Fundraisers, Trust and Accountability

(Leather Life column published in Lavender Magazine, Issue #200, January 24, 2003)

Food drives. Toy drives. Auctions. Raffles. If you hang around the leather/BDSM community (or the GLBT community or almost any other community, for that matter) you will see individuals and organizations raising money for charity using a never-ending array of techniques, from balls to banquets to bingo. But what assurance do you have that the money you donate will go where it’s supposed to go?

An article in the December 19, 2002 issue of GAZE Guide took several local organizations, including the Atons of Minneapolis, to task for not filing reports with the Minnesota Charities Review Council and/or the Better Business Bureau. The article did not say, or even appear to insinuate, that there was anything dishonest about the way the Atons conduct their fundraisers—but it did suggest that filing with the Minnesota Charities Review Council would “insure [sic] donor confidence.” (The Minnesota Charities Review Council is an organization that has been in operation since 1946 with the twin goals of “providing information that will help donors make informed charitable giving decisions” and “encouraging accountability in the charitable sector by applying standards to selected nonprofit organizations and communicating the results to stakeholders.”)

When I asked the Atons about this, then-president Sam Carlisle responded (quite correctly) that the Atons of Minneapolis is not a charity, it’s a social club. Raising money for good causes is one of the things the club does, but not its main reason for existence.

The same could be said of other local organizations. The Black Guard of Minneapolis has, in the past, brought in talent from places like New York and Las Vegas to raise money for charitable causes. TIES has had several holiday-season toy drives, and the North Country Bears have twice collected teddy bears to be given to children in crisis. The North Star Gay Rodeo Association has designated various charities as beneficiaries of its rodeos through the years. But none of these organizations are charities themselves—they are clubs or social organizations which, as one component of their missions, raise funds to be given to the kind of charities that do file with the Minnesota Charities Review Council.

But what assurance is there that the money raised at these events will actually get to those charities? There is a one-word answer to that question: trust—the same trust that is so essential to so many of the leather community’s activities. Just as we trust that the person we submit to in a BDSM scene won’t violate the boundaries we’ve negotiated beforehand, or just as we trust that the person we trick with won’t steal our wallet or strangle us, we trust that event organizers will be honest and honorable and will turn over all the monies raised to the proper charity.

As with other areas of leather, that trust is not blind. Leather tends to be a self-policing community and this aspect of the community is no exception—we, all of us, form our very own Charities Review Council to ensure donor confidence. Clubs, organizations and individuals understand that the community expects them to be accountable and to do what they say they will do. They have reputations to maintain, and they know that any financial hanky-panky will eventually be found out, and probably judged pretty harshly.

That’s exactly what happened last year to an east-coast titleholder: He held an event advertised as benefiting the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom (NCSF). He recruited volunteers to help him with his fundraiser. He even publicized how much money was raised. But, several months later and after repeated inquiries, NCSF still hadn’t received the proceeds from the event. (The Leather Archives & Museum (LA&M) in Chicago occasionally has had the same problem: someone has told them they were raising money for the LA&M, but the check never showed up.)

Not only did this titleholder disgrace himself, he also embarrassed NCSF and all the people who volunteered to help him with his fundraiser. Several of those volunteers eventually went public with the story, exposing the fundraiser as fraudulent and calling on the titleholder to do the right thing and turn the fundraiser’s proceeds over to NCSF. At this writing NCSF still hasn’t received any money and the titleholder’s reputation is pretty well shot.

Fortunately, the example given above is an extremely rare occurrence. The bad apples are far, far outweighed by the many honest and worthwhile clubs, organizations and titleholders who would never do anything dishonest because they’re honest and honorable people and, frankly, it would never occur to them that being dishonest was an option.

So—as long as the people organizing the events have proven themselves trustworthy—go to the fundraisers, bring the food to the food drives and the toys to the toy drives and buy the raffle tickets. Enjoy the events and enjoy the good feeling that comes from knowing your contributions are going where they’re supposed to go and doing what they’re supposed to do.

