I’m a parent: BDSM dad’s plea for girl
Court will decide if kinky lifestyle disqualifies father
DOES the use of whips and chains in the bedroom mean you are unfit to bring up a child?
This is the conundrum posed in a legal spat between two former lovers over custody of their twoyear-old daughter.
The parents cannot be named to protect the identity of the child.
The 49-year-old father, a former ANC Gauteng politician, lives a BDSM (bondage, dominance and submission, sadomasochism) lifestyle with multiple women.
He brought a custody application in the High Court in Johannesburg when his former lover started demanding that visits with his daughter be supervised.
The 34-year-old mother of his child says his lifestyle is not a suitable environment for children. In court papers she claims he has a “fully functional BDSM play dungeon” and “many sex toys” in his house.
“The applicant has had many sexual partners in 10 years, and has even had two to three women living on his premises simultaneously, who he refers to as BDSM slaves and sexual objects for his desires and needs.
“[He] has a fully functional BDSM dungeon in his house with many ‘sex toys’ on display which get used when various women . . . spend the night. There are hooks in the ceiling whereto chains are connected for ‘ sexual play purposes’,” she said in papers.
The parents met a few years ago on a BDSM chat website. But the mother claims that since the birth of her child she has “walked away from the lifestyle”.
“Under no circumstances will I ever enter into any relationships of that sort again, as it is not a suitable environment around children,” she said. PRIVATE: Sexologist Dr Eve says courts have no say in bedrooms
But the father accuses his former lover of still actively using BDSM chat sites. He claims she is lying about her lifestyle to “impress” the court.
In a post made on one of the chat sites, he wrote: “This morning I will be in the high court. Before the judge is the question: does living a BDSM lifestyle mean that your home is unfit to bring up children in?
“I am absolutely terrified that a complete stranger who probably knows almost nothing about BDSM is going to decide if my beautiful little angel will have the daddy who loves her more than anything in her life as a full daddy or not.
“In the anti-apartheid struggle I had my life threatened on many occasions, even thought I would die on several occasions . . . Never in my entire life have I been more afraid than I am this morning.”
He said the court should base its decision on his “performance as a dad” and nothing else. He is asking the court to grant him either primary or joint residency.
Pending an investigation by the family advocate, the court has granted an interim order that allows the child to stay with her mother. She sees her father during the week and spends alternate weekends with him.
Sexologist Marlene Wasserman, who is known as Dr Eve, said the courts should “stay out of the bedroom”.
“This is his sexual preference and like any sexual preference, whether it is vanilla or kinky play, as long as it is kept consensual and private it should not have an impact on his status as a parent.”
She said BDSM was no longer regarded as abnormal because it had been removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the standard classification of mental disorders in the US.
“It is seen as a sexual activity which consenting adults engage in and not an indictment against somebody’s mental wellbeing if they practise it,” Wasserman said.
The father did not have to disclose his lifestyle to anyone, especially his child. “Do you ever let your children into your bedroom? No, you don’t.”
If the father decided to explain his lifestyle to his daughter, it should be done with “education and context”, she said.
He has a dungeon with many ’sex toys‘ which get used when women spend the night
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