“Part Social Movement, Part Applied Spirituality”

(Leather Life column published in Lavender Magazine, Issue #152, March 23, 2001)

David Nimmons, the founder of a project called “Manifest Love,” is a man with a message, and he’s proclaiming it everywhere he can. Since 1982 Nimmons has held a wide variety of elected, appointed, and professional leadership positions in gay community organizations. He is addressing his message to gay men (most emphatically including gay leathermen), but maybe the rest of the leather/SM community—leather lesbians, transsexuals, bisexuals and heterosexuals—also needs to hear it. In short, his three-part message is 1) Look at the amazing and revolutionary community we’ve created; 2) But there are still problems to be addressed; so 3) Let’s address these problems and create something even more amazing and revolutionary.

I heard Nimmons speak as the fourth part of a five-part series of evening seminars presented by Pride Alive, the queer men’s initiative of the Minnesota AIDS Project. The first part of his talk described (and documented with footnotes and references) many of the amazing qualities and accomplishments of today’s gay male community. The following bullet-point quotes are from the brochure that was handed out at the seminar:

• “Something big is happening among gay men, but it isn’t always visible. Over two decades, gay men have quietly evolved a set of radical cultural transformations, ones we rarely even recognize. Gay communities have become social laboratories, pioneering a range of profound social innovations.” For instance:

• “We have built the least publicly violent male culture known.” To substantiate this claim, Nimmons referred to studies finding fewer police calls to gay bars vs. non-gay bars and to gay events such as Gay Pride festivals vs. similar non-gay events.

• “We have devised new models of altruism, caregiving, volunteering, and service.” Typically, gay men don’t have the support of a nuclear family to care for them when they’re sick or as they get older—they only have each other. And when society’s shunning of them escalated as AIDS, or even the threat of AIDS, made them untouchable pariahs, they found they had to depend on themselves. But they also found that they could depend on themselves.

• “We have redefined relationships with women and with each other, inventing new forms of intimacy, friendship, and community.” Nimmons noted that “gay men do relationships with women differently,” as seen on TV in “Will and Grace” and in the movies “The Next Best Thing” and “The Object of My Affection,” among others. Nimmons also talked about a new style of men relating to other men called “diffuse intimacy”: “If we’re intimate with those outside our small family group, suddenly we all have a stake in each other’s well-being.” This makes gay men value and practice such things as tutelage, mentoring, and initiation into the community. They protect, take care of, and look out for each other in many different ways.

• “We have innovated radically new rituals of pleasure, affection, and ecstatic communion.” Nimmons asked for audience participation in drawing up a list of examples for this point; suggestions included Radical Faerie gatherings, the International Mr. Leather weekend, Body Electric workshops, sex parties—the list went on and on.

According to Nimmons, “This range of gay social innovations has no parallel in modern culture. It is best understood as an evolving kind of public ethics.” He noted that any other group of people evolving a society exhibiting these traits would be hailed as heroes, but that gay men still make much of society uncomfortable, so their accomplishments get little recognition.

Except—and this is my own conclusion—from certain segments of society who are using the gay male experience as a model for building their own communities, i.e. the wider pansexual SM community. Look at the similarities. SM parties, despite their outward appearance to the uninitiated, are not violent—if police appear on the scene it’s almost never because someone at the party called them. The community’s motto of “safe, sane and consensual” is evidence of an attitude of concern for everyone’s dignity and well-being. SM play certainly constitutes a “new form of intimacy” and “new rituals of pleasure, affection and ecstatic communion.” And even as kink becomes more mainstream, it is still reviled by a large portion of society. Kinky people of all sexual persuasions are finding, as gay men have found, that sometimes they have only themselves to depend on.

Back to Nimmons, and his second point: The gay male community is not perfect. “Too often, our public gay world has lagged behind our best values. It says men must compete” (like on Saturday night at a cruise bar), “that attitude makes sense” (see previous parenthetical comment), “that being loving is uncool” (it’s better to be a bitchy queen), “that we cannot publicly embrace our most loving natures. So we protect ourselves by drawing lines around looks and age, around color, class, kink. We are left hungry for intimacy, confused by sex, betrayed by community, distrusting our fellow gay man.”

Sound familiar? I’ve often heard people speak derisively of both the “gay community” and the “leather community,” saying both are illusions. They really wish they could believe in them, but they can’t.

Nimmons’ third point: There is hope. If the gay male community has created the profound cultural transformations discussed above in only twenty or thirty years’ time, think what can happen in the next ten or twenty or thirty: “We have the potential to be a spreading center of values and ethics change both for ourselves and for the larger culture.” The mission of Manifest Love is to “encourage gay men to understand and embody the best, most powerful and transformative values we bring to culture: non-violence, the brotherhood of deep friendship, sexual celebration, service and nurture, new forms of intimacy with women, and the pursuit of diverse forms of ecstatic union. We believe that different kinds of gay men, working together, can shape a more loving, affectionate, and affirming world, for ourselves and others.”

