attic of my house.

This is when things were getting a little more sophisticated.

My early bondage studio, my playroom.

I would have the girl come in and I would just photograph her.

I never had sex with 'em because I could remain faithful

as long as I didn't bring my little man out.

But I think it was a blessing because

I was able to study the phenomenon of BDS&M.

And then I became very involved in getting the girls off.

It wasn't so much about my penis anymore. It was about the girls' state of mind.

And that's where I really developed a lot of those types of...

studies, if you will, or practices,

Which is kind of, like, what Insex was about.

You become the handler, but you have to enjoy it at a distance.

Are you still okay?

What happened was, there was a former student,

and she called me one day and said, "I know the work you do.

I'd like to... participate in it.

It wasn't about modeling anymore, you know?

It was about...

being unfaithful to my wife.

I was in the throes of a midlife crisis, I guess you could say,

where your life is meaningless, pretty much.

I was 47.

Yeah, that was a difficult time of life, you know?

That transition from...

marriage and some minor teaching position

to shows in New York, teaching at Carnegie Mellon.

And launching that website, that was really me coming out, risking everything.

Scary. I mean, when I started Insex,

I had $25,000 in card debt to finance computers.

It was so frightening. I wanted to kill myself, I think.

It seemed so pathetic and hopeless.

It was pathetic and hopeless.

I started this website and it took off. It was just such a whim or something.

But I had studied the Internet.

I'd studied HTML and Flash and Director.

I had all the skills to do it.

And one of my former colleagues from Buffalo

offered to put up the server for it because he saw the potential there.

It was just like an experiment.

And then all of a sudden, the tickets started coming in, you know?

And I think within, like, two weeks, I had made more money

than I would make in a half a year of teaching.

Within two weeks.

It was almost as if everybody was just waiting for this site to come up.

- When I first saw Insex, I had... I'd moved to San Francisco by that stage.

So it was... it will have been 1998, late 1998, or probably early 1999.

And, yeah, I was blown away by it. What...

The stuff he was doing was fantastic.

It was just a, you know, genius at work.

I mean, the guy obviously was way ahead of his time.

- The porn scene around the time I discovered Insex,

I think it was... 1997,

there wasn't a lot out there.

Usually the girls were fully clothed.

It was a very glamour bondage. Always the same thing.

Red ball gags

and some white clothesline,

you know, wrapped around them in some sort of haphazard fashion.

And then I came across Insex pictures.

They were like nothing else I'd seen before.

They were gritty, grainy. There was something...

serial killer-esque in them, I'd say.

They're... it's some... something very dark

that I had not seen in any of the other pictures.

I couldn't tell if it was real or not.

It looked like maybe this guy really did go out and capture some girls

and drag them back to his apartment and then just do whatever he wanted to them.

They were bound in tight leather straps and hoods,

contorted in really awkward positions.

It was stuff that was really hot to me

because it was obvious that it was like there was like an aspect of realism to it.

Even if these girls were consenting, as of course I later learned,

of course they were.

These girls were not "acting."

Once the scene was underway, they were taking full part in it.

I joined right away.

I mean, for a college student, $60, I think, at the time, was a lot of money.

That's basically beer money for, like, two months.

But I said, "Screw it, I'm buying a membership instead."

- You're strapped down onto this thing, right?

- Yeah. - You're gagged, of course.

And then these clamps are applied to your tits.

This is tied to your ankles or your big toes.

And then these are gonna be pulled away.

So your legs... you have to keep your legs up.

- Oh, so I don't pull on... - pull on your tits.

And we're just gonna let that run like that.

You're gonna keep struggling and working...

- Okay. - But slowly,

your tits keep being pulled and...

- How... is that the only, pretty much...

- That's it. - Oh.

- Then we're done.

- How... how much duration... - Unless you can think of something.

- do you want me to struggle with it?

- As long as you can. - 'Bout three hours would be good.

As long as you can. You know, like, maybe more hysterical,

more screaming, or more hysteria as it unfolds, you know.

Okay, you ready? Got the action?

- I'm rolling.

- Hold it again.

Very good. One more.

Excellent. Good work, baby. Let me try and get some close ups now.

Yeah, there you go, pull on 'em, pull on 'em.

Keep your eyes open, though. Excellent.

- I think it was back in 1997,

and that's when my submissive at the time and I

met Brent and.

I turned to Brent and I said, "You know what you need for this site

to really make some fuckin' money?"

I said, "You need pretty girls that you could torture."

- Can you tell us in your own words where you are and why you're here?

- I'm in New York and I'm here to do a shoot with Insex today.

- I put it in, like, erotic... erotic filming, photography or...

- Bondage and...

- Bondage modeling.

- Yes. I'm going to be tied up.

I don't know, whipped.

- Tortured, or appear to be tortured.

- Dildos, vibrators.

- You understand that the penetration can be both vaginal or anal?

- Yes, I do. - Okay.

And you're okay with that? - Yes, I am.

- As long as the ass ones aren't really big.

- As long as the ass ones aren't really big, of course.

- I think I brought in all the models for about a two year period.

- I was very intimidated by what I saw.

Actually, the first thing that I did see, I was quite queasy.

I'd always considered things to be beautiful, pretty, glamorous.

I hadn't considered the aspect of pain, torture,

or things of a more rundown, industrial look.

But I did know somewhere inside of me

that I was quite capable of doing it

and would probably, in fact, enjoy it.

- How did you find out about Insex?

- A friend of mine, he's a member of Insex

and he saw my website and thought that I might be a good candidate for you guys.

What I did prior to going up there is I would look at all the footage I could,

then go directly into the bedroom and masturbate about what I saw.

