The Club Calls it Freedom Others Called it Rape
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| Charlie Bentley said that when she complained that another patron had choked her at a sex party, a Hacienda organizer took no action.Anna Watts for The New York Times |
The townhouse in Bushwick, Brooklyn, was once a beacon for Jennifer Fisher, a place where she did not have to hide that she was polyamorous and kinky, because her housemates were too.
The landlord, a group called Hacienda, had a unique vision: creating a community of sexually adventurous people whose house rules preached consent above all else, particularly during the orgies they threw in the basement every week. Over the years that followed, Hacienda flourished, and sex positivity, a movement to destigmatize different types of sexual expression, became more mainstream. Ms. Fisher felt a measure of pride at being part of a community that had pushed for greater acceptance of her lifestyle.
That feeling helped her ignore what she described as Hacienda’s dark side: a series of claims from guests and tenants who said they were victims of sexual or physical assault under its auspices.
Then, she said, it happened to her. Ms. Fisher was in her kitchen at Hacienda in spring 2012 when she was approached and badgered into sex by a guest of the sex party she had left downstairs, she said. She awoke feeling that she had not given her consent to what had occurred — that she had been raped. Yet a fear of betraying her community, the circumstances of the encounter and its very setting stopped her from reporting it to the authorities, she said. It was a decision she deeply regrets.
“How do you call the police to report something that happened at a sex party?” Ms. Fisher said. “They’d come and say, ‘OK, which deviant do I arrest first?’”
At a time when non-monogamy has become a drop-down option on dating apps, groups like Hacienda have risen to new prominence, drawing in curious newcomers and profiting in the process. Participants envision these groups as a place to push the boundaries of sexual norms — or flout them altogether — in the safe company of like-minded people. But Ms. Fisher’s story and others like it reveal the inherent tension between the desire to create a freewheeling space and questions of consent when one person’s kink can be another’s crossed line.
Navigating this landscape has been particularly fraught for Hacienda, which has capitalized on the sex positivity movement in a way few other groups have, charging rent in a cluster of Brooklyn townhouses to people who want to live in the scene full time.
The founders of Hacienda, a married polyamorous couple known as Andrew and Beth Sparksfire and a personal trainer turned sex educator who goes by the name Kenneth Play, acknowledged Ms. Fisher’s case and others but said that such episodes were outliers in a place that champions consent.
“Our organization is centered around the importance of enthusiastic and continuous consent, and we have a zero-tolerance policy for any violations of these standards,” they said in a statement issued in response to questions from The New York Times. At events held by Hacienda and similar organizations, participants are instructed to continually ask for consent during sexual liaisons, asking permission before kissing or touching partners in any way.
But in interviews, more than two dozen people connected to the club raised questions about whether that policy was working. Ten of those people said they themselves had been physically or sexually abused at Hacienda.
They said the organization had not always taken claims of consent violations seriously and rarely, if ever, reported even the most serious allegations to the authorities, instead making them the subject of often haphazard internal reviews. Sometimes the people conducting the reviews had been sexually involved with the complaining party, the offending party or both, the people said.
In their response to The Times, Hacienda’s leaders acknowledged the complaints but described them as part of a rocky start to creating a safe space during the group’s earliest days. They said they had created safeguards over the years, and, indeed, most of the incidents described to The Times occurred before 2018.
But past and present members expressed deep misgivings over what they described as an enduring culture of impunity for privileged members who have been accused of crossing lines over the years — including the Hacienda co-founder, Mr. Play, who was named by GQ Magazine in 2017 as “the world’s greatest sex hacker.”
“If we think about profits and status over the community, that is when it fails,” said Zhana Vrangalova, a psychologist who teaches courses on sexuality at New York University and who was a Hacienda member before she left after a falling out. “Hacienda, it’s a utopia in one way, but we have to be clear: There is no utopia.”
In their statement, Mr. Play and the Sparksfires emphatically denied any wrongdoing. They said Hacienda now used sex party monitors known as “guardians” and made consent orientations mandatory for all guests. They said any complaints were swiftly elevated to them.
“We vehemently deny any notion of Hacienda as an organization that harbors or protects individuals who do not practice consent or violate fellow members in any way,” the statement said.
Most people interviewed for this article — including those who said they were victimized — described Hacienda in overwhelmingly positive terms, saying it offered a refuge from judgment.
