![\"Julie](\"http:\/\/costaricasex.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/20oDSxMC.jpg\")
<\/a>So Simone signed up for Airbnb for a trip to New York she\u2019s making soon. She found a comfortable apartment in Queens and got a notification that her host had confirmed the booking. But then, an hour later, she got a nasty surprise: the company told her it didn\u2019t want her as a customer.<\/p>\n
Simone<\/a> (her professional name) suspected the problem was her job: she is a dominatrix, as well as a pornographic actor and director, and has been for years.<\/p>\n Along with an apology for inconveniencing her and an assurance she\u2019d be refunded, the email from Airbnb read as follows:<\/p>\n We wanted to reach out to you regarding your Airbnb account. After a routine review, and given information uncovered pursuant to online public records, we have determined that it is in the best interest of Airbnb, and for the users on our site, to deactivate your account permanently. We realize that this may come as a disappointment and that you may have questions regarding this determination. We hope you understand that this decision is exercised at our sole discretion and that we are not obligated to provide an explanation as to the action taken against your account, nor are we liable to a user in any way with respect to deactivating or canceling his or her account.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Simone told me that she has good credit and no criminal record, so she is convinced that her status as a porn star and sex worker is the reason she was rejected. A spokesman for Airbnb told me that he couldn\u2019t on the specifics of the case \u201c[f]or privacy reasons,\u201d and added that, \u201cAs a general matter we constantly review our platform to ensure that the use of listings are in line with what our hosts and guests both expect.\u201d (AirBnb did not immediately respond to a request for comment on how they handle discrepancies between users\u2019 legal names and other aliases, professional or otherwise, in their background checks.)<\/p>\n The decision to cancel the reservation, and to deactivate Simone\u2019s account, was made entirely by Airbnb. I reached out via Airbnb\u2019s messaging function to the owner of the Queens apartment Simone had planned to rent. He told me that after confirming the reservation Simone had made, he received an email from the company saying that \u201cshe didn\u2019t complete verification process and therefore they had to cancel reservation.\u201d<\/p>\n As part of that Airbnb verification process, Simone had voluntarily submitted a number of items, including a scan of her ID with her legal name and access to her Facebook account. According to Airbnb\u2019s site, the verifications are available for users to prove who they are<\/a> and \u201cto build trust in our community<\/a>.\u201d A cursory Google search of her full legal name, which is on the ID she provided, would\u2019ve quickly allowed the company to connect the dots between her legal name and her professional one.<\/p>\n Because Airbnb has refused to provide details, it\u2019s hard to say for certain what the reason for the deactivation was. If it was because Simone is a sex worker, it\u2019s also hard to say whether it had to do with one realm of her work or another: her work as a domme or her porn work.<\/p>\n However, Airbnb has found themselves at odds with sex workers very recently. Late last month KNBC, a Southern California NBC News affiliate, ran a story<\/a> about an Airbnb host suing a guest after finding out he\u2019d booked her home in order to film pornography. Earlier in February, VICE News reported on a Swedish controversy<\/a> over prostitutes using an Airbnb to subvert Nordic model prostitution laws, which legalize selling sex but outlaw buying sex.<\/p>\n In both circumstances, however, what was going on doesn\u2019t appear to be illegal. The pornography case violated Airbnb\u2019s rules, because the service doesn\u2019t allow commercial filming unless a host consents, but the filming itself was legal, provided the producer had filed for a permit. In Sweden, the sex workers renting through Airbnb may have been doing so in part specifically to avoid being culpable under pimping laws that are still in place. While prostitution is criminalized in New York, there\u2019s legal precedent that working as a domme<\/a>, like Simone does, does \u201cnot appear to fit within the category of sexual conduct referred to in the statute.\u201d<\/p>\n Also, unlike the cases in Sweden and L.A., Simone was a first-time Airbnb user. When she got the email telling her that her account had been deactivated, she wanted to know more, and told me that she \u201cwrote them back and said \u2018can [Airbnb] give me more specific information about why I\u2019m being cancelled?’\u201d The company\u2019s response, excerpted below, re-emphasized parts of the original deactivation notice:<\/p>\n We received your message. This decision is exercised at our sole discretion and that we are not obligated to provide an explanation as to the action taken against your account, nor are we liable to a user in any way with respect to deactivating or canceling his or her account.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n