There is a fairly obvious moral to this tale of consensual sadomasochism turned home robbery, and that is to be a good deal more careful when you make a blind play date with someone whom you plan to allow to tie you up or otherwise do potentially risky or incapacitating things to you.

It is definitely a good idea to tell a friend and to have a "check-in" routine, even if it's only by phone - if you don't call and check in at a certain time, your friend will call to check up on you, or call the police, or show up at your doorstep, or take other pre-arranged actions.

Phone check-in routines are a very good idea on first-time play dates, among other precautions. But they are not always easy to arrange for people who simply don't have any friends they trust well enough to confess, "Look, I'm going to let this person tie me up....can I call you to make sure I'm OK in a couple of hours?"

What can be done in these cases to prevent such tragic incidents as the one described in Burbank? Such happenings not only hurt the individuals involved, they damage the reputation of the BDSM/alternative lifestyle community as a whole, and I for one want to see them stopped.

*******THE SAFETY NET PROJECT******

I would like to start an Internet-wide program called The Safety Net, with an informal network of volunteers who are willing to exchange phone numbers in confidence, and check in with one another. I will personally be available for check-ins during my normal working hours (11AM - 4PM most weekdays), and I will do my best to coordinate volunteers for other times. There will be no charge for this service except for normal toll or callback charges on a regular phone to some volunteer's house; I do not want to see any "volunteers" charging for this basic community safety service.

************WHO SHOULD USE THE SAFETY NET?************

If you make a "blind play date" with someone you have never met before and are not totally sure you can trust, please take precautions. USING THIS PROGRAM IS NOT A TOTAL GUARANTEE OF YOUR SAFETY; IT IS MERELY AN ADDITIONAL PRECAUTION. PLEASE USE COMMON SENSE WHEN MEETING PEOPLE YOU DO NOT KNOW.

This includes visits to professional dominatrixes or sex workers whose reputations you are uncertain of, as well as private play partners and some party groups which you are unsure of your safety in. It is a good idea to establish a phone check-in with a volunteer to whom you are willing to give your personal information and to tell what to do in case of an emergency.

*************HOW TO USE THE SAFETY NET*************

Preferably before you make a "blind play date" with someone, check in with your Safety Net contact (by default, pleasure@netcom.com) for a time you can be "covered". Please have consideration and patience; this is a free service and entirely volunteer-run, and available times for coverage may vary. **People who have put in a turn of service covering for someone else will recieve priority for coverage times.** Please have all your responses ready to minimize the time the volunteer must spend on the phone with you.

While the initial contact and information exchange must be made by voice phone, a default mode of check-in such as via a telnet site or IRC may be established. Email is not recommended for check-in due to the possibility of time delay, and a voice check-in should be an option in case one or both parties have their Net access interrupted.

1. You will be asked to accept a call back, either collect if long distance or direct, to verify your identity and to help prevent possible abuse of The Safety Net. This verification may be repeated (discreetly) at a random future time during daylight hours, to make sure that a pay phone was not used for false verification purposes. You will also be asked to give your address, or the address of the place you will be playing in, in case there is an emergency and the police or a friend needs to be called to that location.
2. You will be asked for three code phrases, which you should write down previous to your call. Phrase #1 means "All is OK.". Phrase #2 means "I don't feel good about this; please help get me out of this situation by calling a local friend or neighbor to drop in, or make me an excuse over the phone." Phrase #3 means, "I am in trouble, call the police NOW."

These code words should be fairly casual and workable into a simple conversation, such as A-OK (it really is OK), Fine and dandy here (get me out of this with an excuse) and Everything's swell (call the cops NOW).

**Please write down your code words and put them in an inconspicuous place, in order to avoid embarrassment if you forget them.** If you forget, your volunteer will ask you over the phone which of the pre-arranged responses needs to happen, one by one. Simply say "yes" when your volunteer comes to the response that you want to happen.