“It eliminates the stigma behind sexuality in general,” said Tatyannah King, a writer who said she had never experienced a problem at Hacienda and that the parties helped her grow in confidence. “You just have no choice but to be emotionally naked just as you might be actually naked.”
But even Hacienda’s fans acknowledged a reluctance to speak ill of the group for fear of jeopardizing a cornerstone of their lifestyle.
“These spaces are the opposite of black and white,” said Effy Blue, a former Hacienda member who designed one of the organization’s early consent policies about a decade ago. “You need the social awareness of a brain surgeon to leave the space unscathed and never hurt someone and never be hurt.”
ImageZhana Vrangalova, wearing glasses and a black blazer over a red dress, sits on a sofa with her hands resting on her left knee.
“Think about this first generation of sex party organizers/sex-positive communities as the very first modern explorers of a whole new continent or planet,” said Zhana Vrangalova, a sex educator and former Hacienda member. “There are always more casualties in those early expeditions until the terrain and its dangers become more familiar.”Credit...Maansi Srivastava/The New York Times
The SoHo House of Sex
Across the city in recent years, sex parties have emerged from whisper networks to become the stuff of slick websites and wait lists.
With names like House of Scorpio, Chemistry and NSFW, some cater to heterosexual people, while others are queer spaces or focus on kinks like latex or bondage. The events take place in rented hotel ballrooms, townhouses, and nightclubs from Brooklyn to the Bronx. Within their walls, public sex is referred to as a “scene,” sexual contact is referred to as “playing” and participants go by “scene names.”
Few groups have Hacienda’s profile. Its leaders have emerged as ambassadors of sex positivity, with a goal of making Hacienda into the sex club equivalent of SoHo House — an international members-only club. line sex party at the Brooklyn townhouse of Mr. Sparksfire, whose real name is Andrew Cray. A securities analyst from England, he was newly divorced and had begun to explore his sexuality, he said in a podcast interview.
About a decade ago, the residential element was born. Hacienda’s real estate portfolio now comprises at least three Bushwick townhouses and a New Orleans villa. Most of the properties are owned by Mr. Sparksfire; the New York buildings can hold more than two dozen tenants, according to information formerly on Hacienda’s website. The organization is run jointly by Mr. Sparksfire and his wife, whose real name is Elizabeth Pelletier and whose email address identifies her as Hacienda’s “Queen,” and their co-founder, Mr. Play, a.k.a. Kenneth Yim, a sometime personal trainer.
Hacienda makes money from yearly memberships costing about $130 apiece, as well as party tickets and rental income. Residents pay between $750 and $1,500 or more monthly for rooms in its cushy brownstones, according to real estate listings. At least one brownstone has a basement “sex dungeon.” Hacienda also rents space to other “play parties,” which pay several thousand dollars to use amenities like its spanking benches and outdoor hot tub.
Its leaders are outspoken about their belief that Hacienda is not a real estate venture but a social cause: a bastion of inclusion, even a model for bucking American prudishness. It is a belief many tenants ardently share.
“Our goal is to create an environment where people can learn, gather and responsibly enjoy and explore their sexuality,” the club’s leadership said in its statement to The Times.
Hacienda’s orgies follow a script used at sex parties across the city: Guests must read the house rules and sit through a brief consent orientation.
At Hacienda and other parties, observers — in essence the orgy’s hall monitors — stand by to make sure no lines are crossed. Disallowed behavior can range from leering to “stealthing” — a man secretly removing a condom without permission. Rule breakers are blacklisted.
Claims of consent violations arise from time to time at sex parties across the city, according to organizers, who say they have usually been handled internally. On Facebook groups, Discord chats and Google Docs shared with The Times, partygoers swap names of alleged consent violators with the stated purpose of keeping each other safe.
But perhaps no organization has the prominence — and business portfolio — of Hacienda, and the esteem of its leaders has become a special draw. Mr. Play, for example, has given lectures, written books and appeared in more than 100 news articles, according to his website, where he also sells a $697 online course on improving sexual technique.
About a decade ago, a woman said she was visibly intoxicated and unable to consent when Mr. Play publicly performed sex acts on her at a party. In their statement to The Times, Hacienda’s leadership acknowledged the encounter but said it was consensual. They called the woman’s allegations “unfounded and untrue.”
“I stand wholeheartedly with victims of assault and never want to discredit a woman’s experience or stifle her voice,” Mr. Play said, but added: “I take solace in knowing that the facts and truth are on my side.”
