Occupy Wallstreet (or Take Back Your Leather)

In the last month, hordes of people young and old are congregating on Wall Street and in every city of the country. They are angry, frustrated at the fact that banks and financial institutions have been bailed out by the government while jobs continue to dwindle. They are angry that one percent of the population is getting richer while the other ninety-nine percent grows poorer.

The powerful hide behind their corporations, entities now equal in rights before the law. This shift began more an one hundred years ago, when the highest court in the land declared that corporations had equal protection under the Bill of Rights. Although other cases laid the foundation for this ruling, it was Noble versus Union River Logging Railroad Company in 1893 that marked the shift. And continuing this trend toward the rise of corporate power, Randall versus Sorrel in 2006 opened the floodgates relative to elections and corporate political influence.

Today citizens are rising up and declaring that the fabric of this country is not built on corporate greed. It is built on the working men and women of this land.

As a Leather/kink Community, we seem to be a microcosm of society at large. And mirroring this trend, individuals are growing tired of "Community" being equated with titles and organizations. As if individuals without titles or affiliations are ciphers. Do we forget that our organizations were founded to serve the players of our Community, and not the other way around?

Local title organizations flock like flies toward the newest face in the bar, anxious to enlist him or her as a contestant in the next contest. And clubs sign them up as quickly as frat houses sign up pledges during rush week. Rather than emphasizing mentorship between individuals, these groups favor workshops and how-to books, the quickest way to not only learn the "right" way to play, but also the easiest way to charm the money from the pockets of these newcomers. Leather and Kink organizations insist that this is the way to build Community.

But there is another voice rising, the voice of those kinky fuckers who play, who value Leather Family more important than Leather titles and workshops.

In stating this, I do not wish to negate the title that I held as International LeatherSIR in 2010. Nor do I want to dismiss the importance of Leather clubs and runs. They have their place as a means of bringing like-minded people together. The danger lies when we lose sight of their purpose and begin believing that organizations are more important than the individuals that they are supposed to serve. As ILSb's Mark Frazier reminded me many times during my title year, "Family comes first."

In short, it is about people and what they do to each other. It is about fucking, sucking cock, beating a back bloody. About serving a MASTER and, in turn, caring for HIS property. About mentoring boys, providing them the protection and safety that they cannot find in society at large.

Perhaps it is time for us to occupy our bars and our clubs and declare with a loud voice that we are the Community. Long after the titles and clubs have faded, men and women will be playing and exploring the delights of BDSM. And just as those protesting in cities across the United States proclaim "We are the government; you work for us," we need to raise a similar cry in the Leather/kink Community.

Reflections on the Hollow Men

"We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men."

When I fashion a Leather mask, I begin by casting the face. I carefully mold a negative form and from that, I create a positive. Then I stretch the Leather, hammer it, and rub it methodically for hours until a near perfect replica of the visage takes shape. A mask that begs to be worn. Without a person to wear it, the mask is dead, an object without life. Every actor knows this. An essential part of the professional actor's training is learning to interact within its hollow. Acting en masque.

Decades ago, many of our Leather organizations were formed. They were fashioned by men who understood the need to raise funds and awareness for HIV, for service to members of the Community, to defeat right-wing political agendas that threatened to drown us in intolerance. Although the shape of these organizations has remained the same over the years, the skill of those who knew how to animate them seems to be gone. What remains are the shells of organizations, masks of clubs and contests that once served a vibrant purpose.

While a few of these organizations have found revitalization through the efforts of a few selfless individuals, most remain evident but ineffective. They seem to have little direct association with their original purpose. And their affiliation with Leathersex, with play, or with the individuals who make up our current Community seems strained. Many of these organizations have become but facades of broken stones from another time, objects that are the focus of "Old Guard" incantations and fantastical rituals.

Groups that used to facilitate brotherhood now foment politics and drama. And their leaders, once essentially hidden behind the masks of their organizations, now expose themselves. The desire to be seen, greater than the call to serve. For it was service that animated these organizations, not the egos of men whose appetite for accolades and awards compels them to move the mask from the borders of its surface rather than from the inside.

I recently attended a symposium in San Francisco called, "Is Leather Dead?" As a Sir to boys of varying ages I can attest that kink and perversion is alive and well in the lives of the rising generation of Gay men. What seems to be dead are many of our organizations that have no context in the lives of these men. They belong more within the context of a reliquary than a vibrant Community.

So all hail to the "Hollow Men" who claim to lead these organizations. To them, I say -

"A penny for the Old Guy."