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Costumes, Consenticorns and the New Rules of Nightlife
How a popular Brooklyn nightclub owned by millennial women is rewriting the party playbook
On the day the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to recommend a man credibly accused of sexual assault for a seat on the nation’s highest court, five consent monitors, better known as “consenticorns”, convened on the outdoor patio of House of Yes, a Brooklyn club co-founded by millennial nightlife impresarios Anya Sapozhnikova and Kae Burke.
On the agenda: a quick refresher on their duties for the evening. It was 10:30 p.m., Friday, and the club’s monthly erotic dance party, the House of Love, was about to begin.
As the meeting kicked off, a bag was passed around containing light-up garlanded headpieces shaped like unicorn horns, one for each volunteer. Unicorns are notoriously hard to spot, but consenticorns would be easy to find everywhere: lecturing partygoers at the club’s entrance, weaving across the dance floor, hovering near the hot tub, and occasionally popping into a small room in the back, where vintage skin flicks would unspool throughout the night.
There was no discussion of the dramatic scenes of that week — neither the calm, persuasive testimony of Christine Blasey Ford, PhD, alleging that Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her several decades before; nor Kavanaugh’s evasive, self-pitying response; nor the climactic decision by Senator Jeff Flake to force a one-week postponement in the final vote so the FBI could look into the charges or maybe just offer Flake and his fellow moderates a fig leaf for voting yes.
A few of the consenticorns had heard about the hearings on social media. They knew the broad strokes. But they had more pressing concerns: rewriting the rules that govern contemporary sexual behavior.
House of Yes’s consent program, spearheaded by marketing director Jacqui Rabkin and consultant Emma Kaywin, is based on similar protocols long in use at private, erotic “play” parties. It was designed not only to ensure that one of New York City’s most highly sexualized club events was a positive experience for all, but also to chip away at the culture of male privilege that has made sexual assault and…