How will this mission be accomplished? Manifest Love presents community workshops, salons and talks, day-long workshops, weekend intensive retreats, and is in the process of setting up “ongoing local chapters of men working to promote critical understanding of our cultural innovations and find ways to manifest loving values in our communities.”

Nimmons say of Manifest Love, “There is no simple box for what we do. We are part social movement, part applied spirituality.” It strikes me that one could say the same of the leather/SM community. Different paths, same hoped-for destination.

For more information e-mail ManifestLove@aol.com. (By the time you read this, their website might be available at www.manifestlove.com.) David Nimmons will return to Minnesota for a weekend intensive to be held Friday evening, April 6 through Sunday, April 8; for more information contact Ankha Shamin, one of the local coordinators for the Twin Cities chapter of Manifest Love.

New Mr./Ms. Olympus Leather Chosen at Pantheon of Leather XI

Contest held February 17 in New Orleans

Over 200 Leatherfolk attended Pantheon of Leather XI at Le Petit Theatre in New Orleans, LA the weekend of February 16-18. Twenty-seven leather-community service awards were presented on Friday night, and on Saturday five SM-related workshops were presented. Then on Saturday night, the state of Georgia was smiling big after the Mr. and Ms Olympus Leather 2001 Contest concluded with Michael Allshouse and Sherree Dixon from Atlanta winning. Mr. Louisiana Olympus Leather Butch Arnold and Ms Louisiana Olympus Leather Julyahana also made a good showing for their state.

Black Guard presents Black Frost 24 April 6-8

This year’s theme: Who Murdered Broadway?

The Black Guard of Minneapolis, named by Drummer Magazine as “the best show club in the U.S.,” is getting ready to prove once again that tough guys can still love Broadway showtunes. “Who Murdered Broadway?” is the theme of the club’s upcoming Black Frost 24 run, which takes place April 6-8 at various locations around the Minneapolis/St. Paul area.

In addition to complete run packages with or without accommodations, tickets for the banquet and show only are $40 and tickets for the show only are $10. For complete run registration information visit www.blackguardmpls.com, e-mail cgscheidemeier@qwest.net, call Colin, or write Run Registration, The Black Guard of Minneapolis, Minneapolis, MN. Hurry—save money by registering before the main registration deadline of Monday, March 26.

Upcoming Leather Events (for Calendar section)

Saturday, Mar. 10: Atons Leather/Levi Night at Little Jack’s Steak House (201 Lowry Ave. NE). Drinks at 7:00 PM, dinner at 7:30 PM. Presented by the Atons, open to all; call for reservations.

Sunday, Mar. 11, 3 PM: A Brother’s Touch Bookstore (24th & Hennepin) presents a reading by noted erotic writer M. Christian of San Francisco.

Mr. Mpls. Eagle 2001 Contest

(Leather Life column published in Lavender Magazine, Issue #150, February 23, 2001)

It was Friday afternoon, the end of the workweek, and a female co-worker (whom I assume is heterosexual) asked me if I had “anything fun planned for the weekend.” I mentioned that actually, I did—I was going be a judge at a contest. “Oh, really?” she exclaimed. “What kind of contest?” Well, the contest was Mr. Minneapolis Eagle 2001, but I didn’t really want to go into that much detail about leather bars and leather contests. So I offered what I thought was a simple, easy-to-understand explanation: “Well, it’s sort of like the Miss America Pageant, only it’s guys.” Her response caught me off guard, though it probably shouldn’t have: “Oh, really? Do you know who Miss Richfield is? I just love her! I think Jason in the accounting department is a friend of hers—I mean his—no, I mean hers!”

Note to self: Must stop explaining leather contests to non-leatherfolk by comparing them to the Miss America pageant. People misunderstand. They interpret the phrase “the Miss America Pageant, only it’s guys,” to mean guys in evening gowns and lots of makeup.

I absolutely think the world of Miss Richfield (1981), but I didn’t see her at the Eagle during the contest. The Mr. Minneapolis Eagle 2001 contest was all about men—hot, sexy, masculine men in leather. And it was about choosing one of them to represent the Eagle, and the Twin Cities leather community, at the upcoming International Mr. Leather (IML) contest in Chicago.

This year’s Mr. Minneapolis Eagle contest started with private contestant interviews on Saturday afternoon, February 10. The four judges (Mr. Minneapolis Eagle 2000 Todd Leek, Atons president Sam Carlisle, Black Guard president Rick Stokes and your humble columnist) interviewed each of the three contestants in a format patterned after the contestant interviews at IML.