- So you're interested in the subject, so to speak?

- Yes.

- How long... how long have you been interested in the subject?

- I suppose I've been interested in it all of my life,

but haven't really known until probably five years ago.

- How old are you?

- 19. - 19.

How much do you weigh?

- About 125.

- How tall are you?

- Five, four and a half.

- What are your measurements?

- 35, 27, 36.

- What size shoes do you wear?

- Nine in boots, anywhere from seven to nine in sandals, high heels.

- There's an expressed interest in expanding your limits.

What... you're afraid of pain, for example, right?

- Yes. - Like percussion sorts of pain

are alien and frightening to you, right?

- Yes.

- Why would you sexualize something that you find startling in that manner?

Well, for me, I knew there was a sexual connection somewhere.

It had been internalized for a long time.

And when I did see this, I...

I intellectually recognized that and sought it out...

as a rite of passage.

- I started working there when I was living in New York.

My old college roommate, 411,

had started working at Insex, but she kept it a secret from me.

And when she finally revealed her real job to me,

I was totally intrigued and wanted to try it and went and met PD and Matt.

It was at night, and we did like, a little "interview"

and they tied me up, they hogtied me and they put a hood over me,

and I'd never used a vibrator, and they, like, vibrated me to come

and made me lick her pussy.

And I'd never been with a girl before, so that was really...

all new to me, and I was intrigued enough to want to go back.

And, you know, the money was a big... a big part of it.

I... I was in college and I'd never made a lot of money before doing anything.

I'd waited tables.

- This year was really tough, so I figured that if I can handle, you know,

what happened at Insex previously

and then that helped me

go through the first year of school,

I figure, you know, I can come here and be, you know,

a step higher.

Kind of, like an achievement.

Not actually, like, educational, in a way,

but kind of like something like inside and emotional that, you know,

I have reached that, you know, higher level

and it'll help me through the rest of school, hopefully.

- I was studying gender and sexuality and photography,

and there was another girl in my photography department who had worked...

who had answered the ad, I guess,

and gone there and modeled once or twice, and she said it was... it was good money.

Blah, blah, blah.

I was... I was... I was stripping at the time, and I was tired of doing that,

so I was looking for something else.

- I was going to school and I was living in the dorms,

and I was just not a happy person.

I was broke, and I was looking for, like...

basically, a way to make money.

- A safe space where somebody else is...

you know, somebody else is in charge of...

in some ways, somebody else is in charge of my health and safety.

I mean, of course, as a submissive,

you're always partially in charge of your own health and safety also.

But, um, but ostensibly it's set up so that you are kind of helpless

during this time period, and you can express yourself in any way.

You know, you can say, "Stop, no, don't,

I hate this, this sucks," um,

without... without safe-wording, without deciding that you want it to end,

and after it's over,

you know, you've... you have a closing on it.

- I was kind of supporting my ex-boyfriend,

and money was starting to get really irritating.

- It was a very depressing time for me and...

you know, the torture stuff was a release.

An, um, you know, like I said, it made me...

it dissipa... dissipated the depression a little bit.

You know, got... got, um...

rid of... rid of the depression

because it, you know, makes you feel so good that you can take it, you know?

- I saw a picture of PD. They gave me their ticket number.

I saw a picture of PD, and I still remember the...

what he was doing. He was...

he had a girl tied up in the stool,

and he was just looking at her, and I was like, "Oh my God, that...

there is my... I have to meet this man."

I sent him an email,

and they offered me to model there.

I wasn't a model. I never modeled anywhere, I...

I just wanted a relationship.

So when I contacted the site,

I was hoping that I could get a private session with PD.

I think, because my friend who introduced me to the site

had told me about he had seen mistresses

and how he had always paid to do a scene with a mistress.

So I was under the impression... there was no money discussed,

and I was just totally under the impression that I would have to pay PD

to do a scene with him.

An, um, just was funny that it worked out that I was getting paid.

- Because Insex was the most well-known site,

they became little starlets in this little world.

This gave them an ego, some importance, that they were somebody.

- Space Girl and I were dating at the first time I took her to the studio.

The light bondage games that we were playing in our bedroom

would always stop when any sort of pain was introduced.

She would, for example, she'd allow me to hogtie her,

or, um, you know, spank her lightly, things like that.

But if things ever got a little too painful,

if I smacked her a little hard, too hard, she didn't like that.

But once she came to the studio,

when she was in front of the cameras and the lights were on,

she would do just about anything.

In her case, she was an addict,

so she needed that constant influx of money.

And she knew that if she performed well, that PD would give her the money.

He didn't know what she was using the money for.

He was just compensating the models extremely well

for putting on fantastic performances.

- What's your name?

- I've been instructed to go by the name of YX.

- The naming of the models was a reaction to

one model and her boyfriend basically plotting

and offending me,

using her name that she created at Insex

as a kind of allure try to draw my membership to their website.

That's when I began to realize that these models were...

were not just innocent girls anymore.

And so I decided to put numbers on the girls as a reaction to that,

so that no matter how often a girl tried to use that number

to draw attention to herself,

she would ultimately refer back to Insex.

- If you modeled for Insex and you got through an Insex shoot and-or live feed,

you could model for any bondage website on the Internet,

because you were not gonna deal with anything...

heavier or more intense than that.

There was a lot of models that came to Insex that couldn't handle it,

that were used to that glamour, damsel in distress type of stuff.

And after 15 minutes, they would blow out and leave.

What do you think of my friend, huh?

- Is she all right?

- You okay? - Mm-hmm.

- Do you like this? - Mm-hmm.

- You're here voluntarily, aren't you, huh?

Mm-hmm.

