PrideAlive Announces On-Line Newsletter

(Leather Life column published in Lavender Magazine, Issue #228, February 20, 2004)

PrideAlive, an outreach program of the Minnesota AIDS Project targeted at bisexual and gay men, recently began publishing a new bimonthly newsletter in an on-line, web-based format. Since the first (Jan.-Feb. 2004) issue is billed as “The Fetish Issue,” it may be of special interest to readers of this column.

PrideAlive’s aim (quoted from the program’s mission statement) is “to promote, create, and sustain a healthy community.” To this end PrideAlive works to involve gay and bisexual men in health education (both as learners and as volunteer group facilitators) as well as political action and civic participation. Representatives of PrideAlive can be found providing safer-sex information and supplies—and even HIV testing—at bars, parties and cruising grounds.

The program also provides many forms of social opportunities: Gay/Bi Movie Nights, discussion forums called “chats,” and special events such as their annual “Hand Hold-In” at the Mall of America, skating parties and softball. (Last year PrideAlive won Lavender’s award for “Outstanding Social Group/Organization.”)

The new on-line newsletter <www.pridealive.org/life/index.php> replaces Pride Alive’s former ink-and-paper newsletter. PrideAlive is holding a “Name That Rag” contest—submit a name for the still-nameless newsletter and you might win a fabulous prize.

The “cover” of the Jan.-Feb. newsletter features a large photo of a hand dipping into a can of Crisco. Clicking on the photo takes the reader to the contents of the newsletter itself, where the lead article is a “Hands-On Guide” to fisting. Two side-by-side columns of type offer information and guidance for both bottoms and tops. An article of this nature and length hardly exhausts the topic, so I thought it was good to see that the article ends with an invitation to contact PrideAlive for more information.

In the next article, “How To Be A Good Sex Party Host,” PrideAlive announces that their Ultimate Sex Party Hosting Kits (assortments of condoms and lube “in a fabulous box”) will soon be available for order through the PrideAlive website.

“What Kind of Pig Are You?” presents everything you ever wanted to know—and possibly more—about the risk levels of various body fluids. It’s good information, although definitely not for the squeamish. When peoples’ health is on the line, though, perhaps blunt is better than polite and evasive.

After a promotional blurb for PrideAlive’s chats, the next article is “Ready to be Bound, BOY?” Subtitled “A slutty bottom bitch’s guide to being a good sub,” it’s a look at boundaries, negotiation, honesty and safewords. There’s even sample scene dialogue illustrating how a safeword works.

“What’s the Sound of One Hand Typing? The Ins and Outs of Cyber-Slutting” deals with safety and practicality issues concerning cyber-sex, webcams, and hooking up over the internet.

There’s even an advice column by Snookie, a funny-looking but very smart dog. In this issue the pooch answers a question about using Crisco as a lube (it’s not a good idea to share your can of Crisco with others; at parties, try passing out Crisco sticks instead, so everyone can have their own). Snookie also shares information on the proper cleaning of sex toys.

The primary focus of the new on-line newsletter is health education, but PrideAlive will also be producing a ’zine that is issues-driven and participant-led. An article called “Get into the ‘zine’ scene!” discusses how the ’zine project is structured and how people can participate in the project. (Three ’zine meetings have already been held, but there are two more scheduled for the evenings of March 3 and 24.)

“The Fetish Issue” serves as a good introduction to fetish-related topics for folks who are “just curious” or who are newly into the scene, and it can also serve as a refresher/reminder for more experienced players. It will be interesting to see what future issues of the newsletter bring.

After you’re read the newsletter, check out the rest of the PrideAlive website. You’ll find a calendar of monthly events put on by PrideAlive and others, and lots of links to other community resources.

All About Pantheon

(Leather Life column published in Lavender Magazine, Issue #227, February 6, 2004)

Oscar®, Emmy, Tony®, Grammy®—those are the big four entertainment awards, honoring the year’s best achievements in film, television, stage and recordings. Leather has its own version of these awards, the Pantheon of Leather Community Service Awards—but even though they’ve been awarded for fourteen years, they still don’t have a nickname. This year’s Pantheon of Leather awards ceremony will take place Feb. 14 in the auditorium of the Leather Archives and Museum in Chicago.

Pantheon of Leather was created and originally produced by The Leather Journal and its publisher, Dave Rhodes. Several years ago Pantheon of Leather was split off from The Leather Journal and became a non-profit organization with its own board of directors, of which Rhodes is the president.

