Living in Darkness

This week the Huffington Post featured an article on the International Mr. Leather contest in Chicago together with archival footage from the 1986 event. This was the first year that I heard of IML. I recall fantasizing about being in the audience together with hundreds of hot, sexually liberated Leathermen. It became the nexus of many long, solo sessions late at night, a dog-eared copy of Drummer magazine usually by my side.

Drummer occupied a place of prominence during those first few years of sexual exploration. Stories, photographs, and classifieds graced its pages, drawing me deeper into a world as enticing as the Life magazine photo of the Toolbox that held me in awe many years before. A voyeuristic peek at a forbidden world where men masked themselves with the darkness of that place.

Until the mid-eighties, Leather was nothing more than a peepshow as far as the public was concerned. People knew that it existed and usually avoided its locales. Gathering places were primarily in industrial neighborhoods of the city, areas where men could be left alone to grope each other in the dead of night. Even though photographers and film makers occasionally invaded these haunts, Leather remained outside the  fabric of American life. To the uninitiated, Leather was nothing more than a source of shock and titillation.

As a young, married man in the late seventies, I knew exactly where to find Leather bars in New York City. I remember in 1979 standing outside the bars night after night. I longed for a tough Leatherman to force me to come with him, thus destroying any hope of returning to my wife and child. Even as a church going Mormon who avoided porn, I somehow knew where to find Leather.

After coming out in the mid-eighties, I began to see Leathermen away from Leather bars and cruising grounds. In 1986 I recall seeing the participants of the first Living in Leather enter Big Eddie's Vine Street Station, a Gay establishment close to the Seattle Center. As I sat eating my spaghetti and listening to the jazz singer in the adjoining lounge, I watched as these Leatherfolk chatted between themselves. I found it both confusing and exciting to see these men and women clad in full Gear beneath the glaring neon lights of the restaurant.

As I watched them closely, the waiter remarked, "You don't see THAT everyday in here!"

While I acknowledged his remark, I realized that I wanted something more than the occasional invitation to the Boxing Club or to the private sanctuary of an older man's bedroom. I wanted to be a fully acknowledged member of that self-identified group.

I learned later that this group of men and women had a primary role in forming the epistemology of Leather, that public discourse upon which the community would grow. They examined the activities in bars, dungeons, and clubs and codified a "dictionary" that defined not only the fledgling community but acted as a guide for its future adherents. Given that I was still fairly new in the scene, I felt that this made entering the community quite a bit easier, faster. And tenets like "safe, sane, and consensual" gave me the security to satisfy my hunger for the unknown with the ease of consuming fast food.

Perhaps this move was inevitable, like the early Christians attempting to preserve the teachings of their rebellious leader who had just been put to death, a means of retaining a way of life that was threatened by the casualties from AIDs. As the death toll grew, so did comments leveled at our community. Fringe sexual practices and those who engaged in such practices became fodder for the creation of a discourse on safe sex. By creating an epistemology of fringe sexual behavior, Leatherfolk could defend themselves in open forums. And, with the passing of so many handsome, sexually active men, Leatherfolk could facilitate the continuance of a lifestyle that was threatened by pestilence.

I recall the feeling among my Gay friends in Seattle at that time, that AIDS was a syndrome that afflicted only Leathermen and drug users. Many moralized on the perils of Gay promiscuity and the dangers inherent outside of "protected" sex. What they did not know was that their moralizing had the opposite effect on me. It served as a catalyst that drove me deeper and deeper into the Leather and kink scene in search of a world absent of the sexual mores I recognized as heteronormative.

In the late eighties, new Leather clubs and organizations were founded, bolstering this new epistemology. With a pair of boots, jeans, and an initiation fee one could become an instant member of the Leather community. Most founders of these clubs felt strongly that Leather should be openly accessible to encourage growth in the community. After learning to play hard and relying on older men to introduce me into the scene, I felt cheated. Essentially, I felt as if those long hours of play and perversity were devalued by an annual fee. In spite of my feelings, I joined the a club, too.