- Let me see, honey. When you look over this scene, what do you think is missing?

On you? What have I missed?

- Um, putting my knees to my chest.

- No, there's something else.

- The gag? - Ah, you got it.

The gag. Let me see those socks of yours.

What's the matter?

You... you don't want to do this?

- Are you going to tape my face like that? - Yeah.

Was the safe word discussed with you?

- Oh, yes.

- Yes. In other words, sometimes you're not going to be able to speak because of props

that are put in your mouth and everything that impede your ability to speak.

- So the safe word is, "Uh-uh."

- Yes, and my safe word, as you told me it is, "Uh-uh"?

- Uh-uh.

- That means that I don't feel safe and to stop.

- If you've got any piss in you at all, and I'm sure you have plenty,

you better start pissing right now.

Don't make me get that cattle prod out.

Don't you safe-word me.

You start pissing on her right now.

- I'll be sitting and talking to this model, and we'll discuss, uh,

you know, okay, my first question is, what are your hard limits?

And... and what a hard limit is is what a model won't do.

Really?

Please, don't! Please, don't, please.

- Watch, let me show you something. Want to see something neat?

I... Please, PD, can we do it...

I'll go like this.

No, cattle prods are a hard limit. - You see that? You see that?

PD, cattle prods are a hard limit for me.

I have... - Pardon?

Speak up. I can't hear you. - No! Don't.

Don't, please, don't!

- You have a safe word, don't you?

- Yeah. - Do you have a safe word?

Yeah.

No! No, Daddy!

No!

Please, don't.

- What about the bottom of your feet?

- No! No! No! - Uh-uh! Uh-uh! Uh-uh!

No! That is a hard limit.

I don't like to safe-word as a matter of pride,

especially at a live feed,

when you know hundreds of people are watching you and...

you don't want to wimp out like that.

- So, uh, Miss Hard Limit, do you want to continue?

- Yes. - Okay.

All right.

- He wanted what was happening on camera to be real,

and he wanted that to be your real dynamic.

Um, so...

He wanted you to really be s...

He wanted you to really be scared and really, like, be uncomfortable.

Like, not just like, "Ow, this hurts."

It's, you know, 'cause caning hurts, but I like it.

But like, "God damn it, you sadistic fuck."

Like, "I don't want to do the electricity.

Why are you making me do the electricity again?"

- Can you hold your breath, huh? Gonna hold your breath?

Uh-uh.

No.

No, no. No, I can't. Wait. Wait.

Mmm!

Wait! Wait! Wait!

I can't get my breath.

Oh!

Wait.

- Gotta spread your legs, first of all. - You want me to? All right.

- Move the towel out of the way and just spread your legs.

- Like that? - That's a girl.

We know that you have some experience with water.

- Some, yes.

- And we just assumed that you would be a tough girl

with this particular scene.

But in fact, it was completely unnerving to you.

It was.

- And I was just wondering what exactly you do attribute that to?

- The cage.

- Just the fact you were in that cage? - I think it's the cage. I really think so.

I could be... I could be totally wrong. But, um...

Yeah, that small, small space and then a lot of water around me.

It wasn't... it's really, really scary. - It was a nightmare?

- It was... it was a nightmare. Yeah. It was really scary.

- Oh, man.

I like bitches that scream.

Do you know what I'm talking about? Huh?

I've always been aware of the fact that this could be used

as a tutorial for some freak out there.

Like, the gags I apply to the girls are just a little... little too clever,

like a little too well done.

But then at the same time, I also know that I was influenced by criminal freaks.

DeSalvo and the Boston Strangler. He would pose the girls.

Hillside Strangler.

I know these guys, these serial killers,

and the ones that are the most fascinating to me are the ones that use bondage.

Cameron was, in fact, a bondage freak who became criminal,

which is unusual, actually.

I saw Last House on the Left.

I saw Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

When they first came out, in drive-ins.

It was obviously a whole culture that was exploiting violence.

- When I first met him, I came into the studio

and in the back there was a sink attached to the wall

and there was a naked man in there.

Middle-aged naked man.

He looked like a fish that lives at the bottom of the ocean

where the pressure is too high for anything to survive.

He got up, stood up in the sink, and then slowly,

carefully got out and started drying himself with a black towel.

And he said to me that, "I'll be right with you."

And that alone set me right into the, uh,

you know, into what I'm... what I'm going to...

what I'm going to be doing here is going to be borderline crazy.

Which is nice, which is always interesting.

The first thing that we did, he immediately took his clothes off

and sat down on the floor and tried to put it on himself.

He was sweating. He was in pain, obviously, trying to fit it.

It wouldn't fit. It was...

always a struggle to make it fit the bitch and Brent,

because even though he's got some heavy-set characters,

usually the bitch is much smaller.

- Once he got a vision, he did not stop until it was fulfilled completely.

The best story that I have about it was dealing with hoods with him.

We tried it several different ways, both in leather and in latex, and when...

what we thought was gonna work wasn't working the way he wanted it to,

he brought out this hood that he spent two years making

and told me about how when he was in college,

he took apart and remade this thing over and over and over

until it was gonna fit everybody, but looked the way he wanted it to look.

- This is the shoes.

One of the most interesting, exciting projects.

- Walk in a circle.

- In a circle?

- There was this whole round of disembodiment projects

where people looked like they were amputees.

And one of the things that I made for 411,

we even stuffed opera length gloves so that we could Velcro on fake arms.

- Turn around here.

I should tie her hands behind her back.

- Well, obviously, I remember the copy of that antique piece.

He calls it a pear that opens up in the vagina.

This is a difficult word for me to say.