There’s another aspect of leather or GLBT organizations raising money for charities that needs to be pointed out: I’ve seen several instances where money was raised but a charity would not accept it because they didn’t like the folks who raised it. Charities that practice this kind of discrimination might think they are upholding their moral principles by refusing to accept what they consider to be tainted donations. But these charities should realize that such discrimination makes them look pretty uncharitable in the eyes of many.

Previewing The Bolt: New Bar Set to Open Next Door to Minneapolis Eagle

(Article published in Lavender Magazine, Issue #199, January 10, 2003)

The long-awaited expansion of The Minneapolis Eagle is about to become a reality. In the near future, a new bar called The Bolt will debut adjacent to the Eagle at 513 Washington Avenue South, Minneapolis.

The new bar’s tag line—“I don’t give a damn about my bad reputation” (taken from a Joan Jett song)—describes the atmosphere Eagle and Bolt owner Ed Hopkins will be trying to create at the new place.

The Bolt’s doors were opened to the community for a sneak preview on New Year’s Eve in a condition Hopkins described as “75% done.” Visitors that night got an idea of the bar’s layout: they saw the plywood frame for the rectangular “racetrack” cruise bar (to be covered with a stainless-steel top, diamond-plate sides and galvanized-pipe railings and fittings) in the front half of the room. The back half of the room is devoted to the dance floor, and a back hallway from the dance floor area leads to the patio that The Bolt will share with The Minneapolis Eagle. The DJ booth is in a glassed-in area above the front entrance. The ceiling is high, and the black-painted walls will be illuminated with hanging high-school-gymnasium light fixtures. Hopkins designed the bar himself, working in conjunction with his general contractor.

A roll-up garage door in the center of one wall will be open at certain times to allow the crowds at The Bolt and The Minneapolis Eagle to mix but will separate the bars when the Eagle’s leather/levi dress code is being enforced. The Bolt, while hoping to attract a clientele somewhat similar to the Eagle’s, won’t have a dress code. “It has broken my heart to have to turn someone away from the Eagle because they couldn’t meet the dress code,” says Hopkins. “Now we can just send them next door.” One thing Hopkins says he hopes The Bolt will have in common with The Minneapolis Eagle is a reputation for being a friendly, no-attitude kind of place.

Hopkins makes no secret that he adores his staff. They’ve been instrumental in helping him get The Bolt going, and he says “Without them I could never do this.” DJ Joe Zapien will handle DJ duties on Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays. Minneapolis Eagle bartender Jess will be The Bolt’s lead bartender on Wednesday nights and is planning a DJ contest to find and hire a DJ for other nights of the week. Former Minneapolis Eagle bartender Karl is back in town and will be The Bolt’s lead bartender for Tuesday’s “Classic Disco” nights. Plans call for various other theme nights throughout the week, possibly including women’s and country nights.

Now that The Bolt has had its preview on New Year’s Eve, Hopkins wants to get the rest of the construction finished before announcing the official opening date. Once it’s up and running, The Bolt will be open until 3 AM Fridays and Saturdays and 2AM Sundays.

Atons Holiday Fundraiser benefits Aliveness Project

(Leather Life column published in Lavender Magazine, Issue #199, January 10, 2003)

As we wave goodbye to the 2002 holiday season, here are some photos from the annual Atons Holiday Fundraiser, which was held December 15 at The Saloon. The event’s sole beneficiary was The Aliveness Project.

PHOTOS:

Members, associates, friends and other supporters of the Atons surround some of the 900 pounds of grocery items collected at the fundraiser for the Aliveness Project’s Holiday Basket program. From left: Robby Roberts, Mark Ludwig, Dennis Wunderlich, Paul “Nicky” Nicholson and Jim Courtney.

Atons members Sam Carlisle (club president), Matt Grimes, and Paul Rozendaal at the auction cashier table. The 4th annual Silent Auction, along with door receipts, raised over $2,700 for The Aliveness Project.

