DEAR READERS: Why is it that any mention of S-M nets more picky, niggling "corrections" than any other topic? I needn't go into any great detail here – suffice it to say I wasn't always a married lady sitting home watching TiVo. So it's not owing to my somehow lacking sufficient familiarity with the material. Rather, it's the nature of the S-M community, which tends, as a group, to think too much and talk too much and write self-important e-mails when it could be playing. This could have something to do with it being full of the sort of people drawn to activities that, while they appear edgy and daring, are in fact safer than golf, which at least carries a risk of being struck by lightning. S-M lends itself to overplanning, overequipping, and an obsession with detail. In other words, it's for nerds. I say this with all due respect and (as a risk-averse, nerdish person) self-recognition, but I say it anyway: S-M isn't exactly running the bulls at Pamplona; S-M is a petting zoo. Get over your bad selves.

None of this explains why it's always the scenesters insisting that any passing mention of perviness must include their own personal perversion. If I write about bondage, say, I'll get "Of course, it's originally an Apache initiation ritual, but you should never hang someone from their eyeballs without gloves. Also, I think you were remiss in failing to mention cortical saline inflation ..." Sigh. I didn't mention Apache cortical-inflation eyeball hanging because I was trying to make sure everybody understands what I mean by "top" and "bottom" first, and I only have this one little column to do it in, you self-inflated sixth-grade suck-up. Sit down. And don't write me letters.

The following letter (and prime example) is actually from Sex News Daily, a fun e-newsletter you should all check out anyway.

Love,

Andrea

"Andrea's answer was incomplete. 'Spanking' is a huge niche, totally separate from SM. My girlfriend (we met through spanking.com) likes having to face real consequences for her actions. For instance, for the last 6 months, she has been losing on average 8lbs/month."

Dear Guy Who Wrote to SND Instead of to Me: OK, that's not only beside any point I may have been making, it's also kind of creepy. And spanking is too S-M. S-M is an umbrella term. You are a spoke.

Love,
Andrea

Dear Andrea: You were missing something in the letter about Secretary. She's talking about media recognition. Do you know how much I'd like to see a female/masochist S-M version of The Incredible True Adventure of Two Girls in Love or anything reflecting the reality of my experience in the gay-lesbian film festival? We're not there as the Cleavers or as revolutionaries, we don't have love stories or tragedies, we're just invisible. I want my life to exist as a cultural experience, and I think that's what your writer was saying. And when she fears that goths, punks, and rednecks are her only options, I understand. We should be seeing our own worlds there the same as we do at Pride or in the personals. But something is preventing the majority from being associated with the "S-M community." There's something wrong here.

Some of my own alienation from the scene is gender specific, but I want to suggest that there's an issue with the S-M community that is limiting our liberation as a people. There's an emphasis on exclusivity and hipness rather than the inclusivity of a civil rights movement; there are these gatekeepers doling out the right to one's own sexuality; there are real problems in our public culture.

The point is, I guess it's OK to send them to the usual referrals if they ask for that, but the complaints you're hearing aren't always just newbieness. It's also that we're about half a century overdue for our Stonewall.

Love,
Concerned Community Member

Dear ConComMem: Power play to the people, huh? Hmm. Perhaps the S-M scene lacks the inclusivity of a civil rights movement because it's not a civil rights movement. I'm sorry, but I'm just not convinced that sharing a taste for certain sensations qualifies a bunch of folks as a "people." There is such a thing as an organized S-M community, but it's naturally just a subset of all the people who do weird stuff with pleasure/pain and power, just as the queer community is a scant subset of people who have sex with their co-genderists.

There may be a certain sameness to the crowds at events, but this is within your power to change. Gatekeepers? What gatekeepers? Grab your friends and crash the gates. Has the oft-invoked Stonewall taught you nothing? Hint: it was a riot, not an act of Congress. Keep in mind, though, that while the United States guarantees you certain inalienable rights, media representation is not among them.

Love,
Andrea