Hartley & Greene Are 'L.A.'s BDSM Power Couple'? Who Knew?

LOS ANGELESL.A. Weekly's "Public Spectacle" column has a new entry that should warm a few porn mavens' hearts. Titled, "L.A.'s BDSM Power Couple, and Their Sex Dungeon," reporter Amanda Lewis braved the wilds of MacArthur Park (which still hasn't melted in the dark) to visit and dine with a couple of its most notable residents, Ernest Greene and Nina Hartley—and their "sex dungeon." The article should also appear in issues of L.A. Weekly distributed around the county this week.

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

Thankfully, Lewis manages to remain non-judgmental about her hosts' leisuretime activities, and even describes some of them before delving further in the current and past lives of the porn pair. Who knew that Greene once lived in Hunter S. Thompson's basement? Or that Hartley would get so upset—and while preparing dinner with a knife in her hand—at the mention of anti-porn "feminists" like Andrea Dworkin?

Or as Lewis reported Hartley's angry monologue: "But fuck these fucking bitches. Fuck you, fuck you. You're no different from the fucking Taliban." Chop chop chop chop chop. "I have done my reflection, and no, I'm not being taken advantage of, and no, I'm not doing this for the patriarchal privilege and for the male gaze." Chop chop chop chop. "I am a bisexual exhibitionist voyeuristic nonmonogamous queer butch top, nurse and facilitator, and sex is my thang!"

The article is, in part, a promotion for Greene's latest novel, Master of O, which the couple have been promoting around the country, most recently giving a reading at L.A.'s Pleasure Chest and a party at Sanctuary Studios LAX. Lewis dutifully reported the couple's disdain for the novel Fifty Shades of Grey and its upcoming movie version.

In general, though, it's appealing picture of life in a BDSM-oriented household, right down to the "meet cute" of how Hartley and Greene first got together, and eventually married. Call it an excellent antidote to all of the "porn messed up my life!" stories that are rampant in the mainstream press—and Lewis deserves thanks for showing the real, human (if kinky) side of a sex-positive activist couple.