An American sex therapist and podcaster, who claims she went through a “terrifying” 72 hours of “interrogation” and “abuse” at an immigration office in Bali before being booted out and banned from re-entering, has weighed in on the Bonnie Blue saga.
Jennelle Gordon, a Californian-based tantra master, holistic healer, speaker, and sex educator — was stopped from leaving Denpasar airport in September by immigration, after spending two weeks on the holiday island with her business partner and her young son.
The 44-year-old was in Bali hosting an intimacy retreat at a private property, which she’d personally booked and paid for on Airbnb, while on a tourist visa. During her retreat, she was also celebrating her birthday. However, the sex therapist claims her interrogation and ultimate deportation from Bali was really around her line of work — and not relating to the visa she’d entered the country on, as claimed previously.
Speaking to news.com.au from Las Vegas, Gordon said the “intimacy” retreat offered classes to guests on relationships, Kama Sutra techniques and sensuality — and was not all about just having sex.
She claims immigration officers became “fixated” on items she had in her villa, including her “crystal yoni wands” which, to the untrained eye, hold similar characteristics to a sex toy.
But while they can be used for pleasure, they also have a physical, emotional, and spiritual aid that typically help users to connect with their bodies and enhance pleasure.
While Gordon wasn’t held in a cell during her three days within the immigration office before deportation, she claims she witnessed “terrifying” conditions for those who were behind bars.
“It was awful … It was absolutely awful,” Gordon told news.com.au of her experience.
“The first day, we were there [at the immigration office] for thirteen hours … no food … thankfully I had packed a few snacks for the plane.
“We were sharing the same bathroom that the inmates would use, who would come up from the cell and shower and brush their teeth in. They would be coming up, some restrained and some of them not, but with the guards. It was just terrible … it was awful conditions.”
Gordon believes Bonnie Blue likely faced similar conditions.
The British sex worker who was taken into custody last week following a raid of a studio in Badung but was released without charge yesterday while an investigation was launched.
Blue, whose real name is Tia Billinger, was taken into custody alongside a group of 17 male tourists, aged between 19 and 40. Fourteen of the men were Australians.
Blue’s arrest was for allegedly making X-rated material, despite the country’s strict “morality” laws, however Badung Police have now issued a new statement to local media in Bali, reportedly declaring that as of yet, they “had not found any pornographic elements” in last week’s raid.
“They said that the activity had been engineered to look exciting and interesting on social media, but emphasised that there were no pornographic elements in it,” Badung Police’s head of public relations, Aiptu Ni Nyoman Ayu Inastuti, told the publication, detikBali.
Gordon believes Blue would likely have been exposed to “disgusting” cell conditions while at the immigration office.
Gordon believes the only reason she wasn’t personally thrown in a cell in September is because her son — a minor — was with her at the time.
“Bonnie and I … it’s the same industry,” Gordon said of their line of work.
“It’s the same industry in a way because even though I’m not doing sexually explicit acts … I’m hosting an intimacy retreat. And in their minds, this is all the same sh*t.
“They would’ve held Bonnie’s passport like they did mine. And while they probably let her go to some hotel nearby like they did for us, I would put everything on it that she was down in those cells at some point. And the conditions downstairs … you could hear what was going on. We would see the detainees coming upstairs … men yelling for their rights … for a phone … for food or water.
“You could hear them screaming. I had to put headphones on my son because I didn’t want him to hear it. It was too graphic.”
At the time of Gordon’s deportation, Ngurah Rai Immigration Office head Winarko said she was deported for violating Indonesian immigration regulations by conducting commercial activities while on a tourist visa.
“Hosting commercial events is strictly prohibited under this visa category,” he explained in September.
Previously, media outlets claimed police found sex toys at Gordon’s villa, along with pornography and other adult materials that are banned in the Muslim-majority country. However Gordon denied the allegations against her, describing the entire ordeal as a “witch hunt” with authorities set on making an example of her.
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