The Armory

Mission

Kink.com’s mission is to demystify and celebrate alternative sexualities by providing the most authentic kinky experiences.

History

The company was started in 1997 by bondage enthusiast Peter Acworth. After launching his first website, Hogtied.com, and running it from his graduate school dorm room for a full year, Peter moved the company to San Francisco, where it has continued to grow into the worlds most recognized and respected company promoting the acceptance of human sexuality.

Values

  • Uphold a safe, sane and consensual environment
  • Provide a fun workplace which stimulates innovation and creativity
  • Operate with honesty and integrity
  • Treat one another with professionalism and respect
  • Foster collaboration while maintaining individual accountability
  • Encourage candid, direct feedback
  • Be proud of who we are, what we do, and how we do it

Headquarters

Kink’s studios are headquartered in the San Francisco Armory, a 200,000 square foot 1914 reproduction of a Moorish Castle that served as a National Guard Armory and Arsenal until the 1970s. The historic landmark was purchased from a private owner in 2006. For more information, visit: sfarmory.com.

Sites

Kink.com comprises an entire network of fetish and BDSM sites, operating eighteen premium subscription sites with content ranging from sex machines to rope bondage to erotic wrestling. Their free documentary site, BehindKink, offers a behind-the-scenes look at Kink.com. Kink on Demand is their on-demand site that allows customers to purchase every shoot ever published by the company on a per-shoot basis.

Team

Kink.com Founder and CEO Peter Acworth studied Mathematics at Cambridge University and Management at Ecole HEC, Paris. After completing his Master’s degree, he worked for Baring Brothers in London for 2 years before starting a PhD in finance at Columbia Business School. At the end of his first year, he saw an opportunity to combine his lifelong interest in bondage with his business acumen. He launched his first website, Hogtied.com, which he ran from his dorm room for the subsequent year. In 1998, Acworth left the PhD program to found Cybernet Entertainment. He began by directing – and sometimes starring in – his own shoots. As the company grew, he hired a team of passionate directors that shared his vision to help create a network of BDSM and fetish websites. While he no longer directs, Acworth still is heavily involved in the development of the sites, continues to be involved in the local community as an advocate for the rights of sexual minorities, a responsible neighbor and business owner and as an emblem of a kinky revolution.
Princess Donna is a Kink.com director, performer and BDSM educator. She began working at the company as the director of Wired Pussy which she ran for seven years. She has since created and continues to direct two of Kink’s top selling websites, Public Disgrace and Bound Gang Bangs. And has recently taken on the challenge of opening a Kink studio in LA. She has appeared as a subject or educator in a number of documentaries, including Graphic Sexual Horror, Public Sex/Private Lives, and James Franco’s documentary Kink, premiering at Sundance 2013. She graduated from New York University with a double major in Photography and Gender and Sexuality. Donna is the self-proclaimed inventor of  “the casual dom,” which is a term that means she doesn’t have to wear a corset and impossibly high heels to dominate a scene. She rocks a tank top, jeans, and boots to dominate.
Van Darkholme is the man behind the Kink Men sites: Bound Gods, Bound In Public, Men On Edge, Butt Machine Boys and Naked Kombat. Van is the pioneer in bringing Shibari, the Japanese art of rope bondage, to the gay porn videos. His first book, Male Bondage: Art Deserves a Witness, was published in 2006, and the book is in it’s 3rd edition. In 2008, he came to Kink.com with the idea to create a gay BDSM line; Bound Gods soon followed. The Kink Men sites have solidified Kink.com’s position as the industry’s preeminent producer of gay BDSM erotica.
Tomcat has been a director for Kink.com for 8 years. He directs FuckingMachines.com, TsSeduction.com, and the site he created, TsPussyHunters.com. He is happily married to porn star and writer, Lorelei Lee (co-writer of  the film About Cherry), loves his dog, running and good bourbon. As an openly transgender man, Tomcat knows what it is like to be in a marginalized community and takes great pride in working for a company that shares the same equality and diversity values that he lives by.
Maitresse Madeline is a San Francisco-based actress, dominatrix and BDSM/Fetish director.  Madeline got into the industry in 2002 while going to school in Detroit, Michigan. She began as a webcam model, but eventually moved onto produce and star in her own BDSM content and websites. In 2009, Kink.com recruited her to write, direct and produce their femdom (male submissive/female dominant) sites — a niche that is Madeline’s specialty. She currently runs Kink Bitches, a subset of the Kink that includes the sites ElectroSluts.com, FootWorship.com, DivineBitches.com and WhippedAss.com.