When it comes to behavior between consenting adults I tend to be pretty libertarian, but the 2,000-word Times feature with the Web headline "Bondage, Domination, and Kink Sex Communities Step Into View" was a bit much even for me.
The Times seems to view waterboarding of Islamist terrorists by the American government for the purpose of preventing future terrorist attacks to be criminal, but views waterboarding for the purpose of sexual gratification as worthy of celebration.
I'm not kidding about waterboarding; other practices discussed in the article include "electricity, knives," "ABDL (adult baby, diaper lover)" and "fire play, which involved accelerant placed on strategic points of the woman's body and set ablaze in short, dramatic bursts."
Again, the Times views eating a spoonful of sugar or smoking a cigarette as a dangerous activity on which the government should clamp down, but setting a person afire for sexual gratification is portrayed as the next frontier in the struggle for civil rights. Of 12 persons quoted in the article, 11 are either participants or advocates of these practices, and the 12th works in a store catering to them. There's not a single person quoted in the article who suggests maybe that this stuff is dangerous, or that the analogy the Times writer and the participants draw between civil rights for gays and lesbians and "coming out" for people who do this stuff is not a perfect one.