Having a private kink life is not the same thing as bringing it into professional spaces.

  The backlash around the Minnesota teacher story reveals something deeper than public discomfort with BDSM. Based on current reporting, the issue involved publicly accessible photos from an adult BDSM performance context, and Thomas Rosengren later withdrew from consideration for Minnesota’s 2026 Teacher of the Year award. The reporting does not describe allegations that he brought BDSM into the classroom, exposed students to sexual material, or involved minors in any way.

  And that is exactly the point. A person can be kinky and still be a teacher. A person can have a private erotic life and still be thoughtful, disciplined, trustworthy, and appropriate in professional spaces. People do this every day with all kinds of identities, desires, and personal complexities. The issue is not that someone has a private life. The issue is that many people still treat kink as though it automatically disqualifies someone from being respectable, safe, or capable.

  What seems to disturb people most is not always harm. It is visibility. It is the idea that someone they want to see as ordinary could also have a stigmatized erotic life. But being kinky is not the same thing as being reckless, predatory, or unsafe. Private consensual adult sexuality is not the same thing as misconduct. If there is no evidence that someone crossed boundaries with students, then what people are reacting to is not necessarily danger. Often, it is stigma dressed up as moral certainty.

  It also matters that Rosengren held the title Mr. Minneapolis Eagle 2019. Reporting and leather-community coverage identify him as the 2019 titleholder, and leather title systems generally frame these titles around representation, service, standards, and showing up for the community, not around harming others. That does not make someone beyond critique, but it does challenge the lazy assumption that kink automatically means a lack of values, dignity, or self-respect.

  At The Kink Collective, this is why we say People Before Kink. A person should not be reduced to one facet of their sexuality, especially when there is no evidence they blurred professional boundaries with the people in their care. Kink is not the same thing as predation. Privacy is not the same thing as harm. And if we cannot tell the difference, then we are not having an honest conversation about ethics. We are reacting to shame, projecting fear, and punishing complexity simply because it makes us uncomfortable.