I decided to look at and clean up private and draft posts. The title of one of my draft posts caught my eye from 2013:
“Blah blah blah we’re a dying breed blah blah blah”
It was a good read, I’m not going to post it currently, howeverI think it’s still valid because I see this sentiment out there. I’ve had some good conversations with folks in different cities that I’m connected to, and my counter arguments still stand.
Some concerns are completely valid – for example, one conversation I had recently surrounds consent and how people are breaking people’s boundaries and that impact on desire for people to go out. I hope that’s limited to a few folks rather than a community standard because I know I won’t stand for my boundaries being broken and people need to learn what “no” means.
I digress, some I would say are completely invalid – Leather men are alive and well out there and I can cite good concrete examples.
During my visits to the UK and Europe, I’ve seen communities crumble and rebuild. Scotland comes to mind with Leatherman Scotland.
In the United States, I’m seeing people raise the necessary questions, what do we want to be? This is what I’m seeing, is anyone else seeing it?
Focusing more on Toronto, I’ve seen the fall of MLT and Heart of the Flag. I’ve seen BLUF grow over the past year, having started two years ago, and I’ve seen younger members – the next generation step up and build events with great energy that foster not just leather but a significant number of fetishes and identities.
I’m seeing necessary change, communities looking inward, some good thought and execution. Build it and they will come in many respects.
I propose, the folks who are saying “blah blah blah we’re a dying breed blah blah blah” are the ones who aren’t willing to change with the times, and that’s sad because they could easily be focusing their energies on staking their place.
When people talk about safety, I’m feeling that we usually think of it in very narrow terms, such as the following:
Physical harm,
Rules,
Boundaries,
What’s “allowed” and what’s not.
Those things matter, but they’re a baseline and somewhat obvious.
As I’ve been figuring out my path over the past few years and sort myself out, I’ve realized there’s a much deeper nuance we might be tippy toeing around. We know it’s there, we just don’t bring it to the forefront of thought.
I’d like to talk about safety in the context of belonging — I’m talking about something broader and quieter. Something most of us feel instinctively but rarely name.
Safety is what allows a person to stay.
Safety Is Not the Absence of Harm
Safety isn’t just the absence of violence or overt cruelty.
A room can be technically “safe” and still feel hostile.
A group can follow every rule and still make people shrink.
A space can say everyone is welcome and quietly punish those who test that claim.
Real safety isn’t about what doesn’t happen.
It’s about what does.
What People Are Scanning for When They Enter a Space
When someone walks into a room — especially someone who has been marginalized, traumatized, or repeatedly excluded — they are scanning constantly. I know I do, subconsciously, asking questions like:
Am I welcome here, or merely tolerated?
What happens if I say the wrong thing?
Will I be ignored, corrected, mocked, or dismissed?
Who seems relaxed, and who seems guarded?
Is attention given freely, or does it come with a cost?
What happens when someone is vulnerable?
Do people stay consistent, or do rules change depending on who you are?
This isn’t paranoia. It’s pattern recognition.
People learn very early what it costs them to be visible.
Safety Is Predictability
One of the most important and underrated components of safety is consistency.
People feel safer when:
responses are predictable
kindness isn’t revoked without explanation
boundaries are clear and stable
feedback doesn’t come wrapped in shame
affection doesn’t suddenly disappear
You don’t have to be perfect to be safe. but I propose you do have to be reliable.
Inconsistent warmth is one of the fastest ways to make a space feel unsafe.
Holding Space Is an Active Practice
We often talk about “holding space” as if it’s passive. It’s not.
Holding space means:
letting others take time without rushing them
allowing discomfort without trying to fix it
resisting the urge to center yourself
noticing who hasn’t spoken — and why
not punishing people for being careful
not demanding performance as proof of belonging
Holding space doesn’t mean lowering standards or abandoning boundaries.
It means enforcing them without humiliation.
Safety Is About Not Making People Earn Their Right to Be There
Many spaces claim to be inclusive but quietly expect newcomers to prove themselves.
To be confident enough. Interesting enough. Resilient enough. Easy enough.
That’s not safety — that’s audition culture.
Safety exists when people don’t have to minimize themselves, overperform, or apologize for taking up space just to remain welcome.
Why Safety Comes Before Belonging
Belonging is often framed as something people should choose. I have argued in previous posts that choosing belonging requires safety first.
Without safety:
the nervous system stays alert
risk feels dangerous instead of exciting
connection feels temporary
withdrawal feels like self-protection
People don’t fail to belong because they lack courage.
They struggle because safety hasn’t been established yet.
What It Looks Like to Create Safety
Creating safety doesn’t require special training or perfection. It looks like:
saying hello and meaning it
following through on what you offer
being clear instead of clever
naming mistakes without shaming
staying curious instead of defensive
noticing power dynamics instead of pretending they don’t exist
Most of all, it looks like showing up the same way tomorrow as you did today.
Consider that safety Is an Invitation to Stay
When safety is present, something subtle changes.
People breathe differently.
They stop scanning exits.
They take small risks.
They stay five minutes longer.
That’s how belonging begins.
Not with declarations.
Not with slogans.
But with consistency, care, and the quiet signal:
You’re okay here. You don’t have to disappear.
A Final Thought
If you run a group, host a space, lead a team, or simply care about community, here’s a question worth sitting with:
What does someone have to do in your space to remain welcome?
The answer will tell you more about safety than any mission statement ever could.
For most of my life, I’ve struggled with belonging. There are a number of reasons—some I’ve known for a long time, and some I’ve only recently understood.
I’m writing this as a celebration, as someone who cracked and continues to crack the code for themselves—someone who did their best, who learned how to stop a cycle of abuse, and who finally understands what safety and belonging actually mean. I’m also writing it for anyone walking a parallel path who might need a few pieces of language—or permission—to see themselves differently.
Content warning: This series includes discussion of childhood emotional abuse, neglect, and bullying.
Part 1 — Belonging Wasn’t Safe
School and the Illusion of Choice
From grades six to eight, I attended a private school with a house system not unlike what you see in Harry Potter. For the boys’ side, the houses were named after trees—Cedar, Birch, Maple, and Pine, if I’m remembering correctly.
