Interview with Stephen Weber, International Mr. Leather 2002, Part 2

(Leather Life column published in Lavender Magazine, Issue #193, October 18, 2002)

(Continued from Lavender Issue 192)

International Mr. Leather 2002 Stephen Weber lost weight, got in shape—and then got angry. We talked about that anger and how it shaped his time as Mr. Texas Leather, and continues to influence his IML title year.

Shortly after I won Mr. Texas Leather 2002 I started getting invitations to things—sometimes they would be play parties, sometimes they would just be events in the gay and lesbian community—that [prior to losing the weight], I had even e-mailed people asking for admission, or asking what could I do to help, or simple things like that, and was turned away. I know that at least with some of those events I was turned away largely because of how I looked. So then I started to get very angry, and that gave me that burning platform that I really needed, I felt, to make a difference at IML. A lot of people don’t know, I grew up on the Navaho Indian reservation. So I had fought discrimination for a long time, because I was a white man on a Navajo Indian reservation and was a minority at my high school.

Are you comfortable with my asking what your racial mix is?

It’s interesting that you ask, because I did not know what race I really was until after I left high school. I’ll answer that in just a second. I do look like the proverbial white man. And my high school was 76% Navajo Native American Indian, so you can imagine on the reservation there’s a lot of prejudice that comes along with that.

So anyway, I went off to college, and then we learned of my family lineage—we found out that I’m actually Cherokee Indian and German, but really more Cherokee than I am German. So then I find out I’m Native American, and registered on the Bureau of Indian Affairs technically as minority. Well, word got out on that, and now I have some of my white friends discriminating against me, saying “Oh, you’re an Indian.” I had that going on, plus I was wrestling with the fact that I was a heavy guy. I just wanted to hide.

Anyway, I started getting very angry as I was mentioning before about the fact that I was getting invited to different events. Also, I would go out and guys would be interested in me that before wouldn’t give me a second look. Some of them I had even tried to talk to before, and they just wouldn’t give me the time of day. And it really started to make me angry. Yes, I was flattered, and I was like, well, this is really nice, now they’re interested in me. But then I would stop and think: I’m the same guy that I was last year when I was eighty pounds heavier—the only thing different is me physically. I have the same heart, I have the same mind.

So that became a message that I want to share with as many people as I possibly can, specifically in our own closed community. By that I mean GLBT community as well as the BDSM community—because as open as we say we are, what I’m finding is that we are the most critical of each other. We discriminate against each other all the time. Sometimes perceived heavy people or perceived very thin people don’t get opportunities that the good looking, in-shape person might get. And when you take an opportunity away from somebody because of that, it pisses me off, it makes me very angry.

Some people think you have to be this Adonis to be donning your leather, or to be a hit in a leather bar. It’s not a place for heavy people, it’s not a place for thin people, it’s not a place for women, it’s not a place for minorities. Or any other prejudice that people might have, whether it’s age or race or whatever it is.

As a community we strive so hard to gain acceptance and be noticed in the general public’s eye, in the vanilla crowd, but my feeling is that as long as we have this infection or this—it’s a strong word to use, but this disease within our own community, that we discriminate against each other, how are we ever going to present any kind of a unified front to anybody? We’re not believable. It’s so hypocritical.

We’re all different, and we should be different because it would be awfully boring if we were all the same. But there’s so much out there that each of us has to offer that people need to open their eyes and give other people a chance.

So I used that as my platform for IML, and that’s one of the main reasons I ran for IML. I said, if I can go out and win IML, and use that platform to put myself in a situation where I otherwise might not be able to be, and then I can use that opportunity to make a change in even one person’s life—then I’ve done my job. Then, in my own mind, I’ll have been a successful IML.

Interview with Stephen Weber, International Mr. Leather 2002, Part 1

(Leather Life column published in Lavender Magazine, Issue #192, October 4, 2002)

Stephen Weber’s speech at this year’s International Mr. Leather (IML) contest started with the words “Have you ever lost something?” In his case, it was 80 pounds. Even before winning the International Mr. Leather 2002 title, that dramatic physical transformation made him a role model for other folks who want to slim down (including your humble columnist). So when I had the chance to interview Weber recently, that was where the conversation started.

Let’s start at the beginning of your journey as a titleholder: Before winning the International Mr. Leather contest this year you were Mr. Texas Leather 2002—why did you enter that contest?

