I'm not too sure
but maybe he could be done for being a pimp as he is getting money from you via immoral earnings(and profiterring from prostitution)
please dont take what i have said as gospel as im a deffo no legal eagle

Hi Sara,
Welcome to the forum, happy you've found us. Although I'm also no legal eagle, I do agree with Lou in that whilst what you're doing is legal (working on your own from private premises), your friend could be done for living off immoral earnings.
And from what I've read and learnt in the past, working as a Dominatrix is a very grey area indeed. It's not actually legal, whilst being an escort is. I do both, and there is a site where I used to get all my information from to keep me up-to-date and I can't for the life of me remember what it's called. I've just had a quick google and I can't find it now, I'll have a better look tomorrow.
Where's SW5 when you need them?

You're fine, as far as the escorting goes, incall or outcall.

He (or anyone else) can legally gain from your work (i.e. be paid rent or act as security) provided that they do not control your work.

(This was one of the changes in the Sexual Offences Act 2003 which got rid of the old laws often misleading referred to as the laws against 'immoral earnings'. Now, you can control someone else's prostitution, or you can gain from it, but you can't do both.)

I can see that being both the landlord and the 'person on the premises' could make it look more likely that he does control your work, so you need to be very very clear about who's in charge (you). You pay him, he provides what you paid for and the less contact he has with clients, the better, really.

If he does not own the property, but is renting it himself, he'll be breaking section 36 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956 which makes it an offence for a tenant to knowingly permit their premises to be used for "habitual prostitution", even by a single person, even though that person is not doing anything illegal. In practice, he'd have to be staggeringly unlucky to be caught by this.

As far as dominatrix work is concerned, R v Brown (i.e. the Spanner case) says consent is worse than irrelevant for injuries inflicted for sexual pleasure, if they are more than 'transient and trifling'. Hence anyone inflicting them is guilty of assault.

Lots of pro dommes make a point about saying they don't have 'sex' with clients. That's mostly trying to pretend they're not prostitutes, because these are services of a sexual nature. Selling them is legal, up to the point that you cross the Spanner line.

The basic way to avoid trouble is to make damn sure you don't cross that line. You don't want to leave marks, basically. Humiliation, bondage, pain play, watersports - fine. Hitting them with something that leaves marks for more than an annoyingly unspecified time - risky.

The good news is that lots of clients don't want to leave with marks either, due to not wanting to have to explain them away to someone.

(Isn't anyone allowed a weekend off, especially when this site was off the internet for a while during that time? )

(Isn't anyone allowed a weekend off, especially when this site was off the internet for a while during that time? )

No you can't, and blame GoDaddy.

blame GoDaddy.

Yeah, I saw someone else complain about what happened to their site, looked up who does the DNS for here and went "Ah ha, another one for the queue of angry customers!"

They've only had two years to prepare for the change in start date for summer time there...

How does that change if I only work as a Dominatrix? As I wouldn't be working as a prostitute does the "habitual prostitution" thing come into it?

One of the other things the Sexual Offences Act 2003 did was introduce a definition of "prostitution": offering or providing sexual services to another person in return for any financial arrangement.

Another section defined "sexual". Penetration, touching or any other activity is sexual if a reasonable person would consider that (a) it is because of its nature sexual, or (b) because of its nature it may be sexual and because of its circumstances or the purpose of any person in relation to it (or both) it is sexual.

The conclusion? Dominatrix work is providing sexual services for money = legally, it's 'prostitution' just as much as shagging them for money is.

(Disclaimer: as far as I can see, no case involving pro dom(me) work has ended up in court, so it's possible that some court somewhere will disagree with this, but I really can't see anyone saying that clients don't go for sexual purposes. Lawyers and judges know what they're paying for. Look at the places, like your former workplace, where domination etc is in the middle of a menu of sexual services.)

I'm not just asking here because I don't want to get anybody else in trouble. What I don't want is for the guy to get charged and go to court and then for my name to be mentioned in court as the person who rented the room.

I can't find the figures at the moment (they're somewhere with no electricty, heating, water etc, so I'm sitting somewhere else) but my memory is telling me that there's only been one case for this in the past fifteen years and there weren't many more before that. Hence the 'staggeringly unlucky' comment.

Even if he were, it's unlikely you'd be named. Does he even know your real name?

As ever the basic advice of not annoying the neighbours applies. They can't complain to anyone about something they don't know about.

there are plenty of old wives tales in this business that many believe to be the law

If I hear the phrase 'immoral earnings' one more time...

The various things you've mentioned (like not giving out the address) sound good.

he wants to limit the amount of guys per day so as not to have too many coming in and out.

That may well be sensible, but you need to consider this when talking about the rent: there's not only the cost per day/week/month but also the cost per client to think about.

Is it possible to be charged 'by the booking', for example?

If not, you can work out how many clients it will take to pay for the space - remembering that effectively they're freebies: the money ends up in someone else's pocket.

Equally it may affect how long your minimum appointment is. If you can't have many a day, you may want longer bookings, e.g. by emphasising the lengthy bondage sessions you offer...