One week during a house assembly, I was talking with a peer about not feeling like I belonged. I did my best to form friendships, but I felt like a fish out of water and the environment was very different from the previous five schools I had been to.
The teacher who ran the house overheard me and called me out publicly. What I remember isn’t his exact words, but the message was clear: You make your place. You choose to belong.
What I felt in that moment was shame. The feeling that I was wrong for feeling the way I did.
Looking back, he wasn’t entirely wrong—but he also missed something essential.
At the time, I was already feeling lost and since, as a result of living life, I’ve realized safety matters far more than people like to admit.
A Childhood in Motion
By the time I reached that school, it was already the sixth school I had attended.
Not because I was a problem, but because of circumstance.
While moving didn’t help—first from Newfoundland to Ontario, then within Ontario, it was the bouncing between public and Catholic systems. Schools changed because of geography, pressure from my grandmother, and adults making decisions that never quite accounted for what constant disruption does to a child.
In Grade 5 alone, I was split across two schools and three teachers. One teacher openly disliked me. Another announced on my first day, “You’re not in my classroom,” as though I’d personally offended her by showing up. It turned out she was friends with the first teacher.
That kind of reputation follows you. Especially when you’re a sensitive kid.
From a social development standpoint, there was never enough stability to put roots down. Just enough connection to feel it, and then—gone.
Bullying, Sensitivity, and Learning to Hide
I was a sensitive kid and that alone seemed to make me a target.
Bullying started early, around Grade 2. I don’t know exactly why—awkwardness, sensitivity, being different—but I learned quickly that being seen came with risk. Grades 3 and 4 were exceptions. I felt safer then, and I formed friendships that have lasted into adulthood.
Then everything shifted again.
In middle school, the private school environment was deeply sports-oriented, arts-oriented, competitive, and class-coded in a way I hadn’t experienced before.
From a sport perspective, I lived with lower back pain I thought was normal. Confidence, especially physical confidence, felt like something other people were born with.
I wasn’t visually artistic, but did have an interest in music.
In Grade 6 I was outed—well before I had admitted to myself that I was gay. While it mostly faded by Grades 7 and 8, I don’t think it disappeared from the room in the way people like to imagine. Once something like that happens, the sense of being on guard for the next hit doesn’t go away easily.
At the same time, my family life was becoming more unstable. By Grade 7, the weight of things outside school was impossible to ignore with a situation involving my sibling and her boyfriend. I spent part of Grade 8 in the hospital, right as rumours and false allegations of sexual abuse were circulating about my family.
Safety was becoming a foreign concept, especially for a young gay man navigating being a teen, the pressures of school and of an unstable home life.
Where I Actually Belonged
There were places where I felt safe: Music and computers.
Those spaces didn’t judge me, didn’t disappoint me and they rewarded curiosity, focus, and creativity. They didn’t require me to pretend, I could just be.
That’s where I found my place—not because I chose it bravely, but because it held me quietly.
So when I think back to the one teacher’s words—you choose to belong—I understand what he missed.
Belonging isn’t something you can choose when you don’t feel safe. Before you can belong, you need stability. You need protection. You need at least one place where you aren’t bracing yourself for impact.
What I Learned Instead
What I learned early was how to adapt. How to watch. How to stay small. How to become independent.
Those skills kept me alive. They helped me succeed. But they weren’t belonging.
I wasn’t failing to belong. I was surviving.
And survival, as it turns out, comes at a cost.
Part 2 — Family, Conditional Love, and Survival Mode
If school taught me that belonging was fragile, home taught me something even more destabilizing.
It taught me that love could be given and withdrawn. That safety was conditional and stability depended on other people’s moods, fears, and unspoken rules.
Because I didn’t just survive this environment—I eventually learned to see it clearly, and seeing it clearly changed everything.
Adoption and Early Division
I was placed with my parents when I was three and a half months old. My sibling had been born ten years into their marriage; I arrived years later, adopted after they decided to have a second child.
By 1979, my parents were separated. They divorced in 1981.
I didn’t fully understand the dynamics between my mother and father until 2018, when I cleared out the house I grew up in and read their divorce file. What I found was complicated mess, and it complicated what I thought I knew.
There were allegations and bitterness – not too uncommon for divorce. There were narratives that didn’t fully line up with lived experience, and there were definitely allegations of abuse in the file, and I can confirm that at the age of 3 or 4 I did receive a belting from my dad, an unproportional response to what was going on.
What became clear, was that my adoption had been used as a dividing line—one that placed me in a fragile position from the start.
According to the file, my father initially refused responsibility for me financially. Whether or not every detail was accurate, the message had consequences. That kind of early division plants uncertainty deep in a child. Unfortunately, it was weaponized by my mother and sister into the 90s and onwards, so I question was this true?
Regardless, later in my life, my father showed up. He supported me. He was curious about who I was. He helped fund my studies abroad. Life was not as simple as villain and victim.
What was consistent was confusion.
My Grandmother’s House
Much of my childhood was spent living with my grandparents. On paper, this provided stability. In reality, it came with unpredictability and fear.
My grandmother had a volatile temper. Her anger was sudden and disproportionate. When I was caught trying to take my beloved Merlin game to school for show-and-tell, she discovered it in my bag and hurled it across the house, smashing it.
Some might call that discipline.
I call it abuse.
No child deserves to be met with that level of rage. And no responsibility was ever taken for those moments—only shame handed down and absorbed.
Saturday arguments were a regular feature of life which often led to my mother being afraid to hold it together, where we would live, who owed whom, and what sacrifices were required. As a child, those fights translated into one question: Do we belong here? Do I belong here? And if so, for how long?
Becoming “The Man of the House”
Between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, I was effectively expected to be “the man of the house.”, and that grooming started early.
That phrase gets romanticized. In reality, it meant emotional responsibility without authority, and duty without support.
I was expected to hold things together while being given very little in return. When I needed support—real support—it often wasn’t there. When I was hospitalized in 1988 and needed my mother, she declined to come, citing work and cost, despite alternatives existing, such as my uncle, her brother, being able to help.
