The Pleasure (and Pain) of Quills

(Leather Life column published in Lavender Magazine, Issue #148, January 26, 2001)

This column concerns Quills, a film purportedly about the last years of the Marquis de Sade’s life (now playing at the Lagoon Cinema). Even though it was released by Fox, Quills is not really your normal Hollywood movie, and this column will not be your normal movie review. You can find normal reviews of this film all over the Web—one site, www.rottentomatoes.com, has gathered a thoroughly mixed collection of 72 of them. But I have yet to read anything about the film written in the context of the leather/SM community, so here goes. Consider this less of a movie review and more of a scene report.

First, let’s be clear: Quills is not a biography. The film (screenplay by Doug Wright, adapted from his play of the same name) begins with a voice-over invitation spoken by the Marquis (played by Geoffrey Rush) to listen to a “tarted-up” tale. And tarted-up it is; although the Marquis really spent the last years of his life in a French insane asylum called Charenton, and Abbé Coumier and the laundress Madelaine (played by Joaquin Phoenix and Kate Winslet) were real people, the story is a complete fabrication. It’s true that at one point de Sade’s quills and paper were taken away from him, but in reality the Abbé was able to ameliorate the situation.

In Quills, by contrast, Napoleon is so outraged by the scandalous things de Sade is writing that he sends a physician, Dr. Royer-Collard (played by Michael Caine) to the asylum to silence de Sade by either curing him or killing him. The doctor is a completely fabricated character (modeled, supposedly, on Kenneth Starr), and therefore so is the conflict between de Sade and the doctor around which the movie revolves. When Royer-Collard orders de Sade’s ink, paper and quill pens removed so that he will no longer be able to write, de Sade uses wine for ink and writes on his bedsheet. As the battle of wills escalates de Sade is forced to use his own blood for ink, and later he writes a story on a dungeon wall in his own excrement. A ripping good tale—but none of it really happened.

Quills strives to turn de Sade into a noble victim of repression who refuses to be silenced, a champion of free speech and artistic expression who valiantly makes his voice heard at all costs. That’s what the studio will be saying around Academy Award time, anyway. But it doesn’t quite work—de Sade’s compulsion to express himself looks more monomaniacal and compulsive than noble.

As history and biography, Quills fails. As a political and philosophical statement it’s a muddle. You’ll enjoy it much more if you approach the movie as a gigantic leather/SM fantasy presentation, probably the biggest one you’ll see this year (or ever). Whether inadvertently or by design, the makers of this film have included something for every kinky person’s taste. Oriental sex toys, dungeons, wrought-iron cages, bondage furniture (who wants to be the first to try the dunking chair?), torture chambers (therapeutic, of course), an exquisite flogging scene complete with aftercare, blood sports, branding, scat—it’s all here, beautifully lit and lushly photographed. You’ll have fantasy material for a long time.

None of the on-screen kink, of course, is safe, sane or consensual, but as a fantasy it doesn’t really have to be. Well, anyway, we in the leather/SM community know it’s a fantasy and do-not-try-this-at-home-without-proper-precautions. But what about all those non-kinky moviegoers out there? What image are they getting of “what it is that we do?” Unfortunately, not a very nice one.

The fact that the main backdrop for the film (and all its kinky activities) is an insane asylum isn’t terribly flattering. And the kink is certainly not shown as healthy or enjoyable; as portrayed in this film, kink is violent and cruel (and sexist to boot), and people wind up dead, maimed or insane as a result. This is reminiscent of two mid-century movies I recently watched, The Children’s Hour and A Walk on the Wild Side, with lesbian characters who were killed off at movies’ end; Hollywood at the time evidently believed that lesbianism was a crime punishable by death. So it seems with kink according to Quills: kink = madness = death. Lovely.

Not that the real-life Marquis was much better—he was certainly no proponent of “safe, sane, consensual” either, and he therefore makes a somewhat embarrassing patron saint and poster-boy for the community. But for Quills to take de Sade’s story and, uh, pervert it by trying to make it even more sensational, violent and repugnant than it already was . . . that’s really twisted. And, for Hollywood, par for the course.

A Winter’s Worth of Leather Activities

(Leather Life column published in Lavender Magazine, Issue #147, January 12, 2001)

Congratulations. You made it through another holiday season. Now comes the hard part—getting through the rest of winter, the part without the glittery holiday lights. If you’ve gone from having no free time during the holidays to suddenly having too much, here’s a whole winter full of leather activities to keep you occupied.

