Around the World in Another 80 Gays : Part 9) World of Leather

Previously: 12) Alex Myers (b.1978) was a pionering transgender student at Harvard where a professorship in lgbt studies named after 13) F. O. Matthiessen (1902-1950) was held by 14) Gayle Rubin (b.1949).

14) Gayle Rubin became the second F. O. Matthiessen Visiting Professor of Gender and Sexuality in 2013. In making the appointment Harvard acknowledged her role as a pioneer in the study of sexuality and feminism as well as in the origins of the leather community in the USA. At the time of her appointment Gayle was (and still is) Associate Professor of Anthropology, Women’s Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

In 2015 I wrote this article about Gayle Rubin’s role in the formation of leather and sadomasochist (s/m) groups in San Francisco. In that article I didn’t really have adequate space to describe the vehement antagonism those pioneers of lesbian s/m received during that period. Gayle Rubin was one of the people specifically targeted by the Women Against Pornography (WAP) in what has been called the Feminist Sex Wars.

The growth of the feminist movement in the US in the 1970s brought out into the open the diversity of female sexual activity. From its origins as an equal rights movement one section of the feminist movement fought against what they considered as degrading and demeaning treatment of women by men in the field of entertainment. The porn industry was an obvious target for them to aim at, and they took no notice of those women inside the porn industry who opposed them.

In tandem with the anti-porn campaign was the anti-s/m campaign. As mentioned in that previous article there was a growing female s/m community in America in the 1970s who were beginning to find their united voice. Gayle Rubin and her Samois s/m group were at the forefront of the challenge to the WAP.

In 1982 Gayle also spoke at a pivotal meeting which is often credited as heralding the official start of the Feminist Sex Wars. Gayle was one of the organisers of the Conference on Sexuality held at Barnard College. As you can imagine the conference was picketed by the WAP and it began as serious debate on female sexuality and sexual practices.

Gayle’s research and involvement in the s/m leather community was integral to her contribution to the Feminist Sex Wars. Her involvement included being a co-founder of the first nation-wide female leather contest in 1987, the International Ms Leather Contest (IMsL). The first winner of that contest was also a feminist activist. Her name is 15) Judy Tallwing McCarthy (b.1945).

Judy Tallwing Mccarthy has been part of the leather community since 1959 when she was rescued off the streets by a Leather Master. From then on this free-spirited native American became a pioneer, co-founding in 1982 the first lesbian s/m group in Portland, Oregon, with her partner 16) Sashie Hyatt (d.1989). The group was called Portland Power and Trust. Judy and Sashie were leading figures in the Portland leather community, and it is something of a testament to their influence that the first three winners of the International Ms Leather contests were all members of Portland Power and Trust – Judy herself, Shan Carr in 1988, and Suzie Shepherd in 1989. It was Suzie Shepherd who took the newly-designed Leather Pride flag out into the wider leather community.

Upon winning the first IMsL contest Judy Tallwing McCarthy became a flag bearer herself for the community. From its humble origins as a one-off fundraiser the contest quickly became an all-year-round commitment for its winner and organisers. Judy already had the right credentials as an organiser with Portland Power and Trust to be able to begin a fundraising and awareness tour of the USA. This immediately raised the question of a travel fund, for there was no budget left from the first contest to support one. Sashie Hyatt campaigned hard for an adequate travel fund, and in 1988 one was established and named in her honour.

By this time, however, Sashie had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer and she lost her battle with the disease in March 1989. Another fund was created in her memory by her partner Judy for the support of people with life-threatening diseases.

Sashie’s activism went beyond Portland and the leather community. She was present at the Stonewall Riots in New York on 28th June 1978. Her presence was immortalised in print in a comic book series based on the television series “Quantum Leap”. Issue 9 in February 1993 was called “Up Against a Stonewall” and was dedicated to Sashie. It was written by a friend from Portland called 17) Andy Mangels (b. 1966).

In the next 80 Gays article : No Molly-coddling – in which comic books and Victorian gay porn lead us to “Muscle Molls”.

Bear Beginnings

One of the deaths that went virtually unnoticed, even by me, was the passing of George Mazzei a year ago today.  His name may not be very familiar to most people but in the world of late 20th century American journalism his name was better known, and no more so than in the pages of “Advocate” and “GQ”. George also became something of a celebrity briefly in the 1980s after he write a book called “The New Office Etiquette”.

In 1979 George Mazzei wrote an article for “Advocate” called “Who’s Who at the Zoo” which was published on 26th July 1979. It was a light-hearted article illustrated with cartoons of the various anthropomorphic gay types it described. Subtitled “A Glossary of Gay Animals” George described seven types of gay men he had seen around the bars of Los Angeles and represented them as animals. The first type he described was the “bear”.