Well, I was about 280 pounds and had just tried to put on a pair of jeans and it was a 40 waist, and I decided that was unacceptable at 35 years old. So I decided to lose weight. I’d been out in the European leather community for several years, and one of the objectives that I wrote down when I started losing the weight was that I wanted to enter a leather contest. And the reason is, entering a contest would be an indication that I had enough confidence in myself to get up in front of a group of people without my shirt on. It was as simple as that. I had never been in front of a group of people—or never been in front of anyone—without my shirt, not even at the swimming pool or anything.

You wore your shirt at the swimming pool?

I would. I was that self-conscious about my weight.

Were you heavy as a kid too?

I felt that I was, and it’s one of those things that if you feel you are, you are—perception is reality. My whole family has a history of weight issues, which was something that my mother would always caution me about, and it got really out of hand. I tried to keep it in check for a long time, but then I got married. And during my marriage I stopped working out so I started to really gain weight, and it was after I was divorced that I found myself at 280 pounds.

Actually, there were a couple of reasons for losing the weight. I was starting to have some very severe lower-back problems, and I was also having a lot of other health problems. My mother had just recently had a stroke, which took a lot of her speech and the use of her right hand. I looked at my father, who had just retired and was in great health, and I thought about my parents having to survive on their own—if I didn’t keep myself healthy I was not going to be around to help them. And if something were to happen to me I knew they would be devastated.

When I told people that I was going to be losing weight, I wanted to make sure they knew the whole story. I told them I’m not doing this because I wanna be thin and I wanna be pretty—that wasn’t the point at all. The reason I was doing it was because I was so uncomfortable because I had gotten so heavy that I had health problems, and guess what, I wanted to be around to take care of my mom and dad.

So anyway, I started losing weight, getting physically fit, working with weights, that sort of thing. At the time I was living in Austin [Texas], and my goal was as simple as running for Mr. Chain Drive [an Austin-area leather bar]. Well, I had shared that goal of entering a leather contest with a lot of people, and as I was losing the weight people started to take notice and say things like, “Oh, we think you could probably do really well in one of the bigger leather contests.”

Then shortly after I lost all the weight I went to IML 2001 and got a lot of notice, a lot of comments. I had people pull me aside to do photo shoots. I did several photo shoots at IML—fully clothed—and that, to me, was another sign that, okay, I guess I’ve made enough progress that I can run for a bigger contest. So that’s why I decided to run for Mr. Texas Leather instead of Mr. Chain Drive.

What’s your image of your body now? Do you still think of yourself as fat? Are you surprised when you look in the mirror, or have you adjusted?

I still think of myself as a heavy person. I constantly strive to get better and to work on my body. A lot of it now is just—have you heard about the Adonis complex? Maybe I’m a victim of that, where now I just strive for that perfection of the body, and I don’t think I will ever achieve it, but I have to keep working at it.

And people come up to me very frequently now, and they just kinda go off on how I look, or they woof, stuff like that. And I just—

Do the woofs take you by surprise sometimes?

They do. Even now they do. I’m just not used to it yet.

(This interview will continue in the next issue of Lavender, when I’ll talk with Weber about how his experiences following his dramatic physical transformation shaped his time as Mr. Texas Leather, and continue to influence the themes of his IML title year.)

Motorcycles and Leather

(Leather Life column published in Lavender Magazine, Issue #191, September 20, 2002)

Why do motorcycles have such a hold on the imagination of the leather tribe? Why did last year’s International Mr. Drummer contestants make their entrances on bikes? Why are the Dykes on Bikes such crowd-pleasers at Pride parades? Because motorcycles are butch—they are probably the butchest form of transportation available to the average person without access to a tank, Stealth bomber or Humvee.

A romance (a very butch romance, mind you) is connected with the image of bikes, bikers and biker culture that was a seminal influence on the early leather scene (and that continues to influence leather culture to this day).

In post-WWII America, bikers were gangs of modern-day cowboys on their internal-combustion-powered stallions following the lure of the open road, independent souls who lived life as they pleased, adventurous rebels who followed their own rules rather than conform to society’s norms.

That reputation was splashed all over the silver screen in 1954 when Marlon Brando appeared in The Wild Ones wearing black leather and leading a motorcycle gang that terrorized a small town. The gang/rogue imagery was a bit intimidating and off-putting to most Americans.

