Conversio Virium (CV), one of the oldest university student-run BDSM education groups in the United States, is the central Columbia University student organization representing the college’s collective population who engage in consensual BDSM and related activities. CV is a not-for-profit group that advocates strongly for freedom of sexual self-expression and is particularly concerned with creating a safe and welcoming environment for young people to explore alternative sexual practices, especially consensual dominance and submission (D/s). For campus kink history, CV is a flagship example of student groups teaching consent culture inside elite universities.
Mission and New York community role
CV participates in many of New York City’s sexuality community events alongside similar organizations such as The Eulenspiegel Society. City-level networking matters: student clubs that only hide in dorm rooms never build the alliances that protect them when administrators or media attack. CV’s public work treats young people’s interest in D/s and SM as something that can be educated, not only pathologized.
1994 expulsion fight and reinstatement
In 1994, soon after Conversio Virium’s inception, a Columbia University Christian group accused CV of violating its own constitution, and the university expelled CV from its grounds. The accusations were eventually proven untrue and CV was reinstated as an official Columbia student organization. In the process, CV gained many allies from both the BDSM community and elsewhere, including Robert B. Chatelle, then a board member of the National Writers Union, who wrote offering support. The episode is classic campus kink history: religious opponents, administrative overreach, and restoration when the facts failed to support expulsion.
2007 media storm
In 2007, Conversio Virium made national television headlines when Fox News invited Ann Coulter to comment on a New York Daily News article about the university’s sex clubs called “Wild Sex 101,” which criticized the club and the university. The segment turned a campus education group into culture-war content—proof that student BDSM organizations remain easy targets for national media even when their mission is consent education rather than shock theater.
Archives and related campus clubs
Conversio Virium’s records are housed at the Leather Archives & Museum in Chicago, placing CV’s paperwork inside the main institutional memory of leather and BDSM history. Related groups often listed alongside CV include Cuffs at Iowa State University and other university BDSM clubs. Official CV web presence and Columbia directory links have connected students to the group’s activities. CV’s survival of a 1990s expulsion attempt, New York community partnerships, 2007 media ordeal, and archival home at the Leather Archives make it a case study in how young people organize around D/s education and leave a paper trail leather history institutions keep.
