Free to be….
TNAPEX
The next time you’re in the grocery store, look around at just how many varieties of the same product line the shelves. From ice cream to diet sodas to shampoo, people love being able to choose exactly what works best for them.
Sexuality is no different. Sex is one of the most basic human instincts, and there are as many ways to express one’s sexuality as the brain can imagine. The many ways we experience pleasure, sensuality, love and even pain can vary remarkably from one person to the next. All human beings exist on a spectrum of experience: from extremely conservative to a little bit “kinky” to the wildly non-traditional. We believe that no single means of sexual expression is any more valid or worthy of respect than any other, if it is practiced safely, sanely and consensually.
TNAPEX was founded to promote the acceptance and understanding of the personal sexual expression commonly referred to as “BDSM” or “SM” or the Leather Lifestyle. BDSM encompasses a wide range of activities that include consensual bondage, discipline, sado-masochism, Dominant/submissive power exchange and other fetishes. According to the 1990 Kinsey New Report on Sex, 5% - 10% of adult Americans engage in BDSM practices. We seek to dispel popular myths and misconceptions through education and communication. 
Why do we feel it is necessary to educate and inform society at large of our personal sexuality? That’s a reasonable question. We do not seek to impose our beliefs on anyone else. Like the mainstream, we believe that a person’s sexuality is a private matter.
The problem for those in the Lifestyle is that the myths and misconceptions about what it is we do frequently infringes upon our rights to do it, even behind closed doors in the privacy of our own homes with other consenting adults. Members of our small community hide in the shadows not out of shame for what they are and what we do, but because too often our personal sexual expression is used against us in divorce and custody cases, in our careers, churches and wider communities. The National Coalition for Sexual Freedom’s survey in 1998 found that 30% of our population had suffered from various forms of discrimination and 36% had encountered violence or harassment. For many of us, being true to our own natures comes with enormous risk of public exposure and often intense feelings of shame that we are “different” and therefore viewed with such distaste and fear by the mainstream.
TNAPEX believes that no person should have to fear losing their children, their family, their job or their position in society simply because of their choice of personal sexual expression. Nor should those struggling to understand their own needs and desires be afraid to seek guidance, counseling and support of their peers because of fear of exposure.
TNAPEX believes that the best way we can foster understanding and acceptance is for us to come out of the closet and show ourselves for what we truly are. Not freaks, perverts or criminals. But ordinary people who work beside you, who attend the same schools and churches and PTA meetings; people who vote and pay taxes. We are husbands and wives; fathers and mothers; sons and daughters; we are responsible, contributing citizens of this community who only seek the freedom to be...exactly what we are.
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