The nomination process for this year’s awards began last September. Nominations are open—anyone can nominate and anyone can be nominated. (This occasionally causes controversy of the how-did-that-so-and-so-get-nominated type.) Nominations consist of a person’s name, address and other contact information, and—most importantly—a brief statement about why the person is being nominated.

Once the nominations close around the end of November, all the nominees, and all the statements about what they have done to deserve an award, are compiled to produce a very large document (this year’s was 65 pages, single-spaced). This document is then sent to the members of the awards selection committee, which consists of the recipients of Pantheon awards the previous year. The selection committee votes, the votes are tallied, and the award recipients are presented with handsome crystal trophies at the Pantheon award ceremony. This year’s awards selection committee chose from 248 nominees in 24 categories.

(Disclaimer: The following unofficial descriptions of the Pantheon categories have been composed by your humble columnist, and represent his opinions based on his observations of Pantheon over the years.)

Some of the most visible categories at Pantheon are Man of the Year, Woman of the Year and Couple of the Year. If the Pantheon awards themselves are leather’s equivalent of the Oscars®, these categories are leather’s equivalent of getting one’s mugshot on the cover of Time Magazine. The honorees in these categories have generally been active—and perhaps visible, perhaps not—on a national/international/communitywide basis for the past year (and probably for a lot longer).

It’s worth noting that given the nature of the leather/BDSM community, “Couple of the Year” is not necessarily a simple concept to grasp. The couple in question might be female-female, male-male, male-female, Master/slave, Daddy/boy (or boi, the feminine version)—you get the idea. And one year the “couple” was a threesome.

The Forbear award goes to a community pioneer, someone who once did something that is now recognized as trendsetting or trailblazing. It makes no difference whether the award recipient is still actively involved with the leather/BDSM community or whether they stepped out of the limelight years ago—their accomplishments are still remembered today, and the community is better off for their having been a part of it.

Leather clubs are some of the community’s most cherished organizations, because for many years the clubs were the community. The Pantheon award for Club of the Year was split several years ago into Club of the Year (Large) and Club of the Year (Small). Likewise the Club Event of the Year award now comes in (Large) and (Small) flavors. How large is large, and how small is small? Clubs and events generally classify themselves since there are no set guidelines written into the Pantheon rules. (The unofficial word is that a large club would probably have upwards of 100 members, and a large event would have 250 or more attendees.)

Many businesses depend on the leather/BDSM community for their existence, and the community in turn depends on them. Sure, you can buy a leather vest at a mainstream leatherwear store. But whips, floggers, and wrist restraints, for example, are not so easy to come by. We can all be thankful for the businesspeople who manufacture and sell the leather and fetish apparel, toys, and all the other accessories we want and need. We can also be thankful for the businesspeople who own, manage and staff the community’s bars, dungeons and other gathering spaces, and for the promoters who organize and present contest weekends and other commercial events. Pantheon has two awards for leather/BDSM-related businesses: Business of the Year and Business Person of the Year.

Pantheon’s Non-Profit Organization award goes to a leather/BDSM community organization that is not a business and not a club or club-sponsored event. Past recipients have included a variety of organizations including charitable foundations, educational projects and political-action groups. So far the Leather Archives & Museum (LA&M) and the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom (NCSF) have each won twice.

In addition to an International Award and a Canadian Award, Pantheon presents awards for community service tied to eleven geographical regions of the United States: New England, Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Florida, Southeast, South Central, Midwest, Rocky Mountain, Northwest, Northern California and Southern California.

Every year Pantheon also presents a few awards whose recipients are not selected by the above-described nomination and voting process. A Lifetime Achievement Award is selected by the Pantheon board of directors; the Community Choice (Man) and Community Choice (Woman) award recipients are selected by direct popular vote from among those submitting nominations; and the President’s Awards, of which there can be up to three, are selected by Dave Rhodes.

So who will this year’s award recipients be? You’ll find out in a future column.

What’s in a (Scene) Name?

(Leather Life column published in Lavender Magazine, Issue #226, January 23, 2004)

Hi, I’m Steve Lenius. Pleased to meet you.

For pretty much my whole life, I’ve been known by that name. When I was very young I was called “Stevie,” but as soon as I was able to express a preference and make it stick I put a stop to that. When I started writing I decided that I would refer to myself in print as “Stephen A. Lenius,” but such a formal byline just didn’t seem to work at the beginning of a leather column. So here I am—your humble columnist, Steve Lenius.

