Bondage, Domination, and Sadism and Masochism (BDSM) seems
to be in thing on campuses! Blame it on E L James, varsity youngsters are
getting hooked to kinky sex.
Early December, the authorities at Harvard University found that
a student-run BDSM group is very active on its campus and officially recognized
the group. It means freshmen at this Ivy League university can sign up for
kinky sex along with about 400 other student groups.
Those who know say that Harvard is not at all the first
university to approve such a group. Way back in 1992, Columbia University became
the first to have this honor by recognizing Conversio Virium (Latin for
“exchange of forces”). Later in 2003, the Iowa State University student body
founded Cuffs, a college student group that teaches about bondage and other
sexual fetishes, while Vassar College has the Sex Avengers, which holds an
annual “Masturbate-a-thon.”
Though it was limited earlier, now after Fifty Shades of
Gray is out and sold like hot cakes, mainstreaming of the BDSM subculture has already
been accelerated and is spreading fast to more elite institutions of higher
learning. According to New York Observer, Columbia has a BDSM group. So do
Tufts, MIT, Yale and the University of Chicago. Brown, UPenn and Cornell have
hosted BDSM educators for on-campus seminars entitled “The Freedom of Kink” and
“Kink for All.” It looks like conservatives who have long viewed the Ivy League
a bastion of depravity may have a point after all.
New York Observer says that while the scene’s mantra—“safe,
sane and consensual”—is heard so often it might as well be translated into
needlepoint, violations of these maxims are common. It is reported that hundreds
of students, mostly women, have come forward to describe the abuse they’ve
suffered within the scene.
Experts say that BDSM clubs are a good thing as long as this
means providing safe spaces for students to explore alternative sexuality, but
clear rules on what “consent” means need to be in place.
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