For What It's Worth

"Stop! Hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look what's going down." (Stephen Stills)

As a child of the sixties, I still hear the sound of revolution in the acts of deviance that define my Leather. Leather is about breaking rules, pushing boundaries, venturing outside of the group. Like the activists of my adolescence, I do not measure myself by the meter of the status quo but by the clarion call of my own heart.

Leather requires that I must never settle comfortably as a member of the group. Popularity is a cancer, eating away at the foundation of the training I received as a Leatherboy. For this reason, I have avoided titles for almost twenty years. Until this year, that is.

Halfway through my title year, I find I have little patience for bullshit. Today I stage a new revolution and encourage you to do the same.

Don't give a FUCK about those who enter our Tribe carrying with them the same bad manners and rumor mongering ways as those in the mainstream. Shun them as our Elders did. Do not join in the small talk of politics and gossip. To quote one of the Temple rules that have been handed down in Zen for centuries, "Keep the stopper in the bottle!"

When I play, I see trust in the eyes of the boy. I work his body, allowing My energy to remove any societal barriers that might stand between himself and My own demons. I allow him to see deep within Me and do not flinch when he looks back in terror and confusion. Whether with rope or with fear, I have bound him. And when he finally opens himself to Me without compromise, this is Leather. Without requesting it, I receive the boy's gift. I receive it with honor.

First and foremost, W/we are M/men of honor. Without it, we flounder in the values of the mainstream.