BDSM News Digest – April 2009

This might be a recurring column. BDSM DOES get covered in the popular media. For your attention, here are  a few pieces which also made it to the Internet.

April 2009: let’s start with Canada. The British Columbia Rights Human Rights Tribunnal is hearing (finally!) the case of a BDMS lifestyler/pagan denied a chauffeur’s license by the Vancouver Police Department in 2003 , on the grounds that he was “un-fit” due to his “sex cult” involement – which was alleged by the Vancouver Polic Department/Very Prudish Detectives based on reports from an ex-girlfriend. I have no knowledge what sort of man gorean Peter Hayes, the complainant, is, but  the “case could determine whether BDSM qualifies for protection as a sexual orientation under the province’s Human Rights Code.”  The case is being heard by the Human Rights Tribunnal over the protestations of the VPD, whose attempt to block even a hearing was over-ruled by both the BC Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal. Master Stoltz has previously commented on the case here. I highly recommend the Apr 9, 2009 article by Natasha  Barsotti on the Internet news producer Xtra . Testamony of Dr. Charles Moser regarding whether BDSM is actually a sexual orientation sounds particularly interesting.

From San Francisco a weird tale (and I expect this will be in the news again, as there are possible legal issues): investigative reporting from a BDSM-positive source about state funding for job training for adult industry video technicians results in the revocation of that funding. (The training benefitted Kink.com, coincidentally the topic in another recent blog posting; for the record, neither Master Stoltz nor myself have any connection to kink.com aside from appreciating their work in clearly consensual, realistic BDSM in fetish entertainment and education).  The California Employment Training Panel (ETP) considers all adult industry workers’ training and education, by policy since 2008, the  “lowest funding priority”; on learning that Cybernet Entertainment LLC  was a beneficiary of training from the Bay Area Video Coalition, pulled the funding. Thoughts inspired for me on this: I wonder if the ETP’s prudish discriminatory policies are legal, and I wonder if all the other recipients of their funding, in other industries, have such emphatic and clear worker protection policies as does Cybernet Entertainment LLC? Maybe some more investigative reporting will be revealing. But the coverage of the funding revocation is perhaps being overwhelmed by controversy on the coverage of the issue by SF Weekly; its story characterized Cybernet Entertainment,  noted provider of realistic, ethical, Consent-based BDSM imagry, as being “in the business of narrowcasting videos depicting sexualized torture”. SF Weekly is not known as a hate monger – but this story seemed deliberately slanted to stir the most ignorant stereotypes about BDSM. 

Not news exactly but interesting:

•  an opinion article on BDSM vs Swing parties by Mistress Matisse.
• a blog by Clarisse Thorn, a Chicago-based feminist Pro BDSM pro sexuality activist.
• a vanilla news lifestyle piece about BDSM from Japan.
• op-ed piece on whether BDSM clubs or communities are splintering by Mister Marcus
• an op-ed piece on coverage of BDSM in the media
• an announcement of an erotic art festival

And to end a piece on Sweden’s official latest pop trend (well, at least according to The Local: Sweden’s News in English): Fetishism.  If as “ it appears that fetishism is finding a mainstream foothold in Swedish society” - why do we live anywhere else? (Except for Denmark, which the article says is even MORE kink positive.)  The Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen) removed Fetishism, Transvestism, and Sadomasochism from its lists of symptoms and sicknesses only in 2009 (yep, this year); Denmark did that in 1995. That last link has tons of info on how mental health, medicine, and the law perceives BDSM and kink, all over the world.

And that’s the BDSM news for now -  roll this up and SPANK someone you love with it.