William Saletan has an anti-BDSM screed up at Slate. He doesn't approve of BDSM generally, but Saletan seems particularly tormented by the idea of a coworker at Slate bringing her girlfriend to the office Christmas party on a leash. (As that's never happened at the Stranger, William, I can't imagine it's going to happen at Slate anytime soon. So chill.) While I agree with the distinction Saletan makes between sexual orientations and sexual activities (a distinction I've made myself), Saletan goes out of his way to shock vanilla readers by linking to shit like this without so much as a "NSFW."

But yes to this: straight, gay, bi, or lesbian is something you are, BDSM is something some of each of the above do. A lesbian can't have a relationship—she can't date or marry or start a family—and keep her sexual orientation "private." But a kinky lesbian can date and shack up and get married without disclosing her kinks to friends, family members, and coworkers. No one is harmed if she is open about her kinks, of course, but her sex partners are the only people who really need to know about them. And most of us—kinky or vanilla—run our sex lives on a "need to know" basis. Into bondage? Your girlfriend needs to know. Your mom? Not so much. That Saletan guy in the cubicle by the photocopiers? Not at all.

There are certain assumptions we make about the sex lives of our friends, family members, and coworkers. We assume the straight couples we know are having vaginal sex, the gay couples are having anal sex, the lesbian couples (and everybody else) are having oral sex, etc. And most of us are perfectly comfortable with not knowing more than we need to about the particular interests, kinks, and fetishes of our friends, family members, and coworkers. It isn't hypocrisy. It's boundaries.

But Saletan seems terrorized by the thought of all the BDSMers in his life—he knows he knows people who must be into BDSM—coming out about their kinky sexual lives en masse. That's no more likely than his vanilla friends coming out about the delight they take in giving or receiving head. Most people into BDSM are like most other people: content to keep the particulars of their sexual activities private. But in our post-Fifty-Shades world, the only way for vanillas to make sure the closeted BDSMers in their lives stay closeted, Saletan's piece implicitly argues, is for vanillas to ramp up the fear-mongering and start reviving defamatory stereotypes: BDSMers are crazy and dangerous! To that end Saletan lards his post with links to hardcore images sure to traumatize as well as links to the idiotic blatherings of self-appointed BDSM "experts" on YouTube.

But it's unfair—unfair bordering on unhinged—of Saletan to describe consensual BDSM as "domestic violence." I don't know who should be more offended: good people into BDSM or actual victims of domestic violence. And here's a sadistic twist of the knife: Saletan holds up the kink community's own discourse about abuse and abusers—the willingness of the kink community to address the issue—as evidence that abuse is somehow unique to the kink community or more widespread in the kink community. Is there data on that, William, or is that just prejudice? And can you name a single community that doesn't have abusers? Some BDSM relationships are abusive, of course, but some vanilla relationships are too. There are "normal" straight guys out there—guys who are only interested in missionary-position sex—who beat their wives and girlfriends. Sometimes to death. I could write a post packed with links to stories about vanilla abusers. And what would it prove? That no one should fuck anyone at all?

Yes, BDSM can be dangerous. Yes, there are dangerous idiots and asshole abusers out there. Yes, the D/s dynamic is tricky and it can complicate negotiations and some bad players exploit it. People into BDSM need to be smart and cautious and on their guard. (Same goes for people who aren't into BDSM.) The potential for injury in BDSM is why you don't want someone pinning your cock to a butterfly board unless she know what she's doing and it's why you don't let someone you know nothing about tie your ass up. That's why it's important for kinksters to have a community—however imperfect—that shares information, teaches safe practices, and provides a degree of accountability. That community can't exist without a public face and that means some kinksters—for the good and safety of all—need to be out. Even if traumatizes William Saletan.