Save The Chicago Studio

Hopefully, it is not too late to post this as I actually expected that somebody else had already done it. This is another iconic dungeon for our touring Dommes to use that is in real trouble because of rent costs accruing in an expensive city with no revenue coming in.



Go Fund Me

Please donate any amount if you can, even if you never get to experience this wonderful space in Chicago. Having these spaces across the US helps support Dommes touring across the US so it may just help bring the best to your doorstep.

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As we all know, COVID-19 has forced many establishments and venues to temporarily close operations for the sake of social distancing. Those of us in this industry have the ability to pivot our means of income. The spaces we use don't have that luxury. With no rentals, parties or events there is no income at this time but the rent is still due.

Until it's safe for Mistress Simone to reopen The Chicago Studio we are asking our community for help. Your donations are needed right now to ensure the Studio stays strong through this pandemic. We are grateful for any amount you can afford to share.

100% of the money raised will be used for studio rent and bills.


About The Studio

The Chicago Studio has been in its current location for over a decade. Many talented Chicago-based Dominas and other S.W.s call this space home, while a plethora of visiting Mistresses feel welcomed to make it their Chicago touchstone. Mistress Simone has taken this expansive space and filled it with enough equipment, toys and furniture to satisfy even the most creative. This is no accident, she has poured her heart and soul into those walls to solidify the Studio's place as a fixture of the Chicago community.

The Chicago Studio has long been a safe space for freedom of expression. Hosting education weekends, events and community groups. Including but not limited to TNGC, Rough Group, CCF and Chicago ABDL.

Mistress Simone and her space have been there for so many in the past, now it's our turn to show support.

About The Studio’s fearless owner

Mistress Simone is a staple in the Chicago and national community with a career spanning nearly 30 years. Opening her first independent studio in 1995 making The Chicago Studio the longest-running, female-owned space in Chicago. Lifting up the community, both professional and lifestyle, has always been a top priority and is reflected in her space to this day.

As a member of the community, Mistress Simone has had the honor of being a titleholder on multiple occasions. She was the first Leather Woman to hold 2 international titles, the first female International Puppy Trainer, and the first Ms. Illinois Leather Woman. Simone has long served the community beginning by helping Chicago's Taboo Tabou store become a fetish retail destination. Then she went on to be the operating manager and key social director of the original Leather Rose.

Reaching well beyond the Chicago area she educated many by sharing her skills on platforms such as Kink Academy and contributing through writing. This includes “The Toybag Guide to Chastity ” by Greenery Press, as a chastity expert for Stockroom. Her current project, “The Femme Domme Mystique” podcast continues this legacy.

Posted ~9:30 est Aug 7th, 2020: https://twitter.com/chicagomistress/status/1291910786814803969

"Lease is due so its decision time. If we can get a bit closer to the goal I will be able to feel secure in keeping space"

Currently the number sits at $9002 of the $14,000 needed to support this space. This is close enough that Mistress Simone is obviously thinking about still going forward, but will have to make up the difference.

If you have contributed already, thank you for caring about the institutions of our community. If you haven't then please consider donating what you can as soon as you can.

Let nature run it's course. Seriously. This is dommes' personal choices to not feel safe to return to Chicago or visit there (possibly due more to the shootings than the virus honestly).

I disagree with the extreme reactions some people are doing and think the virus reaction is out of control. Needless to say, actions have consequences.

Feel free to donate, but I personally cannot support such a cause, especially when it comes to the New Detroit/Chicago. Chicago is destroying itself. Very unsafe. I am not denying the virus exists, but I have tried to live my life normally and assume risk. We should not be asked to bail some venue out because they didn't conduct sessions. If local clients can't be counted on to continue sessioning, if I were a domme, I would move somewhere that people weren't so scared.

It would be one thing if a gym was forced to close, but I'd still expect them to push back against health department tyrants first. In this case, this is a secretive business that decided on its own to shut it's doors. Perhaps that disgusting mayor in Chicago ruined things for everyone.

As we see with pander culture and the NBA, the new phrase is, Get Woke, Go Broke. Well, stop conducting sessions... go broke too.

