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LONDON — At moments, it seems like British satire at its whimsical, Monty Python-style best: a judge and a bank of lawyers, all stern-as-you-like in horsehair wigs, exploring the finer points of bottom-spanking with an aging multimillionaire and several young women who joined him in a Chelsea flat last winter, for a $5,000 fee, for what was described as five hours of sadomasochistic “fantasy” play.
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He has admitted giving one of the five women involved the equivalent of about $70,000 to rent the Chelsea flat for regular sessions and offered, on Monday, an insistent defense of his pastime. Far from being depraved, he said, sadomasochism was “a perfectly harmless activity provided it is between consenting adults who want to do it, are of sound mind, and it is in private.”
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One of the women involved in the Chelsea session, identified only as Miss D and introducing herself to the court as a doctoral student at a British university, said being caned was “certainly not everybody’s cup of tea,” but was enjoyable for her. The woman, who appeared to be in her early 30s, added, “I’d rather do this by far than go to the dentist.”
-- John F. Burns for The New York Times
...
He has admitted giving one of the five women involved the equivalent of about $70,000 to rent the Chelsea flat for regular sessions and offered, on Monday, an insistent defense of his pastime. Far from being depraved, he said, sadomasochism was “a perfectly harmless activity provided it is between consenting adults who want to do it, are of sound mind, and it is in private.”
...
One of the women involved in the Chelsea session, identified only as Miss D and introducing herself to the court as a doctoral student at a British university, said being caned was “certainly not everybody’s cup of tea,” but was enjoyable for her. The woman, who appeared to be in her early 30s, added, “I’d rather do this by far than go to the dentist.”
-- John F. Burns for The New York Times
