#leatherfolk

[humangreenskull]

Metroline covers 1991-1992

[val-and-vera]

Leatherdyke Vera on her way to a munch! I love getting a chance to wear my leathers and show off my heels. I know in another life I'll get to be a tall butch but for this one I'll have to settle for heels to make me tall!

[pegglefan69]

“I was all alone now– on my own. My throat was dry, my heart pounded, and my mind fought to stay focused. I pulled on a pair of short black leather gloves and stepped to face Charley. He looked into my eyes with love and trust and formally surrendered by inclining his head to my chest. I embraced him.

Slowly, trying not to look like a nervous colt, I moved around behind Charley and began to caress his broad, muscular back, which was stretched flat from his arms being bound and extended. With my right index finger I began to draw a pattern on his back. The roomful of men was quiet but restless and questioning. What was the kid doing? These were unfamiliar gestures. Running a fingertip over someone’s back might be odd, even kinky, but was it sadism? They kept quiet and watched.

What no one knew was that I had embedded a razor-sharp scalpel into the fingertip of my glove. The tracery I was creating on Charley’s back was being gently cut into the topmost layer of his skin– not quite deep enough to raise blood but just enough to split the skin. It only took a few minutes to create the design but to me those moments seemed like hours. Then I stepped back, picked up a broad leather paddle, and with all the force I could muster, smacked the paddle flat against Charley’s back three times. The impact caused the skin to split open and the blood to rush to the surface and fill the thin lines that I had cut into his back. Slowly at first and then more quickly, the blood oozed out until the full design became clear to everyone in the room. I had cut a large, smiling sunburst into my lover’s back. Under the sunburst were the words HAPPY BIRTHDAY. A little humor can go a long, long way. The gasps of wonder and amusement in the room were my reward. I had begun the evening as a lanky kid but now I had earned my place among serious men.

Jason was the first to grab me. Where, he wondered, had I learned that nasty trick? I explained that I’d thought it up on my own and confessed that I had to practice on my own arms and legs until I developed the right touch. He howled with laughter when I told him that Charley had believed my story about the cuts being cat scratches.

My relationship with Charley deepened and became more profound for us both. It was to be forever in our hearts and minds.”

–From the essay One Among Many: the Seduction and Training of a Leatherman by Thom Magister, from the book Leatherfolk: Radical Sex, People, Politics and Practice, edited by Mark Thompson

This excerpt is from the author’s debut as a S/M top into his 1950s leather community, & I thought his invention of a proto-vampire glove was really interesting! The whole essay is thought-provoking, romantic, & sexy.

[thirteens-earring]

[ No, I have no regrets. I will die from this disease that I may have caught in a place like The Slot. It will consume me. Unfortunate, maybe. But I have no regrets. I loved my world.

Why is it I always cry when I hear Piaf sing “C’est a Hambourg?” How many docks have I waited on only to discover the joys and brotherhood of the world’s special men. “Les bras s’ouvrent à l’infini.” Yes, I embraced infinity many times. It was indescribable. One can never turn back.

Somewhere in the corner of the room a claw moves, a pen scratches. Self-delusion, decides the scribe. To the point of death. Characteristic of psychoses is a blind adherence to a course of life that flirts with danger and even death.

The scribe can write what he wants. I have written my sentences in words in which I believe. Willful pride? The sexual delusions of a whore? The insatiability of a pig-hole? What is there to believe in these days except the sound of the rain? I tell you, I wouldn’t mind if you did this to yourself, or if you let me into the sleaze of your manhole. Or if you did it to me again. I knew what I was doing, what I did. I understood there were dangers, even death, in the fire. I faced those dangers in statements of love and intensity and I stand by them. In the long run, I feel better for it. Me, the rebel. Listening to the sound of the rain. ]

Geoff Mains, “The View From a Sling,” from Leatherfolk: Radical Sex, People, Politics, and Practice, ed. Mark Thompson, 1991

[jackaldandy]

I love this photo from the "Living in Leather" conference in Seattle from '86, the year I was born. Long live the wet comraderie between fags, dykes and bi Leather people 🤘🏽 ⛓️ 🖤

[revenantscholar]

Califia on tops, bottoms, switches

All of it is excellent, but here is one part that I especially like:

"Exclusive tops were thought to be brittle and pretentious; exclusive bottoms were thought to be sexually boring and greedy.

