This weekend, Master Chuck will be a headline speaker at Tease which is a well known Pansexual BDSM annual camping event.  Sir will be presenting two parts on Leather Family Dynamics and Pavlovian Response Training.  I will be presenting on Cock and Ball Torture (and Pleasure).

The organizer, Dark Angel or DA for short, has taken great steps to make each year different rather than making the event cookie cutter.  He approached Master Chuck back in November/December to be one of the headliners to which everyone has been looking forward to.  I’ve also heard some rumblings about my course – in fact one person has said, “Why would I want to hurt the thing I love?” *GRIN*  I’ve got a few responses for her.

Dark Angel has gone out of His way to ensure Sir and I, and others, feel welcome within Tease and the Dark Angel’s Lair events.  This is a man who recognizes that Pan kink events need to be exactly that – pansexual, covering all sexual orientations.  He also makes a point to get people to think about their biases.  The DA you hear in the podcast is only the tip of the ice berg of a man who seems to really understand community.

Admittedly, I’ve not had a great experience teaching in the Pan community with the exception of TO Kink about 5 years ago.  I’ve not cared much for Pan events either, due to certain interactions that I have experienced – sense of entitlement, almost that straight-bar vibe and experience that I can do without.  A few of my fellow Leathermen have felt similarly.  A few people, including Master Chuck’s Leather Son Chris, Dark Angel and Master Chuck himself have gotten me to think about those experiences I’ve had and to look at some recent experiences I’ve had in the Pan community.

I have also taken the time to look at some of those individuals who have been part of my Leather life not necessarily in the men’s community – and you know, there are quite a few upstanding individuals who cross between the gay and pan communities.

As a result, I am, now, actually very much looking forward to teaching at Tease.  Actually, quite excited.

Recent discussions on Fetlife, Guy Baldwin talking about the state of Leather in the United States has certainly got me thinking about the state of Leather in Canada – and closer to home in Ontario.

At Spring Iniquity hosted by NLA Houston, Guy Baldwin gave a rousing speech on the state of Leather in the United States. To quote directly from the speech:

I think some would see this as, “Turn your back on the pansexuals”.  I don’t interpret it that way at all.  The gay Leather community as a whole in North America is getting older and we need to concentrate on bringing up and educating men who want to be part of our community regardless of age, but we do need to concentrate on younger members as they are the lifeblood of our community.

Looking back on my experiences within the US, I have noticed quite a bit of integration, if you will, between the gay and pan Leather communities which is quite established. It’s understandable that gay men in the US, in certain regions, have spent a lot of time bringing up the pan community.  Guy Baldwin’s call to action makes sense because who is going to be the next generation of Leathermen that share the traditional values of Leather?  Leathermen need to look after ourselves to rebuild the community.  Any member of the pan community who has spent time in the gay community would recognize this.

I agree whole heartedly that the gay male Leathermen community needs to look after their own.  We need to build up and show a younger generation what we’re about.  We as Leathermen also need to change – in a world where kink is no longer dominated by just Leather, but now there’s rubber, other gear, etc… We need to be just as accepting of others in our community – and I think the shift we’ve had has been towards that acceptance.  I can acknowledge my own biases when I was first coming into the scene.  While I primarily identify as a Leatherman and boy, I am also into Rubber and other gear too, so how can I be a hypocrite and look down on other gear enthusiasts?

Population-wise, Canada is small, as a result the gay community is smaller and the Leatherman/Leatherdyke community is even smaller than that.  This means we need to work harder to bring up a new generation of Leathermen – and we desperately need it.  The connection between the gay and pan scenes, I believe, is not as well established as it is in the US – and as far as I know, not a lot of gay men have travelled in pan circles as far as I am aware.

In Canada, I do not advocate ignoring our pan brothers and sisters.  I also don’t advocate integration per-se.  I like our separate male spaces, our separate female spaces, and our pan spaces.  I like when we can come together united while respecting our separate spaces and I believe we should have two-way bridges built.  There are a lot of pan-folk who attend the So You Want to Be Kinky Seminars; but less gay-Leatherfolk attend pan educational events like the BAM! events in Barrie and Tease.

