Slate
By Jordan G. Teicher
These photographs contain sexual themes.
Danny Ghitis became interested in the fetish, BDSM, and kink communities for the same reason he became interested in rock climbing: They both inspired a bit of discomfort, but also a bit of curiosity.
In 2011, same-sex marriage had recently been legalized in New York, 50 Shades of Grey was on everyone’s bookshelves, and Ghitis, a “straight, vanilla guy,” realized that he knew very little about sexual and gender identity. He decided to explore.
In his research, he came across FetLife, a “social network for the BDSM and fetish community,” that describes itself as “similar to Facebook and MySpace but run by kinksters like you and me.”
“I thought that looking into a project about it was basically a way to expose myself and confront my own ignorance,” Ghitis said. “That way I’d be able to learn and ask myself important questions about my own identity and really face the challenges I think we all should at one point or another face.”
He made a profile on the site, identified himself as a photographer looking for people to photograph, and slowly started making connections. Ghitis, who uses photography as “an excuse to meet people” he otherwise wouldn’t, started seeing some things he’d never seen before. His goal, he said, was to “put myself in front of people I was unfamiliar with and find common ground between us.”