This reaction was so pervasive at the time that motorcycle sales suffered as a result. Honda tried to counter that image by running ads full of clean-scrubbed, Ivy-League riders and non-threatening, upbeat Beach Boys-style voices singing “You meet the nicest people on a Honda.”

Homosexual men returning from military service in World War II, however, embraced the rebel image—which fit their feelings of being rebels and outcasts from the rest of society. They used this image to build their own culture.

Gay male leather clubs like The Atons and The Black Guard in the Twin Cities grew out of gay motorcycle clubs like The Satyrs, founded in Los Angeles in 1954 and now the oldest continuously operating gay organization in the country. (News flash: a gay motorcycle club has formed in the Twin Cities—see below for details.)

Although most of heterosexual society was too polite to mention it, or was perhaps too repressed to even notice, the erotic appeal of bikes and bikers was not lost on gay men. The image of the biker represented masculinity and power (“My, look at that big powerful machine between your legs!”). A biker’s chaps were a perfect frame for interesting areas of the body both fore and aft. The experience of riding with a buddy, holding on to him or having him hold on to you, was a permissible public intimacy. One attraction of a bike couldn’t really be seen but could certainly be felt: the vibration of the engine on the areas framed by the chaps.

When I was just getting into leather, one of the most impressive sights I remember seeing on a visit to San Francisco was the long row of bikes parked outside the San Francisco Eagle. At closing time I stood in front of the bar and watched as each bike was mounted (notice the imagery) by one or maybe two men who proceeded to ride off into the night. The image fascinated me then and still fascinates me today.

No matter how fascinating motorcycles are, though, there’s no escaping the fact that they are not always the most practical method of transportation. One almost has to be something of a rebel and an outlaw, or at least stubborn, to ride a machine that has so many disadvantages.

Downside: Motorcycles are not cheap transportation—the bike itself can cost as much as a car, and then there are the accessories: helmet, saddlebags, and all that leather riding apparel. If you want cheap transportation, buy a used Hyundai. Upside: Bikes are cheap to operate, although few Americans riders care. In Europe people ride motorcycles or motor scooters because the streets are narrow and gasoline is much more expensive. In America, land of wide-open spaces and relatively cheap gasoline, those aren’t major considerations.

Downside: Motorycles offer no heating, no air conditioning and no weather shielding. That makes them spectacularly unsuited for places like Minnesota, where good days for riding are vastly outnumbered by bad ones. Winter is too cold and icy, and black leather can get awfully hot and sticky on a sweltering summer day. If it happens to rain while you’re riding, you have a choice: duck under a freeway overpass and get out the rain poncho (which is even hotter and more stifling than your riding leathers), or keep going and get soaking wet. Possible erotic upside: If the leathers, and you, are rain-soaked (or perhaps better yet, sweat-soaked) when you get home, perhaps there’s someone waiting there who will sensuously peel all that wet leather and other clothing off you.

Downside: A motorcycle actually produces more exhaust emissions than a car—if you really want to be environmentally friendly, ride a bicycle. Upside: Because there are so relatively few motorcycles on the road, the total emissions produced by motorcycles are basically insignificant in the overall air-pollution picture. Currently the government is more concerned with emissions from power lawn equipment and outboard motors.

Downside: Motorcycles obviously aren’t as safe as automobiles. Riding leathers and helmets offer some protection, but in a contest between the driver of a car (or an SUV or an eighteen-wheeler) and a motorcyclist, guess who’s going to get hurt worse? Upside: Of course, in some cases that very danger is part of the excitement and thrill of riding; in that sense, cycles can be looked at as another form of edge play.

Automobiles and motorcycles have been around for about the same length of time, but there are practical advantages to automobiles that have allowed them to become the basic form of personal transportation in this country. Motorcycles, meanwhile, are transportation that’s anything but basic. They’re fun, and they make any journey an adventure. Oh, and—did I already say this?—they’re butch, too.

Twin City Riders, a New Gay Motorcycle Club

A new gay motorcycle club called Twin City Riders is in the process of forming. They currently have five members and three bikes, and are looking for more of both. If you’re interested, e-mail Twincityriders@aol.com.

Bears Come Out of Hibernation at Trikkx

(Article published in Lavender Magazine, Issue #190, September 6, 2002)

It’s the Fourth Friday of the month, and that means it’s time for the North Country Bears’ monthly Bar Night at Trikkx in St. Paul. Officially things start at 7 PM, but by then the place is already reasonably full. People keep filtering in all evening, and by 8:30 the place is packed with both bears (masculine men with facial and/or body hair) and guys who aren’t bears themselves but who like their men masculine and furry. Average monthly attendance is 150.