Jan. 12: Make hotel and weekend package reservations for International Mr. Leather contest in Chicago. It’s not too soon, and it may almost be too late. The event doesn’t happen until May 24-28, but the host hotel always fills up early. This year it’s The Palmer House Hilton; rooms are $139 or $179 a night. In a retro nod to the 20th century, you cannot make room reservations through the hotel’s website—you must actually pick up the telephone and use your voice to talk to another human being. If you make your hotel reservations (or any other travel arrangements, leather related or not) through Carlson-Wagonlit Travel in Chicago and mention “Star File 6418,” they will donate 10% of the proceeds to the Leather Archives and Museum. You can also call the Palmer House directly.

IML weekend package reservations can be made by phone, fax (800-FAX-TIXS), TDD or online (www.boxofficetickets.com). Cost is $140/person, and reserved seating is based on order date, so an early weekend package order equals a better seat at the contest. Find all the details at www.imrl.com.

Jan. 12-15 (that’s this weekend): Mid-Atlantic Leather Contest, sponsored by the Centaurs MC (for the uninitiated, the “MC” means Motorcycle Club), Washington, D.C. This is the second-largest leather contest in the U.S.; if you’re not there this year, make a resolution to experience it next year.

Jan. 20: Atons Officer Installation. Somebody else besides Dubya will be taking the oath of office today: Sam Carlisle (President), Bruce Chambers (Vice-President), Keith Cheetham (Secretary), and Paul Rozendaal (Treasurer). See this issue’s Out & About Calendar for details or visit www.atons.com.

Feb. 9-11: Portland Uniform Weekend. If you’re into uniforms, Portland, Oregon, is the place to be this weekend. Visit www.inuniform.net for details.

Feb. 16-18: Pantheon of Leather/Olympus Leather Contest, New Orleans. The leather community’s version of the Oscars, and a contest to boot (no pun intended). Details: www.theleatherjournal.com/pantheon.htm.

Feb. 16-18: International Bear Rendezvous in San Francisco. Brought to you by Bears of San Francisco, www.bosf.org.

Feb. 17-25: It’s Old Anniversary Week at The Main Club in Superior, Wisconsin. Owner Bob Jansen presents one of the few good reasons to venture north at this time of year.

March 9-11: Dreams to Reality Weekend, Omaha. Any kinky person will enjoy this weekend, but it’s especially recommended for novices. Many local kinksters will be participating as workshop presenters or vendors. For more information, visit their website (by local community member and web designer Sweets) at www.dsfurn.com/dreams-to-reality.

April 6-8: The Black Guard present Black Frost 24, “Who Murdered Broadway”. Historically Black Frost is held in mid-February; by mid-April we can only hope the weather won’t still be frosty. The Black Guard promise a huge banquet and a show you won’t want to miss. For info and a run registration form write Run Registration, The Black Guard of Minneapolis, Minneapolis, MN.

April 27-29: boy Training Camp 3 in Dallas, Texas, presented by The Leather Network. They’re serious about it if you are. You’ll find LOTS of info at www.leathernetwork.com/subboy.

And there’s more! Local kink group TIES presents their Munch the last Wednesday of each month at 7:30 PM at Legends, 825 E. Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis. Put on your black (or even your brown) leather and head to St. Paul for country-and-western dance nights at Lucy’s (Thursday, 8 PM-midnight) and Club Metro (Sundays, 7:30-11 PM). And check the websites of the North Country Bears (www.ncbears.com) and Naked Minnesota (www.nakedmn.org) for information about their wintertime activities.

Of course, for leather atmosphere there’s The Minneapolis Eagle seven nights a week and The Tank (at The Saloon) on Wednesday and Sunday evenings. To add to that leather atmosphere and break up the monotony of the long winter, shop at Fit to a T Leather (located downstairs at Club Metro in St. Paul). And if you really get bored, Fit to a T also has all the leather-care supplies you’ll need to tackle that perfect winter project: cleaning and polishing your leathers.

There. That should give you something to do until the snow melts (and yes, it will eventually melt).

Year-End Leather Review

(Leather Life column published in Lavender Magazine, Issue #146, December 29, 2000)

Updates and further thoughts on some of this year’s columns

The holiday season and the year are drawing to a close. As we all get ready to sing “Auld Lang Syne,” here are some updates and further thoughts on a few of this year’s Leather Life columns.

