I conclude that Slate keeps around certain commentators [Camille Paglia, Katie Roiphe, William Saletan] precisely because their uninformed, reactionary blatherings piss people off. That’s the only reason I can think of. I mean, surely no one takes these clueless blowhards seriously?

This week’s bloviation comes from William "Pointless and Sententious" Saletan’s column on The Trouble with Bondage. That’s bdsm, by the way, and the article discusses the reasons why bdsm will never go mainstream.

I thought the reason was that the majority of people weren’t interested in it. But no, silly me. Saletan’s article, as near as I can figure out, goes something like this:

blah blah blah lifestyle blah blah blah voluntary pursuit of pain wtf?! ewwwwwwwww blah blah breath play is dangerous blah blah anti-feminist sickos who like rape scenes blah some people take it to extremes blah blah I have no idea what I’m talking about, so I’m just going to call bdsm "consensual domestic violence" and cash my paycheck blah blah blah lifestyle choice.

As a human being with a functioning sense of decency, I find it repulsive that Saletan trivializes intimate partner abuse by using it as a metaphor for something it has nothing to do with. Way to go, you picayune, misogynist fuckhead. I’m glad to know that you’re more interested in making false equivalencies than dealing with actual deleterious symptoms of kyriarchy.

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