On June 11, 2014, the conservative group, Live Action, released a video of an actress/investigator posing as a fifteen-year-old girl with a seventeen-year-old boyfriend and showing an interest in BDSM to the lady that is counseling her at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Indianapolis, Indiana. The lady proceeds to tell her what roleplay is and it escalates from there with details of more BDSM practices, even suggesting Fifty Shades of Grey as a means to have a better understanding of the lifestyle that is BDSM. It even goes so far as the counselor using examples from her own life.
Problems.
First, the counselor.
There are several problems with this whole thing.
The first is that a teenager should not be counseled concerning BDSM. That is something that is for adults, who are able to consent and understand what it is and what they are getting into concerning BDSM. The counselor should have tried to tell her that that is more of an adult thing rather than something for teenagers and suggested she wait until she was eighteen to look at it more thoroughly.
The second is that the counselor went into great detail about her sex life concerning BDSM. No one wants to know that in most instances. That’s more of a TMI thing, but you definitely do not talk about your sex life to those under eighteen. There are many others as well, but those are the two main ones.
The counselor is no longer at the clinic and Planned Parenthood has come forth saying that they do not endorse these views, as Live Action claims.
Now, the video.
In the video, there are several problems as well.
To begin with, there is a leading question presented to the counselor. The investigator asked the counselor about role play and the counselor gives a generalized answer about what it is and how you go about it.
However, throughout the video, parts are skipped and fast forwarded through. There is such heavy editing that you can’t tell the full exchange between the actress/investigator and the counselor. All that is shown are clips and snippets of incriminating evidence against the counselor. Heavy editing does not speak of the integrity of the group that used this actress/investigator and it does not show ethical journalism, any more than the tactics do. Regardless of whether or not it is graphic and sexual in nature, the raw footage should have been presented in full form to show the “evil” that Planned Parenthood is promoting.
The video is also supposed to be one of several- yet they took almost three months to release it as well, since the time stamp is back in late March of this year. It should have been released immediately if they thought this was so terrible.
BDSM.
In the video, with more editing, there is a girl that is talking about those in the lifestyle of BDSM. She begins discussing that she thinks those involved in BDSM are “emotionally damaged or something.” She goes on to explain that it is not abuse and it is quite different, but then the video is cut off to the counselor and the investigator posing as a fifteen-year-old girl.
Those in BDSM are not all emotionally damaged any more than those in the regular life that they live are emotionally damaged. BDSM is about trust, as any relationship is. It is not abuse, it is not something that someone is forced into, and it is not something that is openly advertised.
The founder of Live Action says that Planned Parenthood is “pushing BDSM off on teens.” First off, if it was being pushed off on them, they would be forced to listen to information about it and forced to participate in it. When you approach someone with interest in something, that is not the other person forcing you to do so.
BDSM and kink are not evil and are not bad. They are what some people prefer in their own lives and that is between them and their significant other. No one else.
Hidden Agenda.
Live Action, since 2008, has been gunning for Planned Parenthood. The founder herself posed as a thirteen-year-old girl (when she was nineteen or twenty) and claimed that she had a thirty-one-year-old boyfriend and was aghast to learn that the counselor told her to say she was seventeen to get an abortion. The thing is with that one, the counselor probably knew she was lying about her age and was saying that to just get her out of there.
Live Action has also claimed that there are videos and information on Planned Parenthood’s website concerning BDSM. I spent an hour on Google looking this up and found nothing. I looked on Planned Parenthood’s official page and found nothing as well.
There have been many other such “stings” by Live Action against Planned Parenthood, each with the goal of stopping funding. Heavy editing of videos, leading questions, claims that are invalidated with a simple Google search, and many other unsavory tactics have been used by these “investigators” of Live Action in an effort to further their political agenda. These tactics are designed to spoon feed people only the information Live Action wants them to have rather than giving them the full information to make an informed judgment.
This is shoddy journalism and shoddy practices.