Its a larger dungeon, whether Mistress Simone does sessions herself is only a small part of the business model. It is reliant on the whole community, both Dommes and subs, doing sessions and paying the rental fees for the space. It is reliant on being able to have parties and events (all of which are, as you correctly pointed out, severely limited by government order and by possible attendees rational fear of the virus). It is reliant on people traveling (which very very few people are).

This situation is a blip on the radar but standing up a dungeon, especially one of this quality, in an expensive proposition that you must be willing to lose money on (which few people are) in the short-term. Even when something opens to replace it and provide a space in a couple of years, the quality of that dungeon and equipment will not be of this level as all of that takes years and years to build.

Gyms are both ubiquitous and acceptable to the community around them. If one, or even ten, close another will rise up in its place in a year or two. Gyms are not a business based on some small and oppressed community of people with barriers to entry like having a landlord who is willing to accept (or at least look the other way at) the nature of the business; neighbors who are not going to have some "moral" issue with the space; or a govt/police who don't go out of their way to close it down. This is the reason there are zero dungeons like this in areas like Detroit, Nashville and Las Vegas (some of whom very much are wide open from a virus perspective) just to name a few metropolitan areas that have enough of a client base to easily support them.

It will take helf-a-decade or longer to replace a venue like this if we lose it and who knows if the owner of that new venue will be committed to the safety and privacy of those who visit. These venues are unique and have carved out a safe space to operate where one does not easily exist so we need to protect them and help them through this unnatural period if we can, regardless of your pussy-ass political commentary about the safety of major American cities.

I guess closure of places like this will be the new normal as people say. I don't like seeing stuff like this, but people must understand that their failure to still conduct sessions caused this. I would not feel comfortable donating money to a place that is around 9k of their 14k goal and threatens to close if they don't hit 14k, but offers no donation refund if they don't hit the goal. They shot themselves in the foot. Why throw money to a failing place? People pick winners. Perhaps independent dommes will outfit their spaces more and there will be more sharing of spaces during tours or new types of double sessions. If a space gets booked, such as, hypothetically, the Atlanta Dungeon gets booked by one slave with Mistress Ayn while someone on tour is using the space and a slave wants to book with the touring Domme. Perhaps the touring domme's slave would feel up for subsidizing the session of Mistress Ayn's slave by paying an additional co-use fee so both sessions could occur at the same time. Some slaves might like this option all around and seeing other sessions occur before their eyes. People will need to get creative. Obviously the old way of business is gone.

I would like to donate but am always worried about how will this appear on my credit card statement? I believe there is always the title of the Go Fund Me that shows on the statement.

I sent off a question to Sophia Chase who organized the fundraiser. What shows on a statement is actually based on a setting the organizer chooses and they can edit/change that over time. I will post when I hear back.

Atlanta Dungeon has multiple rooms and in that situation would book multiple sessions at the same time. They do this without any interaction between the subs and the setup is such that you will not notice if multiple sessions are occurring in the building at the same time. If you want to pay extra and the other sub is willing, I am sure they can arrange for you to meet the alpha you desire.

Have you ever sessioned with Sophia Chase? Just curious how she was if you have. She has a very playful and nice look to her, kind of like Alexandra Snow has with the nice size tits. From a fetishist standpoint, I think she would be very aesthetically pleasing to look at in session.

I strongly believe you need to support your local Mistress and play space. The crisis is running long in some states. Ask your local Domme if there's anything you can do to help during these bad times.

Conducting sessions is the best thing you can do

Thanks. I am probably overly paranoid about stuff like this but better safe then have to answer questions I don’t want to.

https://twitter.com/chicagomistress/status/1292981030496935938

"Great progress to reaching the goal needed to keep Studio open and available through 2020 crisis. I am so blessed to all who have donated to this point. If we.l can do the final stretch the space will be save till next year."

My reading of this is that fulfillment of the 14k goal will fund The Studio through the end of 2020 rather than just for another month, which should get us through the most of the Covid crisis with this space intact.

As of this post, the donations sit at just over $9,400. To donate go here.

Til the end of 2020 for COVID? Try til the end of 2021. I am going on record here...... COVID is weaponized to accomplish an agenda and is not going away at the end of 2020. We'll still be in cold and flu season. So all flu cases will be counted. Trust me.