The atmosphere is laid-back and mellow rather than boisterous. The noise level is low enough that conversation is actually possible, and the banter among the men is easy-going, friendly and familiar. There’s a pleasant lack of competitiveness and attitude. The pool table is busy all evening. There’s surprisingly little smoke in the air. For five dollars you get all the beer or soda you can drink, but the evening will end without anyone getting loud or obnoxious. The Trikkx kitchen is open and food is available; I order a burger and settle down to watch the action.

Trikkx owner Molly Kauffman is on hand looking relaxed and happy, glad to see that her guests are having a good time. She says of the Bears, “They’re just the nicest group we’ve ever hosted on a long-term basis. How could you not love such a cuddly bunch of guys?” Lars, president of the North Country Bears, returns the affection for Molly and the staff at Trikkx: “We just love ’em—they take very good care of us.” Lars especially compliments the Trikkx kitchen and says that the food at the North Country Bears’ upcoming holiday dinner is fabulous and not to be missed.

Who are these bears, anyway? According to Richard Bulger, original publisher of Bear Magazine, a bear is “a gay man whose disposition is rooted in contemporary male culture (decidedly not contemporary gay male culture) that emphasizes and celebrates secondary male characteristics such as beard and body hair.” Sure enough, a scan of the crowd reveals that most men have some sort of facial hair, and furry arms, legs, and chests are on display.

Some people might think that part of being a bear is being overweight and sloppy, but the crowd tonight disproves this. An entire range of bear body shapes is present, from short to tall and from reed-thin to portly—and there’s not a sloppy one in the bunch. (There are a lot of sexy ones, however.)

Specialized categories of bears include “cubs” (maybe youngish, maybe older, but definitely cuddly); larger, huskier, more mature men known as “grizzlies”; and striking white- or gray-haired “polar bears.” These categories were explained to me by Buck Bongard, who was wearing a black leather vest emblazoned on the back with “T.B.R.U. Polar Bear 2002.” “T.B.R.U.” stands for Texas Bear Round-Up—like the leather community, bear groups have yearly gatherings that include contests and titleholders. Many bears also participate in other gay male subcultures such as leather, rodeo, and country/western dancing.

What does a bear wear? Comfortable, casual, unremarkable guy stuff: the crowd sports mostly t-shirts (with a few polo or sport shirts) and jeans or jean shorts. Footwear is athletic shoes or hiking boots, and many of the guys wear baseball caps. Everything is clean and neat and no one is mixing stripes with plaids, but as long-time bear Gary Gimmestad points out, “It’s almost anti-fashion, or at least non-fashion.”

It’s also anti-drag, whether drag is construed as swishy and feminine (i.e. Radical Faeries) or hypermasculine and super-macho (i.e. leather), according to Peter Hennen. In his doctoral dissertation (“Gendered Sexuality in the Age of AIDS”), which deals with gay leathermen, Radical Faeries and bears, Hennen says that bear culture is about gay men “reconnecting with their regular-guy status.” Most bears could easily pass as straight guys, good ol’ boys, rednecks—except for the fact that bears generally dress and groom themselves better.

This ties in with another point Hennen makes: being a bear “is also a way for larger and hairier men to eroticize their bodies and to reclaim pride in them.” Bear culture is a reaction against the image of the shaved twink that prevails in so much of gay male culture, a declaration that it’s possible to be sexy even if you’re not young or totally smooth or don’t happen to have a swimmer’s build.

According to Hennen, the earliest account of gay men identifying as bears comes from Los Angeles in 1966, followed by loosely-organized bear groups in Dallas and Miami in the 1970s. But Gimmestad notes that in the 1980s bear culture “really went from 0-60” and became a recognized subculture because of the pre-Web internet and other forms of electronic communication, such as the old Outlines BBS in the Twin Cities. The image of the bear has now spread around the world, with bear groups in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and even Turkey.

Bears are very social animals. In addition to their monthly bar night at Trikkx, the North Country Bears’ calendar is full of many other activities, including a weekly Bears Coffee Night and Bears Dinner, both on Wednesday evenings. Check out the calendar and subscribe to their e-mail newsletter at www.ncbears.com, or call the North Country Bears Info-Line.

