Renewed for a second season on HBO, the sex cult documentary series, The Vow, exposes some weighty do do that wackadoodle, self-proclaimed “Vanguard,” group leader Keith Raniere did do to a whole bunch of ladies (he conned men too, but didn’t get them to lose weight, submit to a mistress-slave relationship or brand themselves). Raniere ran the NXIVM group (pronounced “Nexium”) and seemingly formed a woman’s- only group within his corporation to abuse the ladies. It’s chilling stuff, to be sure, but a few things shake, rattle and roll an old reprobate like me when I see stuff like this… mainly, let’s not confuse abuse and even mind-control cult techniques with good old, S&M kink play.
I have seen this happen too many times to count. Some sort of non-vanilla sexual play that harms people (yeah, I said, non vanilla, as in our fun and sexy podcast, Licking Non-Vanilla, which you can find here or here, to name but a few of the places you can find it) gets exposed in the mainstream, and instantly there’s blowback that all kink is bad or potentially harmful.
Let’s take the second point first:
Yes, kink can be harmful. Chris and I are on and on about this all the time. Play safe, use plenty of lube, take classes, and please, please, don’t ever put anything around your slave’s neck or restrict their breathing in any way (this last bit of advice gets us plenty of opposition from dyed-in-the-wool kinksters, but fuck it, we want everyone to be safe!)
The first point: no, all kink is not bad. Not by a long shot.
To be honest, I have a hard time with these folks-falling-prey-to-a-cult docs. It’s so obvious to me that we all need to be ever suspect over anything anyone says at any time, especially supremely conceited leaders looking for money (and no, I don’t mean the Democrat or Republican candidates, haha). I feel there is as much to explore in why seemingly smart people, many who star in this docu-series, were duped into NXIVM as there is the dangerous group itself.
But please, don’t take all that happened here in the sexual submission, branding, weird nude-picture blackmailing as having anything to do with people engaging in spanking, bondage, chastity, or any other kink.
Kink good; sex cult, not.
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