George’s article can arguably be described as the first publicly published attempt to define, albeit humorously, what we now accept as the sub-group of the lgbt community, the big and hairy man, the bear. But he was not the first to use that word in this context.

Various people have delved into the origin of the term “bear” as used in the lgbt community. Most prominent among these is Dr. Les K. Wright who, during his time as Assistant Professor of English and Humanities at Mount Ida College in Boston, Massachusetts, founded the Bear History Project in 1994. This project is ongoing and continues to uncover the hidden heritage of the international bear community.

It was Les Wright in “The Bear Book: Readings in the History and Evolution of a Gay Male Subculture” which he edited in 1994, that George Mazzei gets the credit for producing the first published reference to bear as a gay identity in the “Advocate” article.

The term “bear” had been used to describe a masculine body type for several decades. In fact, it had been used for centuries to describe a person who was rather brutish and savage, a complete opposite to the image modern gay bear-men portray. It has also been used for a long time in speech and print in the form of the phrase “a bear of a man”. This referred typically to a large, well-built man with a lot of facial hair. Its use as a specific term within the gay community developed out of this, specifically within the leather community after World War II.

It is generally accepted that the USA was the place where “bear” began to be used as self-identification. Various gay leather communities in cities around North America began to form informal gatherings of big and hairy leathermen without necessarily knowing they were creating a subculture or even creating a term for a new subculture at the time.

During the 1950s when the hanky code was expanding and being used more extensively these leather-bear pioneers began to place teddy bears in their pockets or belts rather than hankies. These teddy bears were to symbolise the wearer being fond of cuddling. In this way it can be argued that these men were the first bears as we know them today, even if they still hadn’t specifically used the term as the name of a subculture. It was the time when the men described as bar took the bear as a means of identification.

The teddy bear had effectively become an object of affection after the real bear cub rescued by President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt was immortalised as a cuddly toy. The teddy bear softened the image of the creature from a savage and brutish animal whose crushing bear-hug became a friendly hug. I wonder if Teddy Roosevelt’s niece Eleanor Roosevelt realised that her uncle had become the grand-daddy of the gay bear community!

No-one know who or where the word “bear” turned from being a description of body type to being a name of a subculture. It started with the first group who used the word “bear” in their name. In Les Wright’s “The Bear Book” there is reference to the minutes of a meeting of Satyr’s Motorcycle Club in Los Angeles in February 1966 in which the formation of a bear club is mentioned.

While George Mazzei was living in Los Angeles in the 1970s he and a friend were in a leather bar people-watching when they thought of categorizing the customers into animal types. Having already self-identified themselves as bears they went on to develop other anthropomorphic identities for the other customers in that bat that night. From this emerged the “creatures” described by George in his “Advocate” article “Who’s Who at the Zoo?” in 1979.

The publication of that article provided a wider realisation across America that such an identity existed. Many bear-men who had no link or interest in the leather community saw themselves in George’s article Cowboy-bears, construction-worker-bears, sporting bears, and others, joined the new bear groups and clubs formed originally by the leather-bears.

The emergence of the internet spread the word further and before soon isolated bear groups around the world were joined by many more. And, as befitting a self-identifying community, a flag was chosen in 1995 at a Chesapeake Bay Bear pool party.

George Mazzei defined the bear community before it was fully formed, and led thousands of men to declare themselves to be bears. So, a belated thank you, George, for helping to turn a general gay slang term into a full-fledged community.

If you want to read George Mazzei’s article you can see it reproduced on the Advocate’s website here.

Out Of His Tree: International Mr. Leather

This past weekend saw the grand final of the International Mr Leather (IML) 2016 contest, and go congratulations to all the finalists and the new International Mr. Leather, David “Trigger” Bailey of New Jersey. As a way of celebration we are looking today at the ancestry of the very first winner of the International Mr Leather title in 1979, David Kloss, who by a strange fluke, has a lot of New Jersey ancestry.

David Shelley Kloss IV (b.1949) is an amateur genealogist himself and has traced much of his own family and that of his husband Remi Collette, a fellow Leather title holder. Much of the information given here will be gleaned from David’s own research.

The majority of David’s ancestry comes from Pennsylvania and New Jersey with European roots in Germany, England and Scotland.

The Kloss family originate from Saxony in Germany. The family name was written with several spellings in the early days in America and today there are descendants who spell their surname Closs, Klose and Close (there’s no link to Glenn Close, unfortunately, or the supermodel Karlie Kloss as they are different families – Glenn English, Karlie Danish).

