A resignation offered by an Iraq-bound weapons inspector has been rejected by chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix. Harvey John McGeorge, 53, of Woodbridge, Va., offered his resignation after reports appeared that he lacked a specialized degree and has played a leadership role in sex clubs promoting sadomasochism (S&M).

Asked if the inspector's S&M background might offend his Muslim hosts, a U.N. spokeswoman said all inspectors have been briefed on the local culture and religion.

McGeorge is a munitions analyst for the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission. His résumé lists training in the Marine Corps and the Secret Service but not a college degree in one of the specialized areas that the United Nations says its prefers, such as biochemistry or chemical engineering.

"We believe that Mr. McGeorge is a highly qualified and competent technical expert," said Ewen Buchanan, Blix's spokesman. "We are not aware of any grounds for his resignation, and Dr. Blix has not taken up his offer" to resign.

McGeorge had said he would offer his resignation if the Washington Post wrote about his S&M background. On Thursday, the Post reported that McGeorge is a cofounder of Black Rose, a Washington-area S&M club, and a former officer in the Leather Leadership Conference Inc.

McGeorge, a business consultant who is president and founder of Public Safety Group Inc., a Woodbridge consulting firm, was selected by the United Nations over inspectors who had worked on the earlier U.N. inspection team sent to Iraq after the end of the Persian Gulf War. Many of the earlier inspectors were deemed to be too aggressive.

Hua Jiang, deputy spokeswoman for U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, defended the lack of background checks for applicants to the Inspection Commission.

"These inspectors are either recommended by member states or they themselves just put in their résumé," Jiang said. "And as far as their expertise is concerned, I think that there is a check on that, but other than that, [on] their personal lives, since there are so many inspectors coming from so many different countries, I don't think [the commission] is available to do that."

In an age of preaching abstinence, "what we have here is completely off the reservation," State Sen. John Loudon, R-Ballwin, told reporters on Sunday across the street from a Lambert Airport-area Howard Johnson hotel where "Beat Me in St. Louis" is to run Friday through Sunday.

"This is absolutely dangerous," added Loudon, 34, who said he will introduce a Senate resolution Monday that, among other things, calls for the state health department and attorney general to investigate the safety and legality of such events.

Calling the sex seminar a "private sex bash," the Southern Baptist Convention on April 4 said it would cancel its reservations with the Howard Johnson site in advance of the Protestant group's June conference here.

The Web site of St. Louis Leather & Lace, the "Beat Me in St. Louis" promoter, said the group endorses and educates about "free expression of alternative lifestyles and forms of loving," including bondage, domination and sadomasochism, regardless of sexual orientation. Leather & Lace also hosts a "SpanksGiving" event each fall.

During "Beat Me in St. Louis," the Baptist Convention said, the hotel's 4,500-square-foot conference center will be home to "Dungeon Parties," complete with medieval torture devices, demonstrations and workshops covering caning and whipping. The convention cited a "Beat Me in St. Louis" page on Leather & Lace's Web site, though links to that page no longer work.

E-mailed interview requests to Leather & Lace were directed to Susan Wright, a National Coalition for Sexual Freedom Foundation spokeswoman who cast such sex conferences as safe, legal expressions of free speech and assembly.

Critics, Wright suggested, should lighten up, mind their own business and stop "using scare tactics and lies to impose their beliefs on everyone else."

"Conventions exactly like this are held every weekend in communities throughout the country. They're your neighbors and co-workers," said Wright, whose group advises how to stage sex seminars safely and legally.

"It's obvious sex makes some people uncomfortable, but they should deal with that themselves. Why should (critics) care?" she added. "What we're doing is a service _ adults want safe-sex education. That should be allowed. There are millions of Americans that just want more spice in their life. That's not a bad thing."

Messages left with a manager of the Howard Johnson's hotel were not returned Sunday.

Joey Davis, the Missouri state head of Concerned Women for America, said Sunday that such sex conferences "teach sadistic sexual torture for pleasure," recklessly releasing bodily fluids that pose a health risk to hotel workers and future guests.

"Deep down inside, they know what they're doing is wrong," Davis said during the news conference with Loudon and some onlookers.

Howard Johnson hotels are franchised and individually owned. A spokeswoman for the parent company, Cendant Corp., has said it does not interfere with decisions about guests as long as the site remains law-abiding.

It is unclear how many rooms the Baptist Convention had booked with Howard Johnson, but convention-goers were expected to reserve 4,000 hotel rooms citywide during the two-day meeting.

The CWA made similar claims in February in protesting a group's staging "Vicious Valentine 5," which was held at a suburban Chicago Ramada hotel _ a Cendant-controlled franchise _ after a Radisson site there withdrew as the venue.

Police said that convention qualified as a private one held in a segregated area and protected by First Amendment rights.

Afterward, organizers cheered the three-day event as "another great weekend of pansexual (bondage, domination and sadomasochism) dungeon play and outstanding workshops."