On one side, longtime residents of a block in the Bedford-Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn, led by Laurie Miller, who lives in the same narrow house on Quincy Street that she moved into as a child in 1974.
On the other, a queer feminist, Charlotte Taillor, who moved her business next door to Miller, from a more expensive space in Crown Heights.
And in the middle: Taillor’s business.
Now about that business. It’s what’s known as a kink collective, where Taillor runs bondage workshops and other fetish events for the BDSM (bondage, dominance, sadism and masochism) community.
It’s perfectly legal, she said, but that not does not necessarily make it welcome.
The dispute began in January when Miller began noticing men, some of whom she called “weird-looking,” coming and going from the house next door.
“It was like a heavy, continuous pattern of these guys that aren’t in the neighborhood,” she said. Because she lived alone, the foot traffic made her uneasy.
“Some of them were questionable people,” Miller said. “You know, your Spidey senses started tingling.”
When she asked around, neighbors told her that Taillor was up to no good.
Perturbed, she quickly put up fliers calling for a meeting with the block association and urging local residents to call the community board and the police about “a gentlemen’s sex club” that had “no business” being on the block.
Now after weeks of outcry and several community meetings, Taillor is planning to move her custom-built kinky clubhouse, where folks play with the boundaries of trust and consent, under pressure from Miller, who says the dominatrices did not have her consent to be there.
“It’s her block,” Taillor said. “I respect her. I want her to be the Beyoncé of her block. I want her to be the queen of the block. I have no qualms with it.”
The clash, which was first reported online by Patch, was splashed across the front of The Daily News with the headline “Kinky Booted” and an image of fishnets and red, thigh-high boots.
But the battle on Quincy Street is about more than just sex. For Miller, it’s about trust and safety; for Taillor, it’s about respect and kink-shaming. As both women fought to protect their communities, what resulted was a culture clash and gentrification struggle all wrapped up into one fight.
Like many blocks in Bedford-Stuyvesant, that part of Quincy Street is a collection of well-kept row houses where residents nurse plants next to their stoops. The locals are a mix typical of many changing Brooklyn neighborhoods: young single people lured by affordable rent, families looking for a nurturing environment and older residents who helped turn their block into a tight-knit community.
During a recent block association meeting in a church basement, Taillor, 30, and Miller, 58, sat across from each other, in front of about 20 people who appeared evenly split.
With her lawyer beside her, Taillor announced to the neighbors that she planned to move her business, the Taillor Group. Despite that, she and Miller clashed repeatedly, forcing a local police officer to intervene several times to call for order and keep tempers in check.
One of Taillor’s supporters said critics just objected to the nature of her work and wouldn’t care if she were teaching knitting.
Miller said afterward that neighbors were able to hear “things like whips and chains and moans and stuff like that.”
“These brownstones are old and hollow,” she said.
Another block neighbor, Mary Patrick, said at one point about Taillor: “She should leave. She should take that to 42nd Street.”
Taillor told her critics in the room: “You don’t have to kink-shame or say that people are creepy because of what they enjoy doing.”
She added that her hope when she moved to Bedford-Stuyvesant was “to have a nice relationship with a nice community of woke people.”
“Oh, ‘woke’!” Miller fired back. “Bye, Felicia!”
The other day, Taillor, who does not live in the neighborhood but rents an apartment in the Ditmas Park section of Brooklyn, said she was most upset about what she says is a misrepresentation of her business.
“We’re not a sex club,” she said. “Nobody is allowed to have sex on the premises. Even me.”
She said she began The Taillor Group in 2016 to serve as a kind of kink community center that could help educate women in particular about BDSM practices. That included classes for aspiring dominatrices on the finer points of spanking, flogging and rope bondage, as well as events catering to those more experienced with fetish play.
The business relied on a group of submissive men for the women to practice with. But Taillor disputed Miller’s description of them. Because of the nature of The Taillor Group, she said, the clients tended to be respectful and docile.
“It’s great to have them around,” she said. “Because they’re — they’ll do anything from hanging your picture to defending you in your front yard.”
Taillor said she also tried to foster a body-positive, sex-positive, queer-friendly and inclusive environment.
In a separate interview Friday, Miller complained about the unfamiliar men coming onto her block. “I don’t like the transient nature of the guys that come there, that have no vested interest in our community,” she said. “We don’t know what their backgrounds are or what they’re capable of. It’s just a scary thing.”
She wasn’t the only one with concerns. At the community meeting, neighbors asked why Taillor wasn’t running her business out of a storefront on a commercial block. And Patrick, 35, shared her concerns that children on the residential street might be exposed to adult sexual behavior.
The Department of Buildings has received several complaints about Taillor’s business, and Taillor has said she has spoken with them but that her lawyer told her she was not violating any zoning codes.
Still, after hearing Miller’s objections in person, Taillor said, she decided not to stay on the block.
“It’s definitely her block.” Taillor said. “I’m a feminist, I’m all about her rights.”
She also wanted to make sure her group of femme-identifying dommes felt safe and valued.
“I want to be cherished,” Taillor said. “We deserve to be recognized in the community that we are in.”
Taillor is raising money for a new space and moving costs — none of The Taillor Group’s submissives are professional movers — but she said she wouldn’t be able to move until April. In the meantime, she said, Miller has been harassing The Taillor Group’s clients and employees, shouting insults at them on the street.
Miller denied any harassment and said the only time she confronted Taillor’s clients was after they started “cursing me out.” But she said she tells neighbors exactly what she thinks happens in the house next to hers.
Miller said she would feel unsafe as long as The Taillor Group was next door.
“Not until she’s out,” Miller said. “That’s when I’ll breathe a sigh of relief.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.