I was scared. I was a teenager and despite other family members telling me they could support, I felt alone and didn’t know how to engage and speak up. When I finally said I needed help to immediate family members – specifically my mother, they fell on deaf ears despite the support she had.
Conditional Love and Weaponized Guilt
Love in my family was complicated.
There was a strong matriarchal dynamic in which men were viewed with suspicion and resentment—except when we were useful. The messaging was contradictory: men were “scum,” but I was the “good one.” Men were to be used, manipulated, extracted from.
That kind of duality creates deep fractures in worthiness. You are wanted—but not for who you are.
I later watched guilt be weaponized. I was blamed for my grandfather’s death after he fell and broke his hip while “under my watch”—a fall that led to complications with anesthesia in hospital. That accusation followed me for years.
It doesn’t matter whether logic supports it. Trauma doesn’t operate on logic.
What it taught me was that love could be revoked instantly and it was. My mother and sibling kept me arms length unless they needed something. I never understood why, I was never told, so I was left asking and expecting support that never came.
Radical Independence as Survival
I learned not to ask.
I worked from the age of fourteen. I paid for my education, my rent, my living expenses my self with no expectations of support from my immediate family. I figured things out because there was no reliable place to land.
Even when I struggled financially or medically, reaching out didn’t feel safe. My broader family stepped up.
Independence became my armor.
It looked admirable from the outside. From the inside, it was exhausting.
Why Family Felt Like a Fallacy
When I went to university, interest in my life faded almost entirely from my mother and sibling. I had to insist on visits. I had to insist they attend my graduation. I had to fight to be seen.
I remember telling my mother about my first pay raise after I started my career. Her response was, “You should be giving some of that to me.”
That moment crystallized something I couldn’t yet articulate: my value was measured by what I could provide.
Family, as a concept, was hollow and a fallacy. I was truly on my own.
When I encountered functional families—friends’ families, my cousins, eventually my husband’s family—the dissonance was stark. I didn’t believe I was worthy of that kind of care. Even when it was offered, I struggled to accept it.
That belief followed me for decades.
Survival Mode Has a Long Half-Life
Everything I did made sense. The walls. The independence.
The difficulty accepting love. The push-pull dynamics. The fear of being pushed out.
These weren’t personality flaws. They were adaptations.
And they worked—until they didn’t.
Part 3 — Cracking the Code
If the first part of my life taught me how to survive, this part taught me something radically different: how to stay.
What I eventually learned—slowly, imperfectly, and with help—is that belonging was never missing. It was waiting for safety.
When All the Old Fears Collided
There wasn’t one breakthrough moment. No single realization that suddenly fixed everything, but there was a period of time when everything I feared converged at once—and I couldn’t avoid it anymore.
A 17-year relationship was ending. At the same time, another close relationship I deeply valued felt suddenly unstable as my partner was navigating the end of his marriage and the beginning of another relationship. I found myself in a place I knew far too well: not feeling safe, not feeling secure, and bracing for abandonment from multiple directions at once.
It was terrifying to describe the feeling at the time.
That fear didn’t come from the present moment alone. It tapped directly into old wiring—the belief that love disappears without warning, that stability is temporary, and that I would be left alone once again in the crossfire of other people’s choices.
For the first time, I couldn’t explain it away or push through it with independence. My old strategies stopped working.
Naming the Fear for What It Was
What I was facing wasn’t just grief, jealousy or insecurity.
It was fear of abandonment.
Fear that I had never learned to soothe because for so long it wasn’t irrational—it had been reinforced. When love had been conditional. When care had been withdrawn. When being “strong” meant being left to handle things alone.
That fear showed up in every part of my body – hypervigilance, anxiety – the urge to pull away before I could be pushed out.
This is where therapy stopped being optional and became essential.
Not to stop the fear—but to understand it.
What Changed Wasn’t the Situation — It Was the Response
The relationships didn’t resolve overnight. What changed was me.
For the first time, I didn’t treat my fear as something shameful or something to outrun. I stayed with it. I named it. I let people see it—carefully, selectively, but honestly.
Something unexpected happened – I wasn’t abandoned. People stayed.
Not perfectly and not without discomfort, but consistently enough that my nervous system could finally register something new: I don’t have to disappear to survive this.
That realization didn’t “fix” me but it gave me a foothold.
From Crisis to Practice
That period cracked something open.
It forced me to confront the belief that had shaped most of my life: that connection is always temporary and that I am ultimately on my own.
Healing didn’t come from the crisis itself. It came from what followed—learning how to tolerate closeness without panic, uncertainty without self-erasure, and love without bracing for collapse.
That’s when belonging stopped being theoretical. That’s when practice began.
It Took a Village
Support changed my life—real, consistent support—from people who had the capacity to see me clearly and stay.
My aunt, uncle, and cousins;
My husband’s mother – my mother-in-law,
My husband,
My partners,
My therapist
These were people who didn’t just offer reassurance. They offered steadiness. They showed up again and again. They didn’t punish me for hesitation or guardedness. They didn’t withdraw when things got uncomfortable.
They stood by me modelling something entirely new: love without a trapdoor.
I didn’t trust it at first. I couldn’t. My system didn’t know how.
They didn’t rush me. They stood by me.
Learning to Accept Love as Real
For a long time, love felt theoretical.
I could recognize affection intellectually, but I couldn’t feel it land. My instinct was always to scan for the withdrawal, the cost, the moment where the rules would change.
Therapy helped. Not because it erased the past, but because it gave me language for the patterns I was living inside of.
One concept that stuck with me was the idea of a mirror.
Some people hold small mirrors—they can only see part of you, often the part that confirms their worldview. Others hold larger mirrors. They have the emotional capacity to see more of you, even the complicated parts.
Understanding that distinction was freeing.
It helped me stop chasing recognition from people who couldn’t offer it—and helped me invest in relationships where I was actually being seen.
The Practice of Worthiness
Healing didn’t happen because I suddenly believed I was worthy.
