Tag Archives: old guard

Story

Duty

4 Comments

By Siratpdx

Recently, I connected with a young man of 25 over Scruff who was interested in me and wanted to explore and experience a deeper and more intense session with an older, more experienced person, focusing on impact and e-stim.  Our connection was very happenstance.  I had made a car trip from the west coast to Chicago a few months before, and I spent a night in a town near when he lives.  I am far from certain how the algorithms work, but I suggested that I ended up in his Scruff feed as an ‘echo’ of my presence from being in the area a few weeks before.

We chatted a few times over the phone and video.  I was impressed with him, and for me at least, it is not that often that I come across man who invokes more than a sense of chemistry, but a more intimate and spiritual connection that I would describe as limerence.  He is more than young enough to be my son, and in some ways we connected in that dad-son dynamic that only gay men really understand.

Continue reading Duty →

Story

The Trainer

1 Comment

By Alex Ironrod

This is a special adaptation of the opening chapters of “The Trainer” by Alex Ironrod for MetalbondNYC,com, posted here by special permission.

PART ONE – BASIC TRAINING

I owe my life to one man. my life – and much more. He saved me. He trained me. He educated me. He loved me and had to let me go. Shit, how much I regret never having told him I loved him – until it was too late.

My name is Dave Coyle. My real life started only a year ago, when I met Mike Harrow. I was a mess. I had been doing drugs, when I could find the money. When we met, I was homeless, living on the streets. One summer morning, I was desperate enough to try to hold up this convenience store. You know the kind. They sell everything from liquor to washing powder. Anyway, I stuck this thick stick under my grubby tee shirt, and picked a quiet mid-morning time, after the breakfast rush.

I was lucky, the place seemed empty. So, I marched up to the counter and growled at the clerk, “OK, this is a stick-up. Hand over your cash right now or I’ll blow you to….”

Continue reading The Trainer →

Daily Thread

A book about the ‘Old Guard’ leather scene

3 Comments

old guard leather

 

Ever wonder what was it like to be a leatherman way back when?

Before Metalbond’s blog.

Before Grindr.

Before text messaging.

Before Recon.

Before Leather Navigator.

Before AOL chat rooms.

Before IML.

Before the Black Party.

Before the Internet.

Before AIDS.

Before the Village People.

Before Drummer magazine.

Before Stonewall.

Believe it or not, there really were gay Masters and slaves before all of these things — a vibrant leather scene with defined values that included things like respect, honesty, integrity, responsibility and loyalty.  You could not just walk into a shop with a credit card and emerge an hour later with leather pants and a harness — you had to EARN these things.

Are you curious about how things used to be? You can catch a good glimpse of the “Old Guard” in a book. Yes, a BOOK, it’s what you hold in your hands, turn the pages and READ.  It’s called The Slave Journals, and it is by Thom Magister.

Published by Perfectbound Press, it includes 17 erotic stories written from the perspective of different Masters from the 1950s onward to 1980. It’s also got some fantastic illustrations by the author.

It’s available at Amazon.com by clicking here

Story

Leather Affection: An excerpt

Leave a comment

By ty dehner

Saturday arrives, it is late afternoon as Sean is sitting on the sofa watching television in his apartment. He is waiting for the phone call from Lance as to where they are going to meet. Wearing his well-worn Levi’s 501 button fly in blue; he has on a plain black t-shirt under his leather jacket that he wore during their first meeting in the park, with a pair of black ranger style leather boots on his feet. His attention is not with the program on the television screen, his thoughts go to the man he met dressed in leather.

What could he want Sean to do this evening? There was something different about what has happened so far. Sure, Sean had played in the past, light bondage, some spanking and wrestling with a guy or two. Over the past few years, he’d meet a guy, get tied up and even fucked and sucked a guy off, but nothing ever seems to stick. It was more of a one-time event for them to each get their rocks off and then move on to the next scene with the next guy.

With Lance, Sean had a different feeling in his gut. That they are meeting again tonight means things are lasting longer than they normally do. Their conversation in the park was hours long and felt that Lance was seeking something long term. That is how Sean has been feeling as he has been getting older. There is time to be a kid and fuck around, then time to become an adult, getting serious about one’s life, to connect with someone and form a bond that will last.

Continue reading Leather Affection: An excerpt →

Daily Thread

Video: Hal Fischer talks about signaling with keys and hanky code

Leave a comment

Check out this video in which artist Hal Fischer discusses “gay signifiers” — namely keys, earrings and the hanky code — worn by gay men in 1970s San Francisco:

 

Hal Fischer’s work, Gay Semiotics, is a photographic study of visual coding among homosexual men.

You can see many of his photographs on the SFMOMA site.

Also visit gaysemiotics.com

Thanks to my buddy Grey for passing along this link!

Daily Thread

This is a really good book

Leave a comment

I recently finished “My Leather Life: Early Years” by Peter Fiske, narrated by Thomas V. Peterson, and I can’t recommend this book enough!

It’s available for purchase on Amazon.

Peter Fiske book review

 

Peter is one of our most passionate and loving of leather elders, who is well known in gay s/m circles as an expert in flogging and whipping. For anyone interested in learning more about this topic — as well as anyone who wants to understand more in general about who we are as kinky folk and where we came from — this book is highly recommended!

Peter shares personal stories of growing up in New York City and discovering a sexual interest in bondage and spanking at a young age. He also tells of serving in the military in the segregated South and finding leather sex at a dirty movie theater in Times Square. All of this takes place pre-Stonewall! Speaking of Stonewall, Peter was also a patron of this famous bar and tells of being present at three different raids before the famous rioting took place in late June 1969.

Peter was also active in the leather scene in San Francisco, meeting many of the “old guard” leather men of the day and joining a back patch club and attending leather runs. Peter later became active in brotherhood organizations, including The 15 Association, the Chicago Hellfire Club and Delta.

“‘My Leather Life’ reads like porn, but it is my life,” Peter shared in a recent posting on Facebook.

“All of our stories matter. Mine is no different than any of my readers,” Peter continued. “I have been lucky to live at the center and to find love. If you take one thing from my book, it is that it’s in your power to live authentically and to find your love and your friends. Drag queens told me that in the 60s. Be real. You can be real too. All it takes is courage and a glad heart.”

The group picture shown in this blog posting is in the book and is also from Peter’s Facebook page. The caption states that it is from the Folsom Fair in San Francisco in September 1991 and shows, from left, Shadow Morton, Coulter “Colt’ Thomas (who was the fifth International Mr. Leather and Peter’s lover), Sky Renfro, Peter himself, and John.

Colt Thomas IML

 

I absolutely loved reading this book. I’m inspired not only by Peter’s passion for leading an authentic life but also of his stories of standing up for those being discriminated against, including men of color, drag queens and those who are transgender.

But for me the most moving passages were those in which the author describes the way he plays. When Peter flogs or whips a bottom in a leather scene, he does it as an act of love.

We should all be more like Peter.