Even though this is a leather column, until this year I had never written about leather itself. Well, I fixed that oversight—the year’s first column was about leather care (“New Millennium, Clean Leather”) and a recent column dealt with how leather is produced. That column prompted a letter from Robert Davolt, former editor of Drummer Magazine:

“I read with interest your column on leather processing. I have never seen a leather column taken to such an entertaining and literal end. I will be using your recipe on a few of the folks here in San Francisco—the prospect of making something actually useful out of old dinosaur hides is quite exciting.

“In one of those delightful blends of kinks, did you know that leather production in ancient times made human urine a valuable commodity? It took the urine of the entire city of Rome to supply the tanners who outfitted the Legions with leather armor and equipment.

“You can’t imagine how long I have waited for an even vaguely appropriate application for this piece of historical trivia.”

The May 5 issue’s column dealt with Queer Youth Exist, a BDSM education group for minors that was created by two high school students, Hedge and Katze, as their Girl Scout Gold Award project. The column wound up being quoted as a “Cheer” in the “Cheers and Jeers” column of On Our Backs magazine. Since the column appeared Hedge has gone off to college; Katze is continuing the group on her own.

“Baby On Board: Leather Lesbians on the Mommy Track” appeared in the September 22 issue and featured a big picture of parents-to-be PJ and Vicki Knight, who have since been nominated for Pantheon of Leather’s Couple of the Year award. On September 24, two days after the issue hit the streets, Eli Francis Knight was born. He’s doing fine, as are the parents.

On December 3 the Atons of Minneapolis held their traditional Holiday Fundraiser (see photos on the Snapshots page), which raised over $4,200 for Every Penny Counts and the Aliveness Project. In addition, over 1,300 pounds of non-perishable food and personal items were collected for the Aliveness Project. The Atons thank everyone who made the event such a success.

Election Fantasy? Election Nightmare

I’ve saved the strangest follow-up for last. In the June 30 issue (“An Election-Year Fantasy”) I wrote what I thought was a satirical piece, fantasizing about what would happen if the country chose the President of the United States in the same way the leather community chooses International Mr. Leather (IML). The contest would be called the American Mr. President contest, and the titleholder would be chosen “every year in Chicago by a panel of judges,” as International Mr. Leather is chosen. I wrote that the judging panel, “nine wise elders of the community (otherwise known as the Supreme Court) would be entrusted with the task of choosing the man to lead the nation for the next year.”

Well, aided by masterful election engineering by those wonderful folks in Florida who brought you Anita Bryant, this election came down to the Supreme Court effectively awarding the “American Mr. President” title.

In some ways the analogy between presidential election and leather contest was not followed. Allow me to again compare the presidential race to IML and other leather contests: Normally the winner of a leather contest is not announced until the tallymasters have completed their counting (and, we hope, rechecked their figures). Better to make sure the figures are correct before announcing them than to risk an error, a challenge, and subsequent embarrassment. But I guess they don’t feel that way in Florida or Washington, D.C.

Of course, at a leather contest there’s an entertainer, usually a fabulous diva, on hand to keep the audience amused while the tallymasters total up the scores. If the contest entertainer has finished their set and the tallymasters still haven’t finished their tally, the audience waits and the entertainer does an encore. By contrast, the presidential election-night coverage was followed by a seemingly endless parade of politicians, lawyers and court cases. That’s entertainment? It seemed to enthrall much of the nation, or at least the media, in the same fashion as the OJ, Princess Di, and Monicagate stories. But for many it was simply the latest in a long series of media-hyped train wrecks, and they tuned it out. Maybe if Babs or Cher or Donna Summer had provided post-election entertainment the recounts could have continued. Oh, well—I guess we’ll never know.

Several groups and organizations have expressed interest in doing an after-the-fact count of the Florida ballots under the provisions of Florida’s Sunshine Law. What happens if that recount shows that Al Gore actually won the popular vote in Florida, as he won the nationwide popular vote? Well, in the leather community anyway, that calls for stripping someone of their title and awarding it to the person who should rightfully have it.

In closing: Happy New Year, and Happy Real Millennium.

Home for the Holidays?

(Leather Life column published in Lavender Magazine, Issue #145, December 15, 2000)

The holiday season is upon us, and it has a way of making good things very good and bad things horrible. If you are a kinky person (of any sexual orientation or preference) who is part of an understanding and accepting biological family, you are perhaps counting your blessings and looking forward to some sort of wonderful holiday family get-together.