At their Holiday Fundraiser the Atons introduced several new Associate Members and two new Pledges (candidates for full membership). New Associate Members, from left: Josh Conrade, Andrew Bertke, Jack Erickson, Jim and (separate photo) Kellen Slagle.

New Atons Pledge Lars McCrary (left) with Keith Cheetham, Atons Pledgemaster (right).

Keith Cheetham, Atons Pledgemaster (left) congratulates new Atons Pledge Vince McGhee.

Leather barber Vince McGhee and his barber chair were busy all evening. He’s shown here giving Brad Rystedt a trim.

The evening’s special leather guest entertainer Barry Barrett (seated) gets his boots shined by bootblack Kelley Herridge. Barrett later modeled some of the Silent Auction items.

Atons “Snowball” Sunday, Jan. 12

The next Atons event, “Snowball,” takes place on Sunday, January 12, 6-10 PM at The Tank. $5 at the door includes beer, soda and hors d’oeuvres.

Whipping the Post

(Leather Life column published in Lavender Magazine, Issue #198, December 27, 2002)

The leather community can be rightfully proud of the fact that one of our most respected members, Jack McGeorge, is serving in Iraq as one of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) weapons inspectors on the team headed by Dr. Hans Blix. McGeorge is a take-charge, get-it-done kind of guy: co-founder and past president of Black Rose, a Washington, D.C.-area pansexual SM group; a founding officer of the Leather Leadership Conference (LLC); former board chairman of the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom (NCSF); and a frequent presenter of SM-related workshops. Cheers to McGeorge for being willing to serve humanity by undertaking such a strenuous and delicate task. (We will now sing a chorus of “We’re Everywhere.”)

Certainly, McGeorge was not chosen for the UNMOVIC team because of his contributions to the leather community (those qualifications will be discussed later), but he almost lost his spot on the UNMOVIC team because of those contributions. Yes, we’re everywhere, and thanks to a recent media circus started by The Washington Post and picked up by other media outlets, the whole world knows it whether or not it was any business of theirs.

The Post’s story started like this: “The United Nations launched perhaps its most important weapons inspections ever yesterday with a team that includes a 53-year-old Virginia man with no specialized scientific degree and a leadership role in sadomasochistic sex clubs.” The Post felt the story was important enough (sensational enough?) to put on Page One of the Thanksgiving Day (Nov. 28, 2002) edition.

The story tried to raise several concerns about the weapons inspection process, among them charges that the current weapons inspection team lacks experience and qualification, and that inspectors with more experience and qualifications were passed over for political reasons. But approximately half the article focused on McGeorge, singling him out and either making his qualifications for the job seem weak or sensationalizing his leather/SM activities.

The article noted that McGeorge said he would tender his resignation to Blix if the Post printed a story about him: “I have been very upfront with people in the past about what I do, and it has never prevented me from getting a job or doing service. I am who I am. I am not ashamed of who I am—not one bit. But I cannot allow my actions, as they may be perceived by others, to damage an organization which has done nothing to deserve that damage.”

On Saturday, November 30—this time on page A18—the Post ran a follow-up story: “Inspector’s Resignation Rejected by U.N.’s Blix.” In the story Dr. Blix’s spokesman Ewen Buchanan was quoted as saying, “We are not aware of any grounds for his resignation, and Dr. Blix has not taken up his offer” to resign. This was followed by an entire paragraph detailing, yet again, McGeorge’s SM activities.

A subsequent paragraph reported that “Hua Jiang, deputy spokeswoman for U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, was asked yesterday by reporters if McGeorge’s role as a leader in sadomasochistic sex clubs could be offensive to Muslims during the diplomatically sensitive mission in Iraq.” Her reply was that all the inspectors had been given training, including awareness of and sensitivity to “the local culture and religion.” The rest of the second story again raised issues and doubts about the inspection team’s composition and training.