Even in the world of the internet, I’ve pretty much had one online handle since I first started my online life. That handle, “slenius”—eminently practical if unimaginative—has lasted me through, at last count, four different internet service providers.

Contrast that to the experience of noted playwright/lyricist/screenwriter/performer Betty Comden. She devotes the first chapter of her autobiography, Off Stage, to the succession of names by which she has been known over the course of her lifetime. She makes the point that “One’s name is, after all, the label by which one identifies oneself. If it keeps changing, perhaps one’s sense of identity keeps shifting about also.”

In light of this, consider the use of names as they relate to the leather/BDSM milieu. It has been my observation that if you are in a leather bar and introduce yourself to a gay leatherman he will most likely introduce himself using the name with which he was born. Occasionally he will introduce himself using a nickname, and this nickname will be the name by which everyone else in the bar knows him, and perhaps even everyone else outside the bar. That’s just the name he goes by. The same can be said of the vast majority of leather lesbians I have known over the years.

The issue of names is handled somewhat differently in pansexual/heterosexual BDSM circles. Here people who identify themselves by their birth name seem to be the exception; the norm is to identify oneself by one’s “scene name” or “handle,” which is a pseudonym either that an individual has chosen or that has been bestowed on them by someone else. A scene name is usually chosen for its uniqueness, at least within a given community—although as the Twin Cities pansexual community grows I am increasingly seeing confusion arising from two or more people sharing similar or identical scene names. And some people use one scene name in person but have a different online handle, which can make things even more confusing.

Hearing people’s scene names can be interesting and even titillating. A scene name is useful in that it often tells you something about the person’s interests or preferences, and for added spice the name often contains an element of fantasy/mysticism/sexiness. Especially in chatrooms and other online parts of the leather/BDSM community, a scene name can be evocative, and it can also be a good conversation-starter—I have seen fascinating online discussions about the derivation of people’s scene names. Seeing a scene name online, and reading what the owner of the name has written, has often made me curious enough to want to meet the person and to seek them out at a munch. A scene name represents an identity tailor-made for the BDSM world, and the conglomeration of all the scene names in a room or a chatroom is an integral part of defining that scene.

But unaccustomed as I am to being referred to by multiple names, sometimes I have to wonder about the practice. If I had a scene name, would I feel like Sybil, of multiple-personality-disorder fame? Would it be hard for me to remember who I was and what personality I was manifesting at any given moment? Would I be segmenting the BDSM part of my life and my personality and keeping it somehow removed from the rest of my life?

Another thing I’ve noticed about scene names: While they can be practical in some ways, they are very impractical in others. The fact that I know someone only by their scene name effectively limits the ways in which I can interact with them. I can’t look up their scene name in the phonebook if I want to call them, and I can’t find their address if I want to send them a card. Scene names can enhance safety, but at the cost of reducing intimacy.

Pseudonyms can be a way of hiding one’s identity. And, now that I think of it, at one point in my life I did create an alternate identity. When my mother, Mary Borhek, wrote her book about coming to terms with having a gay son—me—she used her own name on the cover of the book. But every other character in the story was allowed to select their “nom de book,” as we referred to it. I chose “Eric Borhek,” and the book therefore became My Son Eric. (I thought the title had a nice ring to it.)

That was in 1979, and none of us knew what would happen when the book was published. If she were writing it today, I wouldn’t feel it necessary to hide behind a pseudonym. And I think that says something about the comparative state of the gay and lesbian leather community and the pansexual/heterosexual leather community.

Sometimes it seems to me that the use of scene names is a response to oppression. It is an instance of taking a problem, i.e. the necessity for secrecy about one’s activities, and turning it into an asset by eroticizing it. My intent here is not to make accusations or to cast blame. For the vast majority of people I know in the pansexual/heterosexual BDSM scene, the necessity for secrecy about one’s activities is not because of guilt or shame on the part of the participants. It is because so much of the rest of society does not look kindly on those activities and stands ready to punish people who engage in them—perhaps by the loss of a spouse, children, or job.

There was a time, not so long ago, when GLBT folks had to keep their activities and major parts of their personalities hidden—for exactly the same reasons. Life today, in this 35th-anniversary-of-Stonewall year, is much freer for gay leathermen and leather lesbians. I can only hope that the pansexual/heterosexual BDSM community has its own Stonewall equivalent and reaches the point where a scene name is a choice, not a necessity.