Or perhaps your biological family knows about your kinky tendencies and some or all of the family members don’t approve. Maybe it’s your parents. Maybe it’s your kids (or your grandkids). Maybe it’s a brother, a sister, an aunt or uncle. In any case, their disapproval may mean that the time you spend with your family this holiday season will range from uncomfortable to downright excruciating. Or it may mean you won’t be spending any time at all with them by either their request or your choice.

Even though you may find yourself feeling sadness, anger, resentment or regret about your relationship with those disapproving members of your biological family, at least you’ll be free to spend time with people whose company you actually enjoy. Ask yourself how you really want to spend the holiday. Don’t be limited by convention. Do you want to gather at someone’s home for a big holiday meal? Spend the day with just your partner, a roaring fire in the fireplace, and a sling? Have a Solstice orgy with 20 or 30 or 100 of your closest friends? (“I’m dreaming of a wet Christmas . . . “)

Or perhaps your biological family doesn’t know you’re kinky. Maybe, as far as you’re concerned, that’s a fine state of affairs since it’s none of their business anyway. The time you spend with your family might be satisfying or awful, but the quality of that time won’t be influenced by feelings of guilt, shame or rejection relating to the fact that you feel you must hide something from them.

If for some reason you feel your kinkiness is their business—if you feel it’s getting in the way of open and honest communication and you want to share this aspect of your life with your family (or at least certain family members)—here are a few things you might want to consider as you contemplate how you will “come out” to them as a kinky person.

• Do you want to tell them during the holiday season at all, or would some other time be less emotionally loaded?

• Telling someone news that may shock them is better done on the day after Christmas than the day before Christmas (or Christmas Day itself).

• Don’t try to sugarcoat things by inviting someone for a grand holiday meal or other festive event during which you deliver the news. If someone is going to be upset by your revelation, they’ll be doubly upset that you ruined what up to that point had been a perfectly lovely occasion.

If you’ve already come out as a member of the GLBT community you may find that you’ve already gone through a similar process. As a matter of fact, these tips are adapted from a wonderful book by Mary Borhek called Coming Out To Parents: A Two-Way Survival Guide for Lesbians, Gay Men And Their Parents. It discusses holiday issues along with other family-related topics, and many of the book’s discussions about GLBT issues can also be applied to kink issues. If you or your parents (or your kids) are feeling family stress I recommend it highly (and the fact that I’m the author’s son has absolutely nothing to do with my recommendation).

Finally, remember that you have options and choices in the matter of how you’ll spend this holiday season. It doesn’t matter so much what other people think about how you celebrate the holiday. What matters is that it be uplifting and meaningful for you. That’s my holiday wish for all my readers—whatever holiday you celebrate and however you celebrate it.

Starting Jan. 3: Wednesday Evenings at The Tank

A new mid-week leather hangout: The Saloon’s leather bar, The Tank, will be open Wednesday evenings from 10 PM to 1 AM starting January 3, 2001 (the kitchen will be open 10-11:30 PM). The dress code will be “relaxed,” but there will be free pool for men in leather. (The Tank will still be open Sunday evenings as well.)

Upcoming Leather Events (for Calendar section)

Friday, Dec. 15, 7:30 PM-closing: Wear your club colors to Club Colors Night at The Minneapolis Eagle.

Saturday, Dec. 16, noon-7 PM: Do your holiday shopping at MSDB’s Bizarre Bazaar at Club Metro Underground in St. Paul. In addition to various vendors there will be a silent auction benefiting the Mr./Ms. Minnesota Olympus Leather contest (to be held in January, 2001). $5 at the door; visit www.msdb-mn.org for more info.

Wednesday, Dec. 22, 10 PM-1 AM: Chris Steele, a leatherman’s fantasy, and legendary porn-film director Chi Chi LaRue will be making an appearance at The Saloon.

Wednesday, Dec. 27: The monthly TIES Munch starts at 7:30 pm, Legends Cafe, 825 E. Hennepin Ave., Mpls. Come hobnob with about 150 other kinky folks at the perfect after-Christmas social gathering. If you’ve just been visiting the relatives in the hinterlands and need to get back to reality, this should do it.

