Nimhneach comment:
There are a lot of inaccuracies in this article.
There were no nazi uniforms. To say that there were nazi uniforms is a out-right lie. East german uniforms, yes. Our intrepid Sunday World reporter must have a hard time identifying uniform types in the low light and every miliary uniform must be a nazi uniform. Bless. On that point we dont allow any Nazi regalia – and havent done since the club inception.
We identified ourselves who the people were in the article – we can categorically say there was no statement “Sure I’m barely even hitting you, I haven’t even started yet” from the couple we identified.
The last 3 paragraphs are about a book called “Can you keep a secret”, which has nothing to do with Nimhneach, the book is mostly around the swinging scene. Talk about a tenuous link.
There are many other examples of miss-representation and miss-direction in this article. Its like they took a few facts and wove a more interesting and entertaining story around it.
Decide for yourselves.
Sunday World
Pain Customers
by Niamh O’ Connor
link to local copy
In a crowded basement on Middle Abbey Street last Saturday night, more than 200 ordinary Joes of a similar persuasion were revelling in the pleasure they get from pain in a venue kitted out as a torture-chamber. As clubbers bopped and swilled beer in the Academy live music venue upstairs, downstairs in the basement of 57 Middle Abbey Street an orgy of decadence was in full swing by 10.30pm.
Leather and wooden racks fitted with restraints were in constant demand in the dungeon designed to hurt and humiliate for perverted sexual gratification. Disturbing scenes unfolded amid distressing sounds of bodies being lashed, whipped and battered, as voyeurs loitered and leered.
On one couch, a morbidly obese woman in her thirties, dressed like a schoolgirl with Lolita ponytails, knelt with her arms pinned up against a wall as a white-haired ‘priest’ in his seventies beat her exposed buttocks with a paddle.
When the woman complained the man was using too much force, he snarled: “Sure I’m barely even hitting you, I haven’t even started yet.” Near the bar, a transvestite man in a wig and corset was flailed across his shoulders with a cat o’ nine tails whip, his wrists suspended over his head in a bind, his skin red raw. Nearby on a wooden rack, a semi-naked woman was whipped by a tattooed man in leather trousers, her arms restrained.
But the biggest crowd gathered to watch a bare-breasted woman in her twenties, who could be seen visibly psyching herself up, before being suspended by a rope. As a bald man increased the tension of the rope, contorting her legs, arms and body, a man in a gimp mask – and not much else – watched on transfixed, his identity obscured.
But the dark desires being played out were just for members of ‘Nimhneach’ –the Irish for ‘hurts’. The only preclusion from entry for anyone arriving off the street was the dress code, which specified ‘no full-frontal nudity’. In the toilets, the new arrivals who’d paid the €15 entry fee changed from their civvies into PVC and latex rigouts, thigh-high boots, corsets, fish-net tights and Victoriana.
Inside, a ‘Dungeon Monitor’ dressed in a corset inspected outfits, before giving approval for entry, turning people away for NOT exposing enough flesh. A clear exception to the rule was made for the half dozen people who arrived in Nazi uniforms to flaunt the reviled regalia linked to the drivers of Hitler’s Holocaust.
One couple old enough to be a granny and granddad marched around in complete character, clearly proud of the association with the ruthless regime. Everywhere the sub & dom scenes unfolding looked like something straight out of the Quentin Tarantino movie Pulp Fiction.
One man on all fours kept his head down as his mistress sat astride his back in a leather cap and alternated between whipping and massaging his exposed backside. Another submissive man was on his knees peeling off a woman’s stockings inch by inch. Some observers got so turned on by the twisted role play they started to grope each other.
Nimhneach describes itself as an underground sex club and states its aim as creating a “confident public place” for people to express themselves freely. “Basically the rules are don’t be an asshole,” the DM instructed on entry to the dungeon. “Don’t join in a scene unless you’re invited.”
Unhappy with one outfit, the monitor handed a customer a roll of PVC tape and said: “Take off your top and put PVC tape around your breasts or you won’t be allowed in. We get a lot of complaints if other people are wearing too many clothes. It makes others feel vulnerable.
Aged in her twenties, and with an American accent, the DM could have been a student in upmarket Trinity College. She marshalled the crowd, tapping people on the shoulder and bringing her boss – a middle-aged woman in ordinary clothes carrying a clipboard – along to demand bags be deposited in the cloakroom.
Admitting she was paranoid about recording equipment, the DM said: “The thought that someone might be secretly filming here freaks people out.” The ‘people’ were mostly transvestite men, young women, and middle-aged men.
Nimhneach advertises its now monthly events on the website fetlife.com, which also features images headlined ‘Gangbanged Sissy Sluts’ and ‘Forced Femme Erotica.’
Groomed. Last year, a Dubliner calling herself ‘Katie Collins’ published her account of the BDSM scene, after getting involved through meeting members of the community online.
In ‘Can You Keep A Secret, 24-year-old Katie described being groomed online for an S&M dungeon in the Baggot Street area, and the professionals she befriended there – including a lawyer, financial advisor and surgeon.
“In my experience it was the people you’d least expect to show up who turned up,” she said. She also described witnessing the rape of a semiconscious young woman by a man who’d become notorious on the scene.