Other media outlets also jumped on this golden opportunity to sensationalize and denigrate both the leather/SM community and the UNMOVIC inspections. The New York Daily News gleefully noted that “Harvey John (Jack) McGeorge also lacks a specialized university degree—although he was once honored with a ‘doctor of S&M arts and letters’ from ‘Leather University.’ ” The New York Post headlined its article “Saddamasochist” and noted “While it was unclear whether his experience in dominance and submission might be useful in probing Saddam’s arsenal, his group’s website listed a number of salty approaches for ‘coming on to the person you want to know.’ ” It called McGeorge “chubby” and his private life “peculiar.”

The same publication’s opinion columnist John Podhoretz likened the UNMOVIC team to the “Keystone Kops” and referred to Dr. Blix and the team as “Inspector Clouseau and his merry S&M band.” Even Pravda got into the act, saying “For inspectors like McGeorge all weapons of mass destruction boil down to a leather strap . . .” (Hmmm—now what is that supposed to mean? Maybe it loses something in the translation.)

CNN called on syndicated sex columnist Dan Savage (“Savage Love”) to explain SM to its viewers; Savage was able to impart some good information about safety, trust and negotiation before the interview degenerated into a discussion of other fetishes culminating in “people attracted to stuffed animals. Plushophiles, they’re called.”

The Washington Post got letters. On December 7, on page A23, a letter from Andrew R. Carruthers stated what should have been obvious to James V. Grimaldi, the writer of the original story, but evidently wasn’t: “. . . I cannot see a single iota of relevance in the decision to trumpet McGeorge’s sexual proclivities, no matter how distasteful they may seem, in such an article, let alone at the top of a Page One column.”

In another letter, Harvey Zar wrote: “I don’t see what Jack McGeorge’s interest in sadomasochistic sex has to do with his qualifications to be a weapons inspector . . . your paper never showed how this affected his professional performance. If McGeorge had been gay or a Scientologist, your paper likely would not have considered these private behaviors as appropriate criticisms of his background. Apparently, the United Nations doesn’t consider McGeorge’s private life as affecting its mission, either.”

Zar’s letter recalled “the last time Washington was obsessed with sexual conduct. While President Clinton claimed sex wasn’t sex and members of Congress pleaded ‘youthful indiscretion,’ al Qaeda was planning its attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.” He concluded: “We have more important matters at hand than the private conduct of consenting adults.”

On December 8, on page B06, Washington Post ombudsman Michael Getler wrote:

A few dozen readers complained that McGeorge’s sexual activities and associations are irrelevant to his job performance and saw the story as an effort to discredit him because of those activities. “If Mr. McGeorge is unqualified, due to lack of experience or qualifications, then that is another matter. But to try to use his private life as an excuse for the article is reprehensible,” wrote one reader, reflecting a fairly common view. Eric Umansky, a media writer for the online magazine Slate, called it “gratuitous and sleazy. The Post should apologize . . . and get 40 lashes.”

Getler went on to note that for many reasons this story was not up to the Post’s usual journalistic standards.

McGeorge is a former Marine and Secret Service munitions specialist who since 1983 has been a security consultant in the field of chemical and biological weapons. According to the New York Daily News, “he has appeared many times on TV as an explosives expert, analyzing the Cole, Oklahoma City and Africa embassy bombings.” UNMOVIC spokesman Buchanan was quoted in the original Post article as saying “I believe that Mr. McGeorge is technically very competent. He knows his subject, which is weapons.” McGeorge himself was quoted in the same article: “I was a military ordnance explosive disposal specialist. I was very well trained on chemical and biological agents.”

A take-charge, get-it-done kind of guy with those professional credentials seems like exactly the type of person one would want as a weapons inspector in Iraq.

The Man in the Uniform

(Leather Life column published in Lavender Magazine, Issue #197, December 13, 2002)

I didn’t remember how I had gotten there, but I found myself in the waiting area of a large and very grand transportation terminal of some sort. I was sitting on a bench that was surprisingly comfortable, waiting for—I knew not what. I was dressed in my best leathers—boots, pants, shirt, vest and jacket, with my hat on the bench by my side—and, unusual for me, all the leather had been polished and shined to a fare-thee-well.