Walkin’ in a Winter Leatherland

(Leather Life column published in Lavender Magazine, Issue #144, December 1, 2000)

What is there for a leatherperson to do this winter? Plenty! This column was supposed to be a leather calendar for the next few months, but there’s so much going on that I only have room for December’s events. Here goes:

Sunday, Dec. 3: Start the holiday season on a high note with the Atons Holiday Fundraiser at The Saloon, December 3, 5-10 pm. This event is a benefit for The Aliveness Project and Every Penny Counts, and it will be huge! Last year the Atons raised over 700 lbs of non-perishable food items and $3,000 for The Aliveness Project and Every Penny Counts. At this year’s event, a silent auction (you can preview auction items at www.atons.com/Auction1.htm) features over 50 choice items including an original signed and numbered Tom of Finland print, leather clothing, uniforms, books, posters, toys, and even—and I bet this sends some of you scurrying to your web browsers—some SantaBear and Department 56 Snow Village collectibles. Portfolio Studios will be taking photos with Leather Santa. Vince the leather barber will be doing haircuts, and a bootblack will be on duty. There will be door prizes, drink specials and free food, and even a spanking booth. Admission is an $8 donation at the door, or $5 with 2 lbs. of nonperishable food items or pennies and other change. (Penny donations will be challenge-matched by both The Tank and First National Bank of the Lakes up to $100 each.) For more information and a list of nonperishable food and personal items to donate, visit www.atons.com/events.htm. If you can’t attend the silent auction you can still bid on items in advance; e-mail scorpio@minn.net for details.

You might want to precede the Atons Holiday Fundraiser with a visit to the Mall of America at 1 pm, where PrideAlive will be having their 3rd annual Hand Hold In. According to Sean Kurysh, PrideAlive’s community organizer, “Holding hands in the mall shouldn’t take courage . . . but it still does.” This event is for all genders, ages, couples and singles, and it would be great to see the leather community represented. Meet at the Mall of America, Upper East Side entrance, Level 4 (top floor of the mall), right across from—you guessed it—Hooters.

Monday, Dec. 4: Order tickets to the area premiere of “The Rocky Horror Show” live on stage at the Phoenix Theater. Director Tim Lee has issued a special invitation to the leather community, noting that leather is prominently featured in the show. (A bonus: Thanks to this show you don’t have to travel to New York City and try to score a ticket to “The Full Monty” if you want to see full frontal male nudity on stage.) The show runs through Dec. 17. Call for tickets.

Friday, Dec. 15: Wear your club colors to Club Colors Night, starting at 7:30 pm at The Minneapolis Eagle.

Saturday, Dec. 16: Do your holiday shopping at MSDB’s Bizarre Bazaar, noon to 7 pm at Club Metro Underground in St. Paul. In addition to various vendors there will be a silent auction benefiting the Mr./Ms. Minnesota Olympus Leather contest (to be held in January, 2001). Admission is $4 in advance or $5 at the door; visit www.msdb-mn.org for more info and a ticket order form.

Dec. 15, 16 and 17: For the holidays, the Twin Cities Gay Men’s Chorus presents “Making Spirits Bright,” their first concerts under new artistic director Dr. Stan Hill (who formerly directed the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus). Call for tickets. It should be noted that at least a few chorus members usually show up at The Minneapolis Eagle after a concert performance.

Tuesday, Dec. 19: Pride Alive, the queer men’s initiative at the Minnesota AIDS Project, presents another edition of my favorite Cafe Chat discussion/seminar: “Kink-O-Rama.” 7-9:30 pm at Dunn Bros., 329 W. 15th St. in Minneapolis. Register by calling Sean or e-mail @mnaidsproject.org.

Wednesday, Dec. 27: The monthly TIES Munch starts at 7:30 pm, Legends Cafe, 825 E. Hennepin Ave., Mpls. Come hobnob with about 150 other kinky folks at the perfect after-Christmas social gathering. If you’ve just been visiting the relatives in the hinterlands and need to get back to reality, this should do it.

Upcoming Leather Events (for Calendar section)

See above.

Recipe for a Leather Vest

(Leather Life column published in Lavender Magazine, Issue #143, November 17, 2000)

“Daddy, where does leather come from?” If you’ve ever asked that question, read on. Most people know that animal skins become leather by a process called “tanning.” But how is leather tanned? What’s the difference between the animal skin before the tanning process and the leather after it has been tanned?