Share a Bear with Kids in Crisis

In October and November the North Country Bears are holding their annual Teddy Bear Roundup. The Bears will be accepting donations of new or slightly used teddy bears (or other stuffed animals of any size). These bears will be delivered in the name of the North Country Bears to the County Sheriff’s Patrol “Crisis Bears” program. As the Sheriff’s Patrol responds to emergency calls, they will have the bears available to be given to children in crisis.

Lars of the North Country Bears recalls being very moved when the teddy bears from last year’s Teddy Bear Roundup were donated to the Sheriff’s Patrol: “The guy who showed up from the Sheriff’s Patrol was just overwhelmed! It was so touching I almost cried. We helped make life better for a lot of kids.”

Teddy bears can be donated at the Bear Bar Nights at Trikkx on October 25 and November 22. Further information is available by contacting Arthur Finnell at ArthurLouisF@aol.com.

PHOTO: Buck Bongard (left) and Jack Erickson at a recent North Country Bears bar night at Trikkx.

Leather Cellar vs. The Cockpit Project

(Leather Life column published in Lavender Magazine, Issue #190, September 6, 2002)

Not too long ago, when a Twin Cities leatherman or leatherwoman wanted to do some serious leather shopping, the first thing they did was get on a plane. I used to shop at leather stores in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago, because there wasn’t an actual leather store in the Twin Cities.

Now there are two: Leather Cellar and The Cockpit Project. Where did they come from, and how do they compare? After discussing each store separately I’ll examine the larger leather retail picture.

Leather Cellar

Leather Cellar started life in 1996 as Back in Black Leather and later was known as Fit to a T Leather. Located in the lower level of the late Club Metro, it was the Twin Cities’ first real, live, honest-to-goodness leather store. After going through a series of name and ownership changes, and a location change due to the closing of Club Metro, Leather Cellar is now located at 2315B Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis, below the Shoe-A-New shoe-repair shop.

Co-owners Jennifer Langland and Lars and Mark McCrary are building on and fine-tuning the formula that served Back in Black and Fit to a T Leather so well: a comprehensive, well-rounded selection of quality leather and leather-related merchandise.

For anyone who was ever in the Club Metro store space, the new location will feel familiar and comfortable (“except that people can no longer shop with a drink in their hand,” notes Langland). Glass display cases and counters hold jewelry and smaller items. Apparel is displayed on the walls and on racks in the remaining floor space.

In addition to leather/kink/fetish apparel (for both men and women) and a wide selection of dungeon gear, the merchandise mix includes T-shirts, gay- and leather-pride items, and toys and novelties. Fellow leather lesbians told Langland they didn’t like shopping for “adult” novelties at sex shops (they described the stores’ atmosphere as “slimy and disgusting”). Langland takes pride in having created a comfortable, welcoming and non-intimidating retail atmosphere for her customers.

Stores hours are Tuesday-Saturday, noon to 7 PM. In addition to their storefront location Leather Cellar is carrying on its tradition of displaying and selling merchandise at area nightspots. You can find them on Sundays at The Tank (the leatherspace in the backroom of The Saloon), Over the Rainbow on Mondays, Lucy’s on Wednesdays, Trikkx on the second and fourth Fridays of every month, and The Minneapolis Eagle on Fridays. (Hours at each location are 9 P.M. to closing.) Call Leather Cellar for more information.

The Cockpit Project

Step into The Cockpit Project (3015 Lyndale Ave. S.) and you’ll feel like you were instantly transported to Amsterdam, Berlin or Paris. House/trance music pumps and pulses as it fills the narrow, sleek store. At the front of the store, sales clerk Justin stands behind the cash register in front of an amazing piece of contemporary art (a pair of chaps, rear view) by Richard Luka. The predominantly black leather is set against clean white walls and fixtures with accents of bright yellow and shiny chrome. The space, inspired by a trip to Europe, was designed by co-owners Wil and Molly. Wil says they liked the openness of European attitudes toward sex and designed their store to “open things up and take the smut out of sex.”

The self-described purveyor of “luxury leather & latex” has an interesting merchandise mix that includes top-end fetish apparel from cutting-edge designers along with serious dungeon gear and accessories. There are a few educational and artistic leather books but no porn; Wil explains his customers “know they aren’t coming to a sex shop.”

In keeping with its European decor, The Cockpit Project is the exclusive dealer in the United States for several lines of leather from all over Europe, including Poland and Amsterdam. To name just one: Wil is proud to carry apparel by David Spain, a designer from London who creates fabulous fantasywear in combinations of leather, metal and lycra.

