More than an elaborate masturbation

My Leather is more than an elaborate masturbation. It is the heart of who I am.

Recently I came face to face with my Buddhist spiritual practice and Leather. As I struggled to explain to my Zen teachers regarding the responsibilities I felt as a Sir relative to my boys, I felt compelled to walk away. After fifteen years in the sangha, I left.

I anticipated that leaving the sangha would also be a struggle but I found just the opposite. As I sit in mediation in the morning, I feel freed from the constraints of Zen. The idea that one sits in meditation to know oneself is wonderful. In Leather, we play to know ourselves. In play, the social masks are dropped. Too much energy to maintain them when play becomes heavy and all one can do is hold on to a thread of awareness to make it through the scene.

I am a Sir 24/7. My boys understand this. As they sit beside me in meditation, they know that I will continue to watch out for them. They do not drop their collars at he door of the Dharma Hall.

A boy once again

This weekend I am in Woodland Hills, Utah, a town built on a mountainside in the southern part of Utah County. An area quite different from my "center-of-the-universe" neighborhood in Seattle. I am here to visit my parents, still insistent on their independence in spite of failing health.

As my mother takes the wheel of their four-wheel drive and heads down the mountain at a snail's pace, I grip the edge of my seat. I appreciate her determination to show me that she is still very much in control. Her hands shaking on the wheel, she asks if "The Colonel" would do for dinner. KFC has a small all-you-can-eat buffet with a special senior discount. My parents love buffets!

Hours later, knowing that I must work out daily to maintain my sanity, I ask for the keys to the car. A long silence ensues. "Well," says my father plaintively. And suddenly I am placed in the position of boy again.

My parents seem to like the fact that at fifty-four, I am still their boy, the youngest of three sons. And I do not mind being placed in this position once again. Sir becomes boy.

Years ago as a young Leatherman, I learned how to be an obedient and respectful boy. In fact, I am certain that I am a better boy as an adult than I ever was as an adolescent. Respect, honesty, integrity. All lessons learned well.

Two decades ago at my first run, Mr. Guy Baldwin told me that Leather was built on these principles. At that time, I was still very angry at what I considered a harsh adolescence. My father and mother were strict disciplinarians, often to the point of abuse. They never spared the rod. Thus, I felt justified in my anger, still holding on to vestigial emotions in spite of years of therapy.

However, after training and hard play, I found that I no longer held on to this anger. I was able to let it go. And now I move freely back to my boy space to please my parents without any negative feelings.

I am a Leatherman. I am a Sir. And I have learned to be a respectful son.

If you meet the Buddha in the road, flog him!

As the Buddha lay down for the last time, he prepared for the end of his last cycle of life. Years before, his eyes had been opened upon seeing the morning star. He saw the true nature of all things. The sky is blue, the grass is green. The sun hides behind the clouds. The wind blows.

This heightened state, which actually is not a heightened state at all, is similar to what we discover often during play. Almost as if eyes were opened wider than they have ever been before we experience an arousal of all senses from their slumbering state. As if the blinders have been dropped from our eyes.

Yesterday, I surrendered myself to the clay once more. The question I held was suggested by my boy jay. "How does Leather meet Zen?"

In the late eighties and early nineties we often spoke about the state brought about by Leatherplay. Geoffrey Mains was perhaps one of the first to examine the topic in his seminal work, "Urban Aboriginals." Later, other authors embellished the topic, drawing on Leather to expound on their own spiritualities. New terms and the adoption of forms of Leatherplay into new communities.

While I find this all very interesting, I return to the spiritual tradition that I have practiced as long as I have been a Leatherman. In Zen, we know that one cannot try to reach enlightenment. The harder one tries, the more elusive it becomes. I would suggest that the desired state during play is very much the same. And, like Zen, I find this state to be a heightened awareness of my surroundings, as if I am experiencing my body for the very first time. It is not a feeling of being drugged or removed from one's surroundings. Rather, it is an arousal that one is very much part of things. As if one has felt his body for the very first time.

As I prepare myself to begin another Winter Kyol Che, I approach my Leather with new eyes and new questions. I look back on my Leather journey and ask myself how I arrived here. And, as I did last Winter, I turn back to the earth to help me answer my riddle. A true Virgo dirties his hands in clay.

The Dungeon Wild

When we enter a dungeon space, we voluntarily leave the rational mind at the door. We enter the Wild, a dark jungle where instinct and pack dynamics reign. When we retreat, we often can be left with fear and confusion.

