There was a time when photographs of a congressional candidate wearing leather bondage gear might have ended a political career. But Chris Gallant, the openly gay Democrat hoping to unseat Republican Rep. Nick LaLota in New York’s First Congressional District, apparently didn’t get that memo.

“I mean, all my friends know I’m kinky,” Gallant told The New York Times in an October 7 interview. “I make Christian Grey look like amateur hour.”

Take that, Fifty Shades of Grey.

Gallant, 37, a Black Hawk helicopter pilot in the Army National Guard, found himself in an unexpected spotlight in September when the New York Post and the Long Island publication The Messenger published photographs of him modeling bondage gear for San Francisco fetish retailer Mr. S Leather.

The images, dating from around 2010, show Gallant wearing leather harnesses, collars and other BDSM accessories, sometimes in sexually explicit situations with another man. According to his attorney, Sara Azari, the photographs were taken consensually with Gallant’s then-partner, with whom he had a four-year relationship. Gallant was also friends with the retailer’s owner.

The candidate had asked that the photographs be removed from the company’s website when he began considering public office. They were, but archived copies survived. Someone apparently went digging.

The Suffolk County Conservative Party wasted little time circulating one of the photographs and questioning Gallant’s suitability for Congress.

Gallant, however, declined to play the humiliated politician.

In a message to supporters, he declared that he was neither embarrassed nor ashamed of the photographs and argued that they had no bearing on his qualifications to pilot military helicopters or direct commercial aircraft.

His Democratic supporters responded with some humor of their own. The Suffolk County Democratic Committee posted a photograph of Gallant in military fatigues and suggested that the revelations had established one indisputable fact: their candidate possessed a six-pack.

There was something wonderfully domestic about the scene described by the Times. As Gallant discussed his adventures in kink with a reporter, his mother was visiting and in the kitchen. Meanwhile, his fiancé was thousands of miles away, serving in the military in the Middle East. It was hardly the conventional tableau of a congressional campaign, but perhaps that’s the point. Gallant doesn’t appear particularly interested in pretending to be conventional.

In his Times interview, Gallant went further, embracing the attention rather than trying to bury the story. He even wondered whether the publicity might become his own “Kim Kardashian moment.”

It certainly accomplished something many first-time congressional candidates struggle to achieve: name recognition.

Gallant told the newspaper that the controversy had dramatically increased his visibility. Whether that translates into votes is another question.

LaLota, who has represented the district since 2023, won reelection comfortably in 2024. Gallant faces a difficult race in a Republican-leaning district, and the national attention surrounding his sexual history is no substitute for a winning campaign organization or persuasive policy positions.

Still, the episode raises an intriguing question: Has the political sex scandal lost some of its power?

For generations, gay politicians were expected to conceal their sexuality, much less acknowledge an interest in kink. Exposure could mean professional ruin. Even as openly LGBTQ+ candidates became more commonplace, the pressure to present a reassuringly respectable public image remained considerable.

Gallant is challenging that expectation, whether intentionally or simply by refusing to apologize for something he doesn’t regard as shameful.

The distinction is important. The photographs involve consensual adult sexual activity, not allegations of misconduct or abuse. And while voters are entitled to scrutinize a candidate’s judgment and public record, the connection between a leather harness and congressional competence remains elusive.

As Gallant pointed out in his interview, he has carried people out of burning buildings and flown helicopters in the Middle East. Those experiences, he suggested, offer a more meaningful measure of his qualifications than photographs taken when he was a young man.

The attempted scandal may ultimately tell us more about the people who hoped to weaponize the images than about the man wearing the leather.

And if Gallant does make it to Washington, Congress will have acquired a member who can confidently claim to have out-kinked Christian Grey. Whether Capitol Hill is ready for him is another matter.

Visit Chris Gallant’s campaign website at this link.