Melchior Kloss, with his wife Margaretha and baby son Ernst, arrived in the American Colonies in 1738 on the ship “Glasgow”. They settled in Pennsylvania. Ernst grew up and in 1760 married Catharina Suter, another German immigrant, and died in 1805. In 1776 he enlisted in the Revolutionary Army with his 70-year-old father.

Ernst’s great-grandson Daniel Kloss (1832-1910) married Margaret Shelley (1843-1933), thereby bringing that family name into their descendant’s. Their eldest child was baptised David Shelley Kloss and is the first of four successive generations to bear that name, right down to the first International Mr Leather himself.

This first David Shelley Kloss (1860-1950) was a banker and he is credited with providing trusted banking for the businesses of Tyrone, Pennsylvania, which enabled that town to prosper and grow. His second wife was a half-Dutch school teacher called Jenny Burley. Her ancestry goes back to 1766 when her ancestor Isaac Burley arrived in Pennsylvania from New Jersey. Family legend says that the Burleys were descended from the Elizabethan statesman Lord Burghley. No proof has been found for this, and personally I think it’s very unlikely.

However, Burley by name and burly by nature, apparently. Several generations of the family, all of them direct ancestors of IML David Kloss, were quite tall and well-built, something like rugby players or American football players I suppose. Jenny’s grandfather, for instance, is documented as being 6 feet 6 inches (2 metres) tall and weighing 245 pounds (17 and a half stones; 111kg). IML David Kloss no doubt inherited his physique from the Burleys.

David Shelley Kloss jr. (1898-1971) worked in the oil industry. He married Helen Pearson (1910-1972). The research put online by IML David Kloss has little on her ancestry so I did a bit of digging around myself. I found that Helen’s grandfather William emigrated to the USA in 1863 from England. He married a Scottish girl called Jennie Mclaren and lived in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Helen’s mother, Goretta Davis (1876-1955) was the daughter of David L. Davis, a farmer of Readington, New Jersey. The Davis’s had owned the farm there since before the 1840 US census.

David Shelley Kloss III (1924-1998) was a US Merchant marine and Coast Guard. He served on USS Algol and USS Cavalier in the 1940s after the war. He married twice. His second wife was Gaile Killian, a grand-daughter of British-born Pennsylvania State Senator George Gray. David’s first wife was Marion Morris Smith (1922-1973). The first International Mr. Leather, David Kloss IV, is their son.

Mrs. Marion Kloss’s mother was a Woodward. Her ancestry can be traced back to John and Lydia Woodward of Chester County, Pennsylvania, who were found guilty of “fornication before marriage” by their Quaker church. This is actually not all that uncommon when you look at records of other towns in that period. Just about every county had such a couple in the late 1600s because the church was very strict, much more strict than they were in England. John Woodward later served as a Revolutionary soldier.

We now come to one of those cases where online genealogies can be deceptive and you have to double-check everything. Some family historians (not including David Kloss) have John and Lydia Woodward’s son marrying Elizabeth Piles Drane. Digging deeper I found that the Elizabeth in question was actually one of his cousins called Elizabeth Woodward. It’s a double-edged sword, though, because by establishing the real identity of Elizabeth we rid David Kloss of a descent from King Edward I of England through the Drane family. He may still have one through one of the family lines that hasn’t been traced yet.

However, I can add to David’s family tree by revealing that his mother is descended from a Nottinghamshire family with presidential connections (though he might want to keep it quiet when I tell him which president!). David’s 8 times great-grandfather was Robert Pennell (1640-1727) of Balderton, a village about 20 miles from Nottingham near the River Trent. Robert was a Quaker who emigrated to America and left many descendants. Perhaps the most famous/infamous of David Kloss’s distant cousins who descend from Pennell is President Richard Nixon.

That’s it for now. Again, congratulations to David “Trigger” Bailey and all the finalists of the International Mr Leather contest over the weekend, and best wishes to the very first, David Shelley Kloss IV.

Oh (Leather) Boy!

Among the many lgbt pageants and titles are several being decided this week. Dallas is hosting this year’s annual International LeatherSIR, Leather boy, and Community Bootblack titles. Even though the contests are termed “International” they are effectively just North American contests with entrants for the USA and Canada.

Rather than give a history of the competitions I want to write about the Leather Boy flag (pictured below) because it also appears at other leather contests as well.

The Leather Boy flag predates the current International Leather Boy contest. Many leather clubs around North America held their own contests to find regional title-holders who qualified for the Drummer Sir and Drummer Boy contests which predate the current International contests. What makes those contests and the International Leather Sir and Boy contests different from the International Mr Leather title is an emphasis on the erotic and sexual nature of the leather community.