The fister's sexual icon was a man who was bad enough to dish it out and big enough to take it. Being a bottom didn't detract from one's status as a top (unless you spent your whole life in a sling with your legs in the air). Rather, it became a new signifier for sexual potency and masculinity. Good tops were assumed to deserve their own time on the bottom, and arranging bottom trips for men who were usually tops was something the community took a lot of pride in. This was seen as something nice you did for somebody who was a hot man, not an attempt to conquer, humiliate, or diminish him. Tops who put their asses in a sling got congratulated, not dished.

Fisting play was also more sensually and psychologically oriented than much of the S/M I've seen lately in public. I often heard handballers say, "You have to get inside somebody's head before you can get up their ass." Fisters were adept at combining intense physical pleasure with stressful stimulation. They were always looking for new ways to get each other off. They had immense sexual curiosity and a very tolerant attitude toward nudity, racial diversity, different body types, and other people's erotic foibles. It was, by definition, not a tightassed subculture.

The S/M community tends to be polarized. People identify themselves as tops/sadists/dominants/masters/mistresses orbottoms/masochists/submissives/slaves. We might benefit from defining ourselves as sadomasochists first, and tagging on the role choice or preference second. We also need to give more acknowledgment to the switches in our community. Right now, they're in a sort of limbo, like bisexuals or preoperative transsexuals. Everybody knows they're out there, but nobody wants to own them or say they belong. Switches are some of the most interesting and challenging members of our community. In my experience, they also tend to be more honest. Newcomers need to know that they don't have to hang their keys on the left or the right."

[dykepuffs]

Hallo leatherfolk comrades, can I ask for help?

I'm trying to restore my partner's very crunchy, salt damaged winter bike jacket... And I suddenly realise that all my understanding of leather care relies on knowing what kind of tan it is, to start with. My gut says gentle wipedown with glycerin soap and then the tiniest bit of neatsfoot oil, buffed back off an hour or so after it goes on, absolutely avoiding silicone wax like the plague.

So, you're looking after a very sentimentally valuable leather jacket, looks like a very traditional Perfecto type, made somewhere between the 60s and early 80s, with an acetate lining and grain that looks like this:

Where do you start?

[val-and-vera]

I got to model in a fashion show!!! It was so much fun to be part of a line of kinky models showing off leather gear:)

[homobeast]

been like….. gravitating towards other leatherfolk recently and sort of like….. serendipitously…… hehe

[lonniemachin]

9 book intial reading goal for 2024 which does not sound like a lot but that's why it's an *initial* goal. and by book i mean non-comic books.

[despite-everything]

one of my favorite things when reading is when one book references another i've already read

[gatheringbones]

anon: my brain slides right off pdfs which is why I rely mostly on physical books (also I think the govt is going to ban all access to these materials so I want a base library for samizdat in future decades). blog is also not well organized because I’m nuts and on drugs most of the time but a base list pertinent to your request:

the leatherfolk essay compilation by mark thompson, see also all his other works and compilations.