The crowd in the terminal was a random mix of people, but no one else who was waiting was wearing any leather at all—and I gradually became aware that the leather I was wearing was a source of amusement for some of my fellow travelers and a source of consternation for others. I overheard a man sitting across from me whisper somewhat too loudly to the woman next to him, “How did somebody like him get on this flight?” From the expression on my face he must have realized that I had overheard him; this caused him first to glare at me and then to quickly look away. Another man, a few seats away, also overheard him but didn’t bother whispering as he said to the woman sitting next to him, “Yeah, when did they start letting perverts into heaven?” She laughed and replied, “If they let people like that in, are we really sure we want to be there?”

I’m not sure which was more startling: the dawning of the realization that I was dead, or the fact that even here in the afterlife I was an object of disapproval and derision because I happened to be wearing leather.

As I was pondering this state of affairs, a man in a uniform walked up to the man who hadn’t bothered to whisper and asked, “Is there a problem here, sir?” The man pointed at me and said belligerently, “Yeah, there’s a problem—that guy over there! I’m not going to spend eternity with someone of his ilk!”

The man in the uniform smiled patiently and asked, “What ilk would that be, sir?”

At this point the man who had whispered joined the fray, but he was no longer whispering: “You know very well what he’s talking about! First, he’s obviously queer, and second, he’s one of those queers who think it’s fun to beat each other up! And he’s probably into all kinds of other immoral, weird, disgusting, filthy, vile—”

The man in the uniform interrupted him by asking, “If you can tell just by looking at him that he’s such an evil person, how do you think he got on the same flight as you?” The woman who was with the other man said, “That’s what we mean—we think there must have been some kind of mistake!”

The man in the uniform, realizing that he was dealing with more than one passenger with an objection, started addressing them all as he said, “There has been no mistake. I take it you all consider yourself Christians, am I correct?” Many heads nodded. “I thought so. Would you have the same objection if a follower of, say, Buddhism were sitting in your midst?” No one responded. “Is it right that someone should not be allowed on this flight just because you object to him? You realize, I’m sure, that there are many people in the world who hate people like you, who are convinced that all Christians are evil. They hate the Christian infidels so much that they believe they will achieve spiritual glory by killing them. If they objected to your presence on this flight, would that mean you should not be allowed to go?”

By this time I was wondering if I should just get up and leave, but suddenly the man in the uniform looked directly at me. It was almost as if he knew what I was thinking, and somehow his look communicated to me the message that I should stay, that everything would be all right. He continued speaking to the crowd: “Everyone who is waiting here has traveled their own path to get here. Some of you trod an easy path, while others of you had a more difficult journey. Yet all the paths have led in the end to the same destination. Although the spiritual path this man trod was different from yours, it was no less valid and no less effective for teaching him the things he needed to learn in his lifetime.”

I was surprised that the man in the uniform knew so much about me and my life. But he seemed to be explaining it perfectly, better than I could have explained it had I been called upon to defend myself.

He continued: “This man was part of a community that was and is much misunderstood in the world. The form of love they practice is often radical and not for the timid. But it most certainly is love! And if their methods are extreme, so too is the degree of love, learning, compassion, understanding and enlightenment they can achieve and experience. The disciplines he followed during his life allowed him to transcend barriers and taste a spiritual ecstasy that few others have tasted. He was ready for such ecstasy—he yearned for it—and therefore the means to achieve it were granted him.

“All that he experienced on his journey as part of that community has brought him here, one flight away from eternity. And he deserves as much as anyone here to make that flight.” Then, scanning the crowd, he continued, “If anyone here is not ready to get on the flight with this man, perhaps they’re not ready to make the flight at all.”

The air was tense, and it seemed to me that many in the crowd had not liked what they had just heard. But the man in the uniform didn’t seem to be bothered. He looked at his watch and then addressed me: “It’s just about time. Are you ready?”

Before I could answer the room suddenly grew blazingly bright, and the air was filled with what sounded at first like a chorus of angels—but which turned out to be only a Bach chorale, played through the shrill speaker of my clock radio.

