Your pain is my pleasure

Sitting a few feet from a table of whips, leather collars and multi-colored bondage ropes makes it hard to concentrate on the large woman in a tight red dress and leather heels giving a lecture at the front of the room.

It makes sense, though: She is talking about kink.

Those sexual tools, designed to inflict pain on and control your partner tend to draw the eye. Then, with the crack of a whip, my attention is back on her.

Her name is Coral Mallow, and she gave a presentation Wednesday at Portland State, sponsored by the Queer Resource Center, called “Kink 101–Beyond the Whips and Chains; Beyond the Stereotypes.”

Mallow is Ms. Oregon State Leather 2007, and yes, it sounded made-up to me too. Apparently it’s not. There is a large Oregon leather (guess what they are into?) community out there, and they bestowed the official title on her after she competed in a leather pageant.

It makes you wonder if there are other clothing-related titles up for grabs. If anyone knows of a “Mr. Oregon State Adidas Track Jacket Pageant,” let me know.

Under the bright fluorescent lighting of Smith Memorial Student Union 296, discussing frightening kinks and filthy topics like fisting and hook suspensions seems oddly sterile and academic. Like any good teacher would, Mallow leads the 40-plus crowd in discussion, encouraging conversation with a commanding presence. She’s like that great English professor you can’t help but listen to because of their charisma. Only your English professor probably doesn’t take people home, tie them up and beat them erotically until they drop to the floor begging for more.

Since the Kink 101 discussion was meant to be educational, here are some things I learned:

1. Red means fisting; purple means blood; and yellow means piss (I will explain no further).

2. The more comfortable weirdos are with their weirdness, the more uncomfortable I get with my dullness.

3. The only difference between the leather community and geeks is that the leather community actually gets some action.

4. The cycle of judgment never ends. If I’m made uncomfortable by sadists, they in turn are made a little uncomfortable by other sexual subcultures such as furries. (Mallow said they are a bit “twitchy.”) It leaves the question: What makes furries uncomfortable? I’m guessing soap and education.

5. I’m a vanilla.

A vanilla is someone who has everyday old-fashioned “normal” sex. But what is normal? Is your next-door neighbor who mows their lawn every Friday at noon normal? What if you found out he had an amazing collection of dildos in the shape of U.S. presidents? Is he still the same person that you knew before?

One thing Mallow points out is how pervasive leather fetish, domination and other kinks have become in our society. Just look inside Hot Topic at the mall and you’ll see collars and leather outfits with chains and hooks right next to the other crap they hock.

Like the Boy Scout troop leader who may or may not own a Baby Jesus butt plug (don’t look it up, just trust me that it’s real), sexual deviancy can be a part of any person’s life. The crowd at Kink 101 proved that. Most looked like your everyday PSU students–and I’m sure they were. With the exception of one guy with a leather dog collar around his neck, the crowd was as traditional looking as college students come.

These are stereotypes that Mallow wants to break. Normal is subjective, and deviant desires don’t mean deviant people. At an anti-abuse summit (yes, there is a difference between abuse and what people like Mallow do. The pain that Mallow causes is only physical, not mental. And it is always consensual), a woman charged at her because of her look. Eventually, the angry woman calmed down after finding a common ground with Mallow, but not everyone understands her lifestyle.

“A lot of people don’t like what I do and with good reason. I like hurting people. That’s not in a lot of people’s vocabulary.”

The uncomfortable-ness that people feel toward this lifestyle may be based on preconceived notions. The idea of removing all sexual limits can be frightening, but really not every taboo is broken in the leather lifestyle; the community still has some sacred cows. Mallow’s lifestyle is about honor and integrity and is structured like the military, where they have to move their way up from being a “bottom” (they take) to a “top” (give). She is clear that the freedom to practice sexual quirks–not involving children or permanent damage, of course–is vital in our society, and she recognizes the sacrifices past generations have made to fight for her right to whip.

The way Mallow talks about her own and others’ sexual lifestyle choices all made it start to make sense, and the discussion became a little less awkward. Then I found out the traditional-looking older woman sitting next to me was actually named Blade Runner, and that thing she was knitting wasn’t actually a scarf.

“They don’t know that’s a dildo cozy,” Mallow said to her friend.

But I know now. And I also know that people can beat each other out of love. And I’m OK with that. I just don’t know how I feel about dildo-cozies.