Whatever Happened to Oberlin's BDSM Club?

There were no Safer Sex parties when I was a student at Oberlin College. Nor did the student-run Sexual Information Center have any reading material on BDSM or kink.

Fast forward to the late 1990's and early 2000's. Students try to set up a BDSM educational group on campus. Folks on the supposedly liberal campus are up in arms. The group's charter application goes to the General Faculty, which debates it to death and blocks approval. Yet, apparently, the group somehow continues to survive - at least for a while.

There's scant information on this, but what I read bothers me. Set aside the questions of free speech and tolerance. The major reason we kinksters organize groups like this is to be safe - to share much-needed information, to look out for one another, and to educate outsiders about who we really are and what we're relly about. Just like every other community out there.

So strange, then, that a respected educational institution like Oberlin College does not get that. Even stranger, considering that, in 2006, they sanctioned a gun club for students. College students can learn gun safety, but they can't learn safe bondage? Does not compute.

But, as I said before, there's little online info out there. So, if you are a fellow alum, or otherwise connected to this, please let me know.

And if you're a student at Oberlin, looking to resurrect the group, let me know if I can help!