I cast it in bronze and it totaled, like, about $10,000, for me.

For me.

The water tank is the only project where I felt inadequate.

- It certainly was a sobering moment for me

when I realized how dangerous I had become with so much money around.

I actually could commission a project

that was completely uninformed,

putting everyone in harm's way, in a way.

We had someone tell us a three-quarter inch plate glass would be plenty.

I just accepted it because I was extremely busy at the time.

If it wasn't for the fact that the glass leaked every time,

we would have easily been standing in front of this as it burst,

because we would used to sit there in some kind of rapture watching this tank fill,

ruminating on when and where it's gonna leak.

And after the fourth time, we were completely routine with it

and nobody was around the tank,

and it was just pure incompetence or, you know.

- I, uh, I resent using the word incompetence on film.

- Well, that's because you had actually...

the one that promoted the idea of the three-quarter inch.

I wasn't gonna bring that up,

but I had let other people decide what was safe and

what was doable with this thing.

- Allegedly...

Uh, is this... are you still filming?

- Yeah, I'm still... I can shut it off if you want.

- No, no. No, no, no, no, don't.

Allegedly, uh, allegedly, it's all...

everything that happened wrong with this tank,

as it always the case, is my fault.

- Well, I wanted a four foot high tank. He wanted eight foot high.

Four foot high could have been managed with any...

with a simple three-quarter inch plate glass.

You made your speech about this project, right?

I just want to respond point by point.

- Well, I never directed any criticism to you about it.

I just, I blame myself for being so foolish.

- That's on film. I mean, you blame me.

I mean, this is like, "KGB did this. KGB," uh,

you even started talking like, uh,

like I talked you into this being eight feet tall.

- That's exactly what happened. - Yeah, but how's that my fault?

I mean, this is like... - I didn't say anything about fault.

You're the one that's attributing fault. - Anyway, anyway, we never...

I just want to say this on film, never ever put anybody into harm's way.

Because, like, you know, you should realize that, uh,

at the times when we are being persecuted by the government,

you shouldn't say things like, you put anybody into the harms way.

- Well, first of all... - attempted murder...

- People who... people who... - You can go away for like 20 years...

- No, people who work in construction,

industrial environments are constantly being hurt.

And sa... you know what I'm saying? - Not here.

- I mean, this is a perfectly innocent... - Not here.

- Pardon? - Not here. Here, nobody gets hurt.

- Look... - Unless they wanted to.

- matters that I had direct control over,

I.E. the sets, the suspensions, all of the various stunts, if you will.

Yes, they were very carefully controlled.

This is where I had other people doing it because I could afford to.

And I ignored basic fundamental issues of safety.

- That environment was the safest I've ever worked in my life.

WE... everything we did, we tested first.

If we ever hung a girl from something, both Brent and I would jump on it

and hold it to make sure that it was safe.

If we were doing something underwater, we would test it off camera.

Everything we did, we tested and tested and tested.

PD had this... had this statement.

He said, "When it comes to safety, we defer to the most paranoid."

- So this is going to be another one of these exertion pieces here.

- Mm-hmm. - What else?

Better this than being caned

and beaten and stuff, right? - Mm-hmm.

All right, I'm having problems.

- She's having problems. Hey, Daisy? - Uh-huh?

- It's okay. - Keep breathing, dear. Breathe deep, okay?

We don't want you to pass out, you understand?

Breathe deep for me. In and out, okay?

All right, let's get her sitting down.

Chair's right behind ya.

Wow, that was fucking weird. She was getting clammy. She started passing out.

I don't... has she... What's her eating situation?

- She had breakfast. Big breakfast.

She had two granola bars and bread with hummus on it.

- She had breakfast. And it's 5:42. Let's go eat.

- Are you aware that you may get little marks from the ropes,

so-called rope hickeys? - I am.

- And you're fine with that? - I'm fine with that.

- Or you can also have some from floggers and canes.

- Yes. - And you're okay with that?

- Yes, I am.

- I'm aware that bruises, or marks, or temporary...

mild injuries will be inflicted.

- Marks are okay all over my body, but not in my face,

so everything else is possible.

- I saw this moment. She had just done a scene with my friend, Rick Savage.

They had quit shooting, and she just went into that fetal position on the bed.

And I went over to her, you know, a month later and I said,

"Dusty, would you allow me to use this picture?"

And I'm thinking she's gonna say no

because it looked like she had been abused,

and she's got all these bruises, and, you know, that's how little I knew.

And she looks at the picture and she goes, "Wow, what fabulous bruises.

That's fantastic. Of course you can use it."

And that was kind of the first thing I learned about SM.

That was, like, the first thing.

I went, oh, okay. There's a different way to look at this.

- That's nice. Wait, no. That one's nice. Ow.

- That one's pretty bad. - Yeah, it's huge.

- There you go. Now you got it. - Wow.

It's crazy. It's like an egg. - Yeah, that's a bad one there.

- Wow.

- Here, baby. What do you think, huh?

I haven't even used it down here yet.

Oh, I think you're there, aren't you?

- Yeah. Mm-hmm. - You there?

- Pain is a very prejudicial term

in the sense that there's a value judgment associated with that,

that somehow this is a negative thing,

apart from other good, intense experiences like an orgasm,

but they are all of a common kind.

She's gone.

I think it's a matter...

- Wow, she's gone.

The gradual increase of the ordeal

finally to where there's actual corporal punishment

builds up a kind of excitement and tolerance of it.

Endorphins and also adrenaline

and that all of these extra hormones in the body would create a state of euphoria.

And then you couple that with orgasm,

you end up with a, like, an ecstatic experience.

Tantamount to something religious.

