Shackle your judgment: BDSM deserves respect

Meredith Schwartz

Mon Nov 23 2009 20:11

How could a club like this, official or unofficial, really exist on a college campus? There are many.

There are or have been BDSM student groups at:
Columbia University http://conversiovirium.org
The University of Minnesota http://www.sua.umn.edu/groups/directory/show.php?id=2370
Ball State http://www.bsudailynews.com/2.14295/kinky-cardinals-start-group-for-students-to-promote-safe-sane-consensual-sex-1.2004934
Iowa State University http://www.cuffs.stuorg.iastate.edu/?cat=4
University of Chicago https://studentactivities.uchicago.edu/php/public/detail.php?org=633
Oregon State University http://www.angryredplanet.com/~hackbod/munch/epa_old.html (now apparently defunct), Washington University www.studlife.com/archives/News/2004/04/30/ItaintallwhipsandchainsclubshowsnewsideofBDSM/
Indiana University http://php.indiana.edu/~bdsmers/,
University of California, Santa Barbara http://www.dailynexus.com/article.php?a=17591
SUNY Albany http://www.yvonnesplace.net/news/suny_bdsm.htm
Bard College SILK http://groups.yahoo.com/group/silkannounce/, formerly SM/ACES
NYU used to have WHAP, now defunct;
Rutgers used to have RUST, now defunct;
Oberlin deadlocked on recognizing theirs officially and I believe it was eventually defeated http://www.oberlin.edu/stupub/ocreview/archives/1998.10.02/news/bdsm.html
Drew http://www.drewacorn.com/2.5514/bondage-at-drew-a-controversial-idea-1.844611.

I have also seen unconfirmed references to (presumably defunct) groups at the University of South Carolina and Clemson, and the intent to form one at Chico State.

In addition, there are many more broader sex education, sex positive and/or LBGT campus organizations that have held BDSM workshops, seminars, discussions and demos.

disappointed

Sat Nov 21 2009 17:25

@J.Kru
The difference here is that the BDSM group isn't a hate group. It's a special interest group whose activities are conducted with safe, sane, and consensual fun in mind, as well as respect.

@not surprised
The difference here is that sex with little boys is illegal in most jurisdictions. BDSM, given that it is consensual, is perfectly legal.

Judge not, lest ye be judged.

not surprised

Thu Nov 19 2009 19:42

What a bunch of editorial wimps! TNH says: "we also don’t think it’s any of our business to judge an organization just because their activities are a shock to our system." This amounts to an "anything goes" philosophy, only valid until something comes along that you simply cannot tolerate. How about a group like UNH-NAMBLA that promotes sex with little boys? Will TNH draw the line at judging THEM? How about a student group like "Nazi Snuf Film Fans," will THAT finally awaken your moral sensibilities? Or would you just say it's none of our business to judge? Just what is it that WOULD get you to issue some kind of moral or ethical objection?

Courtney Jane

Thu Nov 19 2009 14:20

@ Mary,

I am the coordinator of the group. Contact me at UNH.BDSM@gmail.com.

CJ

SRM

Thu Nov 19 2009 08:33

I think it's very educated and intelligent to write about such an topic. Far too often, is our sexuality repressed in the United States of America. Be it because of religious pressures, political or social stigmas that repress us - they are all negative and only cause more harm than good. So, to The New Hampshire and it's staff: I commend you for stepping out of your comfort zone and talking about a topic that may not agree with the majority of the population without fear of reprisal. Please keep up the good work.

Mary

Thu Nov 19 2009 08:03

I have a question: Who runs the BDSM group and where can I sign up?

Your name

Mon Nov 16 2009 22:38

My friends and I are not only upset with this article, but its presence on the front page is disgusting and unwarranted...

Clark Kent

Mon Nov 16 2009 02:13

Mal,
Not to burst your bubble of indignity, but the paper referred to Google first, so that commenter was, I think, taking a dig at that.

m82ep
So in your fictional survey, you think people will be answering so specifically as to include "BDSM" in their answers? What exactly would your topics be if someone asked you to write down what the paper should write about?
Its more likely that students would put down things like "social taboos", "campus organizations", "sex" or "student life" as topics they would want to see covered. I think this article would fit in any of those categories.
Now, if TNH started to write about sexual fetishes every issue, that's a different argument where you can start questioning their news judgment. But right now, that's not the case.

Mal

Sun Nov 15 2009 18:50

m82ep, it isn't our job to "serve the university mission." we are not the lap dogs of UNH administration. we are a student organization that happens to get some of our funding from a student activity fee, as we provide a service to the student body by doing our best to inform them. i hate to generalize, but i want you to take a look at journalism from a marketing standpoint. yes, part of our purpose is conducting investigative journalism and writing hard news that gives our audience a sense of current events. however, if our newspaper was jampacked with hard news, first of all we would have much less material, and second of all most of our audience would get bored. therefore, we put in features and profiles- a lot of journalism (especially longer pieces) focuses on particular people, events, and groups- they may not affect everyone's lives, but they do offer a human interest element to journalism that would otherwise be absent. Features, such as the BDSM piece, add interest and intrigue to the newspaper and attract a lot of readers. When you read that headline, you obviously continued to read because you wanted to see what it was about. I encourage you to look at the front pages of accalimed newspapers, such as the NYT and the Boston Globe, and see if every front page story is hard news. I'd seriously doubt it- many front page stories are features or profiles that interest readers' curiosity. I also encourage you to do more research before you attack a publication, although I commend you on your resourceful use of google.

Helvetica

Sat Nov 14 2009 23:28

If anybody is shocked by this, just wait until they learn about furries.

UNH alum

Sat Nov 14 2009 17:38

It's not unusual for alternative sexuality groups, including those composed of people who like BDSM, to be present on a college campus. It's actually quite common. Conversio Virium has been a recognized student organization of Columbia University since 1994 and there are other similar groups at many colleges across the country. In fact, there has been an unrecognized UNH BDSM group for at least ten years, although it became defunct for a brief time before the current organizers revived it.

BTW, BDSM activities are generally no more unsafe than participating in sports or in most extracurricular activities.

J.Kru

Sat Nov 14 2009 14:38

What about the Holocaust Denial Group? The Black-Man Hayters? Enemies of GLBT ?

The fact is you do think its your business to judge an organization just because their activities are a shock to your system - you do and you would. It's simply that sexual perversion hasn't shocked you. There is no reason I should respect them, at all.

m82ep

Sat Nov 14 2009 14:06

The popularity of BDSM in the general WWW (given by google hits) is not nearly as relevant as the popularity in the immediate UNH community. Yes, there are plenty of topics that are very important in general, but they are not at all of major concern or on the top list of educational priorities of the UNH community.

When you try to argue against any moral judgement, you are striking down a straw man (or woman). Of course, the best argument against this article cannot come from a moral standpoint. There is nothing immoral in writing this article nor in participating in BDSM.

It's not your business to judge the content of bdsm. True. But it is your very damn business to understand what to put on the front page! How do we take this powerful resource we have been given and put it to the best use possible? In this respect, I think you have time and again failed, and of which the present article is a prime example. Frankly, half the student population does not give a damn about what bdsm is. Yeah, conduct a survey carefully. Not a stupid survey that asks the wrong question---you can always coerce the statistics to say what you want if you ask the wrong question. But, if you ask the students to rank 10 topics for articles, and the topics are chosen from all across the spectrum of topics, then you will find out that BDSM DOES NOT rank in the top 3, may be not even in the top 5.

THis would be evidence that you are not serving the university mission well.