It happened because I asked quieter questions:
What if the people who love me are telling the truth?
What if I don’t need to earn my place?
What if I was worthy of connection and didn’t need to sell myself short?
What if the version of me I learned to hate was built in self-defense?
What if I am a beautiful person and not the monster I thought I was?
What if I was not the ugly person I thought I was?
What if I don’t need to disappear to stay safe?
What if people were right that I am worthy and chose to listen to that, to try it on
Trying those questions on was deeply uncomfortable.
Old beliefs pushed back hard. The nervous system doesn’t give up survival strategies easily, so I didn’t force it. I practiced. I practiced staying and just being with it. I practiced letting care in without immediately deflecting it. I practiced noticing consistency instead of testing it.
Over time, the negative voices softened. Anxiety stopped running the show. The constant self-monitoring eased.
Not because I became fearless—but because I became safer. I trusted myself.
Belonging as a Practice
Here’s the part that changed everything for me:
Belonging isn’t something you find. It’s something you practice until the room notices.
Not by demanding space, not by performing, not by proving but by arriving less guarded. By staying present. By taking up space without apology. By trusting that you don’t have to disappear to be loved.
Once safety exists, belonging can grow. Once belonging is practiced, it starts to reflect back—not as permission, but as recognition.
Where I Am Now
I still have moments of doubt and I still have old reflexes. Healing isn’t linear, but I see and feel continued progressive healing and every time I notice it, it’s a huge win.
The difference is profound. I no longer live in survival mode. I no longer confuse independence with isolation. I no longer chase love where it can’t exist.
If you will, the blackout curtain burned down. What remains is light—sometimes steady, sometimes flickering, but real.
For the first time in my life, I know this: I belong here. Not because I earned it, not because I proved anything, but because I stayed.
Series Note
If you’ve seen yourself somewhere in this series, I hope you know this:
Nothing was “wrong” with you. You adapted. And adaptation is not a failure.
A year ago, I took on building connections. I’ve known for years where I’m best able to build connections, so I specifically sought out non-bar spaces and events.
That’s when I learned about the Bears/Pups swim that takes place on Mondays at the Wellesley Community Centre. As a result,
I’ve met a bunch of non-judgemental people that are open and welcoming, and that’s been fostered by a small community,
I used to go into the Black Eagle and my social anxiety would immediately go into overdrive and I’d become a wall flower. I now know people who will likely be at the Eagle as a result of the cross-community nature of that swim,
I’m also connected to people online and have a source list of events and such so I know what’s going on in the city be it more social or bar-based and people who are attending.
This week has been the first Leather Week that has taken place in several years in Toronto. I’m not exactly sure who specifically arranged it, but I’ve heard that BLUF Toronto was involved. To whoever was involved, thank you for your work to set this up. For the events I was able to attend, it was amazing.
When I heard about it, I became excited. I knew I wanted to be present and add positive energy to the community. I knew that I wanted, for me, to connect with others, to really change my view on going out in Toronto, and to finally lay claim to whatever my spot is.
I know when I attended my first BLUF event in Toronto about two years ago, I did not go into it with the right attitude. I didn’t say it was bad, but it did feel like a bunch of cliques in gear that weren’t open. I also recognize that you generate what you make of it, and I call myself out on that. I know I went into it that event with anxiety and with certain expectations that didn’t need to be there.
Talking to the Bootblack for the night that was staying with us, it seemed a bit of both. People were commenting about some of the anxiety they were feeling about connecting with others, so I guess it’s the combination of what we all bring to the space, our abilities to be social.
The energy last night was bonkers amazing. It felt connected, relaxed, and alive in a way I’m not sure I’ve felt in Toronto in a long time. I know part of that came from a real shift in how I approach this city—but I also know I wasn’t the only one feeling it.
When people let their light shine, great things happen. For me, that doesn’t mean being louder or more outgoing. It means paying attention to the energy I bring into a space—my expectations, my mood, the stories I tell myself before I walk through the door.
It means arriving with the belief that I belong there. That I’m worthy of connection. That I don’t need permission to take up space.
No one had to create that space for me – it was already there. I claimed it by showing up less guarded, more open, and willing to connect. And when a few people do that at the same time, something shifts. People begin to hold space for each other—often without even realizing it.
That’s the energy I felt last night. And it felt really, really good.
Maybe belonging isn’t something we find—it’s something we practice until the room notices. Not by forcing connection, but by showing up consistently and honestly, without armor. By acting as though we belong before there’s any guarantee that we do.
Over time, something shifts. The room begins to respond—not because it was convinced, but because it recognizes something familiar – comfort, ease, presence. Belonging doesn’t arrive as permission; it arrives as recognition.
For me, that practice has meant resisting the urge to shrink, to brace, or to disappear the moment I feel unsure.
It’s meant returning again and again with a little more openness each time, until being there starts to feel natural. Until the room no longer feels like something I’m trying to enter, but something I’m already inside of.
When that happens, space doesn’t need to be made—it already exists. And we step into it together.
I’ve always had a high libido — a strong, alive, curious sexual energy. I love sex. I always have, and yet, something about the way I desired was different.
I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on the past 30 years of being out and my recent world view changes as it pertains to attraction, connection, sex and relationships and finally everything makes sense for me.
I wasn’t drawn to novelty for novelty’s sake. I wasn’t fed by surface-level encounters. I didn’t feel turned on unless something deeper aligned — even if I couldn’t name what that “something” was.
Yet for years, I was searching and I was wondering:
“Is there something wrong with me?”
“Am I too sensitive?”
“Do I expect too much?”
“Am I too much?”
The reality is, there was nothing wrong:
I’m demisexual.
I’m hypersexual.
I’m emotionally deep.
I’m non-monogamous.
For the first time in my life, my desire finally makes sense.
Demisexuality is about what activates attraction.
For me, sexual energy is relational:
It’s intuitive.
It’s emotional.
It’s energetic.
I can feel instant attraction, absolutely, and it’s happened several times — but only when someone radiates:
Presence
Depth
Authenticity
Emotional warmth
Resonance
My desire doesn’t respond to aesthetics alone. It responds to alignment.