"I looked at my back and I could not believe what I did last night," wrote my boy after an intense impact/flogging/single tail scene. In the dungeon space, he had given himself to me with abandon. "I want to do this for you," he said in deference to my Dominance. And baring his back in the bar hours later, he beamed with pride beside me. However, at home before the mirror before going to bed, he contemplated the welts on his back and his logical mind countered the remnants of our scene. His mind puzzled over the darkness of his instinctual self.

Understanding that logic does not exist in the dark wild, we try to balance the experience with a discourse of consensuality. We often reason why we do these activities using psychology or spirituality to validate our involvement. These are but feeble attempts to understand the animal inside, the instinct that encourages us over and over again to play in the dungeon.

In the last ten years we have witnessed the acknowledgment of puppy play, and of animal play in general. Using fetish, we conjure up the animal within to enact power dynamics that are as real as our cultural interactions from day to day. As Leathermen we revel in animal play, delving further and further into its depths. Rather than basing the success of our play on technical prowess, arguing kink into the cultural discourse, we continue to invent new forms of play that probe the instinctual depths.

A Family Gift

We often talk about "family" in our Tribe. Most often we use this referring to those Leathermen and Leatherwomen who we have chosen to be part of our intimate group. Or referring to those who have chosen us. During the Holiday season, many of us also think of our birth families. For many, this can be a challenging subject.

I do not delude myself into thinking that my parents and siblings are happy that my sexuality is far left of "normal." And the fact that I accept this fact as much as the air that I breathe is not a cause of celebration in my family. I find this amusing, as my sexual proclivities and appetites are very much a biological inheritance.

In spite of my family's conservative religion, the sexual discourse is never absent in our private conversations. From these conversations, I would guess that there is no middle ground when it comes to sex in my family. Either a celebration of carnal pleasures within their relationships or a denial of them.

And as far back as I can remember I have been inquisitive about my body. Even before my first ejaculation, I knew how to make myself feel good physically and had no qualms about exploring pleasurable experiences with peers. I believe most of us acknowledged our "dark" side long before our first adolescent sexual experience. Hereditary predisposition?

I am a sexual adventurer, an explorer of the body. And I acknowledge this as much part of my heritage as the color of my skin, my physical build, and my Gayness.

A family trait, a gift, even if they do not celebrate it as freely as I do.

Get Ready for -

Photo by Travis Hughes

Honoring Steve Hines

Almost twenty years ago I was approached by Lee Willis with Guy Baldwin, and Jan Lyons. A boy still wet behind the ears, Lee told me about his pet project, a memorial plaque honoring those "fallen Leathermen and Leatherwomen."

"Would you help me plan a dinner for the presentation of the plaque?" he asked.

I felt quite humbled to be approached by these Elders of the Tribe and asked, "Why me?" I did not feel up to the task.

They explained that they wanted something "classy." A dinner with a performance of high caliber. With decades of experience as a professional ballet dancer, they knew I would do something worthy of the occasion. "I believe that the Leather community deserves the best," added Lee. "Don't worry. If you need help, just ask. We can do this together."

A few short weeks later Lee invited me over his house. "I need help," I said, as I helped him stretch the large piece of leather over the plaque's background. "I do not know how to go about planning a dinner. I know how to organize a show but not a dinner."

"Steve Hines," was his curt reply. "He will do a good job."

Steve was a friend in the community, handsome with a brush of a mustache and a quick smile. As the weeks flew by and the presentation of the event grew closer, I barely heard from Steve. And whenever I would ask him how things were going, he would simply say, "Everything's fine."

On the night of the presentation, I recall opening up Seattle's Russian Hall with Steve. As I unloaded boxes and boxes of food with him, I realized just how much he had done in preparation for the event. Diligently he had worked without fanfare. No paper plates and napkins for this event. He had prepared a high calibre meal that one might enjoy in a fine restaurant.

That evening, Russian Hall was filled with Leatherfolk not only from Seattle, but also from other cities. An evening as memorable as the plaque. After the dinner, the presentation of names, and the performance, I stood in the front of the hall as people were filing out. I looked over to the kitchen, Steve Hines still working in the kitchen.

"Quiet dignity." Two words that Guy Baldwin had shared with me many months before from a book by Geoffrey Mains. "A Leatherman has 'Quiet Dignity.'" As I watched Steve that night, these words returned. I realized that he exemplified these words in his service to the community.

Today, I remember Steve as a man who was always there providing help without complaint. As I look at the plaque hanging on the wall of The Cuff, I see Steve's name. He died three years after its presentation in 1994.

"Steve Hines, Seattle Daddy's Boy '90 - '91."

A man of service. A true Leatherman.

For more about The Memorial Plaque.