Can we build the gay men’s Leather community together?  At one level I think we can – when it comes to learning about play and some D/s dynamics, sure – after all, for example, I learned about fireplay within the pan community.  At that level, whether I learned from a straight woman versus a gay man really does not matter.

At another level there is that that mentorship that only a gay man can give another gay man due to our experiences – the same can be said about mentorship from Leatherman to Leatherman.   It’s kind of like a boy learning to be a man – if you grow up without that alpha male figure, and believe me I have lived this experience, it’s that much tougher.  By our nature as humans, we all want and need to be around like-minded people.

There was a post on Fetlife in the Leadership Forum that asked, essentially how can we get more gay men out to pan play events?  Sadly, my response was deleted by the moderator despite the fact that I did answer the original question.  My response showed some of the differences between how gay men and perceptions of how the pan (read as straight) community plays.

Gay men incorporate a lot of sex into their BDSM play and we seek out sex positive places to play – our homes, backrooms, bath houses and dungeons.  Where at the time I was visiting the pan clubs, this was not so, and it felt weird (my words) not having that level of sexuality that I was used to.  I got used to it as I explored within the Pan community, but for some men, it would be a deal breaker.

Some Leathermen would take it further and say that they don’t want to be gawked at, they also don’t want to have to deal with judgements – after all not only are we judged for being gay, but we’re also judged a second time (even by the gay community) for being kinky.

I also have felt that at times, and I realize I am generalizing here, where I feel that some people in the pan scene come across as putting gay Leathermen on a pedestal as if we’re the “Mythological Gay Leatherman Unicorn” – no disrespect meant to the Unicorn MC celebrating their 40th year and the oldest Gay Motorcycle Leather/Levi club in continuous existance in Ohio.  Gay men don’t need that level idolization, and I believe that most of us would be more than willing to share our knowledge without the pedestal.

And then there is the fact that some gay men are simply not comfortable around women – not my own personal issue.

So there is quite an up-hill ‘battle’ if you will, if the pan community wishes to have gay men show up at their events.

As my brother says, the pan community does need to be fully pan – and there are people out there working to break down those barriers and to help make pan spaces accessible to everyone regardless of gender, sexual orientation, gender orientation and identity.  It’s there if we, as gay men, want to build those bridges.  Yes, we will probably always deal with some degree of stigma and personally I am happy to rise above that stigma and my own baggage to provide an educational opportunity.  The pan community, at least in Southern Ontario, is making the effort.

I also want to add that in smaller communities, there is no segregation between gay and pansexual BDSM community.  The communities need to be integrated in order to have that critical mass to survive.  Look at the work that Master Chuck is doing to build that critical mass in Northern Ontario between Sudbury and North Bay, and you’ll see what the experiences are in smaller places in our province.  We’ve got it good in the big city, where we can have our niche.

I would really challenge any gay man who has hangups around being in a pan BDSM space or says that they are uncomfortable around women to push past those issues and see what the pan community has to offer, and what we can offer the pan community.  You will find there’s quite a bit we all have to offer.  Yes while they may do things differently, almost like being in the wild west to some degree, I think you will find a friendly group of people who are mostly genuinely interested in learning from us.

Master Chuck’s Leather Son Chris wrote two well thought-out blog entries that are worth reading.  He and I have spent many an hour talking out some of our frustrations about the Pan and Gay BDSM/Leather scenes:

• On Leather
• Gay Representation at Pan Play Spaces

Also, there is a panel discussion called “Is Leather Dead?  Does It Need to Die?”  featuring Guy Baldwin, Race Bannon, Michael Thorn and Gayle Rubin on Wednesday, July 27th, 2011 from 7:30pm to 9:30pm at the Andrew Spencer Ceremonial Room, 4th Floor of the SF LGBT Community Center at 1800 Market St. in San Francisco.  I am hoping to attend this discussion just before the International LeatherSIR/Leatherboy & International Community Bootblack weekend, and hope you might also be able to attend.