Becoming Heather Leather
The following is an article I wrote for the new issue of BARtab magazine – you can check it out on their site here.
When it came to sex, I used to be a closed book. This was due in part to my innate shyness, though growing up in Minnesota probably didn’t help. “Are you having a good time?” was a question I’d heard a dozen times in bed by various men, usually following a bout of what I thought were obvious noises of my approval. I went through life speaking, and groaning, at volume level 9, while the world heard me at 2.
A few twisted fantasies percolated in my head but I lacked the guts to ever talk about them until the ripe old age of 35, when I went straight from a sex life of pure vanilla to dating an International Mr. Leather.
Low volume was never a problem for Joe Gallagher. Even with his mouth shut he was communicating, like the first time I saw him, wearing a t-shirt that read: “I Make Boys Cry.” The T-shirt scared the crap out of me. My fantasies did not involve tears. But still I found him compelling. Some of us are just cursed with a need for bad boys.
We liked each other for more than just the physical. Still, we both harbored doubts about our sexual compatibility. I didn’t know what to make of leather, which seemed to me a world governed by a million mysterious rules, where stuffing a red hanky in the wrong pocket could lead to trouble. Membership in this world seemed to depend upon the right boots, the right chaps, and knowledge of rigid protocols.
As a kid I’d dropped out of private school because I hated the uniforms, and I found these rules stifling. I liked Joe for his irreverent streak – he’d carved out his own place in leather. He wore what he liked, when he liked, and made no apologies.
He showed me some essays written by Robert Davolt, a leatherman who’d died of melanoma in 2005. Davolt loved the leather community, but like all good writers he was a bit cantankerous. Leather, he argued, was a relatively young world, which began as a group of “outcasts, leftovers, the dark secret of the gay community.” He advised its members to question its “traditions,” and to distrust anyone who claimed to be a leather “authority.” He wrote often of leather as a group of people on individual journeys, with no two paths the same.
Like most of us, I looked for role models in all areas of my life, and here in leather I’d found two. Joe and Robert gave me the permission I’d always thought I’d needed, permission it turned out I had only to give myself.
I began my little journey by learning what I didn’t want. A Leathermen’s discussion group taught me that I didn’t want, for example, to walk one pace behind and to the left of Joe at all times, nor did I want to be in charge of his frickin’ Outlook Express. Fortunately, on these matters, Joe and I agreed.
At Joe’s side, I went to a lot of leather events and met a lot of kinky folk, most of whom I liked. Sometimes, though, I’d meet a boy who’d talk my ear off about protocols, questioning whether or not half the people at the event were “real” leather folk, or a titleholder who seemed to have gotten lost in the intricate local leather politics. I had no stomach for politics, and was wary of protocols, but I’d learned that leather was big enough to fit us all.
Prodded by Joe, I began to speak up in bed, to set in motion my fantasies, and to claim the kind of sex I’d always wanted. And though I’d long feared it, the first time he made me cry (during sex, that is) it came as a catharsis. In leather scenes, I watched others challenge their fears and their limits and come out exhausted, exalted, and content.
I felt this sense of liberation spreading into other areas of my life. I was less fearful, less shy, less concerned with what others thought. Still, I considered myself a fringe member at best until I heard an acquaintance dismissing leather as “just another form of drag.” My reaction surprised me with its strength: anger, yeah, but also a sort of protectiveness, for the people I’d met and the experiences I’d had. And pity, too, since the acquaintance was cutting himself off from trying something new. My reaction told me that maybe, in my own way, I did belong.
I have participated in Leather activities/events for the past 10+ years, from local events to IML, so you had me until the last paragraph; sorry, but it IS another form of drag. It is the hyper-masculine expression as opposed to the hyper-feminized male expression that is drag. I have said this many times in the past and can also get the ‘anger’, but it is—and more importantly: So what if it is!?
September 2nd, 2010 at 11:53 amHugh,
Well this may be just a matter of definition. There’s nothing wrong with drag in my book. And if leather was just about dressing up and going to IML, then I’d be inclined to agree with you. But leather to me has been mostly about the experiences – the scenes I’ve taken part in. Getting single-tailed until I’m bleeding and bawling, and what that did to and for me beyond the physical, well, that doesn’t fit, for me, under the category of “drag.”
I’m a writer, so I tend to care about words. I think that “Leather is just another form of drag” is a disingenuous, one-size-fits-all, I’m-going-to-speak-for-everyone-whether-I-know-them-or-not statement. It’s the kind of statement that discourages newcomers. To my ears it’s dismissive and cynical – easy routes to take – and not at all accurate.
September 2nd, 2010 at 1:47 pmI totally feel you on this topic…I too have a hard time talking about fantasies and interests. But I think the internet has made it a lot easier to see I’m not the only ‘pig,’ especially being a youngin’ that is reassuring.
A few months ago I very drunkenly disclosed the particulars of most every button and explicit (and well, kind of piggy) fantasy I have to my now ex. He wouldn’t even repeat some of the things I allegedly said. And he had no interest in exploring any of it.
But he does specifically specify on one of those online gay ‘social’ sites what he is NOT looking for, which include more than a few of my fantasies/fetishes.
I need a more sex positive home I think.
September 2nd, 2010 at 11:58 pmIndeed, it may just be a matter of definition, but in your response you open a new kettle of worms: Leather for you, it seems, is about the ‘scenes and experiences’, i.e., the example of being single-tailed you give in your response.
First of all: Hot! I am a B/D Top (D>B).
Alas, now you have made an all too common mistake I hear so often from people when they explain ‘ what they think’ Leather is…which ironically goes to your point about words being important: Leather and B&D are not the same thing.
September 3rd, 2010 at 4:04 pmI may combine the two at times, as it seems you do, but more often not in my case. I would guesstimate the greater percentage of those who are self identified as in the Leather Community are not into B/D at all (I only wish), and further (as most of my B/D partners have been) there are many more people into B/D who have zero experience or interest in Leather!
I think it’s pretty clear from the article that in using the term “leather” I was talking about more than just clothing. I don’t consider this a mistake.
September 3rd, 2010 at 4:17 pmWell, mistake was probably not the right word…it’s just a counterpoint, a discussion, not an assault.
September 3rd, 2010 at 4:27 pmHugh:
Sorry buddy, but you are making it clear what the problem Mike was describing… You want everyone to use the terms the way you want them used. Sorry, the rest of us get to use whatever term we want, however we want.
September 3rd, 2010 at 10:13 pmI am intrigued by the several folk I’ve known who talk of the leather experience (whatever definition may be appropriate) in spiritual terms.
I know little, have experienced little to none. But I find your story moving nonetheless.
It seems more about finding a deeper level of your self.
I may be ready for prayer.
September 16th, 2010 at 8:08 pmYou are among the coolest of the coolest dudes I know or know of. Homerun, Dogpoet
September 16th, 2010 at 11:57 pmFrancois
I am not really sold on the idea that your personal blog, or anyone’s, actually needs, let alone benefits from, comments. We see some evidence here. Things could easily get out of hand.
October 4th, 2010 at 2:33 pm