Many within these organizations felt that it was important to validate Leather through community service, thus, insuring a place at the Gay table. Although most service was primarily in support of those who were suffering with AIDS, a number of individuals began to move outside of this frame. Our drive to help our afflicted brothers soon changed the identity of Leather. No longer primarily defined by outsider sexual behavior, the community was transformed into a fundraising dynamo.

Weekend long events were an essential part of these clubs and organizations. The National Leather Association's "Living in Leather" grew from that small gathering in 1986 to a large hotel based event in just a few years, an event for both the initiated and the curious. LIL played a vital role in the expanding the epistemology of Leather by presenting experienced players in classroom settings who shared both effectual and safer practices. I remember attending my first LIL. After a weekend full of instruction and demonstrations, I felt that my slow apprenticeship could be considered over. I no longer had to rely on the slow progression of information obtained through my participation in play. Instead, I could attend a few workshops during a weekend event and pass as an experienced player.

At events like LIL, I found myself liberated from the light deprived bars and backrooms in order to find perverse sex. A quick flash of my bare ass cheeks in a jock at a sponsored gathering guaranteed that I would have sex. And, if I wanted more, I simply had to show up at one of the event's play parties and a dungeon master would play matchmaker to find a dominant person who could cater to my exact desire.

By the late nineties, I felt that Leather was no longer a gnostic tradition practiced within the monastic confines of dark bars and cruising areas. It was now an open sect with an established catechism based on practices believed to mimic those of an "Old Guard." Many sought to codify behaviors, creating protocols from the training that older men provided to us years before. These protocols did not reflect my own experience and I often wondered if I simply had not played with the right men.

I feel fortunate to have played with those men. They focused on sex, on helping me expand the canvas of my experience, on unlocking new erotic areas of my body, on new sensations. They advised me about safer sex practices and sexually transmitted diseases without moralizing. Their advise often went against the prevalent sexual discourse on the subject. In the mid eighties, for example, water sports and fisting were demonized. My mentors were quick to point out that these practices were considered unsafe simply because they were not accepted by the mainstream. They also considered it important to instruct me on modes of dress to attract hot, masculine men, and they showed me where to find them. On occasion, I felt like a young animal learning how to hunt, my mentor playing the lead in finding a sexual partner and then taking a back seat while I fed my sexual hunger.

Today I find myself blinking in the light of the public display of my fetishes. No longer hidden by the darkness, I am forced to ask what drew me to Leather. Was it the phenomenon of endorphin play, the desire to experience the high of extreme physical behavior? Was it the extreme masculinity that I craved that I could not find in the Gay world at large? Or was I drawn to Leather by the promise of liberation through the embracing of taboo? And what made me a Leatherman? Was it participation in clubs and organizations throughout the years? Or was it the paternal guidance of a select few who responded to my sexual hunger?

Every day on the Internet I receive invitations to be someone's "Sir" or "Master." Most present me with long shopping lists of activities they want to engage in, along with a firm list of things that they absolutely do not want to explore. When I read these invitations I reflect back on my own initial dalliances into the scene. I think of the excitement I felt when an older man would invite me to his home, or when he would ask me to accompany him to a private gathering. Then I think of the trust that developed slowly through play that allowed me to let explore my body without parameters. No Safe, Sane, and Consensual, or RACK prologues. No lists. Only the knowledge that I had been admitted to a world of sexual adventure that existed in my darkest fantasies, and the subsequent feeling of kinship that came from sharing that adventure with another, more experienced man.

Heart of Darkness

It echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core. Joseph Conrad

As a Leatherman I acknowledge that the dungeon is an empty stage where anything can happen. The arena of the heart. A dark space waiting to be filled.

The dominant man often believes that he controls the situation. Indeed, the responses of the submissive man bolster this perception. This is the dangerous lie of Leatherplay.

At best the dominant man shepherds the responses that come from play, untamed beasts from the deep desires of the submissive man. One cannot control these responses. And while players may approach their interaction with a modicum of precaution, they realize that safe play cannot exist.

The interactions between players establish the exchange of power and, thus, become an invisible third in the dungeon. Together they become the echo that resounds long after the play ceases.

After decades of play, I recognize that I am one of the Hollow Men. And when I play, I revel in the void, that darkness that castrates the socially constructed phallus. This is the nature of my Leatherplay.