So, baby, how do you feel?

- I feel great.

- You feel great? - Mm-hmm.

- Feel a little high? - Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

- What would you call that substance you're on?

Really good.

It's really good.

- Whatever it is, right? - Uh-huh.

That's the money shot.

That glassy-eye, euphoric state that you would see

on their faces at the end of the show.

Oh, no!

God, no, no, no!

Please, please, please.

Please, please, please!

Please.

I can't take it. I can't take it. I can't take it. I can't take it.

Rub it off. Please. Please!

Please!

No.

Oh, God. Oh, my God!

God! Oh, my God.

- Deep, deep breaths.

Deep breaths.

- Oh, God! Ow!

I'm supposed to give a report of what just happened.

As we were finishing the scene and I was getting untied,

we heard a loud knock at the door, like the kind that you take,

like, a mag flashlight and knock on the door.

And two police officers just came in.

Apparently, I screamed so much

that the rest of the people in this building just called the police on us,

which, in our seven years of business, has yet to happen.

So.

I think I did a first. But they were nice.

- I confided in my sister what I was doing

and where I was going and what was really going on.

And her first instinct was, "Oh, my God, you're in porn."

I said, "No, it's not porn."

It... for some reason, it felt something totally different.

It wasn't dirty.

It wasn't just people taking off their clothes,

having sex just because to make a buck.

It was something totally different,

something more intense, more real, more genuine.

And I felt honest in my heart that I could say without any...

any question that I wasn't doing porn.

- Is it porn? Fucking A, it's porn. Okay? But I'd like to look at it as art.

- The phenomenon that happened at Insex, that was unusual or totally unique,

was the explicit goal of trying to give the girl an orgasm.

To create a sexual drama for the girl.

The emphasis was on the girl, on her predicament and her state of mind.

Not on mine.

- Oh, can I go, please?

- Yes, you may.

- You're finished? - Yeah.

- Did you ask permission?

- No.

- You're supposed to ask permission, aren't you?

Huh? - Yes.

- So what should I do now if you didn't ask permission?

- I didn't know.

- Well, tell me what you'd like me to do

as an appropriate punishment for not asking permission.

Make me come again.

- Okay, We'll turn it up.

- Brent, no matter how fucked up he is as a person,

he is the Michelangelo, in my opinion, of bondage and torture.

- It was all right if something was avant-garde.

It was all right if something was different than

any other shoot that they've done before.

In fact, that was something that Brent strived for, not getting stuck in a rut,

but embellishing further those people that he was inspired by,

like Eastern riggers such as Noreki and or...

illustrators like John Willie, Prichard.

- The Prichard book, I almost passed out.

I couldn't believe how vivid and imaginative it was.

It was so artful and painstaking.

It obviously had transcended the shallow commercial quality of porn.

And not only that, but you had to buy the book in France.

Obviously, it wasn't being sold in the United States, you know?

So it was, again, another idea that I had to go outside the United States

to get any kind of quality information.

I'm really a product of media.

I mean, the whole thing about Insex was informed by Marshall McLuhan

and Baudrillard.

"The medium is the message."

I was very into creating a product on the web.

I was not selling CDs.

That's why the shows were so important on Insex

because they epitomized what the Internet offered,

which was interactivity.

Not only did I do the show with the girl,

but the members were talking back in a chat that was projected on the wall.

Their participation was extremely important.

That was unprecedented and unique to the web.

- When I saw that he was doing shows and chats, I was amazed.

You know, I was like really excited.

- People had input as to what they wanted to see

and there was this computer-generated voice

that when somebody typed something, you could hear that.

- Okay, you can turn around.

- The same? Just do the same? Okay.

- Figured out how to hook the TV up to...

uh, my laptop and we were watching live feeds

and interacting while we all had a party.

- The girl would make a base $300 an hour but there would be bonuses involved.

"Oh, she did really good for us."

"Oh, she cried," and "She really put up" and "God, the members really liked it."

"That last caning was so hard and brutal."

And you could make bonuses up to 2000 at the end of a live feed.

- A reality show that...

was a show but was also the reality of the human condition.

- There was sort of like a buildup in the energy of it

that, you know, the first three hours of just different bondage positions...

- And three hours of this really hard S&M play.

- I feel like I'm going to start sounding all New Age-y or something.

But, it was...

But it, like, like, with a song, like, with something you compose

that there's, you know, this tension, there's this rising... rising action, um,

and really with the live feed it was like rising action and then climax

and, you know, not like necessarily much falling action after that,

but...

But God, I... I would do it again.

The second live feed that I did,

I had prepared for it so much in my head

that I was ready to take anything.

And I had requested all of the things that we did on that shoot.

- She was already nude in a cage

and then she's asked to go out and put on makeup.

Suddenly that simple routine,

just the epitome of the feminine mystique in our society

to put that on in some ritualistic manner seemed to hyper-eroticize the act.

- So it was like I got built up into this construction of femininity and

then torn down.

- For the remainder of the show,

she loses that makeup through tears,

through gags, hoods, and other ordeals.

Ultimately, there was the deconstruction of her emotions,

of her vanity, her pride, and she allowed it.

She already knew what the levels of voltage were

that were going to be applied to her nipples, to her genitals.

But yet, in the context of the show,

I was able to say to her something like, "Gee, I'm going to have to gag you now

because you're gonna be really screaming."

It was theatrical, but the elements

of coercion, of terror, were still very much a part of the show.

Your nipples were the worst one?

- It was a huge adrenaline rush for me,

and my brain stayed in the scene and in the action for those six hours.

Nothing else mattered except what was physically happening.

Keep kissing. Yeah, that's a good girl.

