Media “The Post will happily name every adult caught in a dog collar.”
posted by on February 13 at 11:56 AM
That’s what a New York Post spokesperson, Howard Rubenstein, told Jeff Bercovici at Portfolio.com. Bercovici called the Post—and me—after the New York City tabloid ran a story in which they named the 67 year-old that almost choked to death in a bondage-scene-gone-wrong at the famous Nutcracker Suite last week. Not only did the Post name the man, a retired college professor, it also called his wife and told her the news. Says Bercovici:
Paying for erotic favors is okay, as long as your tastes are generic. That, in a nutshell, is the sexual ethic of the New York Post. How else do you explain a paper where the top editors hang out at strip clubs at night and spend their days shaming fetish-club patrons by name?I refer to coverage of the 67-year-old man who had to be hospitalized after an accident at the hands of a dominatrix in a Manhattan establishment called the Nutcracker Suite. Today, the Post crossed into ethically murky territory with a story that named the man (citing “law-enforcement sources”), and described his professional history, hometown and family situation. For good measure, the Post’s reporters also took it upon themselves to phone the man’s wife and fill her in on the details.
Since the man is not a celebrity, politician or other public figure, it’s hard to understand what kind of news value the Post’s editors saw in printing his name, or what they accomplished beyond embarrassing him in front of his community and ensuring that the episode will forever be his top Google hit.
I tried to ask metro editor Michelle Gotthelf how she justified the decision, but she referred me to the paper’s spokesman, Howard Rubenstein, who offered this statement: “The Post will happily name every adult caught in a dog collar.”
Well, today the Post has another piece about this guy—and this time they’ve not only got the man’s picture, but an interview with him. The Post:
The kinky college professor who was almost strangled during an S&M session at a Midtown club told The Post yesterday he’s deeply ashamed and is finally through with the double life he’s lived since he was kid. “I don’t want this to spoil my marriage,” said Robert Benjamin, 67, still disoriented from the three days he spent in a coma but sitting upright in a chair in his room at St. Vincent’s Hospital.“I don’t want my wife to leave me, but I have to tell her the truth,” he said. “I’m going to share everything with her. I think my family will forgive me.”
Where to begin? How about with the ethics of interviewing a man that’s still disoriented after three days in a coma? Or naming a man that isn’t a public figure, broke no laws, and hasn’t been charged with any crime?
It seems to me that if the Post is going to declare war on kinksters—they’ll “happily name every adult caught in a dog collar,” they’ll out you as a kinkster to your family, they’ll run triumphant pieces about how you’ve learned your lesson and you’re going to give up your kinks for good (as if it were that simple)—then kinksters ought to declare war on the Post. The Post is a large news operation in one of the most sexually liberated cities on the planet. Not only are there kinky people on the Post’s staff, but I’m thinking odds are good that more than one Post exec has has patronized the Nutcracker Suite. (Wealthy white men make up 99.9% of the Nutcracker Suite’s clientele, after all.) If a happy, healthy, pissed off kinkster out there has evidence that a Post exec or an exec at the News Corporation—Rupert Murdoch? one of his moderately hot sons?—has ever been “caught in a dog collar,” now would be a good time to share it with media.
Because, hey, if you’re kinky, then you deserve to be outed, shamed, humiliated, and bullied into pledging to give up your “addiction” to whatever your kinks might be—those are the Post’s standards. The people that run and own the Post ought to be held to ‘em.
Whoa.
reprehensible to be sure, but not that surprising; it IS the NY Post after all. And small town papers all across the country still post names of men arrested for sex cruising.
I hate the Post. I am ashamed that it considers itself a NYC paper, and am routinely appaled at the headlines they print, as my neighbors on the subway display them for me. "They have a good sports section" or "I read it for the SuDoKu" is a sad excuse to give money to them.
I was in NYC a couple weeks ago and wanted a newspaper to read on the plane. Well, it was Sunday, and if you've ever seen the Sunday Times, you know you practically need a wheelbarrow to carry it, so I bought a Post. A great newspaper? Hell no. But still better than what passes for a ndwspapers in half the cities in this country. Which, of course, doesn't even begin to excuse their outing this poor schmuck.