This Calls for a (Kink-Aware) Professional

(Leather Life column published in Lavender Magazine, Issue #225, January 9, 2004)

Sooner or later, everyone is confronted with some sort of problem requiring professional help. It may be physical, it may involve mental or emotional health, or it may simply be a practical matter such as legal help, financial planning or even a crashed computer hard drive. Especially as one year ends and a new one begins, many New Year’s resolutions are about making changes that involve the services of a trained professional.

Once you’ve decided that professional help is needed, the next step is finding the right professional. It’s important to find one with whom you’re comfortable and whom you feel you can trust. If you can trust them you will be able to be honest with them, and the ability to communicate openly, honestly and completely can make the difference between success and failure in the professional relationship.

While finding the right professional help can be a daunting task for anyone, kinky people and others involved in alternative sexualities are faced with problems that other people aren’t. The last thing we need is a professional whose prejudices and judgments will get in the way. At best they will be a hindrance to dealing with our problem, and at worst they can actually cause the situation to become worse.

A classic example of this is chemical-dependency treatment for gays and lesbians. There are alcoholism and chemical-dependency treatment centers that work very well for most people but that put a significant stumbling block in the way of gays and lesbians, who are told: “We’re not here to discuss your sexuality, we’re here to discuss your alcoholism.” In other words, discussion of your sexuality is off-limits here, regardless of whether or not you might think it has anything to do with your addiction.

Treatment centers of this type expect you to ignore your sexuality and to therefore not be honest about who you are. The necessity of keeping one’s sexuality under wraps in a treatment setting can be a real barrier to dealing effectively with the issues that brought you there in the first place. And if these treatment centers often don’t deal effectively with gay and lesbian issues, a trans person will probably be met with even less understanding.

That’s why GLBT substance-abuse treatment centers have been established. They are safe places for GLBT folks to get the help they need without judgments getting in the way. The theory is that the more honest one can be about who one is and why one does what one does, the more likely it is that the person will be able to stop the behaviors that are causing them problems.

It’s the same for kinky people of whatever sexual orientation. Life is easier and simpler when you don’t have to spend time and energy explaining to your physician about the lash marks on your back. And suppose a kinky person is involved in divorce proceedings with a non-kinky person, and child-custody issues are involved—it is probably not a good idea for the kinky person to have a lawyer who thinks their client’s kinky behavior is sick and that the kids will probably be better off with the non-kinky, and therefore “healthy,” parent.

That’s why the notion of “kink-aware professionals” came into being. Any web search engine will pull up many hits for this search, but probably the most popular website in this field is the Kink-Aware Professionals (KAP) list (<www.bannon.com/kap/>). The privately funded, non-profit website bills itself as a resource for people who are seeking “professionals who are informed about the diversity of consensual, adult sexuality.” While it formerly carried only listings from the United States and Canada it has now been broadened to include listings from around the world.

The KAP list includes listings for professions where kink-awareness is especially important and can make the difference between success and failure of the professional relationship. Some of the professions are health-related: psychotherapists, medical doctors, spiritual counseling, and other “complementary” healers such as chiropractors, acupuncturists and massage therapists. There also are listings for legal and financial professionals, and there even are listings for computer professionals—which means you can find someone to retrieve data from your crashed hard disk without having them judge the contents of your saved e-mails or JPEG files.

According to the site, professionals who are listed there “may or may not be personally involved in kink sexuality, but they are friendly to such erotic choices.” The site states that its list “is composed of professionals who have requested that their listings be posted on this site. None of them are screened in any way. This means that anyone contacting these professionals should take the necessary precautions, just as you would do if you were searching for a professional through any other means.” So, once you have the name of a professional whom you might want to use, it might be worth meeting with the professional, discussing what you’d like to accomplish with them, and seeing if you feel comfortable working with them. Ask them for references, but also do some networking on your own. Ask around the community and see if other people have had experience with this professional, and if the experience was good or bad.

As a bonus, the KAP website includes an extensive collection of links covering many facets of the leather/BDSM community. There are links to organizations, leather crafters, erotic toy and other retailers, magazine and book publishers, accommodations, personal websites and more.

The website requests that you “Always tell any professional you find here that you heard about them through the KAP website. It is important that they know this referral system is working.” And if you happen to be a kink-aware professional in one of the fields covered by the KAP list, visit the site to find out how you too can be listed.

Atons Holiday Fundraiser 2003

(Leather Life column published in Lavender Magazine, Issue #224, December 26, 2003)

In the spirit of the holiday season, here are some photos of the recent Holiday Fundraiser presented by The Atons of Minneapolis at The Saloon on December 7. It turned out to be a very successful event, netting over $4,000 and 750 pounds of food for the benefit of the Aliveness Project’s Holiday Basket Program.

