You're speaking to one of the people for whom it's a dealbreaker. In many ways, I think it might be more accurate to say that my sexual orientation is "submissive," and my theoretically bisexual, practically gay sexuality is a result of how we socialize one sex to be more dominant than the other. I'd be as miserable in a vanilla gay marriage as you'd be in a straight marriage. People like me probably don't make up the large majority of people who add a little bit of spanking to spice up the relationship, but they do exist as an identifiable sociological population. These are the people, like me, who basically cull their entire dating pool from BDSM events and the like, because they're incompatible with pretty much everyone else. While not exactly pre-Stonewall gay culture by any means, the few studies done about this population indicates a non-trivial level of stigma and discrimination.
https://ncsfreedom.org/images/stories/pdfs/BDSM_Survey/bdsm_survey_fast_facts.pdf
Plus, the fact that it's characterized as a mental disorder rather strengthens the comparison to the gay rights struggle, don't you think?
Hm, I've never had to argue these points before, so bear with me - this may be a little scatter-brained.
I don't think that kinks and fetishes (I'll just refer to them collective as fetishes now) are similar to sexuality and gender on any appreciable measurement. I think, both psychologically and socially, there's quite a large difference between the two that the recognition of one shouldn't be rolled or compared to the other.
Socially, there's been a far greater history of organized and instituted oppression and discrimination against sexuality and gender than for fetishes. I'm hard pressed to think of systematic categorizing, identifying and persecuting for people who enjoy spanking or BDSM as I can for LGBT individuals. This history, I feel, separates the two and makes the acceptance and recognition of LGBT issues far more important and far more pressing. There are lots of holy texts which dictated and shaped the laws and punishments of societies that have viewed LGBT individuals as abominations suitable only for torture or death. I mean, the Qu'ran and Bible are readily available to demonstrate the issues and the institutionalized discrimination that even perpetuates to this day where LGBT citizens are treated as lessers in the eyes of the law comparative to their heterosexual, heteronormative brothers and sisters.
But for fetishes, I don't see the same issues. You aren't forbidden from seeing your partner in spanking or BDSM in the hospital because of your activities. You aren't exempt from tax deductions because you enjoy licking your partners feet. You don't have Biblical passages that exclaim "Thou shalt not get freaky in rubber suits."
And personally, I don't think they carry nearly the same weight either. Psychologically speaking, we identify ourselves in numerous and varied ways. But I don't believe that each of these aspects of ourselves share equal strength. I see myself as a white, male, writer but each of those identifiers is far more important to my self identification. I think your gender and your sexuality are far more "core" to your personality than other attributes. Liking men and identifying as a man carry far greater psychological weight than seeing myself as someone who writes.
In this way, I don't think fetishes hold up either. If someone says "I don't approve of your writing lifestyle" it is far less hurtful than someone saying "I don't approve of your homosexual lifestyle." In much the same way, if someone were to say "I don't want to hear about your spanking" I don't think is anywhere near as offensive as "I don't want to hear about your lesbianism."
Writing and spanking, while part of our self identity, are more actions we perform than things that we are. I
am a male. I
do spanking.
As for the importance to sexual gratification, I think they also aren't comparable. I feel that, if deprived of all sexual activity, if you were faced with two hypothetical options of whether being able to have a sexually compatible partner compared to having a sexual compatibly fetish, the partner is far more important. If I've been stranded on a desert island, being faced with only a man who won't participate in spanking is going to have less impact on sex than being faced with only a woman.
So, what does that leave us with? Stigma? Well, yes, I suppose fetishes and gender/sexuality are both stigmatized but I don't think they're anywhere close to being appreciable. And if we're only tying them together because they are stigmatized well, so are a lot of other things and it would be silly to include them all in the same "struggle" because they share this one, broad similarity.
Also, no, I don't think that because a fetish can be a mental disorder it makes it more comparable to homosexuality. I wouldn't compare other mental disorders to homosexuality either. Because homosexuality isn't a mental disorder.
Edit: Not entirely sure what I should be taking from this survey. I don't think fetishes need "rights" and I don't have an issue with someone being told to not share their bedtime activities. I think that's the crux of it. Fetishes play solely to your actions during sex whereas orientation impacts your life in far more aspects beyond the bedroom.
Edit: Edit: Thus, I don't think LGBT issues should be conflated with kink/fetishes because it detracts from the overall conversation. Once again, I apologize for the messy, diarrhea of thought in this post.