3. You will be asked what the default action is in case no phone call comes in within 15 minutes of the appointed time, and in case the phone at your designated play space is not answered when you are checked up on, or if no code word at all is used in the call. Is it to call the police? A neighbor? A friend? You decide before you call. Set a specific time for your check-in, and make sure you have time zones synchronized if your volunteer partner is a long distance one.
4. For emergency purposes, you will be asked to supply the local police emergency phone for your area. I know that nobody wants to think about the embarrassing situation it could turn into if the police do get called into your play scene, but please consider the alternatives, and provide this number. It won't be used unless the person on the other end of the line genuinely believes that there is a life-threatening emergency happening to you, or unless you say "yes" over the phone when the volunteer asks, "Do you want me to call the police now?".
5. Do NOT forget to check in with your Safety Net volunteer; the action you specified (call the police, call a neighbor, call a friend) will be taken if you forget to check in for some reason and cannot be reached by phone to verify with the code word that you are OK. This may cause you some embarrassment as well as being unneccessary if you are not in an emergency situation.
6. The Safety Net Project is merely an informal "neighborhood watch" program where volunteers can help each other. Although I am helping to coordinate efforts, there is no one person absolutely responsible for the success or failure of the project as a whole (that is up to each volunteer and hir partner), and nobody can be held liable if something goes wrong. Please do not use The Safety Net as your sole means of support or protection as there is no way that anyone can personally guarantee the reliability of a volunteer. We will do the best we can, and that is all we can do.

*******ABUSE OF THE SAFETY NET*********

If for some reason someone decides to deliberately "set up" someone else to have the police called on them, there isn't much we can do about it, except this. Any calls made to the police will describe the nature of The Safety Net and give the verified phone number and email address of the victim on whose behalf we are calling. Phone numbers given may be verified more than once, at random daylight hours, in order to ascertain that the callback was not made from a pay phone.

Volunteers acting in good faith and calling the police on behalf of a friend should not be liable themselves if the situation turns out to be a prank, fortunately; and we will make every effort to track down and identify any individual who attempts to misuse this community safety program.

Phone numbers of volunteers will be given out mainly from 11AM - 3PM on my phones, after a verification collect callback. Anyone misusing the number of a volunteer for prank or harassing calls will not be allowed to participate in the program; this includes ANY kind of suggestive talk to a volunteer. Any really obscene or harassing calls may be reported to the police; this is a volunteer service for community safety, and volunteers should be treated with respect! You may not put in a request for the gender or sexual orientation of your volunteer; this will be looked on with great suspicion, as we are providing a safety check-in buddy, not a play partner.

Please have patience with our verification proceedures; we are mainly trying to make certain that The Safety Net is not abused to play unpleasant pranks on someone who might well be you. No, you cannot use The Safety Net anonymously, because it defeats the entire purpose of the Net and also makes abuse much easier. We really do need your real and verifiable phone number as well as the address and phone number of the place you intend to be playing.

*******WE NEED YOU!*******

If you want to use The Safety Net sometime in the future, please volunteer first to do a turn of service for an evening you plan to stay home and be available to your phone. Email your phone number and a time you can accept a collect call to pleasure@netcom.com to request coverage time or to volunteer, and you will recieve my phone number in return. I will try my very best not to turn anyone away, but I cannot be available to sit by my phone 24 hours a day, and the success of this program depends on people volunteering as well as asking for coverage for themselves.

Continued from The Burbank Leader, Feb 24, 1996 issue:

Thinking it was part of the date, the victim complied when his date handcuffed him, then strapped him, nude, to a proctologist table -- an operating table constructed so a patient can get into a knee-to-chest position.

"The victim told me this is entirely voluntary as this is a part of the S&M game," said the police report.

As the experience continued, the victim heard the suspect leave the room and walk into the living room. The victim thought he heard another person's voice, as if his date was talking with someone else. His date returned and smacked the victim on the butt with some instruments in the room, put tape across the victim's mouth, placed a hood over the victim's head, and left.

Strapped to the table all night, the victim wasn't found until the next day, by his mailman who happened to hear the victim's cries for help.

Going through the opened front door, the mailman found the victim in the back room.

After calling 911, the fire department arrived and cut off the handcuffs. A police officer arrived soon thereafter and took a police report. The victim reported missing a sofa, leather chair, television, and leg irons.

Anyone with information on this crime should contact local authorities; this kind of incident gives a bad name to our community, and we should make every effort to reduce the risk of such things happening by warning others and by cooperating with local law enforcement if the culprit is identified.