The action continued Saturday evening with a meet-and-greet at the Eagle. While officially a non-judging event, the judges are always watching the contestants at events like these to see how good they are at—what else?—meeting and greeting.

Then at 8 PM on Sunday, February 11, came the public portion of the contest. It was a large and good-looking crowd that packed the Eagle that night, and they were ready for a good time. They weren’t disappointed.

Emcee for the evening was the incredibly hunky Dan Bergman, a bartender at Boom! who was moonlighting for the evening. (Bergman will shortly be releasing a CD entitled “Beautiful Mess”—watch for it.)

The first judging event of the contest was the Eagle’s traditional Keg Walk, during which the contestants walked the entire length of the bar while shouldering a beer keg. Contestant Steven Due showed some creativity in this category by only carrying the keg for the first half of the walk; he commandeered a boy from the audience to carry it the rest of the way. As Due explained, it was “a little bit of role reversal—a bottom having a boy!”

Next, each contestant gave a short leather-related speech and then had to answer a randomly-selected leather-related question. In his speech, contestant Due talked about coming out and self-acceptance in both a leather and a GLBT sense. Contestant Scott Kelley, familiar to many in the audience as the sales rep for Fit to a T Leather, talked about the history and primal aspects of leather, and contestant Lonnell Callum used his speech to get some call-and-response action going with the audience.

For the third and final judging round each contestant presented an erotic reading. The lights in the bar were dimmed and Due read a short selection from a book while surrounded by a bevy of gorgeous leathermen wielding flashlights. Kelley didn’t need no stinkin’ flashlights as he powerfully and seductively recited a tale of his own invention—no written script needed. (Who knows? Rather than inventing it, he may have been simply remembering it.) Callum initially had trouble reading in the darkness, but he also presented a powerful erotic reading once Kelley came to his rescue by leaping up on the stage to hold a flashlight. The readings seemed to have the desired effect on the audience—when this contest segment was over I felt like I needed an after-sex cigarette, and I don’t even smoke.

Contest results: Second runner-up honors went to Callum; first runner-up honors went to Kelley; and winner Due will be representing The Minneapolis Eagle and the Twin Cities leather community at the 2001 International Mr. Leather contest. If you plan to journey to Chicago to see him compete, better make your travel arrangements soon. Start by visiting the IML website, www.imrl.com, for all the details. Host hotel is the Palmer House in Chicago; at this writing there are still rooms available, but they’ll go fast.

FEB. 10: Some of the good-looking crowd at the Mr. Minneapolis Eagle 2001 Meet & Greet.

ME011-24: Randy and Steve

ME011-23: Bruce, Jim and contestant Scott Kelley.

ME011-22: Steve

ME011-21: Steve and contestant Steven Due.

ME011-19: Paul and Bob.

ME011-18: Jeff and Frank.

ME011-17: David, Mike, TJ and Scott.

ME011-16: Mr. Minneapolis Eagle 1999 Tim Forte and John.

ME011-15: John and Jim.

ME011-14, ME011-13, ME011-12: The contestants. Steven Due, Lonnell Callum, Scott Kelley.

FEB. 11: The evening of the contest.

ME011-11: Outgoing Mr. Minneapolis Eagle 2000 (and chief judge for this contest) Todd Leek.

ME011-10: Contestant Steven Due during the Keg Walk portion of the contest.

ME011-09, ME011-08, ME011-07: Contestant Scott Kelley during the Keg Walk.

ME011-06, ME011-05, ME011-04, ME011-03: Contestant Lonnell Callum during the Keg Walk.

ME011-02: Emcee Dan Bergman and contestants Steven Due, Lonnell Callum and Scott Kelley at the conclusion of the Keg Walk.

ME011-01: Contestants Steven Due, Lonnell Callum and Scott Kelley at the conclusion of the Keg Walk.

ME012-24: Emcee Dan Bergman and contestant Steven Due answering the pop question.

ME012-23: Emcee Dan Bergman and contestant Scott Kelley during the speech/Q&A segment of the contest.

ME012-22, ME012-21: Contestant Scott Kelley finishing up the speech/Q&A segment.

ME012-20, ME012-19: Contestant Lonnell Callum at the end of the speech/Q&A segment, accepting the crowd’s applause.

ME012-18: Rob and Dale.

ME012-17: Charles and Gabe.

ME012-16: Steven Due just found out he’s the new Mr. Minneapolis Eagle 2001.

ME012-15: Mr. Minneapolis Eagle 2000 Todd Leek hands over the sash to Mr. Minneapolis Eagle 2001 Steven Due.