Wil and Molly were selling this kind of merchandise at Lava Lounge for over five years before opening The Cockpit Project. Wil says that means he’s had plenty of time to “weed out the bad suppliers and keep the good ones.” That also means The Cockpit Project has access to a network of sources and suppliers for alterations and custom creations, whether fetish apparel or dungeon equipment.

The Cockpit Project is open Thursday-Saturday from noon to 8 PM and Sunday from noon to 6 PM or by appointment. Call for more information.

So, Where to Shop?

To limit the question of “where to shop?” to these two leather stores is to miss the larger leather retail picture, which includes shopping-mall leather stores like Wilson’s for apparel (good luck finding a bar vest at Wilson’s, though) and area sex shops for toys and accessories. And then there’s the mind-boggling array of merchants selling on the Web, which has made leather and other kink/fetish-related merchandise easier than ever to find and to buy.

But while websites in some ways bring buyers and sellers closer together, in other ways they keep them maddeningly farther apart. In effect I must order (and pay for) that leather jock or flogger while it’s still inside that glass display case known as my computer screen. Then, in a couple of days or weeks I will finally be allowed to judge the actual item and see how it feels—or if it actually fits. (With my mail-order shopping luck, it probably won’t.)

It’s much more efficient to have an item in front of you, inspect it, feel it, and try it on or try it out. It’s nice to deal face-to-face with helpful merchants and sales clerks who know the merchandise. They are experts who can offer the kind of valuable advice, feedback and recommendations you can’t get from a website.

How do Cellar Leather and The Cockpit Project compare? Some of the differences between them arise from the selection of merchandise each store carries. For example, The Cockpit Project sells latexwear while, at least at this writing, Leather Cellar does not. Leather Cellar, being gay-owned, sells gay- and leather-pride merchandise that The Cockpit Project doesn’t offer.

But despite their differences, both businesses are locally owned. Both are intensely focused on, driven by, and committed to their customers. Both base their merchandise selections on what their customers want and request. Both are competing earnestly for your leather dollar.

Who wins the competition? You do. You have two great stores that can satisfy all your leather/fetish needs, and you don’t even have to get on a plane. Visit them both. You’ll undoubtedly find plenty you want—and even need—at both places.

International Ms Leather Contest: At Home in Omaha

(Leather Life column published in Lavender Magazine, Issue #189, August 23, 2002)

The sixteenth edition of the International Ms Leather (IMsL) contest, along with the fifth edition of the International Ms Bootblack (IMsBB) contest, were held July 26-28 in Omaha, Neb. After being held in a different city every year since 1995, IMsL has officially settled down in Omaha, where its producer and much of its staff live. Host hotel and major stomping ground for the weekend was the Best Western Redick Plaza in downtown Omaha.

This year’s contest theme was “Rumble in the Jungle,” and the weather cooperated by being appropriately hot and steamy. (Producer Amy Marie Meek-DeJarlais was seen wearing a pith helmet and jungle-explorer garb for much of the weekend.)

The weekend’s events kicked off Friday evening when the contestants were introduced:

• Russ Cosgrove from Calgary, Alberta, Canada

• Lynda Elaine from Atlanta, Ga.

• Rebecca Harbert, Ms. Upper-Ohio Valley Leather;

• Lynn, sponsored by Different Strokes/Texas Leather Pride;

• Vendela Zane from Baltimore, Md.

• Bootblack contestant Kari LaVecchia, sponsored by Centaur MC, Washington, D.C.;

• Bootblack contestant slaveboi eddie from Los Angeles, Ca.

Each contestant had brought a goodie basket of leather-related merchandise to be sold at auction, with the proceeds going to the winners’ (IMsL and IMsBB) travel funds. Among the items contained in the baskets: several pieces of original art, a Power Puff Girls backpack, a leaded-stained-glass Rainbow Flag, and a complete scrotal inflation kit.

Saturday morning and afternoon were full of planned activities. In addition to shopping at the large Leather Vendor Fair, a full slate of educational seminars dealt with such topics as “Traveling With Your Toys,” “Playing With Knives” and “Sadistic Piercings” (“some simple, yet gratifying techniques to get the most pain from your pins. If you can’t get a rise out of your bottom after inflicting these tortures, she is made of sheet metal.”)

