Kidnap, inc.

By Hyan Thiboutot.

These days, you can get anything with a credit card. A life-size rubber fuck-me doll; someone to trample on your bits; and now this bizarre new trend in New York and the UK where for a few grand, a company will arrange to violently kidnapped you in broad day light, whisk you away, duct tapped, insulted, confused and scared, and make you disappear for up to a few days.

Though 29 year-old Brock Enright's company Video and Adventure Services was founded in 2002, it was just a question of time before the iconography of men in orange overalls from Guantanamo Bay or the Jihad videos of American hostages paraded on the news would drip into the soul of American and UK viewers to be regurgitated back as social phenomena. Kidnap chic has arrived and with it a hefty price tag and a long waiting list.

Taste for this weird fear candy range from the quick grab and gag scenario to the Guanatamo Bay incarceration in a dank dungeon for a few days and nights with barely enough water or food to live on, mixed with psychological warfare and beatings.

Opinions are divided though as to the real value of such a service. Working on the knife edge of fiction and truth, there has surprisingly not been any cases of outraged New Yorkers intervening in a kidnap scenario on Manhattan, despite the fact that many are carried out on city streets in broad daylight.

The kidnap 'victim' agrees a time-frame for his abduction, but the thrill really comes in not knowing when or where the kidnappers will strike. Jason, a carpenter in his early 30s, has gone through the kidnap experience three times already. 'I just wanted to see if it was possible for me to be in a situation like that.'

Psychotherapist Sheena Hankin believes that we '...are built for it. It gives us a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment.' She has also shown an interest in going through the kidnap scenario herself.

Hopefully stuffing her in a bag and beating the shit out of her with sticks will buck up her ideas as to whether or not she really is 'built for it'. There is a danger that the Police will become desensitize to kidnapping calls and loose the 'golden hour' that could save a child's life.

On the other hand, it could also be possible for someone to engineer a kidnapping for someone they hate and screw them up permanently. The kidnappings are taped and given to the 'victim' as a sort of souvenir, either to get their jollies off, or to analyze whatever psychological kicks they might extracted from the experience.

During an interview with The Guardian's Brian Logan, Brock Enright claimed that his kidnaps 'expose the grotesque perversions found in advanced capitalism', yet he's happy to profit from his clients.

However, Brock admits that the service is beginning get out of hand and is becoming too violent. One has to wonder what other marvels lay in Mr Brock's video tape vault.