- BDSM enthusiasts within Ministry of Justice say they are discriminated against
- Justice Secretary Dominic Raab was forced out over bullying allegations
Source: Dailymail.co.uk.
UK – Civil servants who are partial to a bit of bondage are now demanding the same support as other minority groups.
Sexual fetish enthusiasts within the Ministry of Justice – where Justice Secretary Dominic Raab was yesterday forced out over bullying allegations – say they are discriminated against and need protection.
They are calling on their trade union to set up a staff network for BDSM (Bondage, Domination, Sadism, Masochism), to campaign for their rights and to even set up training courses on consent.
Members of the Public and Commercial Services Union, which represents 200,000 public sector workers, are due to discuss the topic at their annual conference.
A motion tabled by the MoJ Associated Offices branch and included in next month’s conference programme calls on delegates to note ‘that BDSMers need protection in law as many are fired if their employers find out’.
It states that ‘as a minority group who are discriminated against they should have a support group in PCS’, that ‘BDSMers should have equal rights and protection as other discriminated-against groups have’, and that ‘PCS should support and campaign for their rights’.
And it calls on the union’s ruling council to put forward a similar motion to the conference of the TUC, the umbrella organisation for Britain’s trade unions.
The motion also wants the union to ‘promote that Mutual Informed Consent should be what is needed before erotic activity is carried out’ and ‘establish training courses for members on consent and negotiation’.
But Caroline Ffiske, from Conservatives for Women, told the Mail: ‘The idea that we should be able to bring our sexual fetishes to work, indeed have them supported by staff networks, is absurd and infantilising. Keep it to the bedroom between consenting adults.’
Comedy writer Graham Linehan highlighted the document online, saying: ‘PCS is a union for civil servants. This is one of their motions to be considered for a vote – that people who like being gagged and spanked are an oppressed minority.’
The PCS conference in Brighton will also hear several motions on trans rights. One, tabled by a Department for Work and Pensions branch in Bradford and an HM Revenue and Customs one in Glasgow, calls on delegates to agree that ‘sex is not binary’ and says: ‘Biological reductionism is harmful to all women and forms the basis of many patriarchal notions of biology as destiny.’
It also demands that the union expresses its concerns to the Cabinet Office about a ‘regressive’ staff network called SEEN for civil servants who believe that people cannot change sex.
But Mrs Ffiske said: ‘The so-called regressive ideology supported by SEEN is that sex is real and matters, and that women have a right to free speech and open debate on this subject, including within the civil service, without fear of bullying.’