Leather is often irreverently and simplistically referred to as “dead cow,” but the reality is much more complicated. Actually, leather can be made from many different kinds of animal skins; in my collection I have cowhide (durable), pigskin (breathable), lamb (very soft), and even kangaroo (tough as iron). What’s the difference between a “skin” and a “hide”? Generally, a hide is from a large animal, like a cow, horse, ox, buffalo, or zebra. A skin is from a smaller animal, like a pig or lamb.

If leather were truly just “dead cow,” it wouldn’t last very long; an animal’s skin starts to decompose within hours of the animal’s death. Leathermaking is a way of stopping that decomposition, preserving the skin and turning it into something useful and durable. Skin is made of up mostly of water, fat and various kinds of protein including a fibrous protein called collagen. Leather is skin with much of the water and all of the stuff that decays (fat, non-fibrous proteins, blood vessels, muscle, etc.) removed and with the bonds between the collagen fibers strengthened.

People have been making leather for over 7,000 years. Early leathermakers dried hides in the sun to remove much of the water, pounded in animal fats or brain matter to soften the hides, and then preserved them by salting or smoking. Vegetable tanning, which is still practiced today, was developed by the Egyptians and Hebrews around 400 BC and involves soaking hides in solutions of tannin (tannic acid) extracted from plants. (The tannin is what cements the collagen fibers together.) Chemical tanning, particularly the use of chromium salts, was introduced toward the end of the 19th century.

Here’s a modern recipe for a leather vest. I doubt you’ll want to try it yourself, but it will give you some appreciation for the skill, craft, and complex processes that were involved in making the leather you’re wearing.

Take one fresh animal skin (probably cow). Wash and clean thoroughly. Remove hair and epidermis (the thin outer layer of skin) by first soaking the skin for several days in a solution of lime and water to soften the hair and epidermis, and then scraping the hair and epidermis away with a large knife. Now turn the skin over and scrape away any remaining flesh and fatty tissue on the underside of the skin. This will leave the thick central layer of skin, known as the dermis or corium, which is what leather is made from.

Now soak the skin in deliming solution to remove excess lime, soak in enzymes if desired to remove still more perishable proteins, then soak in a chromium sulfate solution to stabilize and strengthen the collagen fibers in the skin.

The dermis of an average cowhide is about 4-1/2 millimeters thick. If thinner leather is desired (and it usually is), split the skin in half using a special machine with a band-type knife. If you don’t have one of those machines, you can just scrape the underside of the skin until you’ve whittled it down to the proper thickness (that’s the way they did it in the old days). Once the hide has been split, the outer layer will become “top grain” leather, which is generally superior to the inside “split grain” layer. (What about all the little bits of leather that have been scraped or shaved off the hide? They are combined with a glue or other binding resin, and the resulting mixture is rolled into sheets of so-called “ground leather”—the leather equivalent of particleboard.)

Next, soak the skin in a dye of the desired color (probably black) mixed with oils and fats to soften the leather. The easy way to do this is in a rotating drum (hence, “drum-dyed” leather). Then stretch the hide out and dry by baking in an oven. Once dry, buff lightly to remove any surface imperfections.

Finally, finish the leather by spraying it with liquid pigment, dry in an oven, emboss it to give it a uniform grain pattern, spray on a clear protective topcoat, then tumble in a heated drying drum to pummel the leather and make it soft. Iron the leather to remove any wrinkles.

You are now ready to mark the vest pattern on the leather, cut out the pieces and sew them together.

Yield: One leather vest.

Two Local Leather Events To Be Rescheduled

The Minnesota Olympus Leather Contest, which was to have happened the weekend of November 11, will be rescheduled for the first part of January, 2001. The event was postponed due to a lack of contestants for the title. If you want to compete, call the Knights of Leather.

MSDB’s Bizarre Bazaar, a leather/fetish vendor mart which was to have happened the same weekend, was also postponed and will now be happening on Saturday, December 16 from noon to 7 pm at Club Metro Underground in St. Paul. At the Bizarre Bazaar, MSDB will also be doing a silent auction to fundraise for the Mr./Ms. Olympus Leather contest. Admission will be $4 in advance or $5 at the door; for more information see MSDB’s website at www.msdb-mn.org. (MSDB still has vendor space available—see the website for details.)

Atons Holiday Fundraiser Seeks Auction Donations

The Atons of Minneapolis will hold their annual Holiday Fundraiser on Sunday, December 3 at the Saloon Bar in downtown Minneapolis. Last year the Atons raised over 700 lbs of non-perishable food items and $3,000 for The Aliveness Project and Every Penny Counts. They are seeking donations of erotic art, new toys like whips & floggers, or gift certificates that can be used for a Silent Auction to benefit The Aliveness Project and Every Penny Counts. If you wish to donate an item please contact Tom. Pictures of donated items can be seen on the Atons website (www.atons.com), and a printed catalog of auction items is scheduled for distribution just before Thanksgiving.

