By Adrian Walker, Globe Columnist, 7/13/2000
Saturday apparently is a lively night in the seemingly deserted
old factories of Attleboro, but a slow night at the Police
Department across the street.
That must be the explanation for why two enterprising detectives
decided to while away some time last weekend in a search for
missing musical instruments.
They found better stuff than they bargained for. Not the
kind of guys to be dissuaded by a sign on the factory door
- it read, ''Anger Within'' - they came back with the goods.
They found 50 sex freaks, some of them naked. They discovered
whips and wooden spatulas. Paddles and spikes.
And they did their public duty. This isn't New York City,
Las Vegas, or some other sin-drenched destination. This is
Massachusetts, and Boston is not the only place where kinky
is banned.
Some people might describe the booty the police hauled in
as sex ''toys,'' but the boys in Attleboro know better. They
may not be able to define filth, but they know it when they
see it.
Thanks to the diligence of Detectives Timothy Cook and John
Otrando, Attleboro is safe from 50 people who thought they
could indulge in their bizarre hobby in a God-fearing city.
The group apparently had been meeting regularly since February,
a pay-for-play S&M club convenient to the interstate.
Predictably, a few people have already started wringing their
hands about rights, privacy, those sorts of things. Ignore
them, I say. Privacy is the last refuge of scoundrels.
The case does appear to be a legal novelty. Surprisingly,
authorities have not alleged prostitution, for example. And,
while several-dozen people were present at the time of the
raid, only two have been charged, one man from New Hampshire
who rented the space and a woman who paddled another woman,
allegedly on the man's orders. He has been described as the
leader of this venture, though it doesn't sound organized
enough to anoint a leader.
Much as I admire the diligence of the Attleboro police, it
came as news that spanking someone who was asking for it and
paying for the privilege is a crime. Or that someone could
be an accessory to an assault by spanking.
The millennium has hit with a vengeance in Attleboro. For
months, a local religious group has been at loggerheads with
the Bristol district attorney's office, its members refusing
to testify about the deaths of two children. At least eight
members have been jailed for refusing to testify before a
grand jury, and 13 children have been taken away by the state,
leaving just a handful of adults free to prolong the mystery.
Much of the comment the latest case has attracted has focused
on the fact that it occurred in Attleboro, a typical bedroom
community off Interstate 95 where, supposedly, very little
fun ever takes place.
Nonsense. Suburbia is a teeming petri dish of strange practices,
precisely because it is so boring.
But at least Attleboro isn't going to take moral drift lying
down. On Tuesday, the two scofflaws were arraigned. In photos,
they look mortified, especially the would-be dominatrix. That's
probably because she feels exposed.
Still, I'm not as relieved as I might be. I can't help wondering
if this is only the beginning. If 50 people who apparently
connected by e-mail can cause this much alarm, what else is
going on in supposedly sleepy Attleboro?
Are we really supposed to believe that no one else is getting
spanked? Do we know - really know - that there are no other
spiked gloves in town, no more black leather that's somehow
made it over the border from Rhode Island?
I don't like to even mention this, but if people forked over
cash to go to this party, could there be others walking around
town thinking they have some kind of right to be turned on
by pain?
And if there are, then what?
Plainly, the hard work of saving Attleboro has barely begun.
Filth must be rooted out block by block, house by house, bedroom
by bedroom. Vice anywhere is a threat to virtue everywhere.
Someone will probably suggest that consensual spanking is
a victimless crime, that kinky sex is just a matter of taste.
They will prattle about the sexual revolution, the need to
be open-minded, the right to whatever floats your boat.
Fortunately, Cook and Otrando know better. Where anger lurks
behind closed doors, vice surely will follow. Moral intolerance
was the making of Massachusetts, and heritage is sacred.
Adrian Walker's e-mail address is walker@globe.com.
This story ran on page B1 of the Boston Globe on 7/13/2000.
© Copyright 2000 Globe Newspaper Company.