*With apologies to C.S. Lewis.

Book Review: “The Soul Beneath the Skin” by David Nimmons

(Commentary by Bill Schlichting published in Lavender Magazine, Issue #196, November 29, 2002)

Gay Life: Maybe It Really Isn’t (Or Needn’t Be) What One Thinks It Is

By Bill Schlichting

Saturday night rolls around, and many gay men find themselves in gay bars, wanting connection, but dealing only with competition; in baths, seeking solace, but finding only sex; in clubs, seeking affection, but getting only attitude—or standing outside them all, wishing for inclusion, yet feeling excluded. For David Nimmons, this is a phenomenon that should not, and need not, be. And he is doing something about it. Nimmons has written a book, The Soul Beneath the Skin, that describes changes in the gay community that have occurred in the past thirty or so years, almost without notice, and how these changes can apply to and affect the lives of individual gay men.

The Soul Beneath the Skin has two parts. In the first eight of ten chapters, Nimmons looks beyond the shared, common, and, according to him, unwittingly adopted view of gay life, and presents a radically different interpretation of gay men and their habits. Nimmons argues that the prevailing view of gay life, held by gays as well as straights, obscures deeper and more important truths; he asserts that all of us, gay as well as straight, are not seeing “the soul beneath the skin.”

For Nimmons, the conventional caricature of gay life as one-dimensional, body-obsessed, shallow, sexually profligate, powered by consumerism, with cultural values of competition, isolation, narcissism, and hedonism, and practices that discourage true intimacy is profoundly incomplete, inaccurate, and grossly misleading. He asserts that a careful reading of the facts supports a far different conclusion. Nimmons then details how gay men are crafting powerful changes around bliss and ecstasy, gender roles and sexuality, intimacy, friendship and communalism. He finds that this cultural experimentation has been little recognized, either by gay men themselves or society as a whole. He asserts that much empirical evidence suggests that self-identified gay men are engaged in a striking range of cultural innovations and social practices that present a picture far different from the prevailing one.

Nimmons describes and discusses these cultural innovations and social practices. He finds that levels of public violence in gay venues are vastly lower than those in non-gay ones; that gay men volunteer more often, demonstrating higher levels of altruism and service quite distinct from other men; that patterns of intimacy and interpersonal connectedness of gay men are taking new forms; that gay men are redefining gender relations in powerful and novel ways; that gay men have distinctive patterns of caretaking in sexual and communal realms; that gay men are enacting new definitions of public and private, family and friends, and transforming relations of pleasure, community, and authority; and that gay men are pioneering a wide range of untried intimate relationships, with new forms, rituals and language.

In doing this, Nimmons cites a growing body of evidence from public health and epidemiological studies, sociological and psychological inquiry, marketing and public opinion surveys, anthropological texts, and ethnographic studies, as well as personal stories. This evidence, according to Nimmons, powerfully contradicts the generally-accepted version of gay males’ lives. Due to its volume, the discussion becomes, at times, almost drudging. But keep reading, if you can—it will in the end be worth the effort.

In the last two chapters of The Soul Beneath the Skin, Nimmons addresses how these radical cultural innovations and social practices occurring in the community of gay men as a whole affect and apply to the lives of individual gay men. Nimmons acknowledges that the actual collective patterns and practices of the gay community may be, and in many cases are, so detached from individual lives and experiences that an individual may see no gay world he knows in the culture and society described in the first part of the book. Nimmons admits that too often individual gay men “participate in a set of public practices that, if anything, work to extinguish those very values of love, care, compassion, and kindness” that they value and, as a result, are “left hungry for intimacy.”

The paradox is, if the gay community really is such a caring community, why have gay men built a public culture that smothers the very ideals they value and seek?

