This past week has been somewhat frustrating for me. A week that was supposed to be a bonkers celebration book ended by two big events – Manchester Rubber Weekend and the Great British Bear Bash with my birthday smack in the middle on a Wednesday.

Then COVID-19 happened.

*sigh*

My take on it is this: There isn’t much that we can do other than stay on lockdown and make the best of what we have. There isn’t much we can control, right? As frustrating as it is, we have to pretty much stay in and the only way we can be social is through online content.

We have to build it, and figure it out quick because none of us know how long we’re going to be in quarantine and it’s going to be different on a country by country basis.

That is what I want to focus on. Groups like

Manbears Manchester who value creating and maintaining a community, doing what they can to help bring people together during the lockdown days.

Great British Bear Bash was moved online with

• The lockdown quiz giving us a fun event over Zoom
• DJ Poni and Mr. Moodybear DJing epic sets online letting us all dance our living rooms or bedrooms
• Bearoke with Mr. Moodybear taking place Sunday

Scott, Burke, Nico and I attended these events virtuallyout of respect for the organizers who have worked hard to bring something together for people out there in the world, virtually.

Leathermen Scotland who, literally, formed this past April in the midst of a lockdown in Scotland, have held regular socials during the week and on weekends, a karaoke event and even a mixology class. Yes, they formed from the Glasgow Leather Social which has been running for the past year, but they’ve continued to maintain their community and hopefully unite Scottish Leathermen in the process.

Manchester Leathermen, Manchester Rubbermen, and SouthWest RubberMen even mass online communities like Kinky Bears vibrant with people interacting.

For years I’ve heard complaints in Toronto about, “There is no community”. I’ve NEVER been comfortable with people saying this because those are the people who sit back and do sweet fuck all to build anything.

If you want community then get off your arse and fucking build it. I’ve seen this countless times over the past year in Europe, people putting their heart and soul into their community to build it up and people genuinely appreciating it (even with nay sayers who do nothing but criticize. Those communities I’ve interacted with inspires me.

As much as I love travelling for work, unfortunately it doesn’t afford me much of an opportunity to get as involved as I would like to. On the flip side, Toronto has had to go through the near-collapse of it’s kink community, and new people need to come in, pick it up and rebuild it.

If we want it, we have to build it

I am also going through my own rebirth which started a year ago, and as part of that, getting out is part of that. The next part is starting to build something I am very interested in seeing grow – an actual discussion group for Rubbermen in Toronto.

Thank you Manbears Manchester and DJs – Aaron, Andrew, Mike, Richard, Steve and James for the work you’ve all done to change direction for this weekend, to build something for this weekend, to maintain and to continue building community.