In January 1998 the Mid Atlantic Leather (MAL) contest was held. One of those competing was Keith C. Pollanen, a member of the DC Boys of Leather club (DCBOL) in Washington. The previous year he had got himself a tattoo of the Leather Pride flag. This flag had been designed in 1989 by Tony DeBlase and had become an established symbol of the leather community by 1998.

Keith was approached by a man at the Mid Atlantic Leather contest who noticed Keith’s tattoo. Rather than paraphrase Keith’s own description of how he came up with the Leather Boy flag in response to this encounter, here is his description as published in “Woolf Watch” on 6^th June 2007.

“The boy pride flag idea came to me at Mid Atlantic Leather 98 in which I was competing. The year before I had gotten a tattoo of the leather pride flag on my arm. As MAL got underway a gentleman came up to me and asked about the tattoo on my arm. Asking me what it was and why I got it. He also made an odd comment: ‘You know that will never come off’.

I explained to him that it was the Leather Pride flag. I had gotten because that’s what I am, and I am proud to wear it on my sleeve. After his odd comment I replied ‘I hope not’. We went on our separate ways.

Later that evening the contestants were gathered to meet the judges. As I was being introduced we got to the man that approached me earlier. He said ‘We met earlies, hi, I am Tony DeBlase’. After the Meet and Greet Tony and myself chatted for a while. I explained to him I was a boy, and asked him if there was a Boy Pride Flag? He said he wasn’t aware of any. At that moment I had the first idea.

The idea hadn’t been put into motion till about a year later, I emailed Tony my Draft of the proposed flag to get his ok and approval of, being the similarities of the Leather Pride Flag. I still have the email response from him. It simply read: Keith, It looks great! Tony. I never publicly announced the flag but used it as a personal symbol.

When the DCBOL was founded, I bought up the flag and offered to design the club colors. At the second meeting the design was approved by DCBOL for the club colors and the Flag was now sparking interest.

The first flag was produced with a friend of mine. (Robert Dogan) Robert had excellent sewing skills and I called on him to assist me in making the flag so that DCBOL could carry it in the DC Pride Parade. It took us 6 hours and what looked like a 10 year old could have done in 15 minutes. But it is a grand Flag. Roughly 3 feet by 5 feet the first ever physical Leatherboy Pride flag was created January 2000. Later that year it was donated to the Leather Archives and Museum. Where it still is today.

The design was based on the leather pride flag, equal number of stripes, but they are diagonal from left to right, left higher symbolizing the Sir, and the right lower representing the boy. The heart was moved to the right to show where the boys heart is, and the blue changed to green to represent boy.

The flag has become more known and recognized as the boy movement of the 2000’s had grown. I took Tony DeBlase’s concept with the flag: It is for the community and as long as it is not disgraced anyone may use it. Produce it and profit from it. I copyrighted it in June 1999, but consider it public domain.”

Coded Lives : The Hanky Code

One of the most well-known of all the lgbt codes which helped to keep gay lives secret except from those “in the know” is the hanky code. Many people will have heard of it and know something about it, but these days fewer people actually know the original code and how to use it. Just how popular it is today is hard to say, though it seems to be popular on the internet and as a “theme” night in many clubs.

It’s an easy code to use even if its not easy to fully remember, because like gender and sexuality flags the code has expanded to include just about every sexuality and sexual interest there is. All you have to do if you’re out on the town and clubbing is make sure you’ve got the right colour hanky in the correct pocket. Imagine the embarrassment all round if you were a bit colour blind and a man sees the colour of your hanky and invites you to join him in some “action” you’d never do in a million years.

There are much too many hankies in the code to reproduce here today, so let’s try to find out where and when it originated. This has been a problem for researchers for many years. Being a secret code no-one wrote it down when they started using it, it was all learnt by memory and word of mouth.

There hasn’t been a definitive study of the history of the hanky code, as far as I can tell. This is my personal interpretation of the evidence and information I’ve found and is my own theory. I don’t claim this to be an authoritative theory and hope others will conduct a proper study in the future.

There’s no real doubt, however, that it began in the USA. Perhaps the heyday of the hanky code was in the decades of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. This period coincided with greater activism for lgbt rights. As underground gay bars across America began to become more visible communities coalesced along defined sexualities and sexual interests.

The hanky code may have begun as a secret code among gay men looking for casual sex in any location, mostly public spaces, but when the 1940s leather culture began to grow the lgbt community developed its own subculture of leather/BDSM which still flourishes today. The hanky code was seen most frequently in the leather bars and clubs as an open system of finding sexual partners.

