In honor of LGBT history month: Gay Leather History.

The gay Leather community that everyone has come to know and see originally began after WWII between the years 1942-1948. With gay military men returning from the war, they wanted to continue their bonds that they had created during the service. These men migrated to bigger cities on the east and west coasts such as New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles and later to large cities of the Great Lakes area like Chicago.

This is a community of masculine gay men, which was based on the military with military protocols and rules. Early on, the dress code was military uniforms (which is still used). However, after the movie The Wild One in 1953 the community embraced the leather biker subculture. This formulated the Gay Leather subculture as we know it today.

The earliest leather bars opened in the mid-50's and early 60's. In the mid-1950's there was the Silver Dollar in New York, the Cinema in Los Angeles and Febes in San Francisco. In 1955 (and renamed in 1959) the Argos in Amsterdam, Netherlands opened. It was the first leather bar in Europe. Then in 1960 the Gold Coast opened in Chicago. In 1961 The Tool Box opened in San Francisco. (Note, the Eagle bars came much later).

To become involved in the Leather community, one had to be invited into the community. The community was inclusive to itself and exclusive to everyone else. To receive an invite you had to be masculine because no effeminate men were allowed (and back then effeminate men could be considered masculine by today's standards). When you came into the community, you mentored with someone and you started your journey as a submissive learning from the more dominant members of the community. New individuals were passed around from mentor to mentor for training and education.

And sex was a must. Leather is all about sex, heavy man on man. Very S&M based. It was rough play with no safe words, no boundaries. You relied on the Dominant to make sure you were kept safe (mentoring training insured this).

The Leather community was extremely secretive. They had to be. The McCarthy era was happening and leather men were considered an extreme perversion and perversion was viewed as part of the communist "red" scare that was prevalent in U.S. society. Not to mention that men-on-men sex was illegal everywhere. So we had to develop a way to communicate between ourselves. Some of the subtle ways were:

Keys were attached to a belt loop. Worn on outside of pockets if you were looking for someone to play and have sex. Keys tucked inside the pocket if you weren't.

Bandana hankies tucked into the left or right back pocket. The color of the hanky denoted what type of sexual play you are into and what you were looking for. Originally there were only about three to five colors. Now there is a color for every type of fetish. This was called flagging.

Black motorcycle boots. Later black hiking boots. Along with this, during the daytime it was 501 Levi jeans and a white shirt. Wearing leather was for late at night.

The bottom button of a pair of 501 Levi jeans was unbuttoned, which was a sign you were looking for a sex partner (cruising).

Keys and hankies worn on the right or left side referred to as flagging. Originally the West Coast was left = dominant and right = submissive. On the East Coast, the opposite. Over time, the West Coast won. So, Keys/ hankies worn on the left side indicated you were a Top or Dominant. Keys/hankies worn on the right indicated you were a bottom or submissive.

Code words were used to communicate between individuals. These code words were used to gain access to bars and to social events. Going to the T-room, get a cup of coffee, playing the saxophone or mandolin are just a few.

Code words were also required to get into private venues and gatherings. Originally meetings were in private venues, usually warehouses with back alley entrances. You had to know someone in the community in order to attend. All attendees had to know the secret password and these passwords changed frequently. We had to avoid at all costs the McCarthy red hunt (the homosexual/communism witch hunt between 1947-57). So we developed what became known as motorcycle runs. These were outdoor gatherings in faraway places where the feds couldn't find you. Oldest continuous run is Badger Flats put on by the Satyrs Motorcycle Club.

After the McCarthy era, starting in the early 1960's, there was a marked increase in Leather/Men's bars. Bars that were men only where the patrons had to wear leather or Levi, and no cologne or deodorant was allowed. The doorman would smell you to check. If there was any hint of cologne, you were not allowed in. Men with wedding rings were also not allowed (suspicion the person was an undercover cop). The bars were very dark. You could hear sex going on in the darkest areas. Because it was a gay bar and especially because we were having sex in the bar, the bars were always being raided (and shut down) by police.

When it came to policing, the Leather community policed their own. Bad players were ostracized from the community or just not allowed in at all. This is why you never saw on the news anything about Leathermen and their sexual play (or anything about a scene gone wrong). If there was anything, it was kept out of the news by officials because they didn't want the public to know such "perversion" existed.

The rough sex that Leathermen engaged in was called Sado/Masochism, also called "SM" or "S & M". Originally these were the only terms we had to describe the type of sexual play that went on between each other. Because gay sex and especially S & M sex was illegal, we had to be very careful about being caught. Therefore we developed code words to help us find others of a like mind. During a conversion, they would ask, "Do you play the saxophone or mandolin." These code words were used to identify if someone was into the S (Sadist) or the M (Masochist).

The two words incorporated into this compound--"sadism" and "masochism"--were originally derived from the names of two authors. The term "Sadism" or "Sado" is derived from the name of the Marquis de Sade (Donatien Alphonse Fran?ois de Sade 1740-1814). Not only did he practice sexual sadism, he also wrote novels about these practices (best known is Justine).

The term "Masochism" was named after Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (1836-1895). He practiced masochism and wrote novels expressing his masochistic fantasies. It was the German psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing who first introduced the terms "Sadism" and "Masochism"' into institutional medical terminology in his work Neue Forschungen auf dem Gebiet der Psychopathia sexualis ("New Research in the Area of Psychopathology of Sex") in 1890.

Thanks to the formation of the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) in 1968 and the Stonewall Riots in 1969, the era of gay rights started. From 1973-77 there were a number of U.S. Supreme Court decisions that upheld the right to create, own, possess and distribute porno material and then later to decriminalize homosexuality; and it seemed that overnight, police harassment of gay bars ceased and no time was lost in their rapid expansion all over the U.S. Thus began what has been called the Golden Age of Leather bars and the Leather community.

This Golden Age almost came to a screeching halt with the onset of the AIDS crisis that started in the early 1980's. Because of the heavy play and the fact that most gay men and especially Leather men didn't form permanent relationships, the AIDS crisis hit the gay, and especially the Leather community, extremely hard.

Due to the fact we had to operate in such secrecy, hardly anything was ever written down about the community or the lifestyle. With the loss of the Leather elders, much of the Leather history and knowledge (especially the small specifics) were lost. When family came in after our Leathermen died, they were disgusted by what they found and everything was tossed into the trash.

It was during the Golden Age timeframe that the first Leather club in Wichita was formed called The Wichita Linemen in the late 70's. This club was very short-lived and was gone by 1978. The next club was Pegasus MC (originally called a Motorcycle Club, but after complaints from the straight motorcycle clubs, it was later changed to Men's Club). Pegasus started in 1978 (noted in several Leather magazines at the time) and continued until about 1992-93. The next club was WOOLF, Wichita Organization of Leather Fetishes, which started in August 2002 and continues today.

Some of the Leather bars that existed in Wichita were: Boots, Barracks, T-Room, and the Link. I think there was one earlier than Boots/Barracks, but I've been unable to confirm.

Article Details

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Author:	Christensen, Nolin
Publication:	Liberty Press
Geographic Code:	1U9CA
Date:	Oct 1, 2016
Words:	1507
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