An article on kink in Psychology Today. It's a not a bad piece, I suppose, although someone really needs to tell the author - identified only as "PT Staff" - to stop saying "s AND m". That's soooooo dated. Just say "SM".

But overall, it's just a lot of cliches couched in comforting therapist-speak. I don't strongly object to that - there are certainly worse ways to have my community depicted. Can someone send this piece to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, please?

But snippets like this make me giggle....

"A common female masochistic fantasy is submission based on having one's body displayed to others. One of Baumeister's favorite--perhaps apocryphal--stories is that of a woman whose husband threw her a birthday party, inviting lots of people. She was posed nude and spread-eagle on the hors d'oeuvre table. Every party-goer who reached for a cracker or the vegetable dip had to reach across her bare self."

First of all, they're confusing - or perhaps equating - "masochism" with "submission". That's wrong, they're two different things. Masochism is about the desire for intense physical sensation, and submission involves emotional/phychological states. What's being described here doesn't seem to involve any intense sensation, so I would not call this a "masochistic" scene.

Also note the soothing suggestion that this story couldn't have really happened. Oh, my goodness, a woman being nude and helpess in front of lots of people? Shocking! Shocking, I tell you! I'm thinking that "PT Staff" would probably have a stroke if they ever came to the Wet Spot. Or a party at my house, for that matter. Lots of people doing a lot more than just being naked. Why, just Sunday night, I put chopsticks on a woman's outer labia, poked them with a bamboo skewer, and smacked them with a small wooden spoon. This, after Roman had stuck her lovely tits full of needles. That's my idea of a "common female masochistic fantasy".