To our guests, friends, stans and simps,

Hedon House took a big hit to our business infrastructure this week when our payment processor informed us they are closing our account. As of this Friday, 23 February, we will no longer be able to process payments with the platform we’ve been trading with since we opened in 2019. This will also force us to move away from our bookings platform, who provide no alternative payment integration options that we can safely and easily use.

WTF?

Financial discrimination, debanking and deplatforming is rife for sex-positive and adult industry businesses in so-called Australia and across the globe. As a sex worker of 20 years and a former president and manager of our national sex worker rights organisation, I’ve engaged with this intimately throughout my career.

The internet has never been a more hostile place for the pursuit of pleasure between grown-ass adults. Not a great match for a business that provides nothing but a safe and welcoming space for your beautiful, freaky, grown-ass joy. I’m deflated, exhausted and fucking furious.

How is this impacting Hedon House?

Since the opening of our Naarm location in October, I’ve been busy in the background of Hedon House upgrading our infrastructure to catch up with this huge shift in the business (and having a sweet lil’ moment of recovery from the event horizon that was setting up and opening Hedon House Naarm, which is possibly the most challenging thing I’ve ever attempted in my professional life).

Those infrastructure upgrades have been built around two platforms. Every drop of our operating budget has gone to developers and consultants supporting me to adapt these tools to improve the flow of the guest experience at Hedon House. We were confident that these platforms were able to provide services to a business of our nature. And despite my best efforts to Karen my way to retaining them, we are now out of options; we have to rebuild it all.

In all of my years in the sexuality field, I’ve never made an offering that was more beloved to me, and I know that Hedon House is beloved to you too. So I’m asking YOU, as a member of the community we’ve cultivated around these perfect palaces to pleasure, for your support to help us weather this very big change in the weather over here at HHHQ.

Are you closing temporarily?

F*ck no! We will find a way to trade between 23 February and the launch of a new booking system, but it may have a bit more friction than the current process does.

Anything you need to know about changes to the process will be on the bookings page for the location you want to visit.

How can I help with my dollars?

While we can still trade easily, we are asking for a little injection of financial support. The best time to do this is before 23 February, but we are currently working on an interim option while we find a sustainable ecommerce setup. We’ll update this post if we need to change up any of the options below.

• Book your next visit. Our books in Sydney are open for the next four months, and in Melbourne for the next six. Hot tip: we will be using the change of booking system as an opportunity to adjust our pricing structure, which will increase the rates for our most popular appointment types. Our change policy allows you to change your booking at low or no cost if you give us more than a month’s notice, so you can lock in a booking at the current price now, and shift it later if the date doesn’t work!
• Buy a voucher. You can buy one in any amount, and being in credit is generally a pretty good motivator to book a stay with us. Head to our voucher shop to purchase a pre-set value, or reply to this email to pick up a gift in a custom value. Hot tip: We’re adding 10% value to pre-set value vouchers purchased over the next week!
• Donate. Love our work and want it to continue, but only have a small amount to spare? Have heaps of cash and want to offer a gift? It’ll help. Show us ur tips! You can offer us a payment in any amount here. You can also write to us directly if you’d like to pay another way.

How can I help with my non-cash resources?

• Affirm. We’re feeling pretty down in the dumps here. This situation has really asked some existential questions about Hedon House. If you love us, head to this post and share a few words about what the House means to you. It would be such a resource to us at this point to have a place where we can go to remember what we’re providing, why it matters, and why we need to protect its ability to keep going.
• Share. Head to our socials and interact with our posts, share in your story, and share Hedon House with your audience if it’s safe for you to do so.
• Offer time. While I deploy all of my resources to solve this problem with as little disruption to trading as possible, I am less available to all of the silly little tasks that comprise my role as House Mum. If you’re one of those errand, admin or small-job angels who loves to chip in an hour or two here and there, we have WhatsApp groups set up for Gadigal and Naarm helpers. Just remember that group members can see one another’s names and view their profiles.

It’s a beautiful thing to be able to reach out to this growing, thriving community of pleasure-seekers, adventurers and darling friends to solve this. Thank you for being here.