Keep kissing my cheek. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Oh, that's very nice.

- I would do the first scenes and then I would feel like,

"Oh my God, I don't know if I can go on from here," you know.

And then pulling out this reserve of strength

that was so exhilarating to feel like you couldn't do anything more,

and then to do it anyway.

- The thing that, again, impressed me with the Japanese was the idea of a spectacle,

a show that was not done in private in the bedroom, but was made to be witnessed.

It was almost as if this violent subject had to be witnessed

by many people in order to give it some...

some legitimacy or a sense of safety.

- As a model,

while I was shooting, or right afterwards,

I know that I always felt really bad because PD would storm off,

really pissed off about something.

I'd be like, "Oh, man, I just, I did a horrible job," and it made me feel bad.

- First time I ever met Brent, he wasn't even in the studio.

He had pulled someone aside and he was yelling at them in the hallway.

And...

he was basically freaking out about a bandwidth contract.

He was going on and on and on about...

"That's it, I'm closing the site.

There's no way I'm signing $100,000 bandwidth contract. There's no way.

Absolutely no way. That's it. We're finished. We're done."

You know, "The site is over."

- I wanted to please him. I wanted to make him happy.

I wanted him to look at my work and say, "Yeah, she did a really good job."

And I finally realized I wasn't going to get that out of him.

- So basically, about once a week, Brent would threaten to close the site.

- We bring in models for a day.

A day shoot would be like, say, between twelve and six.

- Obviously, I'm hired for the day.

Hmm. I'm reading a book.

All right, we're gonna try this thing on and see if it works.

Now we're going to go off and be disorganized

in some little artistic endeavor that has nothing to do with the shoot.

- We might go into the garage for two hours and build something to use.

- All right, here, we'll do a half hour. Oh, no, no. Now we're distracted again.

- You really had to work with a girl two or three times

to get one weekly posting,

and it was nowhere near efficient.

- It's a very different environment. It's a lot more organic and artistic.

- We realized that we actually couldn't shoot in the studio because

of noise that was being made.

So everything was shut down, and one of the biggest productions

I had ever seen in my life started to take place.

I watched the studio get all packed up,

put into a van, and drive to the farm.

- He told me that we were gonna be at the farm for a couple of days.

A couple of days went by, and we weren't leaving the farm.

And I was... I kept asking people, "When are we gonna leave the farm?"

And they were like, "We don't know."

"But they told me two days.

My girlfriend is expecting me home. Like, I have stuff to do."

And they were like, "Well, you can take the bus home, I guess."

And I realized, you know, if I took the bus home, I'd probably...

Brent probably would never ask me back again. So I was stuck up there.

It was two weeks before I came home.

- Thank God, I go home after, and I go to the other side of the country,

and I don't even have to think about it again

for as long as I need.

And I couldn't imagine being one of the people who was there every day,

because the experience for me, just going for a week at a time

was so intense, I needed decompression.

- If a girl was on a shoot and she said no to something, he stopped the shoot.

He would get pissed off. He would get angry.

- S4 had this one limit. She didn't want to be slapped.

And the live feed started,

and the chat members saying, "Slap her face, slap her face,"

and I think PD forgot that that might have been a limit.

- Did you just make a face? Huh?

Did you? - Oh my... fucking a...

- Huh? - Oh, my God.

- Did you? Did you just cop an attitude, huh?

Did you?

You answering me?

You didn't even ask me about it.

- You want to stop now?

You want to stop?

Hm?

This will be a good lesson on the persistence of a question

over and over.

- We had hundreds of members watching this live.

If a girl did a really good, successful live feed, she can make three to $4,000.

You all right?

- You gonna cop that attitude again?

- You shouldn't do that. - What's that?

You shouldn't...

- I shouldn't have done that?

Didn't you hear the member asking for it?

Didn't you?

- But you said you should respect some people's wishes about that.

Are you gonna lecture me? We're done.

You want to continue to lecture me?

Hmm?

You want to stop now?

I just don't like...

- Look, you're trying to gain control right now. Okay?

- It's not control, it's...

- Well, then just either decide to continue or shut up.

All right, why don't we stop?

It's not about you, and it's not about me. It's about what we're doing here.

Do you understand?

Do you understand?

- I understand.

- You're still not participating, are you, by withholding your answers and stuff?

- I understand. - You understand?

It's not about you and it's not about me.

Why did I slap you?

Hmm?

There you are, holding your answers back again.

Who's in control here? - You are.

- Then answer my question. Why did I slap you?

- Because you felt like...

- Because what?

- You wanted to.

- Because I wanted to. Yeah, that's a good answer.

Okay. Now, you understand this is a show, right?

Now, this is different than real life, isn't it?

- Yes. - This is not real life, is it?

- No. - This is a show, right?

- Yes. - And you're here to put on a show?

- Yeah. - And you know the difference, right?

- I do.

- Do you know the difference? - I do.

- Good, dear.

So when I slap you, what was I doing? Putting on a show, right?

- Yes.

- You understand that, right? - I understand.

- It wasn't personal.

- Nothing is personal. - Nothing is personal?

- I mean, if you hit someone... - What's that, dear?

I can't understand you now. Okay? Can you speak up, honey?

- Because you said that you wouldn't wanna do anything without asking.

- I know, dear, but the problem is I can't ask you

every little thing that's gonna happen.

- I know. - Okay.

- Like I understand, just... - Okay.

All right. So you want to continue now?

- As long as you don't do that. - Pardon?

- If I don't do that.

- If I won't do that?

- You still want to have control, right? - No control, just.

- All right. I'll let you have this victory.

I won't slap you again.

- Models would come in and do what they did

because they needed a certain amount of money.