ME012-14, ME012-13: First runner-up Scott Kelley; Mr. Minneapolis Eagle 2001 Steven Due; second runner-up Lonnell Callum.

ME012-12: Mr. Minneapolis Eagle 2001 Steven Due.

ME012-11: Mr. Minneapolis Eagle 2001 Steven Due and Mr. Minneapolis Eagle 2000 Todd Leek.

ME012-10: The staff at the Eagle: bartender James, owner Ed Hopkins, manager Greg, bartender Jesse.

Investigating the Real Marquis de Sade

(Leather Life column published in Lavender Magazine, Issue #149, February 9, 2001)

What is there about the Marquis de Sade? Comte Donatien Alphonse Francois de Sade was born in France in 1740 and died there in 1814. But his legend lives on and keeps growing (aided by movies like Quills), making it difficult to separate fact from fiction. A complete biography is beyond the scope of this column, but there are many sources of information about (and analysis of) the man, his life, his works, and the times in which he lived. If you’ve recently seen Quills and want to know more about de Sade, simply visit your bookstore or library, or type “Marquis de Sade” into your web browser’s search engine and see what comes up.

Here are a few things to keep in mind as you investigate the Marquis:

If you want to learn about de Sade’s life, it helps if you are already familiar with what was going on in France and the rest of Europe during the 1700s and 1800s—royalty, wars, revolutions, that sort of thing. These were events that helped shape de Sade’s life and writings, and it’s impossible to really understand him apart from this historical context. If you don’t know much about this era, though, don’t worry; you’ll pick it up as you go along.

Another thing that might come in handy is a degree in philosophy. de Sade was as much a philosopher as a pornographer, and if the sex and brutality in de Sade’s work was scandalous, so was the world view behind it. It continues to be scandalous, and therefore good fodder for philosophical discussion, to this day.

If you want to read some of those scandalous writings, you’re in luck—after being banned or misplaced for years, they’re now readily available. Be aware, however, that you might find them difficult reading. You may find the sex scenes titillating, repulsive, or both, and you may find the writing style overly florid to the point of either laughter or boredom. Gay men may be bored or turned off by the constant barrage of overembroidered descriptions of the female anatomy, and many women will find the Marquis to be obnoxiously chauvinistic. (Incidentally, the word “chauvinistic” expresses another concept which arose in eighteenth-century France.)

Keep in mind that the Marquis wrote in French, so if you are reading him in English you are necessarily reading a translation. I’m told that reading his works in the original French is a much different (and most would say more pleasureable) experience.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, keep this in mind: Today’s leather/SM community is about safe, sane and consensual SM play. Note that word “play,” and note the fact that the community refers to people who engage in SM as “players.” The Marquis was not concerned with safety, sanity, or consensuality, and he was not playing—he was dead serious. He was a Marquis, a nobleman, and an aristocrat. He, like much of the rest of the aristocracy of the time, thought he was above the rules that governed ordinary people. If, in the course of pleasuring himself, he injured (or killed) a prostitute, what did he care? She was of no importance.

That’s not the philosophy of today’s leather/SM community—if it was, we would have all killed each other by now. That’s why, as I said last issue, the Marquis is a somewhat embarrassing patron saint and poster-boy for the community. It’s why the leather/SM community has, to a certain extent, distanced itself from the terms “sadism” and “masochism,” or even “S&M,” preferring simply “SM”—which for some people means “sex magic.”

MSDB presents “Sex Sells: How to Write and Sell Erotica” March 9-11

If the Marquis’ writing inspires you to create your own—or if you don’t care for it and think you could do better—local kink group MSDB has just the workshop for you. Learn how to tap into a booming literary market. Discover the secrets of writing erotica: how to free your creativity and get past inhibitions, how to avoid cliches, common mistakes and pitfalls, how to write what editors and publishers will want to buy, and more. The workshop will be led by M. Christian, author and editor of several current erotic books. For more information, write to MSDB, Minneapolis MN, or visit www.msdb-mn.org.

Upcoming Leather Events (for Calendar section)

Friday, Feb. 9: Leather Beer Bust and Dance Night, Trikkx in St. Paul. This will be a recurring event on the second Friday of every month. Host Jim Dryden invites you to “create some leather presence in St. Paul for those of us on this side of the river.” All the beer you can drink for $5 and all the pop/soda you can drink for $1 from 7 to 9 PM. Dancing continues until closing.

Friday-Saturday, Feb. 9-10: Mr. Minneapolis Eagle contest, details to follow.

Saturday, Feb. 10: Atons Leather/Levi Night, details to follow.

Saturday, Feb. 17: Levi Leather Night at The Main Club, 1217 Tower Ave., Superior, WI. This is the kick-off event for The Main Club’s Old Anniversary Week. Call for more information.

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.