Police Detain Dozens in Raid on Dallas ‘Sex Party’ Amid Harry Hines Crackdown

Dallas Police detained dozens of men last Friday, ultimately arresting two, after serving a search warrant at a warehouse on Manana Drive and discovering a “scorching hot play party” (as described by the event organizers) underway. 

According to police, the bust was part of the department’s Safe Streets Initiative that has targeted sexually oriented businesses operating improperly in the area around Harry Hines Boulevard. The warehouse that police raided, identified by the Dallas Voice as the LGBTQ+ space Spayse Studios, sits just off Harry Hines and brands itself as a venue for everything from “birthday parties, to anniversaries, to adult kink parties.” 

Police say that organizers failed to get a Sexually Oriented Business license before Friday’s event, which involved patrons paying a cover fee of $35 “to enter the business to engage in sexual contact.” The party was branded as a “CumUnion” event, part of a series of sexually-oriented parties hosted across the country for gay men. A note on the event’s website states that “due to circumstances outside of our control,” the evening portion of the party was canceled.

Forty-eight individuals were initially detained when police arrived at the warehouse around noon, and police seized 27 grams of marijuana, 671 grams of psilocybin mushrooms and 11,034.7 grams of THC hash oil. 

“Additionally, Vice Detectives recovered more than $11,000 in currency, multiple computers, hard drives and other electronics, as well as pleasure devices and a cargo van believed to be used in the production of pornography,” police said in a statement. 

Two men who police say organized the party now face charges.

Israel Luna, the owner of Spayse Studios, was charged with possession of a controlled substance over 400 grams, a first-degree felony; promotion of prostitution, a third-degree felony; possession of marijuana between four ounces and five pounds, a state jail felony; and operating a sexually oriented business without a license, a Class A misdemeanor. Marc Tuton was also charged with operating a sexually oriented business without a license, police said.

In February, Dallas Police raided the Paris Adult Bookstore one mile north of Spayse Studios as part of a crackdown on sexually oriented businesses, which the city has been trying to better manage for years, before ordinances got tied up in litigation. The nearby Pandora’s Men’s Club, which police say facilitated prostitution and drug sales, was also shuttered, and last week, Dallas’ permit and license appeals board declined to reinstate the club’s dance hall license and late-hours permit.

Although police see Friday’s raid as a part of that series of crackdowns, it can be noted that the raid brings to the surface a history of police targeting LGBTQ+ spaces throughout Dallas. According to the Dallas Voice, “at least two or three guys had a panic attack” after it was announced that police were on the warehouses’ premises on Friday. 

On social media, attendees have expressed feeling “a little freaked out” by the threat of legal issues, adding that it felt like “we were harassed by the Dallas police department in a gay safe space.” In a since-deleted Reddit post, one user speculated that DPD could have used drones to record the license plates of party attendees — a claim reminiscent of the 1970s when police published the license plate numbers of cars parked outside of known gay bars. 

Archives show that the Dallas Times Herald and Dallas Morning News regularly covered instances of DPD targeting of LGBTQ+ establishments at that time, when homosexual conduct was outlawed. In 2010, a police raid at a gay bathhouse in Deep Ellum resulted in 11 men being charged with public lewdness. 

Police, though, have stated that the raid was a part of a broader commitment “to enforcing all laws and ordinances related to prostitution, human trafficking and sexual exploitation to keep everyone safe in Dallas.”