But the hanky code has never been just about the leather community. It was used and seen in many gay bars across America and Europe. It is probable that the code is an amalgamation of several earlier gay codes. The most recent of these being the use of keys fastened onto belts (I don’t suppose it mattered if they were actually ever used to unlock anything). Keys fastened on the left (front or back) indicated that the wearer was a dominant sexual partner, and keys on the right indicated a passive partner. This system was used a lot in the early biker/leather/bdsm subculture.

The left/right position is echoed in the older practice of tying a bandana or handkerchief around the neck or head. When positioned to the left or right the knot indicated the dominant/passive nature of the wearer.

The hanky code may have developed from these with hankies rather than keys gradually being used in back pockets.

Going further back into the 19^th century we may find the ultimate origin for the hanky code with the early Wild West cowboys. The stereotypical image of the American cowboy has etched its way into popular culture through Hollywood films, and into the lgbt culture through the Village People.

The history of gay men in the American frontiers has been emerging in recent years as a potential gold mine (pardon the California Gold Rush allusion) for historians and the lgbt cowboy-loving and rodeo subcultures. I don’t think this is the right occasion to go into the history of gay cowboys and the like, as I want to concentrate on the hanky code.

When we picture a Wild West cowboy we often see them sporting a knotted handkerchief or bandana. This was an essential item of clothing in the dusty arid states where dust storms were frequent. Worn over the nose and mouth it stops them choking, and we often see cowboy villains wearing it so when they hold up the stage coach.

The California Gold Rush was a particularly male-dominated environment. Very few women travelled that far west unless it was to settle properly. Even the saloons had very few barmaids and female entertainers. In this environment social events such as dances were often all-male occasions and men would dance with each other. The need for female company was ever present and some men who couldn’t afford a prostitute often turned to other men for sexual comfort.

Most of the sexual activity was undoubtedly situational and casual and not truly “gay” in nature. But there is never a society totally devoid of true homosexuality, and recent research has shown that the Wild West was no exception.

I can imagine how the hanky code could have begun. With sodomy in the US outlawed at the time gay men had to be sure how far they could go with another man. It was very confusing, because research has also shown that close physical contact, affectionate hugs and sharing beds for the night, etc., was common in all sections of society in the 19^th century.

I can imagine a gay cowboy meeting another gay cowboy for casual sex and realising there are more like them around. But to keep their sexuality secret they developed a code, and the hanky/bandana/key code may have originated as a means of spreading the “knowledge” among the secret community of gay men in the West. Once gay cowboys knew how to recognise another by the way they wore their hanky/bandana/key more diverse meanings of colour and which side they were worn developed.

As I say, that’s only my theory and is based on the very few facts that we know. Perhaps we never will know.

The Leather Women Return

Two years ago I wrote a brief history of the International Ms Leather (IMsL) contest. Reading it again recently I thought it could do with being expanded upon. So, to celebrate this year’s IMsL contest taking place this week in San Jose here is a bit more about it’s origins.

In 1987, in the run-up to the first IMsL contest, lgbt bars and clubs in major US cities held their own contest to choose their representative for the new title. Many of these were held in men’s bars as there were not that many female leather bars around at that time. What there WAS around at the time was a growing sense of identity and community among female leather/SM enthusiasts.

Several members of the IMsL steering committee were no strangers to the world of title pageants. Chuck Renslow was owner of the International Mr Leather franchise, and Patrick Toner had been International Mr Leather 1985. Another committee member, Gayle Rubin, was involved in the organisation of perhaps the earliest female leather contest.

Gayle Rubin was co-founder of Samois, the first women’s leather/SM group in the USA, formed in San Francisco in 1978. I only mentioned Samois briefly in my earlier article, and because Samois and its members have been such a significant influence on the development of the female leather and SM communities, let’s take a closer look at its history.

Samois was formally founded on 13^th June 1978 when a group of lesbian leather enthusiasts met in San Francisco. Most of the founder members had attended a previous leather group called Cardea, including the leading lights of Samois, Gayle Rubin and Pat Califia.

Gayle Rubin is a cultural anthropologist. Throughout her university studies she wrote and spoke on feminist and women’s issues. In 1970 whilst at the University of Michigan studying for her doctorate, Gayle co-founded a feminist group called Radicalesbians.

In 1975 Gayle wrote an essay titled “The Traffic in Women: Notes on the ‘Political Economy’ of Sex”, which was to play a large part in feminist debates during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In particular the essay encouraged female SM practitioners to define their own identity and place in SM culture in the face of opposition from radical feminists who denounced SM as degrading to women.

