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The lovely thing about my hometown leather bar - and about leather bars across the world, and about the communities they serve - is the invite for everyone of every size. You don’t need to fit a mold - there is none. Countless guys like me - guys who work out but still eat donuts, who keep their beards trim and bellies natural - felt confident to lose shirts (and more). Skinny kinksters slinked through in latex. Large folks of every gender strutted jockstraps. Some, like me, wore almost nothing.Įvery body type was on display. Some were decked out in full-body leather (“full cow”). They spilled out the front and back entrances onto both porches, into the parking lot, down the sidewalk and around the block - men in various states of dress and undress. Most were gay men, but some femdoms (female dominants) were in attendance. Furry pecs were buckled down in black leather straps, asses were out, and every few minutes a man stood, coming up for air, before dropping back to his knees. Last Pride, the outdoor deck of my local leather bar was standing-room-only, a swaying mass of sweat and skin. They were taken mostly at the Seattle Eagle, but some are from leather and kink events, like the yearly IML in Chicago. Most of the photos in this gallery are by Matt Baume, a long time Advocate contributor. Here’s 35 rules of navigating a gay leather bar. I never feared coming out - but kink scared me.įear coupled with desire leads us all here - eager, fresh-faced, and ready to learn. Learning leather bars was different from learning life outside the closet.
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Lessons came later: dos and don’ts, codes and courtesies, good nights and bad ones. He pulls my hand and I follow him through the throng. Then he pulled my hand under his kilt: a fully erect dick with a massive Prince Albert piercing jutting through the head. He held me, we swayed with the music as he rubbed my chest. He put his arm around me and shouted in my ear, “Where are you from?” On the dance floor, I inched close to a guy with salt-and-pepper hair who was wearing a leather kilt.
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A circle of men stood around him and I didn’t dare peek through. His gagging noises mixed with the music and talk. Someone was choking on a dick in the corner. Upstairs, things were different - a quiet dive bar, people milling around wooden tables. I couldn’t tell if they were dancing or fucking. While New York honored LGBTQ history using virtual reality, Chicago's Boystown honored the history of LGBTQ people with these beautiful, educational monuments.In the room downstairs, a strobe flashed over mounds of muscle and harnesses. Many of the residents in Harlem at that time identified as LGBTQ, like poet Langston Hughes and writer Alain Locke. As a result, the new community had a creative outpouring of writing, music, and art. In the '70s, the Pink Triangle was reclaimed as a symbol of pride for the community.Īnother plaque along the Legacy Walk honors the Harlem Renaissance, which took place after World War I when people left the segregated South and fled to Harlem in Manhattan. One plaque focuses on historic symbols, like the Pink Triangle, an emblem that was placed on LGBTQ people in concentration camps during the Holocaust to further humiliate them. The Legacy Walk pylons feature short biographies for famous LGBTQ figures like Audre Lorde, Oscar Wilde, James Baldwin, Bayard Rustin, Freddie Mercury, and Alan Turing.