Dear Mr. Salaran, you bring up a few good points in your articles. However, you got some things wrong. Glaringly wrong. Wrong on the "all gays are pedophiles" level of wrong. I'd like to discuss them with you.
See, I'm one of those people you didn't bother to talk with before you wrote this; I'm a lifestyle BDSM player. I'm a dominant woman. And yesterday night I went to a party with several friends and restrained someone and beat him with whips, sat while someone massaged and licked my feet, ordered someone else to run my errands, and beat a woman's ass and thighs with canes to the point that she went home with bruises that will last at least a week. Obviously to your mind, this makes me a terribly abusive woman. To my mind, and the mind of those who play with me, it makes me a damned good top and a much sought after dominant.
What we are doing, Mr. Salaran, is working with play power. Our contracts are not real. Fundamentally no one does anything they don't actually want to do. To quote Pepomint, in an excellent essay on the matter,
The primary power operation of BDSM is a claiming or borrowing of nonconsensual mainstream power dynamics, which are reproduced as consensual play power in BDSM settings.
I'm not happy with a lot of non-consensual mainstream power dynamics, so I understand your worry that BDSM can cloak abuse. Of course it can. But so can religion. Tell me, Mr. Salaran, are you assuming that everyone who homeschools does it so that the teacher doesn't see the bruises on little Johnny and little Susie? Or that women who wear headscarves are abused? Abuse is non-consensual. It's not a game. What we do is a game. That's why we call it play. And in this game, both sides have the right at all times to call it off.
I understand your discomfort with impact play and some of the wilder fetishes. Of course, I don't entirely understand why people want to jump out of perfectly good aircraft either. You don't have to understand it to accept it. Bodily injury is an accepted side effect or potential hazard in many sports, whether it's a mild soreness after a good workout or bruises in roller derby or rope burn from rock climbing. The people involved are all consenting adults. They get to choose what makes them happy, Mr. Salaran, just like you do.
And by the way, Mr. Salaran, when I beat that girl's ass this weekend? When she drew a shaky breath like she was going to start crying, I leaned in and said, "Are you still green?" and she said, "Yeah. Go ahead until I do cry. I need to." And after the twelfth cane strike, when tears rolled, when her knees shook, she said "I'm done", and I unchained her and wrapped her in a blanket and held her while she cried, gave her water and petted her hair, and had a cloth brought so she could wash her face. When she got dressed she gave me a hug, and said, "I enjoyed that. Thank you." She was a participant, with control over the outcome, not a victim. Some people might have run themselves to exhaustion for emotional release, or throw themselves into physical labor, or drive for miles. This was her answer, better for her than drinking or overeating. And I was honored that she'd let me help her.
You see, Mr. Salaran, I'm not abusive. I love my friends. We just play a game you don't understand. We don't want to bring our partners to the company party on a leash. What we want is to not lose our kids or our jobs because when we've gotten time off work and sent the kids to Grandma's, we choose to play this game on our own time. We want the freedom to be able to use these tools of pain and pleasure and restraint and power to heal the scars of nonconsensual power use in our past. That's all. I don't want to make you play my game, unless you want to.
Because really, Mr. Salaran, what gets me off is none of your business.