They had to weigh what they had to do

for the amount of money that they were going to get.

At one point, it would come to where it wasn't worth it,

where the girl wasn't making, in her mind,

what she thought was enough to do what she needed to do.

And in that also meant that if you didn't do it, you would never be invited back.

So it wasn't just that money. It was money down the road.

- You might say I really began to know these people

very intimately, these women,

in such a strange way. You know?

How often do you get to know women except as a lover, you know?

Which already... What's the word? Clouds it or fogs it?

But to examine them as subjects, really, as crude as that may appear,

for, uh, for the site,

was really a hell of a view,

a hell of a way to look at a person.

- Um, to be honest, I'm like, completely...

What have I missed?

- 101. Complete intellectual woman.

She became the first experiment with what's called the resident model.

This is where a girl crosses over, walks off that stage,

and starts playing with my penis, ultimately.

It's now an affair, right? A relationship with a model.

Now that she was there all the time, her value to me increased immeasurably.

I could fit devices to her with the artists there.

So I gave her a stipend.

It was like $1,000 a week.

On top of that, she got paid for the gigs that she did,

specialized shows that were fitted to her.

Rehearsals.

I mean, a lot of the stunts we pulled were rehearsed, obviously,

because they could be potentially dangerous.

Just a little bit longer, dear.

Doing really well. Almost there.

101 and I...

professed love for each other.

I didn't really realize how much I felt about her until the end,

which is a sad story, but...

In the meantime, she was making a lot of money.

And that's how it proceeded until she went home one weekend.

- It was a drug situation.

Like I went home and...

and got into drug binges and... and, um...

Yeah, my parents tried to...

tried to talk me out of it.

- Talk you out of what? - Doing the...

You know, with Brent.

- At the Insex establishment, she was a resident, a paid resident.

In her parents' eyes, she was a courtesan, a prostitute.

- My parents talked to Brent

and... they were shocked at how...

immature he was.

He's their age. You know?

And they're like all...

parents, you know? They're not... they're not like...

Brent.

And he made me stay with him for a few months.

So I wouldn't, you know, head back to the drugs.

It worked.

- From my point of view, I ended up visiting her in hospitals,

psychiatric wards while she was on withdrawal,

doing everything I can to try to, like,

fulfill my obligations to her emotionally.

I mean, I think I honestly did indeed love her,

or at least my behavior is indicated as much.

- Brent always liked to try to exert his, uh,

his personality and his charming way to try to get the girls, after work, to...

you know, get into bondage situations, to do a little bit of play.

- Brent started to tell me that, you know, he'd worked with me a number of times

and it'd been enough that he was having a hard time finding inspiration

and that if I didn't play with him off camera,

and by playing, it means him tying me up and peeing on me and...

uh, you know, for some people, I'm sure it means fucking them,

but that wasn't brought up for me

and, you know, doing whatever to try and "inspire him" for a scene,

that if I didn't do that,

it was just gonna be really hard to work with me.

- I got into a mold mainly because of the... the, um...

the residents... of "playing with them off camera," I guess,

would be the best way to say it.

I mean, you really violate a certain...

protocol there, probably,

by doing that.

They come to work, but then they're, like, being tied up off camera.

- And what he was telling me by telling me that

was that if I didn't play with him off camera and not get paid for it or anything

just on my own time,

that I wouldn't have a job there anymore, that I wasn't allowed to come back.

- She'd be like, "I don't want to. I don't want to.

Can you tell him I can't?"

I'm like, "I can't tell him you can't.

You have to tell him you can't."

- Brent would ask for things like that all the time,

but I would just kind of laugh it off, you know?

He tried to convince me to be

or he offered me a position as a resident there.

And made a couple jokes about how I would have to suck his cock.

And I was like, "Well, I don't think I'm going to be a resident."

- At some times my attitude towards those girls

was not with their best interest in mind, I think.

It was about the business.

- Yeah, I was thinkin' that same thing.

- What were you thinking? - That I'm gonna sleep wonderful tonight.

Oh, my God, thank you so much.

- Definitely. Being a model, you're treated much more...

special. You're special.

Being behind the camera person,

you're an employee, and you're not that special anymore,

or you don't feel it because somebody else is special.

The model is special at that point, and that was hard for me,

especially when having a relationship with PD.

Watching him interact with models was probably the hardest part for me.

Of course, I would feel...

I think, like any woman would feel. Jealous or betrayed.

Did you want me to cut at all? Did you want me to cut at all?

- I'm sorry, I didn't get that.

- Did you want me to cut, or do you want me to hold the shot?

- I said it would be obvious for you when you should cut.

- Cut. All right.

Or maybe I... I almost... I...

I made it bigger in my mind, some things, I made bigger in my mind because...

because I'm a woman, or because of the way I felt,

or I don't know why, but...

It was definitely... it was definitely... there was definitely some hard times,

hard... hard days of watching him do shoots with...

and being behind the camera.

- If you played with him, it seemed like you made a bigger rate.

Like, man, Cowgirl was making probably...

you know, $1,000 a day, and we would maybe do one shoot,

but she knew, and she'd play with him at night.

- The success of Insex, the financial success of Insex, really transformed it.

It became less of an inquiry and a fulfillment.

It became a diabolical, fright, nightmare of the worst possible kind.

I.E. with the prop... you know, what's the adage?

Once there's money involved, money corrupts or something?

- One of the reasons I think PD got such amazing content

and did some of the most amazing things he did that other people

have yet to really copy,

have yet to really make happen,

is he can make a girl...

while she's still consenting to it,

do things that she would have never otherwise done.

