Legal Squabble in Kinkster Community

VANCOUVER, B.C. (CN) - A man claims in court that a sex educator defamed him on a social networking site for "kinksters" and BDSM practitioners.

Read Courthouse News' Entertainment Law Digest.

John Langdon sued Jennifer Skrukwa aka Jennifer Zurba, in British Columbia Supreme Court.

Langdon claims that Skrukwa, a sex educator, defamed him in status updates posted on her profile at fetlife.com.

On its home page, the website, visited this morning, describes itself as "a free social network for the BDSM & fetish community. Similar to Facebook and MySpace but run by kinksters like you and me. We think it is more fun that way. Don't you?"

Langdon claims that he and Skrukwa have dozens of mutual friends on the site, and that Skrukwa defamed him in posts of Aug. 8 and Aug. 12, falsely accusing him of having sexually and physically assaulted two women.

Langdon says the posts were removed after his attorney sent letters to the site's owner, but the damage was already done.

Before the Aug. 12 posting was removed, Langdon claims, "a number of people reposted the offending post onto another group called Vancouver BDSM, which has over 2,000 members. Many of these 2,000 individuals would have seen this libelous post on their own Fetlife home page, or through a scheduled email update."

Landon seeks damages for defamation and wants Skrukwa enjoined from any "further publication of the defamatory expression."

He is represented by Derrill Thompson of Main Street Law Group in Vancouver.

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