What I want to know is, what adult has never worn a collar, or similarly played with bondage toys. If you haven't, well, that's...that's just...that's just sad, that's what that is. Not so much as a scarf?
I mean, if it's their mission to name every New Yorker who ever played bondage games, that's going to be one hella long-ass list.
Please, Dan, "who":
the 67 year old who
the man who
People are not "that"s!
That is all. Carry on.
Um, I've never worn a collar. That said, I do have a collection of bondage toys that would make most of you green with envy. Or perhaps purple with poor circulation.
Dan, your first mistake is thinking that ethics and the Post have anything to do with each other. Rupert Murdoch and ethics couldn't have less to do with each other.
@4, are you kidding? The Post is the Enquirer. Anyone who'd buy the Post (fyi, its weekend edition is published on Saturday moron - no one buys it on Sunday, NO ONE!) rather than the Times is not to believed on anything other than who's fat/cheating/fashionable this week in Hollywood.
here's hoping Karma bites this Howard Rubenstein mother fucker on his ass. I'm think a gay hooker scandal would do it.
The problem with your plan is that "outing" the kinky behavior of execs and publishers still helps perpetuate the idea that kinky sex is something to be ashamed of.
I'm thinkING
Maybe if the poor guy's (presumably) ugly old bat of a wife would be a caring, good GGG wife and slap him around once in awhile he wouldn't have to look elsewhere.
It makes me sad that he has been made to feel ashamed of what makes him happy when I'm sure he could find a perfectly nice dirty old bat to marry instead!
The Post would LOVE it if the kinksters declared war on them. You need to understand your market. New York is mostly not downtown hipsters.
This reminds me of the newspaper in rural Tennesee that posted the names of all those men caught cruising the local park. That was Slogged on that last summer; one of those men commited suicide, others lost their jobs and/or families. That paper was reprehensible, and so is the Post.
@8, you buy it on Sunday if you weren't in New York on Saturday.
Poor guy. Although, the upside is that this sort of stuff is very common, and so many people will just shrug at the news.
If The Post starts doing this sort of story regularly, it will become a really, really boring publication. A list of guys who frequent risque sex clubs -- meh. Might as well read the phone book.
Rupert Murdoc has gone way, WAY beyond garden variety BDSM--his shit makes a dog collar look positively pale.
Check out: http://www.slate.com/id/2184197
Who knew he was such a groveling bottom?
While we're on the whole "eye for an eye" kick, when are the Capitol Hill queers finally going to band together for a little breeder bashing? It feels like I've been waiting to drag an assumed str8 boy behind my car for YEARS now....
Disorientated? DISORIENTATED? Geez, Savage, at least the Post used the right word.
You're going to out kinksters at the Post? Liz Smith must be getting nervous...
Considering we can't really boycott The Post--what are we going to do, continue not buying it?--Scanner Blog has called a sex boycott of people who read The Post. That includes you Mr. Airport Man.
Hopefully, he will sue the shit out of the rag for "invasion of privacy" making him stinking rich. That way he can buy his wife anything her little heart desires. And teach those turds at The Post a lesson.
The Post can no longer be considered a newspaper, and will forever be referred to hereafter as "that bullshit tabloid."
The lack of journalistic ethics on display here is dizzying. It may not be libel, but it's incredibly irresponsible behavior.
Dan, I am 100% behind you on this and I'm so glad you are one of the few people speaking out on this topic. I was a fag stripper for almost my entire college career (school wasn't cheap in NYC in the mid 90's...plus booze, drugs, music and sweaty men can be a good time if you're in the right mood) and the number of well known/famous/celebs that came in the place was staggering. One Post wonk was a regular, and everyone knew he was a writer because he got loaded and ran his mouth off to seem important. Lawyers at some of the whitest of white shoe firms, movie producers and even Chasidic Jewish leaders were regular clients. I'm certain most other sex workers have had similar experiences. I'm so tired of people in the public eye denying they have kinks, and then coming down on some person like this poor guy. Get off your moral high horse. It's a joke. We ALL like nasty freaky sex, we're human and that's the way we are wired up.
Also, your podcast is one of the entertainment highlights of my week.
Comments Closed
In order to combat spam, we are no longer accepting comments on this post (or any post more than 14 days old).