Minnesota Olympus Leather Contest Coming Up

(Leather Life column published in Lavender Magazine, Issue #142, November 3, 2000)

PHOTO: I have many photos of Cori and David from which you can choose. I’ll drop the prints off at the Lavender office as soon as I can.

The Mr./Ms Minnesota Olympus Leather contest happens next weekend, Nov. 10-12 (see schedule details at the end of this column). This will be your only chance this year to see (or compete in) a state-level leather contest; at this time, to my knowledge, the other “traditional” leather titles—Mr. and Ms. Minnesota Leather and Mr. Minnesota Drummer and Drummerboy—are all on hiatus.

The winners of the Minnesota Olympus Leather titles go on to compete at the national Mr./Ms. Olympus Leather contest (which is part of the Pantheon of Leather community-service awards) in New Orleans next February. Minnesota residents have brought home a national Olympus Leather sash twice in the last two years: Cori Ander was Ms. Olympus Leather 1999, and David Coral (aka Jazz Thomas) is the current Mr. Olympus Leather 2000.

I asked Cori and David what makes the Olympus Leather titles different than the other titles mentioned above. Both agreed that the Olympus Leather title takes the leather community’s traits of diversity and inclusivity to new heights. David liked the fact that both Pantheon of Leather and the Olympus Leather contest “are probably the only leather events that really honor and acknowledge the entire community—men, women, bi, straight, gay, pansexual, pangender, everything. It’s for the whole leather community. I think the trend of the leather/SM community is toward a mixing of the disciplines, a mixing of the sexes, a mixing of the genders—I think that’s the wave of the future. The reason I believe so strongly in the Olympus Leather title is because it’s on the cutting edge of that. It’s been at the forefront of that trend for its entire history, whereas IML, IMsL, and Drummer have traditionally been gay titles.”

What Cori finds refreshing about both the Olympus Leather title and Pantheon of Leather is that they’re “pan-practice.” That’s a term she has recently started using to connote that whether you’re a heavy BDSM player or are just starting to get into it (or are just curious about it), everyone is welcome. She appreciates the freedom to interact with people in a leather/BDSM setting in many different ways: “You don’t have to be a heavy player, and it doesn’t have to be only about hard-core sex. It can be at whatever level and whatever practice people feel comfortable with.”

David told me he’s been having a great title year—even though he hasn’t traveled as much as expected, “The travel that I’ve done has been really quite extraordinary, and I’ve met fantastic people. The diversity in this community is amazing. Having this title opens all kinds of doors to places I never would have gone, people I never would have met, and experiences I never would have had otherwise. You know, I competed in the contest, and I had fun with it, but I didn’t think I would win. I thought, ‘I’m not this huge heavy player, I’m not this big leather guy—there are other people who are way more qualified for this than I am.’ I’m just this regular guy, and all of a sudden all these doors get opened just because I happen to have this title attached to my chest.”

Cori agreed that holding a title creates opportunities; in her experience, many of the opportunities have been chances to learn. “Just because I have a title doesn’t mean I know everything, and I love it that I continually get to learn from people. Big things, little things, it doesn’t matter—I love the variety. And I love the creativity of some of the people I’ve met, and the different styles. Creativity is very important to me, and one of the reasons I got involved with this community is because it’s so creative. And it’s always evolving—anything that involves people and their wants and their likes is going to evolve, and I like being part of that evolution.”

You can meet Cori Ander, David Coral and other leather luminaries at the Mr./Ms. Minnesota Olympus Leather contest next weekend (Nov. 10-12) at a location yet to be determined. Tentative schedule: Meet and Greet Friday night, contestant interviews Saturday during the day (not open to the public), and the contest and show on Sunday night. This contest is presented by the Knights of Leather; for further information, or if you want to compete, call the Knights of Leather.

Another feature of this weekend will be the Bizarre Bazaar, a leather/BDSM/fetish vendor boutique tentatively scheduled for Saturday from noon-7 pm at the Club Metro Underground in St. Paul. The Bizarre Bazaar is presented by local kink group MSDB (Minnesota Stocks, Bonds and Debentures).