With this background in feminist theory Gayle moved to San Francisco and began to study the leather culture among gay men for her dissertation. She joined the female leather scene just as the Cardea group was disbanding and she met Pat Califia. Between them they came up with the idea of the first independent female leather/SM group that became Samois.

Pat Califia had been active in the SM community in San Francisco since the early 1970s. Just as Gayle’s “The Traffic in Women” essay was creating debate Pat was urging lesbian SM practitioners to stand up for their rights to express themselves. There was no female-only SM bar or club in San Francisco, and out of the debates arose the female support group called Cardea. Pat became one of its first members.

In 1978 Pat and Gayle co-founded Samois. Their aim was to create a social, support and activist group, and to raise awareness of SM practice. Education was part of this programme of awareness and Pat and the Samois group wrote several articles and books detailing lesbian SM practices.

Three years later, still battling against the anti-pornography feminist lobby, Samois decided to emulate their male counterparts by organising the first female leather contest. This was held on 5^th September 1981in a lesbian bar called Ollies and attracted several hundred attendees. Unfortunately, I can’t find any record of the winner’s name, the first Ms Leather.

Samois was at the height of its popularity. But just a few months later and the pressure began to take its toll. The unexpectedly high production costs (in both money and time) of publishing a ground-breaking book of SM writing by group members, the pressure of combating constant anti-SM criticism, and internal differences within the committee, all contributed to the slow demise of Samois.

Fortunately, by now Samois had created a large network of female lesbian and supportive members that ensured that lesbian leather/SM would continue. The community was now becoming a nationwide movement and new local groups were being formed.

This was a crucial time for the whole leather/BDSM community. The emergence of AIDS was to effect them as much as anyone. A lot of SM practitioners were reluctant to adhere to safe-sex messages that its most prominent members were promoting. Most practitioners were straight and they saw AIDS as a “gay man’s disease”. The gay male SM community quickly adapted to the new threat and led the promotion of safe-sex practices in BDSM.

In San Francisco the community was fundraising for AIDS charities since the early days of the epidemic. In 1986 nurse Joann Lee and Alan Selby, owner of a popular leather store, gathered together a group of enthusiasts to form the first committee for the International Ms Leather contest. Gayle Rubin, co-founder of The Outcasts, the successor to Samois, agreed to become a member.

As with the earlier Ms Leather contest held by Samois a full list of entrants of the first IMsL is difficult to locate so I’m unable to name the pioneers of either contest. Only the winners’ name of the first IMsL is known – Judy Tallwing McCarthy.

Whoever wins IMsL this coming weekend she will join a distinguished and diverse group of women whose work for the SM community will always be respected.

Euro Bikers Hit 40



It was 40 years ago today that the European Confederation of Motorsport Clubs (ECMC) was formed. The cross-continental gay leather culture was well established in America but in Europe it was patchy because of the many individual nations. There were many leather and motorbike clubs dotted around Europe, many of which followed the US convention of using the word “motorcycle” in their title to bypass any suggestion of being a club for gay leather lovers (homosexuality was illegal in most European countries at the time).

Europe has a significant role in establishing the image of the leather biker thanks, in no small part, to the erotic art of Tom of Finland, who was himself a founding member of SLM (Scandinavian Leather Men) Finland in 1976.

In the 1970s international communications and travel was very expensive for any leather-biker club, being generally volunteer-run on a shoestring budget. Phone-calls cost the earth and in these pre-internet days instant contact was impossible. So those representatives from the founding clubs of the ECMC were true pioneers in the European leather community.

As with all groups it takes one or two people to seize the initiative after the initial idea is mooted. As president of Europe’s first leather club, Frazer Lowden of London’s Sixty Nine Club (founded in 1965) invited members from other known clubs in Europe to a meeting in London in January 1974. Several clubs from the continent attended, but the majority were, naturally, British. These clubs formed the founding members of the ECMC 40 years ago. These founding members (note : MSC means “Motor Sport Club”) were :

Sixty Nine Club (London)

Sherwood Choppers (presumably based in the Midlands)

Northern Riders (possibly from Manchester)

V Senses (“V” as in “5”)

Boys Cuir (France)

MSC London

MSC Amsterdam

MSC Belgica

Loge 70 (Switzerland)

John Willis of Sixty Nine Club was chosen as the first Secretary of ECMC with the responsibility of co-ordinating communication and information between the clubs and publicising events. He was probably the person who designed the confederation’s logo (above).

More clubs joined soon after the ECMC was formed and now there are 38 member clubs.