When I feel that alignment, my sexuality is intense. When it’s not there, the desire disappears instantly.
Thinking back in recent years as I’ve explored this new world, it’s absolutely clear that emotional connection has always been super important to me.
While I do enjoy playful, casual, lighthearted encounters, my “fun” has an emotional compass and it’s been this way since I came out. I’m laughing to and at myself as I think back about different encounters, relationships, my feelings, how I respond – it all makes sense.
I need respect, sincerity, attunement, warmth and a sense that someone is present, not performing.
There have been many times where I thought there might be a connection, and then, suddenly, it vanished, and with it, so did my attraction. Sorry to those guys who have been wishing to get with me, but if it’s not there for me, I’m going to engage you in other ways.
It’s not because I’m fickle, not because I change my mind easily, but because my intuition said, “This isn’t aligned anymore.”
It’s this that I now listen to.
I’ve been looking for more social venues and ways to connect that isn’t a loud bar night.
Connecting with guys on the apps and cruising sites, I look for depth and how people connect. I’m not looking to just fuck, typically.
When I hit the bathhouses, I’ll happily wait and look for guys who have the right vibe, energy – you get the picture.
I turn down a lot of guys who just want to get their rocks off because I’m not looking to just get my rocks off.
One of the clearest examples of how my desire works was my attraction to my partner Sté. It totally threw me for a loop.
This is a man I had known online for 18-20 years. I thought he was handsome in pictures and we had common interests. When we finally met, I could not take my eyes off him and the energy he resonated – just wow. He shone bright!
He felt:
Grounded
Sensitive
Open
Authentic
Sexually alive without ego
Emotionally attuned
Present in a way that felt rare
He didn’t hide his sexuality behind bravado. He didn’t perform masculinity — he inhabited it, he owns it.
There was a brightness to him, a kind of unapologetic authenticity, that struck something deep inside me – recognition.
The more I got to know him, the more something else emerged — something I hadn’t felt often in my life I felt safe, and I know others have said the same about him.
I don’t have to defend who I am
I don’t have to over-explain – although sometimes my anxiety leads me to over-explain
my emotions won’t be twisted
my vulnerability won’t be used against me
I can be myself without shrinking
Through the early days, he didn’t flinch, he didn’t step back. He simply accepted me and it felt like grounding and stabilizing.
He mirrored something in me I often keep guarded — my depth, my sensitivity, and my desire for honest connection. He reflected something that had always been there.
Reflecting back on what I now know, I saw how my demisexuality and my sexuality align when I meet someone whose presence resonates with my own.
Before my triad with my boy John and Sté, my emotional needs weren’t fully met. I was searching — not for sex, but for resonance. When you’re demisexual and emotionally unmet, desire can get messy, or it certainly did with me:
You chase intensity instead of intimacy
You seek connection through sex
You override your intuition
You confuse hunger with attraction
You feel restless instead of aligned
After experiencing emotional safety — real safety — everything shifted.
In my triad, I found:
Love
Depth
Presence
Trust
Stability
Mirrors that reflect instead of distort
Partners who see me and hold me as I am
Which then gave me capacity to find better connection with my husband, to become increasingly confident and more direct, though occasionally still hesitant with my Leathersons and other relationship dynamics I’m building. but with time comes confidence.
My sexual world grounded itself, desire stopped being hungry, attraction stopped being scattered and my libido became anchored instead of chaotic.
This is what demisexuality looks like when it’s supported. This is what healing does.
Why openness + depth is my sweet spot?
For me, deep emotional connection and sexual freedom nourish each other.
I thrive on:
Deep intimacy
Secure attachment
Emotional resonance
Erotic exploration – I do consider myself a sex geek of sorts
Playful curiosity
Openness without fear
Connection without scarcity
My partners – all of them -give me the depth I need. Openness gives me the freedom that feels true. Together, they form a relationship style that feels like home. I don’t explore because I’m searching for something anymore. I explore because I’m full.
My exploration — whether sexual, relational, playful, kink-related, or curiosity-driven — comes from:
Joy
Curiosity
Fullness
Alignment
Desire
Expression
Expansion
Abundance
Confidence
Freedom
Not from trying to soothe a wound.
It used to be
Needing validation
Craving attention
Chasing emotional closeness
Trying to fill loneliness
Wanting distraction
Trying to feel alive
Trying to soothe abandonment wounds
For the first time, I understand why:
Some men spark immediate desire
Some leave me cold
Attraction disappears the moment emotional alignment shifts
My need to “search” vanished when my emotional needs were met
Casual sex became fun instead of compensatory
My libido is high but grounded
My desire is selective but strong
My sexuality finally feels coherent
I listen to myself now. I trust myself now. My desire follows my truth, not my wounds.
For the first time, I feel aligned in my sexuality.
Community is one of those words people throw around casually, but not everyone believes in it.
Years ago, when I was in my twenties, I crossed paths with someone older who insisted that “we didn’t really have a community” here, meaning the Bear community in Toronto. He said it often — sometimes directly, sometimes through cynicism dripping into every conversation. I never bought into his view, but because he’d spent so long as a community builder (tired, frustrated, burnt out), part of me wanted to understand him.
But honestly? He was a real downer.
The problem wasn’t the community — it was his mindset.
He saw only flaws: the drama, the differences, the politics, the personalities. I’m not sure what he expected — I’ve been out 29 years and I’ve seen plenty of change
Back then, his cynicism hit me in a place I didn’t have language for yet. I felt talked down to, like believing in community made me naïve. For a while, it made me question myself — but the older I got, the more I understand that his bitterness wasn’t wisdom. It was burnout. And chose not carrying that forward.
I think he failed or refused to see what was directly in front of him — the humanity underneath. The connection. The small but meaningful networks of people looking out for each other. The subcultures within the subcultures that kept the heartbeat going.
His negativity didn’t inspire me — it drained me. It dimmed his own light.
It made me step back and observe for a while. What I eventually realized, though, is that I already knew what I believed:
We have community. We will always have community. Community doesn’t disappear just because someone can’t see it.