Dorothy Allison (leather dyke)

mattilda bernstein sycamore’s works and all of the essay compilations she compiled by mad queer disabled authors

Leah lakshmi piepzna samarasinha

Riva Lehrer

Susan Stryker (leather dyke)

Patrick Califa (leather dyke)

Wickie stamps

Assotto Saint

Kate Huh

Lori Fox

Primo Levi

some of my tags are actually fairly consistent, I hate making lists but I’ve made a few over the years, if you click the one beneath it should take you to a few of them, best of luck in a world of horrors

[spitfaggot]

another fun thing about bootblacking — it's as much of a kink as it isn't.

and by this, i mean: it's labor!

we have to look beyond kink into the vanilla/non-kink world to see the only remaining examples of shoe care as a job. the only examples i can think of are shoe-cleaning mall kiosks and, maybe, a chair or two in an airport terminal or fancy hotel. but these places are dwindling, if they even still remain at all. consumerism and planned obsolescence has invaded fashion so much that most people aren't concerned with the upkeep of their actual leather shoes, let alone sneakers or pleather boots.

(edit: cobblers and shoe repair most certainly count, but in this instance i'm referring to chairs or kiosks that maintain the footwear without disassembling it, although there are many bootblacks that can provide services like these.)

this, compounded with the cost barrier to leather gear and a much smaller community post-AIDS of the 1980's i believe has made bootblacking much more scarce in kink circles. i mentored under a bootblack that primarily works bars and club events, and have gone on to do the same myself, and... not many people even know what a bootblack is anymore. i've met people in full cow at the local Eagle who have never even heard of our existence. i was in the right place at the right time and met the right people in order to be able to sub/apprentice under one, and that in itself is a privelege nowadays. instructional videos are lovely, but there's nothing like working with the real thing to practice.

getting booked at events is a headache in and of itself, which is where the talk of labor comes in. if you are bootblacking, you are doing physical labor. it doesn't matter if you're working a pup social at a leather bar, or a private residence party, it is labor. on average, i scrub and polish a shift at a bar event for 5 hours (8pm to 1am) with very few breaks. on a good night, i can polish usually 6 or 7 customers in that 5 hour shift, and that's if nobody comes to me with a Langlitz project or a full set of chaps. tipping your bootblack is crucial, because 90% of the time, that's how we make any money at all.

bootblacking is how i have kept my boyfriend, my cats and i fed many times. and it is very hard to find an event nowadays that will pay a bootblack up front to be there for the night — most just "allow you to keep tips" and maybe comp you a drink or two. at this point i just have a menu of my services that i provide, and i turn away folks who cannot pay or barter. (i, personally, will take coffee as payment for boots and harnesses.) this often means i make less than minimum wage for 5 hours of physical labor.

my point being: bootblacking is a kink, but it will likely be found today more often as a job leatherfolk will take up at an event, much like a vendor. the more public adult spaces where we can actually express it as a kink the better, and those are growing incredibly scarce. and the people willing to pay us even more so, despite how much upkeep leather gear like boots and jackets should be getting.

[velvetvexations]

The diversity of people who can be in a public D/S relationships is cool. They can be leatherfolk, or partake in other forms of fashion, even things as subtle and unassuming as a tattoo could mark someone as being owned by someone else. Others could look exactly like anyone else, but express their relationship in subtle ways, like the sub not meeting their owner's eyes, or always referring to them a certain way. It's sweet.

[val-and-vera]

Oh did you want a leatherdyke Domme to come play with you and order you around? You could come help her in her workshop if you are very well behaved!

[drdemonprince]

what do you think of the stocks of boots / bootlicking? i fear the pr is too bad rn given that it's used so much as a metaphor for Liking Authoritarianism but some of us are simply anarchists who want to put our tongues on some boots....

If the Chicago scene is any indication, bootblacking is fucking HUGE among leatherfolk of all gender identities, and it's a fact widely acknowledged that Foot Stuff's stock is WAY UP, so I think boot and boot licking kink is a stock to watch and invest in!

Keep in mind that most kink practitioners are not revolutionary leftists, homie. Taken as a whole it's a pretty blandly liberal crowd, even with some conservative pockets. The vast majority of people are not thinking about or using the word "bootlicker" in a pejorative sense, ever. I think most of the anarchists you'd probably want to play with will understand that bootlicking for sex can be fun.