Category Archives: CV in the Media

A collection of CV’s brushes with local and national stardom.

NY Times: Have You Been Naughty? Exploring the World of Corsets and Kink

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I just stumbled across an old article in the NY Times featuring CV (you’ll need to log in with a free account to view the article). Legitimate journalism is so refreshing when remembering the stupidity that surrounded the Daily News incident (which still seems to pop up regularly on terrifying right-wing blog syndicates). Reporter Jennifer Bleyer wrote in this March 2005 article:

A lanky guy in jeans and a red T-shirt announced that he had recently had an “awesome” time learning how to play with needles. A young woman in a Columbia ’05 sweatshirt described her interests as “knitting, crocheting, flogging and bondage.” A studious-looking man in horn-rims identified himself as a “funny kind of sadist.”

Laundry lists of fetishes were ticked off as if they were top choices for graduate school. The group sidetracked into an erudite discussion of the psychological underpinnings of sadomasochism. Finally, club members got down to the business at hand, which was scheduling discussion topics, activities and outings for the semester.

CV Featured in the Gadfly

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CV has been featured in the Winter 2008 issue of the Gadfly, Columbia’s Undergraduate Philosophy magazine.

In the article, May May and I talk about pleasure, pain and how those two things relate to [kinky] sex.

If you haven’t already seen the article, you should check it out on their website (it’s a PDF). The article is called “Tie Me Up: A Gadfly Interview with Conversio Virium” and begins on page 13 of the magazine.

Without notions of pain, we could not know pleasure—pleasure and pain, one might argue, are two sides of the same token. Or, as the following interlocutors might argue, one side of the same delicious, voluptuous token. In exploration of this latter view on pleasure-pain, Gadfly is proud to bring you an interview with Vice President Tyler and webmaster Maymay of Conversio Virium (CV), Columbia’s very own student BDSM club.

Read the rest of the article here.

Former CV President-of-Vice Bootblacks in Boston

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Kyle, CV’s former President of Vice before yours truly, is participating in the Mr. Boston Leather contest as Judge’s boy.

[Kyle] is currently an associate brother in the New York boys of Leather, after being a full brother for a year and a half. From 2005-2006 he served as the Vice President for Conversio Virium, the BDSM discussion/education group of Columbia University. Kyle moved to Boston at the end of August and has started working as a bootblack at the Ramrod. While his primary D/s relationship is with Northeastern University’s School of Law, he still finds time to engage in extracurricular activities.

Just feast your eyes on all that sexy leather. If you’re going to be in the area, wish him luck from all of us here in New York!

A lovely little citation

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Doing one of my frequent Google searches of CV, I found this little scholarly piece which cited us in 2005. While I was not very involved in CV at that time, it makes me proud to know that the information this author found so helpful still stands on our new site, even now. The bit where the author, Nicole Eitmann, cites our site discusses our faithful old motto, SSC.

From Nicole’s paper, On Sadomasochism: Taxonomies and Language:

A final complication concerns the slippage in the public imagination from S/M to physical abuse and forced sex. Conversio Virium, a BDSM (bondage and discipline S/M) support group at Columbia University, has developed a policy statement outlining the differences between S/M and abuse. According to the group, “S/M includes intimate activities within the scope of consent that is freely given”, while abuse is defined as “acts inflicted on a person without their freely given consent.”48 A popular phrase among the S/M and fetish communities is that all sexual encounters should be “safe, sane, and consensual.”49 The limits of S/M encounters are mutually agreed upon by both participants, and a safe word that when uttered means the scene must end immediately, is arranged. The “safe, sane, consensual” benchmark is also adopted by the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom (NCSF), an advocacy group supporting the rights of sexual minorities, specifically practitioners of S/M,50 although some in these communities question the applicability of this slogan to all who practice BDSM. One S/M participant noted that, “Sane is so close to meaningless for me that I find it useless. Who is to say what is sane? Shall we pass judgement on each other, as to whether people and/or activities are sane?”51 Such individuals do not question the propriety of the standard of consent, but do raise an interesting issue of how safety and sanity are determined, and by whom. Even the S/M guidelines published by Conversio Virium highlight consent as the most essential aspects of S/M, and stress the importance of mutual pleasure and respect in the S/M relationship.52

Things like this remind me that, even when our club is spoken of by sensationalist bloggers who can usually only see dirty side of CV, we are actually making a positive difference in the way the community to which we belong (and have, to some degree, created) is viewed by the rest of the word. Hooray for taking some of the bias against BDSM and its practitioners out of sociology (and for my run-on sentences)!

