"In recent days, Mr Schneiderman's case has come under close scrutiny in the BDSM community..."

"The BBC spoke with sex experts and prominent members of the community who... said they were keen to explain what does, in fact, make a consensual BDSM relationship...."

"It is entirely unacceptable to 'surprise' someone with slaps, whips, blindfolds, or anything like that if you haven't spoken to them about it before," said anonymous sex blogger Girl on the Net....

"People who participate in the BDSM community pride themselves on their communication and negotiation skills," said [Clinical sexologist Dr Celina] Criss. "Ideally, negotiation happens before partners ever touch each other."...

Girl on the Net likened it to a contact sport. "BDSM is to abuse what boxing is to being punched by surprise.... "I also know that 'BDSM made me do it' has been an excuse used by powerful men in the past to try and dodge accountability for their actions. It's not acceptable... BDSM is not an excuse for abuse."...

"It can be sexy, but also deeply caring," explained sex coach [Sarah] Martin. Kinky sex should never be used as a way to defend violent behaviour, she said. "It makes me feel it makes an attempt to take advantage of general societal ignorance of BDSM," she said.

How does something that people individually want to do get to become a "community," with rules and experts, who claim to be in a position to enforce lines they've decided are there? How does this level of organization (or perceived organization) occur? When an individual like Schneiderman gets bad press, the experts serve a function, tending to the reputation of what they call a "community," but how are we supposed to judge this after-the-fact PR?

I haven't used my "the [blank] community" tag in a long time.

"It wasn’t just that [Eric] Schneiderman appears to have been a feminist in the brightness of day but a violent misogynist when the lights went down."

"The reality may be darker: that the power he derived from his role in progressive politics was intertwined with his abuse. He seems to have used his feminist-minded political work to advance his own career, to ingratiate himself with the women he would go on to harm, and to cover up his cruelties.... It’s impossible to know what exactly was going on in Mr. Schneiderman’s mind. But one has to wonder if his alleged actions were all part of the same pathological craving for the kind of ultimate power that makes one immune from consequence — that he got off on the simple fact that he had the ability to physically hurt women while being perceived as their noble champion. What greater sense of authority than knowing that you can rupture a woman’s confidence (and, reportedly, her eardrum) so thoroughly that she, upon your mandate, removes her tattoos, loses weight and comes back after you’ve hit her; that you can physically overpower and injure women and then scare them out of reporting it; and that you can also convince the feminist and progressive establishments to crown you one of their greatest leaders and strongest advocates? A man who derives satisfaction from riding in as a white knight fighting for women’s rights while he secretly abuses women: It’s so tremendously narcissistic it seems almost fictional.... So what are strong women to do if even the men who seem like good feminists might be misogynists, too? With right-wing men who oppose women’s rights, what you see is what you get. With these bogus male feminists, it can be crazy-making..."

From "The Problem With ‘Feminist’ Men" by Jill Filipovic in the NYT.

It wouldn't be so confusing and "crazy-making" if you hadn't indulged in politically convenient excuses back when Bill Clinton was accused of rape and sexual harassment. Stop giving Democratic Party men a pass and put the liberation of women first.

"If there was an assault, can we then have an investigation, a trial, and a verdict. This Crucible-like environment needs to stop..."

"... and we need to rationally and soberly get back to following the Rule of Law, where a person is innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt, and stop convicting people in the Court of Public Opinion. If he did it, then he deserves to suffer the consequences prescribed for his crimes under the law, but he needs to be able to exercise his rights to a fair trial and to face his accusers in a Court of Law before we all jump to conclusions. And if he is innocent then he should be exonerated. #MeToo should not be about allowing anyone to make accusations about whoever they want to. It should be about providing a supporting environment where women and LGBTQ can seek justice under the law if they have been aggrieved. It should be about teaching men it is not okay to behave however they want. But it should not become Salem 2.0."

That's the top-rated comment on "Eric Schneiderman, Accused by 4 Women, Quits as New York Attorney General" at the NYT this morning. Schneiderman resigned the day the New Yorker article came out, detailing accusations.

Also in the NYT, "Before His Fall, Eric Schneiderman Defended Women and Took On Trump":

Recently, he pushed himself to the forefront of the #MeToo movement, announcing a lawsuit against the company once run by the former filmmaker Harvey Weinstein, who was accused of decades of sexual misconduct.

“We have never seen anything as despicable as what we’ve seen right here,” Mr. Schneiderman said at the time....

He had also raised his profile nationally by repeatedly taking on President Trump’s agenda in the courts.... Even before Mr. Trump took office, Mr. Schneiderman had filed a lawsuit against Trump University. And more recently, he had been pushing to change state law so his office could prosecute Mr. Trump’s aides if the president pardons them.

“Since November of 2016, Eric has led the fight to protect New Yorkers from the most harmful policies of the Trump Administration,” his biography says.... He successfully sued to block what he called President Trump’s “Muslim Ban.” He said he was taking the Trump administration to court over energy-efficiency standards. He said he was defending the rights of sanctuary cities in his state....

ADDED: As long as the witchcraft metaphor is in play, let me show you this, which I encountered after publishing this post:

I once cast this spell on my tv show Charmed. It foretold the future. The future is now.

From Ancient Time
This Power Came
For All To Have
But None To Reign
Take It Now
Show No Mercy
For this Power Can No Longer Be #Charmed

— rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) May 8, 2018

"Four Women Accuse New York’s Attorney General of Physical Abuse/ Eric Schneiderman has raised his profile as a voice against sexual misconduct."

"Now, after suing Harvey Weinstein, he faces a #MeToo reckoning of his own," write Jane Mayer and Ronan Farrow in The New Yorker.

Eric Schneiderman, New York’s attorney general, has long been a liberal Democratic champion of women’s rights... Now Schneiderman is facing a reckoning of his own. As his prominence as a voice against sexual misconduct has risen, so, too, has the distress of four women with whom he has had romantic relationships or encounters. They accuse Schneiderman of having subjected them to nonconsensual physical violence. All have been reluctant to speak out, fearing reprisal. But two of the women, Michelle Manning Barish and Tanya Selvaratnam, have talked to The New Yorker on the record, because they feel that doing so could protect other women. They allege that he repeatedly hit them, often after drinking, frequently in bed and never with their consent. Manning Barish and Selvaratnam categorize the abuse he inflicted on them as “assault.” They did not report their allegations to the police at the time, but both say that they eventually sought medical attention after having been slapped hard across the ear and face, and also choked. Selvaratnam says that Schneiderman warned her he could have her followed and her phones tapped, and both say that he threatened to kill them if they broke up with him. (Schneiderman’s spokesperson said that he “never made any of these threats.”)...

In a statement, Schneiderman said, “In the privacy of intimate relationships, I have engaged in role-playing and other consensual sexual activity. I have not assaulted anyone. I have never engaged in nonconsensual sex, which is a line I would not cross.”

Role-playing. Was the role-playing the part where you were the champion of women's rights?