Because of the accusation, Mr. Play has been barred from at least three other sex parties across New York City, according to their organizers. The allegation bitterly divided Hacienda, according to interviews with several community members, causing an exodus of some who felt that the Sparksfires’ personal loyalties to Mr. Play — he was a romantic partner of Ms. Sparksfire’s — and his brand were trumping member safety.
Other people involved with Hacienda over the years have been similarly accused of crossing lines.
Ten people told The Times they experienced physical or sexual abuse within Hacienda’s walls ranging from assault to rape. Some of the people who complained said Hacienda brought in a lawyer who offered mediation services — despite the lawyer being a Hacienda member.
Two of the people, both women, said they reported being slammed against walls by different partygoers who faced few consequences despite the complaints. Three other people said they reported threatening behavior by other sex party guests, but felt the complaints were brushed aside. One said her identity was revealed to the person she had accused.
Four people said that one former Hacienda resident — who went by the scene name Scary Ben — punched or brutally bit them during sex or removed condoms without consent.
Scary Ben’s behavior so concerned a group of female residents at Hacienda in 2012 that they convened a meeting to discuss him. When a Hacienda organizer learned of it, he took no action against the man, whose real name is Ben Doray, but excoriated the women in an email chain that included the Sparksfires.
“All it takes is for one motivated individual at one of these ‘symposiums’ to seek counsel of an attorney and sue us,” the organizer wrote, according to emails obtained by The Times. “They are discussing issues of nonconsent and risky behavior.”
Mr. Doray was still living in one of the brownstones about two years later, when another resident, Kristin Stadelmann-Ferreira, said he raped her in her room at the Hacienda Villa on Troutman Street.
She said Mr. Doray, a surrealist clown and burlesque performer who was known at Hacienda for his intense spanking demonstrations, forced her to have sex while she was wearing a tampon.
Ms. Stadelmann-Ferreira, who was romantically involved with Mr. Doray, said she told leadership about the episode but was ignored, in part, she said, because of her own erratic behavior. Shortly after the encounter with Mr. Doray, Ms. Stadelmann-Ferreira, who has schizophrenia, said she had a breakdown and ran naked onto Troutman Street. She was hospitalized for psychiatric care.
Asked to respond to the allegations of Ms. Stadelmann-Ferreira and others, Mr. Doray declined to comment.
In their statement, the Hacienda leaders said Ms. Stadelmann-Ferreira never brought the accusation to them but said their community rallied around her during her breakdown. In an interview, Ms. Stadelmann-Ferreira gratefully acknowledged the support but insisted that she had raised the complaint.
The organization’s leaders said they were not aware of any allegations against Mr. Doray until another woman publicly accused him of rape in 2015. They immediately banned Mr. Doray from events and began steps to end his tenancy at Hacienda, they said. He moved out four months later.
“We were trailblazers,” she said. “But it is important that we point out where leadership has gone wrong in the past. They can learn from our mistakes.”
Hacienda’s leadership has said it has grown safer in response to episodes like this.
But the most recent one described to The Times occurred in February 2020. It involved a nonbinary person who said another partygoer choked her without consent at a Hacienda party.
The person, Charlie Bentley, who uses she/her pronouns, said she complained to an event organizer, René Bolanos, but was reproached for raising her voice, according to Mx. Bentley and text messages she shared from Mr. Bolanos. The other partygoer faced no consequences, Mx. Bentley said. Mr. Bolanos said he recalled being approached at the party by Mx. Bentley, who was weeping, but insisted that she did not tell him why she was upset.
“If I had known about the incident at the party, I would have immediately raised the issue with the organizers and provided any support I could to Charlie,” Mr. Bolanos said. “I regret that I was unaware of the situation at the moment, and so I couldn’t act quickly for them, but I truly understand and empathize with how hard it would have been to voice such trauma right after it occurred.”
Mx. Bentley, 31, said she considered calling the authorities. But she was faced with the same difficult decision as others who felt they had been victimized in a place they cared about deeply.
“I sat there debating with myself: Do I call the police?” Mx. Bentley said. “But I thought, These are my friends, I can’t do that to them. This is their business.”
She did not call the police.
Susan C. Beachy contributed research.
Sarah Maslin Nir covers breaking news for the Metro section. She was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for her series “Unvarnished,” an investigation into New York City’s nail salon industry that documented the exploitative labor practices and health issues manicurists face. More about Sarah Maslin Nir
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