Interview with The Eye

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At the beginning of the Spring 2007 semester, Hannah and I were asked to participate in an interview for The Spectator’s weekly magazine “The Eye”. The interview went nicely and except some minor confusions over our titles, the writer painted a rather becoming portrait of CV. Here is a snippet.

By the way everyone, if you have links to any other CV media stories, send them to us (or comment here) and we will post them accordingly.

Continue reading →

Thank you, Ann Coulter

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Coulter’s notorious interview, on the John Gibson show, in November of last year, increased our membership, taught us some important lessons, brought us all closer together, and strengthened our faith in Columbia’s administration.

If you haven’t seen the interview, don’t. Ann Coulter has made a name for herself by pissing people off and she’s good at what she does. Nonetheless, I’m posting a link to the transcript, as an item of historical interest.

Click here to read the transcript

CV and The Daily News: The Beginning

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Not that I want talk of this article to begin again, or to increase the spin that The Daily News has already had on this unfortunate article, but here it is, for posterity. This is the article that began the media run that included Ann Coulter’s rambling commentary on Fox News that week, in addition to cultivating the love and spawning the hatred of dozens of bloggers. Here are some choice selections. Follow the link to read the full article, if you insist. Feel free to link to other interesting articles surrounding this incident or to discuss your own responses in the comments section. Continue reading →

National Writers Union Writes to Conversio Virium

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As the oldest University student-run BSDM discussion and education organization in the nation, Conversio Virium has a lot of history. We’ve had some good times and some bad times, and they’re all worth remembering fondly. The other day this old letter to Conversio Virium from Robert B. Chatelle, Board Member of the National Writers Union popped up on my radar.

The letter, which speaks to the importance of self-expression, is a response to Conversio Virium’s expulsion from Columbia University which was instigated by a campus Christian organization. For posterity, I have quoted it in its entirety below, though you can also read it from its original source:

December 4, 1994

Conversio Virium
542 W. 112 St.
Apartment 10A
New York NY 10025-1660
Dear Members of Conversio Virium,

On behalf of the National Writers Union I’d like to express our unqualified outrage at your expulsion by the Columbia Student Governing Board on December 1. The National Writers Union is a labor union representing nearly 4,000 freelance writers. We are proud to be affiliated with the United Auto Workers as UAW Local 1981 AFL-CIO.

We are outraged for several reasons. First of all, by our constitution, the “National Writers Union is committed to freedom of expression in all media.” Because Conversio Virium is a discussion-only group, your expulsion is a clear violation of your rights to assembly and expression.

Second, the National Writers Union is opposed to all forms of discrimination, including discrimination based on sexual orientation. This too is clearly enunciated in our constitution. When we first affiliated with the UAW, our Delegates Assembly unanimously approved a resolution calling for the NWU to work to amend the constitution of the UAW to be inclusive of all sexual orientations. We were successful in this effort, and NWU President Jonathan Tasini spoke in favor of the constitutional change at the last UAW Constitutional Convention.

Third, we are outraged to hear that the movement for your expulsion was led by individuals claiming to be “Christian.” Over the past several years many sexual minority people have been injured, permanently disabled, and even murdered by people claiming to be Christians doing God’s will. The National Writers Union has many Christian members, and bigotry in the name of Christianity insults not only these members but also all true Christians.

Fourth, we are outraged that ten student groups care so little about human rights that did not attend the December 1 meeting to vote. Who will speak for them when their freedom is at stake?

I am not part of the BDSM community myself, but as a 52-year-old gay man I know well the pain and indignity of discrimination. I have a great many friends within your community, and they are good, caring, and decent human beings. Many have been valuable members and activists within the National Writers Union. I remember with special fondness, for example, John Preston, whom we invited to serve on our National Advisory Board shortly before his death last spring. John gave unselfishly to our union and he is greatly missed.

Anyone who bothers to learn about the BDSM community knows that the charge that you “promote unjustifiable violence” is ridiculous. On the contrary, the 18 groups who voted against you, and the ten cowardly groups who stayed away, committed an act of unjustifiable violence against Conversio Virium. Let them be advised that there are organizations such as the National Writers Union that do not remain silent when confronted with censorship and intolerance.

Let us know how we can be of help.

Sincerely,

Robert B. Chatelle, National Board Member
Political Issues Chair
National Writers Union, UAW Local 1981 AFL-CIO

cc: Members of the Free Expression Network: People for the American Way, the ACLU, the National Coalition Against Censorship, the National Campaign for Freedom of Expression, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the Baptist Joint Committee, the Media Coalition, the American Library Association, Feminists for Free Expression, Human Rights Watch, the National Council of Churches, PEN American Center, and many others.