Those of you who are regular readers of this site know that I am a huge fan of gay bondage porn. Especially bondage STORIES! That’s right, I just can’t get enough of really well-written bondage fiction — stories like Trust Us, Waiting for Ross, Danny in the Dorm and The Roommate, and even novels like Brig.
Here’s another thing: While I am not an old man, I am no spring chicken either. I’m old enough to know what the world was like before cell phones and before cable TV. There were three channels and if you wanted to see something else you had to get up and turn the knob.
The Internet? When I was growing up nobody knew what it was. If you wanted porn, you had to buy MAGAZINES in X-rated stores. In the American Midwest, where I grew up, there were no gay adult bookstores. You had to go to the straight “XXX” bookstore, located in a bad neighborhood downtown, and walk to the back, where they had a small section of gay porn mags with titles like Honcho and Inches. But there wasn’t much in the way of gay male kink.
Later, when I was in college, I discovered a little digest called Manscape, and also Drummer magazine, which opened up a whole new world for me. Fuck it was great. I could read about all sorts of twisted ideas for gay male bondage sex. When Bound and Gagged magazine came out it, was the greatest thing ever. Another one of my favorites was Manifest Reader (pictured above).
Metal,
I might still be stuffing myself into the Midwestern Lutheran Church Council lifestyle with a mad wife if it weren’t for Drummer Magazine and Chicago Hellfire club. It let me know that I wasn’t the only one into bondage and SM.
I actually owe a debt of gratitude to the old Porn Magazines. I started getting published in Drummer, Bound and Gagged, Powerplay, etc.
I still have a huge collection of Drummer Magazine (and a handful of Manifest Reader) in a storage tub in my basement-yet-to-be-converted-to-playspace. (Plus a number of other glossy mags.) Like you, Metal, I grew up in (and still reside in) the midwest and they opened up a whole new world for me. I’d have to check, but I’m pretty sure I have a copy of the one you included with this post.
I doubt there is anything I have the Leather Archives and Museum in Chicago doesn’t already have, but someday I need to catalog what is down there, contact them, and make sure of that before deciding to dispose of them in some other environmentally friendly manner.
Dear Metalbond,
I too also love the stories and photos in the old leather magazines. As such, I have duplicate issues for sale, or trade, and are looking for certain issues to complete my collection. I would love to get in-touch with other gay leathersex magazine collectors!
I have the following magazine issues for sale or trade:
Bad Puppy: 12, 31, 32, 38
Bound & Gagged: 3 – 11, 13, 15, 19 – 24, 26 – 28, 33, 34, 40, 44, 46 – 49, 51, 54, 59, 60, 67, 71, 73, 76, 77, 78, 80, 81 – 83, 85, 87, 89, 91 – 94, 96, 98, Classic Bound & Gagged volume IV, Pledges & Paddles volume 3 & IV
Drummer: 29, 34, 59, 64, 69, 75, 79, 95, 99, 106, 108, 116, 117, 124, 126, 136, 138, 144, 148, 149, 151, 153, 156, 159 – 162, 168, 175
Instigator : 15, 19, 22
International Leatherman: 1, 6, 7, 11, 14, 20 – 23, 26
MACH 21: Premier Issue, 2, 7
MACH 31
Metropolitan slave: volume 2 issue 9
The Sandmutopian Guardian: 33
Toy: 297, 300, 311
I wish to acquire the following magazine issues:
Bad Puppy: 3, 4, 6, 14, 17, 18, 27, 33, 37, 38, 46 – ?
Bound & Gagged: 1, 2, 12, 14, 16, 18, 29, 35, 66
Drummer: 1 – 5, 18 – 20, 38, 96, 170, 172, 203, 213, Drummer Daddies 1, Drummer Rides Again, The Best and Worst of Drummer
Dungeon Master: 1 – 13, 15 – 17, 21, 23 – 25, 27, 31, 32
Instigator: 1, 2, 4 – 8, 11
The Leather Journal: 1 – 16, 18, 19, 21 – 23, 25 – 38, 40 – 51, 53 – 92, 94
MACH: 1 – 6, 9 – 11, 13, 16 – 19, 21 – 24, 27, 29 – 30, 32, 34 – 39, 42
MACH 21: 6, 7 – ?
Manhood Rituals: 2, 4, 7 – 9, 11?
MR Manifest Reader: 1- 11, 13, 14, 16 – 24, 26 -28, 32, 35
Metropolitan slave: 2, 4, 17, 22, 24-?
Powerplay: 8, 9, 11, 12, 14 – 16, 19, 20, 22 – 24, 26
The Sandmutopian Guardian: 1 – 5, 7, 9 – 17, 24, 40
Yep, my first discovery of “like minded men like me” was at the gay section of a mostly heterosexual adult bookstore on the bad side of town in “the big city” from my small midwestern town in Ohio. It was a revelation for me as for the first time in my life, I didn’t feel like a freak and enbraced the idea of gay man bondage and people like this (like me) existed!
And I meant to say Honcho and Drummer Magazines had images and stories of man to man bondage.