I’ve watched a lot of people move through queer spaces nitpicking, deconstructing, criticizing, pointing out what’s missing, what’s broken, what’s not “good enough” to count.
But here’s the thing: Community doesn’t arrive fully formed
We build it. We shape it. We choose it.
A handful of people in a bar is still a community. A group of queers who only meet once a month is still a community. A circle of kinksters with different viewpoints is still a community. A messy, imperfect mix of humans trying to show up for each other — that’s community at its core.
Cynicism kills possibility..
It turns every room into a mirror of someone’s bitterness. It pushes away the very connections people claim don’t exist.
It’s that’s something I refuse to participate in.
I’ve seen firsthand what negativity does — not just to the room, but to the person holding it.
It shrinks them. It isolates them. It colours everything they see.
His example showed me exactly what I don’t want.
I choose to see queer community — especially leather/kink community — for what it actually is:
A network of relationships, friendships, chosen families, and spaces that overlap, intersect, and support one another.
Clusters of people, spaces, and experiences that overlap and support one another.
Some tight-knit. Some casual. Some unexpected. All real.
I’ve always tried to add something good to that network.
Something steady. Something warm. Something that contributes rather than corrodes.
I’ve had my frustrations like anyone does, and there have been moments I stepped back. But I’ve always found my way back to contributing something good to that network.
I recently went on a three-day business trip, something I haven’t done much of since switching roles at work. The reduction in travel has been a blessing in some ways, but I also miss what it gives me: new places, new perspectives, new people, and the small jolts of life that come from being somewhere different.
Travel does feed me.
On the flip side, it also costs something that most people don’t see.
On social media, travel looks glamorous: the occasional upgrade, the nice hotel, the meals, the novelty of meeting people I’d never cross paths with otherwise.
What doesn’t show is the heaviness — the exhaustion, the dips in mood after long days, the loneliness of a hotel room when you’re too drained to be social but craving connection at the same time. And then the crash when you get home: wanting to go out, but feeling like your body and mind are tapped out.
It’s this experience that I want to focus on in this writing.
Before the pandemic, I spent a full year living in the UK — my most intense travel period since I started consulting in 2002. From March 2020 to October 2023, I hadn’t been away for work at all and since, only doing one trip a year.
In that time, something became clear to me: I never really put down roots in Toronto.
People know me. I have friends here. But there’s a difference between being known and being connected.
And for a long time, I wasn’t connected.
After COVID, connection became one of the most important things in my life. Not surface-level, small-talk connection — real connection. The kind that feels grounded, mutual, and meaningful. I know where that need comes from, and I choose to honour it now instead of minimizing it. I choose to honour and no longer minimize my need for real connection.
When I went to The Black Eagle here in Toronto, I realized I barely knew anyone. I stood there like a wallflower, and it didn’t feel good. I needed a space where I could meet people in a way that wasn’t superficial or transactional.
About a year ago, I found a group of guys who swim on Mondays. Honestly, it’s been the best thing I’ve discovered in this city. I love swimming — and I love the company. Being around like-minded people in a space that’s not loud, not chaotic, not overstimulating has been grounding in the best way.
And the bonus? When I do go to the Eagle for Bear nights, BLUF, or other events, I now see familiar faces. I feel at home. I feel part of the fabric instead of watching it from the outside.
Now I’m looking at the next step: Building my actual place in this city.
For years, I’ve been here physically, and at times, during my titleholder year, I even had a bit of a public persona. But underneath, I’d retreated. I’d hidden. I’d dimmed my light for reasons that were real at the time but no longer serve me.
I’m ready to be present again. To show up. To stop hiding and let myself be seen — in a way that feels grounded and authentic.
It’s something that I really didn’t have an understanding of until I considered that I may be living with it, researched it, and the pandemic, plus some brewing personal situations that I needed to resolve was really the impetus for me figuring it out.
I think, when people think about anxiety, they think of the stereotypical suburban housewife in the 80s and earlier, taking Valium, not able to cope with things; which does a real disservice to women and stigmatizes what anxiety is, and how it can be treated.
We’ve come a long way since then and while mental health is still misunderstood, the treatments, compassion and care that exists today versus what I’ve seen friends go through, say, in the 80s is night and day.
NOTE: This blog entry discusses my mental health journey and while aspects here might help you, I am not a mental health expert and I advise you that if any of what I have written resonates with you, do consider speaking with a therapist.
Consider being in a situation that involves someone else where your mind is racing trying to figure out all the angles, possibilities and outcomes of the situation in advance so you’re prepared to get through any variant of the situation – a perpetual what if machine.
You’re nervous about saying the right thing in the right way because it’s super important to you, you have often been misunderstood in life, so you want to make sure you’re heard and understood. It consumes you and takes up valuable cycles you could be using to focus on other things in your life.
You become irritable, emotional – you want to do the right thing- you want to do the right thing for yourself, you also want to be considerate and do the right thing for the person you need to talk with and open up to, but you can’t because you’re trying to find the perfect way to meet your needs, their needs, to be sensitive to the other person and true to yourself.
You agonize over it. You beat yourself up.
At least, in how anxiety has been showing up for me, this has been a common scenario. I recognize that anxiety shows up in a multitude of different ways for different people. Overcoming and learning to live with anxiety is a unique journey for everyone.
There are a few approaches I figured out for myself that seemed to work
I write it out as it helps to get out of your head – a theme – and allows me to collect and organize thoughts. I can spin so hard, its very hard to keep thoughts organized.
I talk to others to get out of my head – starting to see a theme? Mainly because I have the sense to say, “I need help!”. I know I’m stuck inside, and need to check in with someone else who is outside the situation to get a reality check, to be challenged and ultimately to help stop that spinning so I could do what I needed to do – which was to talk the person I really needed to.
In some situations I’m able to talk directly to the person, which really is how it should be, but it’s not as smooth as it really should be, and even in those moments, when talking things out, my head can be spinning hard.
That spinning is not kind, it will pull in other baggage, and it’s very hard to dig out. I knew that if I talked directly to the person involved about the situation I’m spinning about, it’s not going to be pretty. At least, that’s what I thought at the time.