Remember.... it was just two weeks to flatten the curve. Now it's just a two week delay to reopen schools. It's only two more weeks. Just another month. Just another two weeks. Just another two weeks.

Get the picture?

All of this makes the assumption that it's the Dommes being unwilling to do sessions that is the problem. That is not the problem - at least not here. I can't speak for every city/Dungeon, but it's primarily that subs aren't traveling due to COVID. There are no conventions, work meetings are being done via Zoom and even locals are mostly working from home and are having to get very creative just to carve out an hour or two away from their families. It sounds like you are single and can travel or get away for a session easily. That is not true of most clients of pro Dommes.

The scenario you describe with multiple sessions isn't likely to happen anytime soon. I wish it would. Trust Me. You are correct about at least one thing - the old way of doing business is gone. I think individual Dommes that take their business seriously will do, and have done, just fine during this time. We are making up the shortfall with Skype session and other online options. The big wonderful shared spaces are what is in jeopardy and as Asp has pointed out, replacing them once gone is herculean task. I know how difficult it is to get all the pieces to fit with a successful commercial space.

I totally get it... I am just as paranoid about stuff.. heee is the response I got from my inquiry:

- "GFM*GoFndMe* Help The"
- MERCHANT LOCATION*. Redwood City CA 94063
- MERCHANT CATEGORY. CHARITABLE AND SOCIAL SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS

Blah... Blah... Political Opinion... Blah...

When the covid crisis actually ends is irrelevant to when the business returns to a pre-covid revenue level. The point here is that the fundraiser is not just to get to September but to take The Studio in Chicago to 2021. This update was prompted by Mistress Simone posting this information on Twitter, but was made more relevant by your own statements in this thread about how you wouldn't contribute because they would just come back and ask for more money next month. This has been refuted by her statement of what meeting the gosl woild mean for the facility.

From an opinion point of view, expectations are that one (if not more) vaccines will be approved and distribution will begin near the end of the year (even if "near" means the beginning of 2021). In addition, new treatments for the virus (which are also currently in testing) should also be approved for general use in the same general timeframe.

So, just like when people rushed to return to normal this spring/summer, I expect there will be a much greater comfort level with both attending events and sessoning for both Pros and clients. This will either allow for Dungeons to return to full self-sufficiency or for that revenue stream to be close enough that the owners who have to bear the costs can reasonably absorb those costs for a little bit.

It is ok for you to disagree with that assessment as you have already expressed that you will not contribute to supporting facilities such as this for any reason. That is your choice, and it is a valid one, but trolling the efforts or denigrating others because they wish to goes beyond just not contributing and it is just not appreciated.

Perhaps you should ask other head Mistresses as to the finical condition of their respective Dungeons. Several Dommes and Dungeons are of the verge on bankruptcy.

I will post about and support any Domme with a public space who is asking for help. Although I have played with multiple Chicago based Dommes at The Studio, my only contact with Mistress Simone in my entire life was one 30 second conversation where I introduced myself when we were at The FemDom Ball in London last October.

Everything I am doing is for the general support of the community as a whole rather than "trying to get in good" with a Domme of mine. If you know of anyone else who is looking for help let me know or even better encourage them to come here and post themselves since I am sure that would actually get a better response.

John_Bolton, I am seeing a tendency to involve political ideology in your posts. If this continues you will be restricted to the Off Topic & Politics forums.

Domina.ms Admin

It is odd that a virus that can be disinfected so easily can't yet be cured. I would recommend all democrats take the vaccine first and I'll see how that goes.

Twitter Post

From Mistress Simone:

Thank you all who have supported. We are nearing our goal and the 2021 lease has been signed. So the Studio will stay for another year if we can cross the goal line it would keep us 100% viable
I am touched by all the support and retweeting

I never knew their profit margin is high risk after expenses.

It doesn't seem like a studio would have much risk at a good hourly rate and usually high demand. However, fixed costs stay, good times and bad. If there is a natural disaster, the bills still come. If there is a recession, the rent is still due. It is a continual cost commitment business. It is great when the sun is shining and everything is good. But, a bump in the road here and there can be tough. No one saw a bump quite like this one coming. I hope the best for them.