Saturday evening’s IMsL contest and show was held at the Club Joy, three blocks from the host hotel. Emcees Glenda Ryder from Baltimore and Connie from New York City kept things moving briskly, and the contestants’ fantasy performances connected well with the audience. Cosgrove performed a leather-discovery fantasy with the help of mentor and fellow Calgary resident Barry Gillardi. Lynn’s flogging fantasy, in which she flogged someone while also being flogged, moved the audience to enthusiastic applause.

Harbert’s fantasy featured the magical transformation of a frump into a leatherwoman. Zane’s cute golf-themed fantasy, in which she took revenge on a golfer who forgot to yell “Fore!”, gave new meaning to the phrase “hole in one.”

Elaine, although not the Canadian contestant, played a Dudley Do-Right mountie who rescued the heroine tied to the train tracks (Tobin Brittain, American Leatherwoman 2002) from the clutches of an evil Snidely-Whiplash-type villain. Elaine was having so much fun fighting (and then topping) the villain that she almost forgot to remove Brittain from the tracks.

When it was time for her stepdown speech, IMsL 2001 Joni Perrie showed the same dignity and elegance she has shown all year as IMsL (and as Ms Olympus Leather 2000 before that). First she named and thanked people significant to her title year who could not be present that evening. Then, a list of people significant to her title year who were present that evening was read, and as each person came to the stage they were presented with a single long-stemmed red rose. Finally, surrounded by these members of her leather family, she removed her IMsL sash and donated it to the Leather Archives & Museum, handing it to LA&M representative Jon Krongard. It was one of the most moving leather titleholder stepdowns I’ve ever witnessed.

Finally it was time to sash the evening’s winners. A beaming grin came over LaVecchia’s face as she heard her name announced as the new International Ms Bootblack. Then the IMsL winners were announced: 2nd runner-up, Lynda Elaine; 1st runner-up, Rebecca Harbert; and the new International Ms Leather 2002, Russ Cosgrove—the first IMsL from outside the United States. (Producer Meek-DeJarlais was heard exulting, “It’s really an international title now!”)

After Sunday morning’s Victory Brunch I got a chance to talk to Cosgrove, whose head was still spinning. This was her first trip ever to the United States: “I’ve never been out of [Canada] for events or workshops or anything.” Now that she has the title, however, she plans to do a lot more traveling.

When asked why she wanted to be International Ms. Leather she responded, “Calgary is lacking female Leather representatives. Calgary also needs to see that there is more to the Leather lifestyle than what they see at home. Having a hometown girl come home with the title would do much to boost the community. As well, the larger community needs to be reminded that Canada does indeed have an active Leather community.” Now that she’s won the title, she told me, “I thought I’d grown this weekend, but I think by the end of my year it’s just going to be incredible. There’s so much to see out there, and now I’m going to be there to see it.”

Using Flesh to Reach Spirit

(Leather Life column published in Lavender Magazine, Issue #188, August 9, 2002)

Cléo Dubois, the subject of this column several issues ago, is coming back to the Twin Cities, and this time she’s bringing her husband with her—Fakir Musafar, noted shaman and founder of the “modern primitive” movement. Together they will present a workshop/class/ritual, “Spirit + Flesh: Exploring Ecstatic Body Rites,” at Patrick’s Cabaret (3010 Minnehaha Ave., Mpls.) on Monday, August 12 at 7 P.M. Spirit + Flesh is also the title of Musafar’s new book, which he will be autographing at the seminar.

What the heck is an “ecstatic body rite,” you ask? Are you pierced or tattooed? Have you experienced BDSM play? Those qualify as ecstatic body rites. Musafar is one of the people responsible for the current popularity of piercing and other body modification techniques, and it is his belief that the body is a wonderful tool for getting in touch with spirit. His belief and experience is that intense physical sensation can be the gateway to transcendence, altered states of consciousness, visions, healing and transformation.

Cultures throughout history and around the world have agreed with this philosophy. Because they resonate powerfully with basic human needs and urges, the kinds of extreme physical practices that much of western culture has outlawed as “primitive” or “barbaric” existed among prehistoric peoples and continue to exist in other cultures today.

For example, most if not all of the native tribes of the North American plains practiced rituals incorporating piercing and other forms of self-torture as rites of initiation and vision quest; the most famous of these is probably the Sun Dance and its variants. As part of the “Okeepa” ceremony of the Mandan tribe, young men went through fasting and self-torture to demonstrate commitment and sacrifice to the gods and the tribe, as well as to gain spiritual power, insight and vision.