PC070035.JPG: Glen Edberg, left, and Jim Courtney, right, holding some of the 750 lbs. of food people brought to the fundraiser.

IMG_1611-vi.jpg: Atons President B.D. Chambers, left, and Aliveness Project representative Randy Hornstine, right.

PC070001.JPG: This year’s silent auction of leather goods and other merchandise was the best ever in terms of the amount of money raised. Here, some shoppers (Peter Kelly, Roger Payne and Doug Waalen) inspect the merchandise.

PC070014.JPG: Left to right: Frank Kruk, Ed Skjaret and Matt Wambach looking at the auction merchandise. This year’s auction of leather goods and other merchandise was the best ever in terms of the amount of money raised.

PC070005.JPG: Some of the silent auction merchandise. This year’s auction of leather goods and other merchandise was the best ever in terms of the amount of money raised.

PC070007,8,9.JPG: Barber Vince McGhee gives Frank Mlakar a buzzcut.

PC070044.JPG: Ron Joki gets his boots blacked by David Page.

PC070020.TIF: Photographer Paul Nixdorf, right, was on hand to take pictures of leathermen with a hunky Santa (or with their head poking out of the giant Christmas stocking in the center of the picture). Keith Cheetham is shown posing with Santa.

PC070011,12,13.JPG: North Star Gay Rodeo Association (NSGRA) royalty at the Atons Holiday Fundraiser: Left, Steve Kussatz, Mr. NSGRA 2004; right, Lady Stevens, Miss NSGRA 2004.

PC070017,18.JPG: Left to right: Ed Skjaret, Matt Wambach and Frank Kruk.

PC070022.JPG: Brian Spence and David Anderson.

PC070024,28.JPG: Brian Spence and David Anderson inspect the new Minneapolis Eagle calendar.

PC070029.JPG: Left to right: Randy Hornstine and Sherman Ford.

PC070033.JPG: Left to right: Peter Kelly and Roger Payne.

PC070037,38.JPG: Members of the Minnesota Storm Patrol: left to right, Joe Siedschlag (Sergeant at Arms), Jack Roach (Vice President), Jim Randall (Road Captain).

PC070041,42.JPG: Doug Waalen and Louie Rios.

PC070048.JPG: Ken Hoffmann.

PC070052.JPG: Michael Ballard.

PC070053.JPG: Black Guard member Karl Keturi.

PC070055.JPG: Paul Nicholson.

PC070057.JPG: Left to right: Kevin Sitter, Robert Kerr and Atons President B.D. Chambers.

PC070058,59.JPG: Left to right: Andrew Bertke, Matt Grimes, Kellen Slagle, Kelley Herridge.

The Christmas Letter I Can’t Send

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Out of the Closet or Under the Radar?

(Leather Life column published in Lavender Magazine, Issue #222, November 28, 2003)

It was in 1973 that Minnesota’s then-Governor Wendell Anderson smiled out from the cover of Time Magazine, holding a just-caught fish. The cover story of that issue was “The Good Life in Minnesota.” Now, thirty years later, a very different aspect of the Good Life in Minnesota almost made it to the pages of Time—almost, but not quite.

For the last few years radical right-wing elements have stepped up their harassment of leather/BDSM events across the nation and have said some very nasty things to the media about leather/BDSM and its aficionados. Would a sympathetic article in Time Magazine about a midwestern BDSM weekend help to counter that bad press, or would it simply act as bait for more harassment?

That was the question faced by the organizers, as well as the attendees and potential attendees, of a recent nationally-promoted fetish weekend event held in our area. Less than three weeks before the event, the organizers received a letter from the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom (NCSF). A reporter from Time had contacted NCSF wanting to write a 3- to 4-page article on “mind/body/health” issues related to BDSM. NCSF had given him a list of doctors, psychologists and sociologists to interview, but the reporter also wanted to attend a pansexual SM event, preferably in the south or midwest, in order to talk directly to people involved in the scene.

The reporter was described as “an out gay man who has written positive articles about alternative sexuality and sexual orientation.” He wanted to be able to identify the name of the event and the city and hotel where the event was being held. He would be identified at the event as a reporter and would not quote individuals who did not want to be quoted. An escort from NCSF would accompany him to the event.

Presented with this offer of media coverage for their event, the event’s organizers (wisely, in my opinion) asked attendees, prospective attendees and members of the local leather/BDSM community how they felt about it. Based on community feedback the organizers decided not to allow the reporter to attend, although the feedback was far from a unanimous rejection of appearing in Time.