In all honesty, no matter how weird or meandering or even ugly the path to the resolution to the situation you’re in is, dealing with it straight up is actually better. The people that can and do see past your baggage will be the ones that will help you figure things out and support you in seeing through your anxiety and triggers.
The character of Anxiety in Inside Out 2, a recent movie from Disney-Pixar, anthropomorphizes a great representation of anxiety. I really feel that if I had this story growing up, it may have given me some good food for thought or at least planted a seed where I could have realized earlier what was happening and lessened the impact on my life.
I’m not going to talk here about how I was able to connect the dots that lead to me learning how to mitigate my anxiety as it did involve some unconventional methods. The parts I will talk about are
it did involve looking at situations that were triggering me. At the time I was dealing with triggers constantly going off from multiple sources – I am surprised I kept it together. For me, this was typically the starting point for where anxiety starts for a given situation.
I had the sense to take the time to understand why I was triggered – what in my past is trying to inform me that I’m in some form of “danger zone”? This part of my looking inward journey was huge and I had to build courage to go there and face my interpretation of the past, and heal from it. I had to go back and deal with my past.
I spent time with my therapist to talk through what I was seeing and experiencing.
Most importantly, I have some amazing family around me who gave me:
a safe space for me to be able to deal with whatever I was dealing with in real time as things came up,
while they called me on my shit, it was clear they had my back and loved me and stood for me being a better Iain, and they were invested in being part of my life just as I wanted them in my life,
the space to make mistakes and learn from them,
reminders that I was worthy of that support and love,
a voice, that would be listened to, where I felt heard, and people took the time to understand me and what I was dealing with,
where I could get reassurance and learn to trust that reassurance,
where I could express emotion and not feel locked up, that i was wrong for just feeling and expressing that emotion – that my emotions are real and valid,
challenged me in a good thought provoking way – during that whole period I was constantly hearing “Get out of your head, Iain”,
giving me the love and respect that I really needed to get through such a weird space that I happened to get into, that I needed to dig out of.
While only I could do the work, having that support network was what I really needed to sort myself out. Definitely a gift the universe has given me.
Today, I can say my mind is the quietest it has ever been, ever. I cringe thinking about the times it lead to awkward and explosive situations. I’m not comfortable with it, and all I can do is accept that it happened and where required clean it up. learn from it and be a better person.
Anxiety has shaped my life for an incredibly long time. I can go back to my childhood where it started. I have no idea if it’s something that I’m predispositioned towards or a learned behaviour – I suspect a combination of both.
I certainly recognize what I went through, and the situations that made me a pro at the spin and keeping things to myself. My strong independent streak because I couldn’t rely on or didn’t even have the support I should have had when I was younger, and keeping things to myself as a result, among other things, all this adds up, and I am not surprised at how this turned out. It was a perfect storm.
I am proud of the man I’ve become, I’m proud of the hard work I’ve done on myself to be a better human. The true me has always been upbeat, personable, hardworking, someone who wants to do the right thing, make the world a better place and an introvert-leaning ambivert willing to look inwards,
The people that matter, I know, are also proud of me. I would not be where I am without them.
I am a care taker and a fixer personality. I do my best to take care of people. I’ve been doing this from the age of 13.
I learned to take care of myself and my own needs, taking control of how and where I get cared for. Unfortunately, with that experience of not feeling I could ask to be taken care of, and especially at that time of not being taken care of when I should have had that support, I learned to take care of myself.
35 years later I’m realizing the degree to which that has impacted me and my ability to ask to be taken care of, and letting others in.
Me constantly giving has been my call for, “I want to be taken care of” too. Don’t get me wrong, I actually do enjoy taking care of others, and will continue to do so, though, it should be mutual instead of one-way and not to the point of no capacity, to the detriment of myself.
I’m at a point where I want and need to let others in, I want to ask to be taken care of however that looks – simple stuff, the basics, such as just being held – to feel that affection – the anxiety of asking for it and the fear of rejection shuts me down. I’m afraid of that.
There’s a part of me that’s tired of asking, I just want someone to take the reins and, for once, or even simply ask me, “What can I do for you?”. I want to be confident in that I can actually say, ‘This is what I want and this is what I need” without that fear and anxiety. I’m often doing it for others, why aren’t they doing it for me – OR – what am I actually missing because i don’t recognize that people may, in fact, already be doing this for me.
Is my head really that deep in the sand?
I don’t know how to ask for it – yet I know I can ask for it; I don’t know how to ask for affection – yet I know that all I have to do is to speak up; I want to be seen, and yet, I know people see me, I know people love me. I’ve only just been able to see how people love me, and actually accept it – for example, my partner before me heading home saying, “Get home safely” in his Dad voice. It threw me for a loop and initially my walls went up but then I realized that was his way of showing me love because he values and cares for me, and I was able to accept and I deeply appreciate that intimate moment.
It’s a level of intimacy I want to experience and share, and I sort of have, but really letting it out and letting go is scary. I hold it tight as many of us do.
With being so hungry for it, with the anxiety, I can come across self centred and at times selfish. When you’re in that deep, it can be really really hard to communicate effectively and I know I’m doing my best to say, “Hey! I’m here and this is what I need”, and I know I’m holding myself back to the frustration of my partners.
I often feel alone, despite being with people, despite my amazing family around me – my husband, my boys, and my partner. Not uncommon for people who are care takers.
The anxiety I’ve been living with leads me to completely misinterpret people’s actions – the opposite of what is truly intended and I’ve had to actually ask, “Do you actually mean…” to challenge my understanding and world view. It hurts, greatly, and even more I hate having to ask at times, but it feels like I am hurting my partners in the process and it’s just another strike against me. I hope they realize that I’m healing and getting better each time I ask and open up.
Someone asked me recently, if I felt like I was entitled to and deserving of love, relationship, and connection. That hit hard. I sometimes feel like I’m not deserving of any of it – when I know damn well I am worthy and deserving. I push down my needs, saying I don’t matter, constantly putting myself and self care with it, letting my anxieties take over.