- I had the collar and the gag,

and my legs were spread with the heels and the metal dildo.

But I remember looking at Zeta, and for me,

it was strange to have a woman in the room

and, um, and seeing me in so much distress and not doing something,

and but then, you know, coming to realize that... that that is...

that it's my job to safe-word,

and it's my job to say what I'm okay with and what I'm not okay with.

And if I do safe-word,

Zeta's there to say, "Okay, we need to stop now."

But if... but I'm completely responsible for everything

that happens to me while I'm there.

That was an interesting realization for me.

- I was actually talking to Princess Donna about this last night

where she said she always felt like she was entirely in control.

No matter what was going on, she knew she could stop it.

And to me, I thought I was in control, and I knew I could stop it if I wanted to.

But it was so discouraged to use your safe word.

It was a sign of being weak.

I had never had anal penetration, for example.

And the first thing, or like the second thing he did

in a live feed was like,

Mr. Pogo fucked me with a huge dildo

for someone who'd never had anything in the ass.

And he, like, didn't really ask me.

It was kind of like he whispered in my ear that,

"I'm, like, I'm gonna... I'm going to do something...

I'm going to do something with Mr. Pogo," or "I'm going to do something anally."

Or he said something that told me what he was...

But I didn't get it, and it wasn't okay.

And I was crying and I was screaming. I mean, I feel like I was raped. So.

I don't know. I mean...

There... I... but I wasn't. I mean...

It was oka... I mean, I could have said my safe word.

I could have said...

you know, "Don't do that."

But would we have continued with the live feed?

I don't know. Would I have ever come back? I don't know.

And ultimately, it became that I wanted to come back for the money.

And not for the challenge.

And I would say it was about the challenge, but it wasn't.

It was for the money.

I never depended on the money. I mean, I...

I guess I just got greedy and I liked making it.

And I never really saw myself as making $1,000 a day or

you know, 5,000 in four days or whatever.

But I never... I mean, I was in school

and I was waiting tables, and I was never in debt.

I mean, I would just go shopping with it and be totally irresponsible but

it was just something that was fun for me because I never had a lot of money.

You know? It was like...

It was fun.

It kind of gave me a sense of what having a lot of money felt like.

- The drive to make this business work

turned me into, like, some kind of a monster, probably.

I'm sure that paying these girls the money that I did,

I think I absolutely assumed that they had to do what I wanted them to do.

That was the contract there.

And if I thought I was getting resistance from them,

then they were not satisfactory.

I tried to rationalize it, too.

I mean, that's not unlike what you would see in any job interview.

You don't want to pay people much so they can't do the work.

But in this instance, where it's compressed into like,

a five hour span of time where you meet the girl for the first time

and there's an urgency implicit in that.

She wants that money.

And so we proceed. We start marching down this path.

I have my demands,

what I need for this business now, that's like full-blown 35,000 members.

And then there were some girls that would add to the idea. I was just like, in awe.

You know? I was in love.

Because they were assets, allies, if you will, in this goal.

They understood it and they submerged themselves in it.

- A great movie should move you somehow.

You should feel some sense of identification with these characters

and with the director and with the person who wrote it and everything.

When you watch a great movie,

sometimes you come out of there fully, you know, changed for life.

I know I have been.

I don't see any reason why just the fact that something is classified

as pornography would make it any different.

- So, yeah, the government,

when they announced that... the creation of the special task force

to... to go after us,

that was, of course, shocking, as it always would be for anybody.

I... I think it's funny in the end, the bullshit that they go through

to go after Brent, who's not a criminal, not...

he never hurt a human being that didn't want to be hurt.

The government, as we recently learned, they have, like, prisons somewhere in

Eastern Europe where I, incidentally, come from, and they torture people there

who don't want to be tortured, and... and we here torture people

who... who want to be tortured, and we pay them, yet we are the criminals.

It's funny to me.

- The government has a really hard time trying obscenity cases.

They end up losing them most of the time.

And no one's ever set a definition of obscenity because it's subjective.

- I thought they would come at me through the courts,

actually, but they did it in a much more insidious manner.

- They put pressure on the credit card companies and the billing companies.

- I had a bank officer, I'm not going to mention the bank or where or anything,

confide in me, asking me to promise not to mention where and how.

He showed me the actual document

that came from the Homeland Security Department suggesting...

that "porn," particularly violent porn,

is used by terrorists to funnel money.

- That's how the government is really controlling what you can see as adults

in the privacy of your own home.

- It's become more and more difficult to get merchant accounts.

Back when I started the business,

you know, I... I... the first bank we applied to,

I think it was Humhold, I believe, just approved our account.

Now it's much more difficult.

Now there's only select few banks that are doing adult work at all.

And when you look at bondage, it's still fewer.

- For instance, Hogtied, throughout the years,

if this pressure was increased, we deferred to the pressure.

We don't show this kind of harsh thing

because that's what our credit card company said don't do.

And we obeyed.

And I always felt that Brent was just in the "fuck you" mode.

He says, "No, I'm an artist. I'm going to do what I want."

- If I want to use plastic bags on a girl's head, I did.

If I wanted to use neckties on their head, I did.

Because I wanted to create an aura of reality,

of... an aura of fright at some level.

And I use symbols of that.

- And in the end, they won. The credit card company won.

And one day, Insex woke up and could not process credit cards.

Now, that's the killing stroke for a website because people are lazy.

They don't want to take the extra step.

If I told all my members tomorrow

that they can't sign up with a credit card anymore,

they actually have to write me a check and mail it to me,

wait for it to get there, hope I get it, hope I process it right

and then email you a password sometime in the next couple of weeks,

you'll get this...

No one's gonna do that.