Seeing as it’s been all over news here in the great white north, it’s finally time for me to talk about the fact that the media has decided to demonize a member of the RCMP for participating in (as far as anyone seems to know) consensual BDSM. Apparently some douchebag leaked his FetLife photos to the news, who proceeded to have a field day making shit up.

Even more unfortunately for the beleaguered Cpl. Jim Brown, he had a small role in the Pickton (also known as “The Pig Farmer Killer”) investigation, which the media has run wild with.

There have already been a few more balanced articles written, as well as plenty of blog posts, but why let that stop me from ranting?

First, it turns out the the more explicit photos leaked aren’t even of Cpl. Jim Brown. Fact-checking, motherfucker, have you heard of it? What kind of moron publishes photos without making sure they know who is in them?

Second, the ‘connection’ with the Pickton case is tenuous at best. Again, research is good for you. Anyone with the slightest familiarity with the BDSM scene could have told the author that knife play, cages, abduction scenarios, and rape play are all extremely common in the scene. Even if Cpl. Jim Brown is into those types of play, which is by no means clear (hey, did I mention the more extreme photos weren’t even of him?), I haven’t seen any evidence whatsoever that his alleged interest in say, rape play has anything to do with anything he might have seen during the Pickton investigation. If there were any evidence that the Corporal actually intended to reenact anything he saw during the Pickton investigation, that would be newsworthy. If there was any evidence that Cpl. Jim Brown had actually fucked up his part of the investigation, that would be newsworthy.

Third, the assumption that to be a straight male top is to hate women is both stupid and insulting. No doubt there are some straight male tops who do hate women, but there are some of every conceivable type of man who hate women. If there are any allegations that Cpl. Jim Brown has mistreated any of his female coworkers (a problem which doesn’t appear to be unusual in the RCMP), by all means, let’s hear it. If there’s any evidence that the woman or women in the photos didn’t enjoy participating in them, by all means, let’s hear it. Honestly, it took me about 30 seconds to google “S&M” and find out that the first sentence of the first result is “Sadomasochism is the receiving of pleasure—often sexual—from acts involving the infliction or reception of pain or humiliation.” (emphasis mine). Gee, it sounds like a scary looking photo doesn’t automatically mean that the people in it don’t enjoy what they’re doing. And of course, no one has ever had a scary looking photo taken on a roller coaster or in a haunted house. No one has ever careened down a mountainside on a bike or rapelled down a building or gone skydiving or ziplining or whitewater rafting or any number of ‘dangerous’, ‘crazy’ activities just because they have a somewhat unusual definition of fun.

In theory, Canada is an open-minded and tolerant nation. We are supposed to be better than this. Vancouver, could you leave the close-minded bigotry to the bible belt? This bullshit is just embarrassing.