Sanctuary Studios is a professional BDSM dungeon and kink studio in the Athens district of Los Angeles, about twenty minutes from LAX. Its own strapline calls it Los Angeles' premier professional BDSM dungeon and kink studio, and it has been female owned and operated since 1999.

The building runs to more than five thousand square feet, with a two-thousand square foot main showroom and a stage with sound and lighting. Its rental page describes nine private playrooms - among them a feminization room, a domestic room and a group shower room - alongside fully equipped dungeon rooms, a dressing room with a make-up station, a kitchenette, showers, laundry and a private fenced smoking patio. Rooms are air-conditioned and stocked with cleaning supplies, towels and an extensive collection of fetish gear and equipment.

Two different things happen here. An on-site team of professional Dominants, Switches and submissives takes bookings for kink and fetish sessions; they are independent contractors who set their own rates and availability, and you can either come in during opening hours to meet whoever is on site or contact them through the studio. Separately the rooms are let by the hour - to visiting professionals, to couples who cannot do this at home, and for photo and video production. The studio says it has been used as a location by production companies including HBO, Showtime, Netflix and Kink.com. It is open seven days a week and welcomes walk-ins, though it asks you to phone ahead if you want a particular room.

The house rules are published and firm. Before a session, the professional you have booked discusses your interests and your limits, including any physical ones, and a safeword is established; the studio states that safewords must be honoured at all times and that a consent violation or a refusal to honour one can end the session on the spot and bar you from returning. Exchange of body fluids is not allowed, nor is extreme breath play - choking, asphyxiation or carotid play - and the studio states there is no sex on the premises. Extended and overnight sessions are available. Rates are set by each professional and by the studio and are not quoted here.

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