I want to stop the ups and downs of the rollercoaster I’ve been on, and I want to be more consistent and settled.
I have a much better understanding of what has happened in certain points of my life. Spaces and relationships that were once considered ‘safe’, perceiving being rejected and my needs not being met, becoming ‘insecure’ and the insecurities that come with it.
I want to feel secure in my relationships. I need to be secure in knowing where I stand. I no longer want to be that nomad searching for my place. I want to be able to interpret how people show me love as love and appreciation.
I’m tired of love being transactional, but it’s all I’ve ever known. I’ve had a taste of what true love and the connection that comes with it, and it feels amazing.
“I don’t want to lose you.”, I said with tears in my eyes in December 2020, and thus started a journey of hard work, healing, connection and learning heaps about being in relationship.
You can’t help but learn heaps about yourself when in relationship, especially when you start new relationships whether poly, mono, open, etc.
We get comfortable in our existing relationships that have we’ve been in for a while, right? We get used to each other and accept things as they are. I know Scott and I certainly have in our 25 year relationship.
Recently getting into a triad and navigating poly dynamics, I’ve learned an huge amount about myself that I wanted to share that may be worth considering in your own situation.
I don’t think this is just limited to poly dynamics, but whenever someone starts a new relationship, I think you learn regardless of the context.
Vulnerability Vulnerability is important in relationship on several levels and it can be really scary, especially if you’ve been hurt in the past and hold things close.
For example thinking, I can’t say something, I can’t open up because I might hurt the other person, repressing my feelings and thinking that I don’t matter, that my needs don’t matter – much of this was all about being afraid of being vulnerable.
By being vulnerable you not only show an aspect of who you are but you give others a chance to show who they are.
Do they want the same kind of relationship as you or generally on the same page? Are they supportive when you’re processing? Do they listen? Do they acknowledge and validate you, but also do they give insights that build you up? Do you do the same for them?
Being open allows your partners to better understand you and to create a connection that may not normally be there – I have a much deeper connection with my partners and it also helped me to be better at ease with myself.
Even if it goes the other way, where others are not wanting what you want, you’re still one step closer to understanding what you and they want in relationship and finding those that will be more in sync.
Communication I’ve had to be straight up with myself and with all of my partners. This meant having some really uncomfortable discussions, always with sensitivity or doing my best to be sensitive. It’s also meant that we’re on the same page. Everyone knows where they are at, and what kind of relationship we want to build, and bringing closure to situations or even relationships.
Calling out that you’re doing your best to communicate and that you may say something muddled, awkwardly, etc., does help and goes a long way. Scott and I have used this approach for years as I’m not always the most articulate when faced with needing to communicate something uncomfortable.
Jealousy and Envy Jealousy and envy will rear their ugly head. In my instance, a lot of this was and is related to societal programming, and triggers we have from past hurt and pain. Much of it was also around repressing my needs and wants, putting myself second and a long time issue around thinking I don’t matter; and then trying to dig out of that when I had needs and realized that I actually do matter.
It’s funny how, at least in the poly and open case, that societal programming almost suggests that we should feel jealousy and envy, also that fear of missing out which is complete bollocks.
We got through it by listening to each other, being gentle with each other, showing each other that the opposite of what our brains is telling us is what we want; being open to hearing the other out, and not being defensive, but considering how we may have been, our interpretations and perceptions. That space was created to just be with our emotions.
People often say they hate the concept of perception, but it’s clear that one person’s reality shaped by our experiences, is not going to be someone else’s experience shaped by their own reality, hence perception. You can’t ignore this fact.
Compersion, the opposite of jealousy is such a neat feeling. That feeling of genuine joy when partners get to experience something together and you’re not with them. We all feeling considerably closer as a result.
Triggers I used to think that triggers were about repressing myself, i.e. I triggered someone else and as result I had to curtail something about myself rather than the other party learning something about themselves. I’ve dealt with this for a good portion of my life and after 47 years, I got to the point where something had to change because not everything is my fault and I’m not the one that always has to change, watch myself, etc – feelings I carried with me for a long time.
After being triggered myself and triggering one of my partners, we had a really good talk about this and realized that it’s often more about the triggered person having to work through something. This was a huge lesson for me.
They also didn’t mean to trigger me and with the things they came to me with, it wasn’t something that they would have known was a trigger, but it did. It’s not their fault.
While, yes, I triggered one of my partners, I didn’t do so intentionally and I didn’t even known that trigger existed in them. It opened up an opportunity to learn from each other, and an opportunity for my partner to heal as we create a space for that out of our commitments. As a result we’re a lot closer and understand each other much better.
Triggers can sometimes compound – One of my partners inadvertently hit on a bunch of my triggers spiking my anxiety in the midsts of “New Relationship Energy”; and it was difficult to dig out from all of them, but we were able to together with respect, compassion, and love.
Again, being vulnerable, opening up and having partners I could trust to be sensitive and supportive went a long way. Having someone to help provide a space and reassurance to get through a trigger is always welcome. It speaks volumes about their desire to be connected to you in the way they support you.
Also important is the desire to get to the bottom of behaviours and that commitment to work on the issues. I was ready to sort things out as was my partner.
Anxiety I’ve learned about how anxiety has presented itself in my life. Much because of being on the receiving end of jealousy, envy and triggers for a considerably long time. I repressed myself and my needs so much that, for example, when I went to play with my boy, I couldn’t. I was frozen and totally in my head.
My anxiety would spike considerably and very much hit a head last year and it’s something I had dealt with for years, presenting itself as relationship anxiety and performance anxiety. I questioned myself – a lot of what ifs, what’s wrong with me, am I broken; and statements like I must be broken, I must be the one to blame, it’s all my fault.
For me, anxiety was a symptom of things I needed to learn and did learn from the above points.
As time has gone on and I’ve healed, I am a lot more at ease with myself. I can recognize patterns, my performance anxiety is subsiding and I am a lot more connected.
The result of the work I’ve done on myself and that partners of mine have done on themselves has set the stage for making all of my relationships considerably stronger than they ever were.