Nimmons responds as follows: He notes that gay men have already rewritten the rules in enormous and sweeping ways. He writes: “Nobody handed us the queer lives we enjoy. We hewed them from the hard rock of a homophobic world.” He suggests that now is the time for a new kind of work. He writes: “(G)ay men’s truly radical act is no longer simply to claim our sexuality, but to reclaim our hearts within it.” The challenge now is to dismantle one set of givens, all the more potent because gay men themselves have created them, and replace them with another. He writes: “As gay men built our culture, we can reshape it.”

Nimmons asserts that “(w)e can shift the discourses around beauty and body; channel new archetypes, create new language, and adopt new habits and rituals.” “We can remind ourselves, in word and deed, of some truths we have long known, but often forgotten.” All the truth-telling is just preparation for work in the real world. The next step is to subvert cynicism and manifest love.

This brings Nimmons to Manifest Love, a project founded by Nimmons that “exists to help gay men find new ways to be with and for each other.” It invites a variety of gay men “to create a new kind of world together, one that better reflects (their) best values and aspirations.” It seeks to foster “a more critical understanding of (recent) cultural innovations . . . and to find concrete ways to manifest sustaining values of (gay) communities.”

A key focus of Manifest Love is “creating individual and collective acts to help (gay men) reflect, experience, and practice values of care and nurture in new ways.” These “loving disturbances” are “innovations and experiments in applied affection;” they are “concrete real-world experiments devised to nudge the patterns and practices of gay lives into more affirming and humane directions.” (Readers of Lavender were introduced to Nimmons and Manifest Love in the March 23, 2001, and May 4, 2001, issues of the magazine.)

The Soul Beneath the Skin is both a clearing away of myths and misinformation about the gay community, and a call to act to bring these transformations to the lives of individual gay men. This book describes a part of a heritage of gay men of which many may not be aware; it provides a basis and foundation, and encouragement, for those who find public gay life other than what they would like, and would like to change it; it shows that the lives of self-identified gay men are not what they often are assumed to be, and that public gay life need not be what it often feels like and appears to be.

Copyright © 2002 by William H. Schlichting

Lessons From a Scene Gone Wrong

(Leather Life column published in Lavender Magazine, Issue #196, November 29, 2002)

An unfortunate leather/BDSM-related tragedy that happened recently in St. Paul has become national news, and in the process has cast both the local and national leather/BDSM community in a very unflattering light.

Here’s what we know: Maceo Brodnax, who lived in West Hollywood, Calif., is dead. St. Paul resident Steven Bailey, a/k/a “The True Master” (his internet handle), is in police custody, charged with second-degree manslaughter in Brodnax’s death. Bailey is facing a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, a $20,000 fine, or both.

Here’s a condensed version of what apparently led to this outcome: Bailey and Brodnax hooked up over the internet, and on Nov. 2 Brodnax traveled from West Hollywood to Bailey’s apartment in St. Paul. He apparently died there that same day, but Bailey waited several days before trying to dispose of the body. According to a St. Paul Police report, on Nov. 6 at 3:17 AM officers responding to a report of “suspicious activities” found Bailey trying to load Brodnax’s body into his car so he could “dispose of the body in the river.”

The police report states that Bailey originally told police that he and Brodnax “had gotten together to engage in strangulation sex,” but Brodnax had begun to choke him too hard and he then struck Brodnax with an ashtray. When autopsy reports cast doubt on this cause of death, Bailey “admitted he had fabricated his earlier accounting of the incident.” He then said that as part of their activities he had put a gas mask on Brodnax and covered the end of the mask with a plastic bag containing a rag soaked in chloroform. At this point, again from the police report, “the phone rang and he must have lost track of time”. When he realized Brodnax was no longer breathing “he ran back into the bedroom and took the mask off and tried to revive” Brodnax to no avail.

This official recounting of the tragic tale of Brodnax and Bailey raises many questions, to most of which we will probably never know the answers. To anyone at all familiar with the leather/BDSM community the situation as reported presents several “red flags”—elements of the story that make no sense. I was unsuccessful in my attempts to arrange an interview with Bailey for this column, but if I could have talked to him these are a few of the questions I would have asked him:

• How can a top “lose track of time” talking on the phone while a sub is in the next room in a chloroform-filled gas mask? Why would anyone even answer the phone in such circumstances? Why would anyone leave the sub and go to the next room?

