Interlude: Underground

This is another interlude , the episode between episodes offered raw and unfiltered , but with Langlitz , leather creaking and right now in my refrigerator I have a lime cracker icebox pie , because I am going to a leather dinner tomorrow and this is sort of slightly off topic of this interlude , but I thought I would share .

I'm not a very good cook , like there's something about proteins I just don't get . I under cook them or I over cook them . Very rarely am I good at cooking a protein . Nor do I have that kind of home ec mentality where I can just plan out a week of menu of what I'm going to eat for dinner every night .

So I don't cook but I do like to bake , probably because I love eating dessert . And this is a leather dinner that's been going on . A couple of my local friends host it and it's been going on for several months now and people gather . It's a potluck and the first time I brought my tried and true favorite , which is a flourless chocolate cake .

I use the King Arthur's Flour slash Baking Company recipe . It is so easy , so flawless , so delicious . And people are like you didn't make this , you bought this . I'm like no , I actually made this cake . It's actually , you just microwave things and mix them and put them in the oven . It's very easy . No , no , no , no .

And I'm like well , now I'm the dessert person for this leather dinner .

So I've been trying to expand my baking repertoire every month when the dinner shows up and I saw this recipe for a lime cracker pie and it looked really easy and I thought , wow , it's so hot in the summer , that will be so refreshing between the coolness of an ice box pie and the refreshingness of a lime .

So I've not tried it , so we'll see how it goes . But my point is about this leather dinner , right ? So I recently did a video on my socials about how leather seems to be going underground and it was a good video . But I thought , wow , this topic really means some deeper exploration and that's why I thought I would focus this interlude on that .

As I said in the video on the socials , we really need to break apart . This notion about the leather community is going underground , because all of those terms are questionable . I've never thought there was a singular leather community . We are amalgamation of allied and interconnected communities .

So I want to dispel this notion that the community is going underground . I want to also dispel this is going notion Like although it seems to be a trend I'm noticing here locally and I've had conversations with leather folk both locally and around the country who've noticed something similar . The truth is that people have always had parties at their house .

People have always had play parties , people have always had dinner parties , people have always had leather dinners . But there does seem to be something different , or it seems to be on the rise in some way . I also want to really press against my own use of this term underground .

When I say leather is going underground , back underground kind of invokes the old guard . Right , but the problem is the old guard was quote unquote underground as a matter of survival . That was a time when you could have been arrested for being homosexual , so imagine what would happen to you if you were kinky .

So the undergroundedness , the extreme , closed , secretive nature of that old guard that we carry around with us all the time is a matter of survival and I'm not really using it . That's not what's happening now . What's happening now is people are getting together in leather in their homes .

That's what I mean when I say the leather community is going underground , and this would be fairly unremarkable but for the fact that I'm not the only one to have noticed this , that I've had conversations with others who've been noticing it in their own local communities as well , and so I thought it was worth some exploration .

So let me start by talking about what's been happening here in Fort Lauderdale . It started probably about a year ago when I got invited to a leather cocktail party and I thought I was so excited .

I'm like this is absolute genius and it's put on by a group of people , it rotates houses , it's every month , every few months , it kind of variable , but it is connected to the origins of mid-Atlantic leather , so it's very special .

I was so excited and I think the notion of this private leather social event is so endearing and appealing , because if you're into leather ironically leather bars are not a great place to go right now I went out last night to the Ramrod . It was kind of dead .

I think I was the only person , or one of very few people , in gear , so I can totally understand why people would say hey , I'm into leather , I want to wear leather . Let me contact my friends who are into leather and want to wear leather , and let's all get together and wear leather . That just makes perfect sense to me .

I got excited because I knew these people , I knew who was going to the party . I got excited to wear gear , around people wearing gear , and I think that's a beautiful natural impulse . There is also something quite appealing about it happening in a more private social space . Bars are loud . Bars are focused on drinking . Bars are often focused on cruising .

Bars are often too crowded or too smoky . Bars are not ideal places for the formation of deep and effective social connections . Homes are when you get together in someone's home , then you have a greater opportunity to talk one-on-one . In small groups you get to quote unquote mingle talk to other people .

So I think there's an incredible logic behind the impulse to have more events in people's homes . It is a beautiful way to foster community around people who have something in common , and in my case it's leather .

But you can imagine a rubber dinner party or a pup dinner party or a pony dinner party or whatever your fetish is slash dinner party , cocktail party , rupaul's drag race party , right Whatever kind of party . Now , on the other hand , I do recognize that there are problems with this configuration as well .

And the first has to do going back to the old guard , and that is who gets to go . Now , you only get to go to these parties if you know someone going to the party who thinks to invite you . Either you need to know the host or someone has to be invited and be like hey , you want to come with me .

And I've made an effort for these various events and there are at least three cocktail , leather dinner type things going on in Fort Alderdale that I'm aware of . That I'm aware of , and each time one comes up I try to invite someone to come with me .

Maybe they're in town , maybe I know they're , they're kind of fine , you know they're new to the community and just finding it , and I say , hey , come along .