The torture involved having slits cut in the skin of the back, chest and legs. Wooden skewers were then inserted in the slits and rawhide thongs were tied to the skewers. Buffalo-skull weights were attached to the leg thongs, and then the thongs attached to the back and chest were thrown over the rafters of the ceremonial lodge and the men were hoisted and kept hanging until they lost consciousness. The next day this hoisting was repeated outdoors.

The Sun Dance modified this slightly in that the thongs were attached to a center sun-pole. The men were thus symbolically imprisoned. In order to free themselves they danced around the pole until, many hours later, the skewers tore through their skin. The torture represented death, and the emanicipation represented resurrection, renewal and rebirth.

For the young men these experiences were demonstrations of fortitude and bravery, but they also induced powerful visions that were later told to the tribe’s equivalent of priests. (Any similarities to Jesus hanging for hours, nailed to a cross, crying out to God, dying, being pierced in the side with a spear, and subsequently resurrecting are just coincidence—aren’t they?) The U.S. outlawed the Sun Dance in 1904.

Nobody in Malaysia has outlawed the Hinda festival of Thaipusam, though, which is currently celebrated by about a million people every year. It’s a procession up 276 temple steps, and many of the faithful turn themselves into walking floats by carrying frameworks weighing up to 50 pounds and decorated with flowers, colored paper, tinsel, fruits and peacock feathers. The frames are attached to the celebrants with hooks through the skin of the chest, face and back. Others simply pierce their cheeks and tongues with long skewers before making the journey. Because the revelers are in a trance there is reportedly no pain, little blood and no scarring.

Of course the use of such extreme physical practices to reach spiritual enlightenment is regarded by much of western culture as “primitive” or “barbaric,” but it all depends on your point of view. Consider that our modern, civilized culture makes no extreme demands on our young men’s bodies; we only expect them to sacrifice their foreskins to gods named “Health” and “Cleanliness,” and the sacrifice is performed, usually without anesthesia, while they are still infants because they are then too young to feel anything, right?

But, as my colleague Ms. Dafydd says, I digress. For fifty years Fakir Musafar has been on a journey of discovering these ancient body rites and adapting and introducing them to Western culture. Along the way he has fascinated some people and shocked others. A visit to his website (www.bodyplay.com) shows some of the extreme lengths to which he has taken his spirit quest. In one photo a corset reduces his waist to nineteen inches; in another he has twin swords piercing his chest; in a third he is hanging in midair, suspended by two hooks through the chest piercings (see “Okeepa,” above).

Musafar and Dubois’ workshop should be an interesting and intense evening, assuming one isn’t too squeamish. Tickets are limited and available in advance at Deluxe Piercing in Minneapolis for $25 (discount for members of a leather/BDSM club) or $30 at the door if any are left.

The Atons Celebrate 30th Anniversary

The Atons of Minneapolis celebrated their 30th anniversary with their sold-out “XXXtreme Run” July 19-21 in New Ulm, Minnesota. 110 people attended and nineteen leather clubs were represented.

Unfortunately, one of the unplanned “XXXtremes” of the weekend turned out to be the heat and humidity. (The mosquitos could have been predicted.) Never has your humble columnist seen bottled water and ice disappear so quickly as we all tried to keep ourselves cool and properly hydrated.

Friday night’s opening ceremonies recalled thirty years of club memories and were dignified, touching and poignant. Later that evening, the “G.I. Joe” cocktail party was such a hit that it may be repeated sometime soon (stay tuned).

On Saturday afternoon the club was honored to host the “spring” meeting (spring was a little late this year) of the Mid-America Conference of Clubs (MACC), an organization which coordinates the activities of leather clubs throughout the central part of the United States.

Entertainment at Saturday night’s banquet was provided by none other than Miss Richfield 1981. Looking fetching in a black leather skirt and thigh-high black patent leather boots with spike heels (which she borrowed for the occasion from The Cockpit Project), she was an unqualified hit with the leather crowd. Earlier in the afternoon your humble columnist had the honor of escorting her on an eye-opening and enlightening tour of the weekend’s dungeon facilities. You can read her thoughts on her weekend with the leather boys and see snapshots of her with her newfound fans at her website (<www.missrichfield.com>). A video of the dungeon tour, as well as other photos of the run, should be coming soon to the Atons’ website at <www.atons.net>.