Workshop legitimizes sexual perversion
By RORY LEISHMAN -- London Free Press--February 13, 2001
http://www.sunmedia.ca/Columnists/leishman.html
In a revealing editorial on Friday, the Barrie Examiner demonstrated how our ever-so-progressive public officials are now prepared to tolerate and abet even the vilest and most revolting forms of sexual deviancy among consenting adults and teenagers.
At issue was a free, all-day youth conference on Saturday at Barrie's Georgian College. The target audience was young people between the ages of 14 and 29. Sponsors of the event included the United Way of Greater Simcoe County, the AIDS Committee of Simcoe County, Health Canada and the Ontario Healthy Communities Coalition (an organization that gets funding from the Ontario Ministry of Health).
Posters promoting the youth conference promised, "free live music, food and awesome guest speakers and workshops that deal with your issues." And what are those issues? In the opinion of the conference's organizers, they include the environment, homelessness, social justice, drug abuse, self-esteem, stress management, suicide and safer sex.
For today's youngsters, all these topics are routine. In one respect, though, the youth conference at Georgian College seems to have set a new moral low: Included in the safer-sex category was a workshop on sado-masochistic sex.
In the opinion of the Barrie Examiner, "Organizers of a youth conference which includes a workshop on sado-masochistic sex are well meaning but totally misguided. They believe the best way for young people to make safe decisions is to provide them with information about some of those very activities that may harm them. Unfortunately they have failed to realize that inviting young people at large to a conference that exposes them to sexual practices that can be dangerous and considered by most people to be of a deviant nature, is also extremely risky."
Note the qualified assertion that the practice of sado-masochistic sex can be considered deviant "by most people." The editorial writer seems to have embraced the fashionable fallacy that morality is a matter of personal taste, not truth. Evidently, he or she does not understand that regardless of what anyone might wish or think, sado-masochistic sex is truly disgusting, degrading and immoral.
Gina Frederick, a spokesperson for the AIDS Committee of Simcoe, told the Barrie Examiner that the session on sado-masochism was not intended to promote sexual perversion. "This is an information session about making healthy decisions," she stressed. "It is not a how-to workshop."
Would organizers of the youth conference assure that at least impressionable 14- and 15-year olds would be barred from the session on sado-masochism? Not at all. Frederick avowed that there would be no screening based on age.
The AIDS Committee of Simcoe County claims there is an "S&M underground in Barrie" that includes some of the city's youth.
"It's a very specialized sexual activity," says Frederick, "and requires more care and more education."
Quite so. There is no doubt about the riskiness of sado-masochistic sex. Just sodomizing a sexual partner is dangerous, let alone beating or throttling them as well.
To instruct the youngsters of Simcoe County on the techniques of safer sado-masochistic sex, organizers of the youth conference chose a well-qualified expert -- Duncan MacLachlan. He is the executive producer of the Mr. Leatherman Toronto Competition, an annual event put on by homosexual sado-masochists for the benefit this year of the Toronto People with AIDS Foundation.
The Barrie Examiner was not favourably impressed by the selection of MacLachlan. "Just by having him present, the workshop sends a message to young people that this is a healthy, safe, sexual practice," stated the paper. "Groups like the United Way should think twice before they get involved in a conference of this nature."
Was the Simcoe County Children's Aid Society alarmed over the presentation of a workshop on sado-masochistic sex for area teenagers? Not at all. Agency spokesperson, Judi Shields explained: "While we don't condone this kind of (sado-masochistic sexual) behaviour, we would want to ensure a young person's safety if they choose to participate."
Is that reassuring? What's next? If a few youths in Simcoe County choose to participate in incest and bestiality, will the local United Way, the Children's Aid Society and Health Canada come up with a workshop on safer means of practising these perversions as well? God help us.
Write Rory at The London Free Press, P.O. Box 2280, London, Ont. N6A 4G1 or fax 519-667-4528 or E-mail.
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