High atop his cathedral of kink, Peter Acworth removes his shoes and rolls up his pants, preparing to step into a large, ankle-deep puddle of dirty water.
His mission: to unclog drains backed up with garbage and pigeon shit.
He did it with his bare hands - on the roof of a dilapidated 94-year-old building - after climbing through a fourth-story window and up a narrow fire escape.
Even though the panoramic view of the San Francisco skyline makes it all worthwhile, this perilous behavior seems odd for a man worth a million dollars many times over. However, it's just a day in the life of Kink.com's founder and CEO. "From a young age, I was always a rebel around the household," Acworth said. "I never wanted to follow norms or to live life like other people. I think I got this from my mother, Carol, who has always been someone to challenge norms. I remember, as a young child, living in a trailer because my mother had decided to invest all the family money in a derelict house which she would renovate herself."
Years later, he also would become fully immersed in a large-scale renovation project of his own: the 200,000-sqaure-foot former California National Guard Armory and Arsenal building. Located at 14th and Mission streets, the site, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, has been Kink.com's Mission District home since May 2007.
A self-contained kingdom of kink, the Armory has a "barn," a "wrestling ring" and the ever-popular dungeon, among other features. "It's like we found a prefabricated Hollywood movie studio right in the middle of town," Acworth said as he casually strolled past a "dungeon" set.
Inside, a tall brunette hung by her wrists as members of a video crew prepared her for a shoot. All business, she could have been waiting for a bus.
"We're doing a lot of refurbishing, but most of this stuff would have taken forever to build on our own," Acworth said.
While Acworth clearly draws strong influences from his mother, a career in pornography might seem a bit out of the ordinary for a preacher's son.
A former Jesuit priest, Acworth's father, Richard, left the priesthood after his marriage to Carol, opting for job with the Church of England. "My father's not a very communicative person, anyway," said Acworth, whose sister, Phyllida, lives in the United Kingdom and works for the British Civil Service. "He asks me how business is going, and I say ‘fine,' and that's it. We never really discuss it in any depth. He's a theologian, and he approaches religion from an academic perspective, which is very different from the born-again Christians who involve themselves in American politics. He didn't impose religion on me at all, aside from taking me to church for Christmas and Easter."
While his mother initially was skeptical, she has become one of Acworth's biggest supporters. "Up until the moment I started the company, I'd built quite a respectable resume, and they were quite happy," Acworth said with a laugh. "But when she saw my passion behind it and when she came to visit and saw the business gaining momentum, she came around to it. Now she's very much into it, [and] she wants to come over and be involved. She's a sculptor, and she's even started sculpting erotic nudes. I think my mother probably sees a part of herself in the business I have created, especially now that I am renovating a derelict building. Her support is a reassuring reflection of how similarly we think."
Raised in the midlands of England, Acworth completed a bachelor's degree in mathematics at Cambridge and a master's degree at the École des Hautes Études Commerciales in Paris, one of Europe's most prestigious business schools.
However, after arriving at Columbia University in New York in 1997 to pursue a Ph.D. in finance, Acworth began to indulge in what had been a lifelong interest: women in bondage. "I was never able to find anything I liked," said Acworth, who founded Kink's first site, Hogtied.com, while enrolled at Columbia. "So I ended up hiring models and tying them up myself. From that, a community of people got behind it, and that's when I started investing more and hiring other directors."
In no time, he fashioned a small studio in his apartment and quickly began to see hundreds of dollars a day in profit.
Soon, the choice was clear.
Making an about-face, Acworth fast-forwarded himself from money manager to fetish master, leaving grad school and moving to San Francisco in 1998. "The city itself is perceived as the fetish capital of the world," he said. "But I like it for many reasons other than that. I'm a big windsurfer, and this is one of the best places in the world for that. I used to be out at Crissy Fields near the Golden Gate Bridge nearly every day. Now, I just work too much. But I don't ever see myself ever getting bored with the business. If anything, looking at porn during the day gets me hornier at night."
While the underground lifestyle has its obvious indoor perks, the 37-year-old satisfies his craving for the outdoors whenever possible. In addition to windsurfing, his interests include tennis and, more recently, American football. "I watched the Super Bowl for the first time this year and actually understood the rules," said Acworth, who commutes to work by bicycle. "I can see why people are into it, but up until that point, I'd never watched American sports. I was into tennis growing up and played for my high school and at (Trinity) College. I still try to play periodically, but, as usual, work tends to get in the way."
Even as a young boy, Acworth's entrepreneurial ability was apparent. "It's what I've always wanted," he said. "When I was a boy growing up in Derbyshire, I'd buy hamsters from the pet shop, breed them and then sell them back and multiply my money many times over."
While attending Cambridge, he started a dating service called Matchmaker. And after heading to business school in Paris, he produced a recruitment brochure and sold ad space to British financial companies, all while molding a strong sense for business, a foundation that has carried over to his current enterprise.
In a typical workday, Acworth, much like his models, can find himself pulled in many different directions. From drawing up flowcharts to clearing drains to looking over videos of damsels in distress, he quite literally has his hands in it all.
"I did have to take out a substantial life-insurance policy when we moved into the building," Acworth said with a laugh while touring the decrepit building his Web site now calls home. "But, believe it or not, I'm a lot less hands-on now than I have been. I used to do all of the photography, the editing, rigging - every job there is. Now, I have a competent and creative team, so I work with them and give them as much leeway as is feasible."
In what's left of his spare time, he can be found tending to the two mousers he got from a shelter nine months ago and frequenting the Mission District's bars and nightclubs. "There's quite a kink community in town here," Acworth said. "So I'll go to places like the Kinky Salon, which has events every week. It ends up being a mixture of socializing and networking. And I often meet people that might turn out to be good employees."
Surprisingly, despite being young, single and well-off, not to mention having access to an abundance of beautiful women, relationships have been hard to come by for Acworth. "I've had a couple of relationships since I've been here," he said. "But mostly, I tend to be single, and I don't know if that's because I work too much or if what I do is a little too difficult for some people to deal with. One day, I hope to marry and raise a family, and I plan to be relatively open about what I do. But by the time I find a partner and procreate, I am sure my career will not be an issue."
And when it comes to his success dating models, he is refreshingly honest. "I haven't had a great deal of success," he said with a slight smile. "I've tried hitting on models occasionally at the different conventions, but I've never been too lucky. I tend to try to date outside the business and keep things a little bit separate. My ideal person would be someone who is kinky, shares my values and is very open-minded."
And it wouldn't hurt if she liked a man with active hands.
-Michael Scott
This article initially appeared in the July 2008 edition of AVN Online magazine. To subscribe, visit AVNMediaNetwork.com/subscriptions.
