Imagine. It's a Saturday night. You and the friend you met the past Wednesday night at the GMSMA genitorture program have begun to get along real well.

It's your place. You're in chaps, vest, leather cap, tall laceups. Him, he's wearing nothing but what he was born in, except for the leather restraints on his wrists, holding him taut, tight to the wall.

You've just begun teaching him that a big wooden spoon is meant for balls, not sauces, when there's a pounding at the door.

"Open up, it's the police!"

Spoon in hand, you get to the door and open it up.

Bam! You're under arrest. Charged with assault with a dangerous spoon, err, weapon. And his consent, repeated over and over again to the arresting officer, means nothing.

Ridiculous? Unfortunately not.

This past July, in Attleboro, Massachusetts, something quite similar occurred in a case now known as "Paddleboro." On July 8, police officers there raided a private party where adults were engaging in consensual s/m. They charged the host with keeping a house of prostitution, possession of an item of "self-abuse," and eight counts of possession of a dangerous weapon. Even more bizarrely, they charged one of the guests with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, a wooden spoon being used on a butt!

In an eerie echo of the Spanner case from the UK, it turns out that Massachusetts case law declares that consent cannot be used as a defense to a charge of assault and battery with anything that could be described as a dangerous weapon. Paddles, whips, floggers, and, yes, spoons seem to fit that description.

Sometime late in the fall pretrial discovery and motions will end and a date for a trial will be set. Of course, the community in Massachusetts is fighting back. With the help of the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom of which GMSMA is a charter member a media outreach effort has begun educating the broader community about the important civil and human rights issues involved. And a local effort is busy raising funds to help pay the legal expenses.

You can help directly with this effort. Check out the NCSF web site at www.ncsfreedom.org and the Paddleboro Defense League at www.paddleboro.com. Both groups are in urgent need of support and donations.

And spread the word about this case to your friends. It's likely that similar case law exists throughout the U.S. So this will be an important case no matter where you live. Equally important is that everybody gets the easiest chance yet this fall to be a Gay Male S/M ACTIVIST. All you gotta do is vote. Important issues are at stake in this election. The various candidates have different positions on the issues important to all of us: equal rights, non-discrimination, AIDS financing, privacy. And whoever controls the White House and the Senate will shape the Supreme Court for the next decade. Don't let someone else make the decision for you. Get out and vote! You can find out ore about the candidates' and parties' positions at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force site, www.ngltf.org.

But don't stop there. No matter who gets elected in November, they'll only carry out their promises (or be stopped from carrying out their threats) if we stay involved and active. Why not join GMSMA's Community Involvement Committee and become a part of the solution?

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