Christopher Gallant, the 37-year-old Democratic nominee for New York's First Congressional District, confirmed this week that explicit photos showing him shirtless, wearing a leather collar attached to a chain and a leather face mask in suggestive poses with another man are, in fact, him. His next move was not to withdraw from the race.

It was to text his supporters that he's "not embarrassed or ashamed."

The photos, which appeared on a bondage apparel company's website before being taken down in 2010, show Gallant in what his lawyer Sara Azari described as images from a private, consensual session with his then-partner during what Gallant says was a four-year committed relationship. Gallant told supporters he was friends with the apparel company's owner, which is how the photos ended up on a commercial site in the first place.

Gallant — an openly gay military pilot, former air traffic controller, and volunteer firefighter — framed the whole thing as a non-issue. The photos, he argued, "don't make him less qualified to be a Blackhawk helicopter pilot or an air traffic controller." He told supporters he has "always been unapologetically me."

That's one way to handle it. Another way would be to recognize that a congressional candidate whose bondage photos circulated on a commercial website might face questions about judgment that go beyond bedroom preferences. But the Democratic Party apparatus in New York has not called for Gallant to step aside, and no prominent party figure has publicly suggested he should.

Gallant is challenging Republican Representative Nick LaLota for the First Congressional District seat. The district, which covers eastern Long Island, is not a safe blue stronghold — it's the kind of competitive suburban seat where candidate discipline and public image traditionally matter. Or used to.

The "always been unapologetically me" defense is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Nobody asked Gallant to apologize for being gay. The question voters in the First District are going to ask is simpler: how did photos from a bondage apparel company's website end up attached to a man running for Congress, and why does his party consider that a survivable news cycle?

Every cycle brings a new test of what a political party will tolerate from its candidates. Republicans have pushed people out of races for far less — an awkward quote, a decades-old yearbook photo, a poorly worded tweet. Democrats just watched their nominee confirm that commercial bondage photos are real and authentic, announce he's staying in, and the party's response was silence.

The photos were taken down from the website sixteen years ago. The confirmation that they're real dropped this week. And somewhere on Long Island, Nick LaLota's campaign team is watching a race they thought would be competitive turn into something else entirely.