A Democratic congressional candidate from Long Island acknowledged on Monday that he had posed years ago in an explicit ad campaign modeling leather bondage gear, saying that it had no bearing on his campaign or ability to serve.
The array of photos, which surfaced in The New York Post and a local news site, Messenger Papers, shows the candidate, Christopher Gallant, shirtless and variously wearing a leather collar attached to a chain and a leather face mask. In some of the photos, he is in intimate situations with another man. They appeared on the site of a bondage apparel company called Mr. S Leather; Mr. Gallant’s lawyer said they were taken around 2010.
Mr. Gallant, 37, an openly gay military pilot, former air traffic controller and volunteer firefighter, is trying to unseat Nick LaLota, a Republican who has represented New York’s First District, covering eastern Suffolk County, since 2023. Mr. LaLota won his seat by 10 points in 2024, but the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — the party’s national campaign arm that is trying to help Democrats retake the House — considers the seat “in play.”
Mr. Gallant’s lawyer, Sara Azari, said in a statement that the photographs “were taken during a private, consensual photo session involving Chris and his then-partner, with whom he was in a committed four-year relationship. Chris was also friends with the owner of Mr. S Leather, and the shoot was intended to be fun and personal, with the understanding that Mr. S could use select images in connection with certain products.”
She said that Mr. Gallant “remains fully committed to his campaign and to earning the trust of the people he seeks to represent.”
The Suffolk County Conservative Party seized on the publication of the photos to depict Mr. Gallant as unfit to serve.
“This is the Democratic congressional candidate for CD1,” the party wrote on Facebook on Sunday above a photo of Mr. Gallant wearing a leather chest harness and sporting a blue stripe in his hair that referenced the “Avatar: The Last Airbender” franchise. “Is this who you want to represent us in Washington DC?”
The Suffolk County Democratic Committee on Monday posted its own photo on Instagram of Mr. Gallant in fatigues, standing in front of a helicopter, calling him “Suffolk County’s next Democratic Congressman.” The post accused a “Republican political hack” of planting the photos in The Post and said that what they really revealed was “how little they think of Suffolk County voters,” adding that “there is now documented proof that Chris Gallant has a six-pack.”
The photos are the latest of many examples of a political candidate’s private past surfacing in public. Mr. Gallant himself advanced to the general election after defeating a Democratic rival in the primary who was damaged by revelations that he had “liked” a series of antisemitic memes and social media posts.
Mr. Gallant sent a text to supporters saying of the photos, “I’m not embarrassed or ashamed — I have always been unapologetically me.” He added that the photos “don’t make me less qualified to pilot a Blackhawk helicopter” and “don’t affect my ability to safely traffic commercial airliners.”
The Suffolk County Democratic Committee chairman, Richard Schaffer, said that Mr. Gallant “was always open and honest about who he is to both the committee and the voters of Suffolk County, and I have not seen any photos that would change that opinion.”
Mr. Schaffer did not respond directly to an email asking how Mr. Gallant was vetted and whether the committee knew about the bondage photos.
A Democrat who is challenging Mr. Schaffer for the Suffolk County party leadership, Kathryn Casey Quigley, accused Mr. Schaffer of being “a little bit checked out from what is happening day to day,” but said she did not know what, if anything, the party knew about the photos.
In any case, she said she did not think the photos should have any bearing on Mr. Gallant’s candidacy. “They’re his private life,” she said, “and what matters are the policies he will advocate for and how he’ll fight to make life more affordable and fair for Suffolk County residents.”
The photos are no longer on Mr. S’s live site, though some of them can be found in archived versions. Mr. Gallant’s lawyer said that when Mr. Gallant “began considering a future in public service, he asked that the photographs no longer be used and that they be removed from the company’s website,” and that the company honored his request. One of the photos appeared with a listing for a “simple posture collar,” which retailed for $89.95.
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