Some responses were unequivocal: “If a reporter from Time Magazine or any other publication is there, I won’t be.” Some people felt personally threatened by the possibility of losing job, spouse or children if they were outed as a result of the article. Others noted that publicity in Time might bring the same sort of harassment recently suffered by events in the New Orleans and Washington, D.C. areas. This viewpoint could be summed up as “The less the general public knows about us, the better.”

Many respondents expressed distrust of the media. Could a reporter from a national magazine like Time be trusted to write a fair article? Obviously, NCSF trusts this reporter or the organization wouldn’t be helping him with his research. But in spite of that, one commonly-expressed viewpoint was that the only reason Time or any other major media organization would even consider writing a story like this is because they know that sex and sensationalism and titillation sell magazines. According to this viewpoint, anyone expecting a, you should pardon the expression, “fair and balanced” representation in the pages of Time would be disappointed.

Another reason cited for not having a reporter at the event was timing—tickets had already been sold on the basis of the event being closed and private. Even those who thought media coverage could be beneficial questioned the wisdom of changing the nature of the event on such short notice.

But why was this such a big deal, anyway? Look at all the reporters year after year at the International Mr. Leather contest in Chicago, and look at the huge crowds that event attracts. Ah, but International Mr. Leather is an event predominantly for gay leathermen, who started coming out of the closet in the late 1960s. By contrast, this event was primarily pansexual, and many members of the pansexual community are still very much in the closet about their sexual preferences.

This comparison between the gay and pansexual leather/BDSM communities was not lost on Dan Brady, manager of local BDSM group TIES. Along with several others, Brady expressed the opinion that media coverage, and the resulting increased visibility of the leather/BDSM community, could be beneficial:

“If we can get a fair hearing in public, we have less to fear from the people who fear us because we’re unknown, or misunderstood. If we have widespread press, the people who would love to join us and learn from us have a better chance of finding us.

“Yeah, we could stay in the closet as a community—and some have some very good reasons to stay in that closet individually—but that would easily give the impression that we were hiding because we were doing something wrong, something to be ashamed of.

“Are we doing something wrong here? Do we need to be ashamed of being kinky?”

Brady continues: “Staying in the closet will not be effective in preventing us from being a persecuted minority. Coming out of the closet has done wonders for the GLBT community—it hasn’t made things perfect yet, but social acceptance has gone a long way in that direction in the past 20 years.

“We’re already getting press—most of it from the people who would prefer that we not exist at all. I, personally, mourn [the loss of] an opportunity to tell our side of the issue in a very public venue.”

Brady summed up his feelings about the rejection of the Time reporter by saying, “I fear we’ve missed an opportunity, not sidestepped a bullet.”

Here’s the irony I find in this situation: In many circles the acronym “GLBT” (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender) has been amended to “GLBTA” (the “A” stands for allies, or allied persons). When I first encountered this acronym I assumed that the “allies” were heterosexuals who were nonetheless sympathetic to our GLBT cause: PFLAG members, metrosexuals, and other honorary gay people. They are members of the heterosexual majority, and therefore have credibility with that majority. But they are willing to use that credibility to vouch for us GLBT types, to say that we too deserve the respect of the heterosexual majority.

But now I’m beginning to think it may be a two-way street. Maybe those allied persons—in this case closeted kinky heterosexuals—also need help from us, the gay leather community as well as the general GLBT community. And it’s our duty as GLBT people, who have already blazed these trails for ourselves, to help and support our allies in their quest for an exit from their own particular closet.

Upcoming events

Atons Holiday Fundraiser benefiting Aliveness Project

Sunday, Dec. 7, 5-10 pm, The Saloon

Silent Auction, door prizes, haircuts, bootblacking. Drink specials, free food. $10 donation (or $5 with 5 lbs. of food or nonperishable items). FFI or to donate an item for the auction: www.atons.net.

MSDB Bizarre Bazaar

Saturday, December 13, 11am-5pm, Da Moose (356 Monroe Street NE, Minneapolis)

Don’t miss this year’s Bizarre Bazaar and get ready to stock up on those unique stocking stuffers for that special kinked one in your life. This is a great opportunity to support your local artists/artisans/retailers. $5 at the door; $3 advance tickets available at Dreamhaven Books (Lake St. & Colfax, Mpls.), Smitten Kitten (35th St. & 23rd Ave. S., Mpls.) and at area munches or by contacting MSDB (www.msdb-mn.org).