is for S/M.  The efforts to normalize S/M sex, to disguise the leather scene as a healthy, self-affirming lifestyle, as wholesome as Mom and apple pie, will ultimately lead to its disappearance. When kink stops being kinky and becomes as salubrious as vitamins and prune juice, it will lose its appeal for vast numbers of leathermen who thrive on their marginalized status as sexual outcasts, clinging to the glamor of practices that, far from being really and truly illicit, have become an almost respectable form of behavior. . .  The dungeon has gone from being a charnel house, a place where forbidden desires are fulfilled, to a cozy parlor where prayers are said and emotional nourishment is prepared and consumed by men who "find their activities liberating, educational and rewarding."  In seeking the legitimization of kink in the eyes of mainstream society, leathermen are committing a very slow act of suicide, a process of self- eradication in which sadists the world over are engaging in the deadliest form of S/M possible, a snuff scene -- their own.