But if you don't know someone and if the community quote unquote the community quote unquote people who are in gear , who are in kink , who are very connected , if we are all meaning in private , what the hell happens to people who want to come into the community if there's no visible entry point .

And I'm aware that that is a risk , if we have this trend where things are moving more to homes , that then we lose visible access , visible points of entry for people who are curious about the community .

The other big issue , I see , let's keep in mind that all these people well , there's one leather dinner that's happening at a restaurant , but even that assumes a certain level of socioeconomic privilege that you can afford a nice dinner out the people who have homes , they have space to host 20 , 30 , 50 people and that also implies a certain socioeconomic status .

So not only do you have the problem of the community being closed off people who want to enter the community can't find it , can't see it , because it's all happening in people's homes but you also have the fact that where it is happening is happening within a particular space , a socioeconomic privilege , people who can afford their own home , people who can afford a

condo or apartment enough to host a party , people who can afford to buy liquor for the party and food for the party , or people who can afford to go out to a nice dinner . That it requires people to have a certain class privilege , economic access that not everybody has .

In particular , people who are just entering the community , people who are slightly outside , people who are very young , are also the people who probably don't have the ability to do this on their own , to create their own parties , to create their own leather dinners .

So , on the one hand , I'm thrilled to see these sort of private social leather events happening in my town because they provide me a beautiful space to wear gear in comfortable , cool air conditioning , with friends , meeting new people , making new connections , having in-depth conversations all the things that make community community .

I now have a new space for them to happen and I celebrate that and it is fantastic . But I remain aware of the fact that it is a space that is privileged and that , for me , can be a little problematic .

Now the good news is that the way it's happening here in Fort Lauderdale , I think we're okay , for , first of all , we have a lot of visible public entry points for the community . Our local store , leatherworks , does classes on all kinds of King topics . That's a point of entry . Leatherworks has open play parties in their dungeon that's a point of entry .

We have two bars and we have a lot of people who are out in the community being visible so that people can come up and ask them questions or get to know them . We are quite blessed that we have so many public venues that provide access points for people who are interested in kink and leather . We are very blessed by that .

Then , when you go to the kink class and you make some friends or you go to the bar or you go to a play party , then you will eventually find your way right , because every community is small . Eventually you will find your way to these private social events regardless of your own socioeconomic status .

You can be invited to these things , as I try to invite others . That's not true for every city , that's not true for every place , that's not true for every person who's in kink or interested in kink . I will say I find a lot of inspiration from my recent international travels , both Dublin last year and Glasgow this year . These are both cities .

They don't have a public leather space , they don't have a bar . What each city does is they have a social and what that social pops up at lots of different bars , maybe a different bar every month . That provides the visible entry point , the doorway to access the community .

However , I know , particularly when I went to Glasgow , someone was telling me they hosted a rubber Eurovision party the night before for the Eurovision final . There are private events going on . There are private spaces in these cities where people are able to gather and have dinner or hang out or watch TV or have sex .

But there is also that public entry point that I think is critical . It's great to have the private community the quote unquote underground . I think we want to make sure we don't privilege it as the proper community or the true community or the right community . I don't think we want to give it that point of privilege .

I think we want to think of it as a community , a circle of friends , a network of kinky people . It's great to have those private spaces .

I want to encourage that because they do provide support and affiliation and all the things community does , as long as we continue to have and strive to create visible points of entry , public spaces where people can meet others into kink , find out they're not weird , find out they're not alone and find out who they are in relation to others who are like them ,

which then provides them a way to get to those private parties . The takeaway , first of all , is if you're coming to Fort Lauderdale on any given month , I can probably bring you to a leather dinner or leather social or leather cocktail party of some sort , and I will be thrilled to do so .

The other great takeaway is , wherever you live in the world , one option for you if you don't have a leather bar is to create maybe just an embryonic leather game night , right , and to begin to build a private social community in your home , in the homes of others , and , when that has its own sort of self-sustainability , to create some public-facing component , some

sort of leather workshop , leather meet and greet , leather social , something that allows new people to enter in , and then I suspect that's the best of both worlds . Now , I'm always reexamining my positions as I move through life and as the world around me changes , but for today that is my thinking . As for the lime cracker pie , it is a new recipe .

I'm not sure how it's going to taste , but it was really easy to make , and the secret ingredient is Ritz crackers , which of course are classically used in a knock-apple pie as well . I am hopeful because the ingredient list was pretty simple . It's condensed milk , heavy cream , lime juice .

Obviously that acid interacting with the dairy really thickens the dairy , almost making it a little bit like a curd , and then layers of that and Ritz crackers and that , and Ritz crackers and that and Ritz crackers , and on and on and on .

So I mean the ingredients are simple enough and tasty enough , but I think that I mean this is a place where , literally , the proof is in the pudding . So I will find out tomorrow how my lime cracker pie tastes . In the meantime , I want to encourage you to seek private spaces of connection , but also public points of entry . Have a great week .