There will be blood!

It has been almost ten years since I have engaged in bloodsports. After the passing of my friend, Al D, I have not been able to entertain the idea of wielding needles or knives. I have conceded to others that it is no longer my thing.

"Whenever you introduce something foreign to the body, you must remember that you are entering that person and it is sacred." Al reminded me of this again and again. And having been a participant in a number of his piercing rituals, I can vouch for his words. In fact, bloodsports took on such a heightened meaning with Al that I reasoned that I could never again participate in them after his death.

Blood is the life force. But for Gay men it is taboo, especially for the men of my generation. My generation has witnessed the loss of too many Leathermen taken in their prime by that dreaded pathogen, HIV. To pick up a knife and begin to play again forces a confrontation with death far more than the immediate. The knife and the needle conjure up the memory of these men.

For years I have told myself that I have avoided these tools out of respect for Al D. But what better way to show respect than to indulge in this type of play? Perhaps my excuse has been nothing more than the romantification of his influence in my life.

In Leather we tend to romanticize our past. For decades we have conjured up the "Old Guard" like gods on Mount Olympus. We have created a Golden Age of Leather that thrived on Folsom Street and in long forgotten New York clubs. And we talk of our mentors with a contrived reverence, mistaking nostalgia for respect.

Perhaps the most important step as LeatherSirs is to understand that the play we do now is the best play, that the people who surround us now make up our true Tribe, and that our mentors prepared us to build on their legacy, not resuscitate it in rococo style.