Kinksters: The icky queers of the LGBT community

One of the ironies of progressive movements is that we are often all too eager to do unto others as our oppressors have done unto us. One particular example is the vanilla LGBT attitude toward people of various kinks. One would think that LGBT people would not be in such a hurry to pass moral judgment on unauthorized sexuality, but sadly, they often are.

I came out as into kink shortly after coming out as gay, and pretty much to the same reaction. Vanilla queers often have the same horrified fascination, or sometimes just horror, for kink that heterosexuals often have for homosexuality. Articles on kink in the LGBT media give the same conjectures for the origin of kink that people accepted in the fifties for the origin of homosexuality, and with just as much supporting evidence. Even a former acquaintance who was a card-carrying member of NAMBLA felt free to ridicule kink.

Just in case the irony is not heavy enough, I recently read a column in a leather publication mentioning "leather fundamentalists" and their opposition to anything not old-school. Some people just do not get anything.