• If one’s own efforts at reviving someone failed, why wasn’t 911 called?

• Why wait several days before attempting to dispose of the body? And why, in the middle of a major metropolitan area, would anyone think they could haul a body out to a car at 3 AM without attracting attention?

Since this story came to light I have heard many theories and scenarios trying to explain what went on, and especially the seemingly nonsensical elements, but I don’t think it’s appropriate to recount them here. At this writing they must be regarded at best as only speculation—we’ll probably never know exactly what happened or why, or who’s to blame for what. Maybe more information will come to light during Bailey’s trial, and then more conclusions can be properly drawn. Or maybe not.

That said, what can the rest of us learn from this tragic turn of events? Plenty. For starters, remember that edgeplay is risky. (SM is risky. Sex is risky. Life is risky. But I digress.) If you’re an edgeplayer, the risk is one of the things that makes it exciting and stimulating. Sometimes things go wrong. Sometimes accidents happen. Usually by accepting that risk one acknowledges that something unpleasant might eventually happen, and one therefore needs to prepares as best one can to deal with it when it happens.

If your definition of edgeplay is “whatever I think is too risky,” that’s an example of YKINOK (Your Kink Is Not OK) thinking, and it’s an attitude that is not helpful to anyone. Remember that something you enjoy might be someone else’s idea of edgeplay. Much of the media seems to think that anything beyond the missionary position qualifies as edgeplay and is having a field day using this story as a bludgeon against kink in general.

A lesson we can draw from Bailey’s plight is to realize that what happened to him could happen to almost anyone. Edgeplay scenes can go wrong. So can less-extreme SM activities. So can vanilla sex, for that matter. What happens if you bring a trick home who subsequently has a heart attack or a stroke? No matter what the emergency, it’s good to be prepared to deal with it by thinking about the possibilities and planning for them beforehand:

• Have appropriate safety equipment available (condoms, gloves, first aid kit, fire extinguisher, bolt cutters, whatever the scene calls for) and a working phone. Another safety idea: MSDB periodically sponsors kink-friendly CPR/first-aid courses; visit their website at www.msdb-mn.org for more information.

• Don’t play either top or bottom while angry, under the influence of substances, or when your judgment is otherwise impaired.

• If something goes wrong, don’t panic—panic will keep you from dealing with the situation effectively. Remain calm, stop the action immediately and deal with the problem.

• Don’t be afraid to call 911—someone’s life may depend on your making that call.

Tops, remember that you are responsible for your bottom’s safety. If something goes wrong the bottom might suffer physical, mental or emotional consequences—but most likely you will suffer any legal consequences.

We can also draw a lesson or two from Brodnax’s fate. Foremost among those lessons would probably be the value of getting to know people in your local community (through whom you can check the background and references of potential play partners) and the value of caution when meeting people over the internet (where checking references is not as easy—you can still ask for references, but how does one check the references’ references?).

A good scene starts with trust between the partners, but trust takes time to develop. Meeting someone for the first time and “trusting them immediately” is naive at best and dangerously delusional at worst.

If you’re meeting someone for the first time, especially in an unfamiliar place or another city, don’t meet them alone. If that’s not practical, set up a “safe-call” buddy system—bring a cell phone with you and check in with your buddy at pre-assigned times to let them know you’re okay and how things are progressing. Any resistance to this idea from the person you’re meeting should trigger major warning sirens about their trustworthiness. (For more information about safe-calls visit www.dungeonrealm.com/safetyguidelines.html.)

Trust your gut. If something doesn’t seem right, it probably isn’t—walk away rather than risk further involvement. If you’re already in a bad situation, get out of it by any means necessary. Do whatever you need to do. Remember these ultimate safewords: “NO!”, “HELP!” and “9-1-1!”, screamed at the top of your lungs if necessary.