In 1985 the ECMC organised the first Mr Leather Europe contest, open to any member of an ECMC club. These contests are usually held during the period of the AGM and both are hosted by a different member club each year. Full lists of the Mr Leather Europe contest are difficult to find and there are several years when the identity of the winner hasn’t been established. Here’s a list of those known winners, their regional titles (if known) and whether they went on to win the International Mr Leather (IML) title as well :

1985    David Risenborough

1987    Thomas Karasch (d.1994), IML 1987

1988    Vincente Jimenez

1992    A. J. Steigenberger

1995    Antonio Sanchez, also Mr Drummer Europe 1995

1996    Dario van der Lundin Videla, Mr Leather Sweden

1997    Stein Losnegaard

1998    Rob Scheers, also Mr Drummer Europe 1998

1999    Peter Wallace, Mr Leather SLM-Oslo

2001    Maurizio, Mr Leatherman Italia

2002    Fernando Manzali, Mr Leatherman Italia

2003    Saad Hasson, Mr Baltic Battle

2004    Robert Menichetti, (Mr Leather Belgium?)

2005    Christian Roger

2006    Simen Enersen, Mr Leather Denmark

2007    Martin Cedergen, Mr Baltic Battle

2008    Ralf Rasmussen, Mr Leather Denmark

2009    Pieter Claeys, Mr MS Amsterdam

2010    Eric Gutierrez, Mr Leather France, IML 2011

2011    Alexi Carpentieri, Mr Baltic Battle

2012    Kilker Alcaraz, Mr Leather UK

2013    Francesco, Mr Leatherman Italia

Happy 40^th Birthday to the ECMC.

The Real Gay Batman

I suppose any zoologist who studies bats will inevitably earn the nickname Batman or Batwoman. One such zoologist has an exalted place in the lgbt community as THE Batman. This nickname extended from the pure zoological world and into the leather worship world to leave a legacy that thrives today.

I’ve already written an article about Tony DeBlase (1942-2000) in relation to his creation of the Leather Pride  flag. Today I concentrate on his persona as “Fledermaus” (German for “bat”), as he was known in the publishing world of the leather community. It was a pseudonym he adopted in around 1975 when some of his DBSM (Domination, Bondage and Sado-Masochism, actually not as violent or distasteful as it implies) stories were first published. I’ll return to that later.

But first, when and why did bats enter Tony’s life?

Tony studied for a PhD in zoology at Oklahoma State University. In 1969 he moved to Chicago to complete his degree research at the Field Museum of Natural History. This museum housed a large collection of bats, the subject of Tony’s dissertation.

Tony took part in a field expedition to Iran to make a proper study of that country’s native bat species. On his return to America it took a couple of years to complete his dissertation because of other work commitments because he had taken on some teaching and museum administration posts which took up most of his time.

In 1971 he wrote “New Distribution Records of Bats From Iran” for the Field Museum journal “Fieldiana: Zoology”. Eventually, in 1977 his full dissertation was completed and he submitted it to the journal for publication. All of the 38 bat species of Iran were described in detail by and were mapped to show distribution. Tony even identified a new native Iranian species that had only been known previously in other countries, and 5 species were removed as not being native. This made Tony’s dissertation the most comprehensive study on Iranian bats ever written. If you're batty about bats and want ot read Tony's dissertation it is available online here.

Tony has also contributed to other zoological publications, such as “A Manual of Mammalogy” (currently in its 3^rd edition, 2011), and the section of bats in “Encyclopedia Iranica” (1988).

It was while he was working on his dissertation that Tony had his first bondage fiction published. He had been writing fiction for a while, and it was Larry Townsend (1930-2008), a pioneer in the publication of leather fetish erotica, who thought the stories were good enough for publication. Tony was asked to adopt a pen-name, something often done to protect the writer’s identity from criticism within their profession, and he chose Fledermaus. “I was doing my dissertation on bats, and the [first published] story was set in a German castle, it seemed like an appropriate name”, Tony said in an interview in 1996.

In 1982 Larry Townsend published a collection of Tony’s stories in “The Fledermaus Anthology”. Through Larry and his Fledermaus stories Tony became heavily involved in the Chicago leather and bondage scene, quickly becoming one it it’s leading figures. In 1979 Tony began publishing “Dungeon Master”, a DBSM magazine he largely wrote himself. It became popular and soon turned into a thriving small business.

When Tony’s partner Andrew took early retirement from medical practice the couple moved to San Francisco to take over “Drummer”, the ailing leather/bondage magazine that had the biggest circulation in America. With it went the Mr Drummer contest. Under Tony’s direction both the magazine and the contest regained its popularity and iconic status before he sold both in 1992.

After a long illness Tony DeBlase – Fledermaus – died in 2000. The legacy of Fledermaus survives. In 1989 Tony created the Leather Pride flag which is recognised worldwide, and in 1991 he founded the Leather Archives and Museum.

A Salute to the Leather Ladies

Thinking about last month’s posts on the International Mr Bear contest and leather community flags I realised that I could do a feature combining parts of both. So here is a post about a female leather contest for Women’s History Month – the International Ms Leather contest (IMsL). This is also in celebration of this contest, being only a few weeks before the next IMsL contest is held from April 18^th, and a tribute to Joann Lee, one of the founders of the contest, who died on 26^th October last year.

The first major contest for female leather-lovers was held on 5^th September 1981 in San Francisco organised by Samois, the world’s first women’s sado-masochist (s/m) fetish group. Many in the feminist movement of that era, being vocal in their opposition to female beauty contests, were also vocal in their opposition to female involvement in s/m claiming that such activity was male-dominated and run purely for male pleasure. Fortunately, many women ignored such views of the female leather community and it continued to grow.

Many male leather clubs around America were the first to hold small, local female leather contests because there were very few women’s leather clubs around at the time. The male leather community embraced this new dimension to the scene. Another reason was because of the AIDS crisis which was building into a major threat to the community. Like other parts of the lgbt community it was lesbian groups who were among the first to support the gay victims of the disease and raised thousands of dollars for them. The gay community was, perhaps, in too much of a state of shock to handle the crisis on their own.

In the mid-1980s the whole community was experiencing a back-lash of public opinion on the basis of AIDS and it was a combination of a desire to create a united positive community spirit and a meaningful charitable fund-raising effort that led to a group of leather-lovers in San Francisco getting together in 1986 to organise a one-off contest, the first International Ms Leather (IMsL) the following year. The steering committee were :

Kathy Gage – perhaps the first to suggest such a contest;

Joann Lee – nurse, and s/m activist;

Alan Selby – owner of Mr S. Leather Store;

Gayle Rubin – co-founder of Samois and feminist academic;

JimEd Thompson – model and editor of “Action Male” magazine;

Chris Burns – gay porn actor and JimEd’s partner;

Patrick Toner – International Mr Leather 1985;

and Christian Haren – actor and model (recognisable to readers of my generation as “The Marlboro Man”).

In the first IMsL contest there were 16 contestants from across north America representing the full diversity of sexualities found within the leather community itself. The contest had full support from Chuck Renfrow, the owner-producer of International Mr Leather, and from Outcasts, the successor to the Samois group, who acted as volunteers. The first IMsL was Judy Tallwing McCarthy.

This one-off event was so successful that plans were begun to turn it into an annual event. The contests were held in San Francisco for the next 7 years. By that time the committee, which had changed little since day one, found it increasingly harder to organise the event and were in need of new blood before the contest died altogether. International Ms Leather 1993, Amy Marie Meek, stepped forward to take up the reigns as owner-producer.

The biggest change Amy brought was to host the contest in a different city each year, starting with Chicago in 1995. Over the years the contest grew into a full weekend event with extra attractions, parties, ceremonies, and fairs. In 2002 costs were getting rather high and the committee decided to base the contest in Omaha, Nebraska, for the foreseeable future to help keep costs down.

Amy Marie Meek handed over ownership of IMsL to Glenda Rider in 2006. Glenda brought the contest back to its original home of San Francisco in 2007.

The IMsL contest continues to attract thousands from around the world. Many thousands of dollars have been raised for diverse causes – from AIDS charities to the Girl Scouts, from theatre groups to animal rescue shelters.

 

To end my little tribute to International Ms Leather and celebrate the coming contest on 18^th April here is a complete list of IMsL winners. Good luck to all contestants.

1987  Judy Tallwing McCarthy

1988  Shan Carr

1989  Suzie Shepherd

1990  Gabrielle Antolovich

1991  Kim Hallenger

1992  Blair Kituhwa

1993  Amy Marie Meek

1994  Anne Bergstedt (resigned Sept.)

1994  Cindy Bookout

1995  Pat Baillie

1996  Jill Carter

1997  Genelle Moore

1998  Megan Dejarlais Martin

1999  Pam Meyer

2000  Jo Blas

2001  Joni Perrie

2002  Russ Cosgrove

2003  Tammie

2004  Lori Ellison

2005  Jess Holmanahart

2006  Lady Faye

2007  Lauren Ide

2008  Hobbit

2009  Lamalani

2010  Mollena (Mo) Williams

2011  Sara Vibes

2012  Synn Evan