Go West
Sun in wintertime
Go West
We will do just fine
Go West
Where the skies are blue
Go West
This is what we’re gonna do
There where the air is free
We’ll be what we want to be
Now if we make a stand
We’ll find our promised land
The Village People ~ Go West
This has been the week I tell you. I am dead tired from working some late late nights this week and I am oncall… Whoopie!
Someone tried yet again to get on my case on Goodreads because I stated some things about Gay Men, something I think I know something about, and how they as a community approach BDSM and the type of things they practiced back in the day when I was learning the ropes.
Anyway, this crazy ass bitch started going on about how insulting I was being stating some basic bone head crap about BDSM stuff I had talked about in my review pointing out how Gay guys do this BDSM shit and she went on and on about her, and her “husband”, and what she thought BDSM was about and I was, I guess, forcing “my views” about BDSM on her somehow in my review of this craptastic book written by Stormy Glen who as far as I can tell is not only questionable in researching Gay BDSM but let’s just put it right out there and say I do not think she is capable of writing while using all the necessary parts a what most of us refer to as a story either.
MY VIEWS? MY VIEWS? OH BITCH, SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH IT’S ON!
So I had pissed her right off. In my sensitive piggy ways I basically pointed out the fact that unlike her and her husband I actually was “part of a community” that lived BDSM as a lifestyle. I would not call whatever “slap and tickle” games she and her husband were doing in the privacy of their own home “part of that scene” which is Gay and which is what I was talking the hell about to begin with.
So fuck the hell off bitch.
When I point things out it’s not what I learned from one fucking trick I picked up and had sex with people. I was a Centaur. I did things like hang around with 2000 Leather folks at MAL for the whole fucking weekend playing hostess for many years. I did things like go to IML and attend Inferno and I personally know both DC Eagle and San Francisco Eagle bar managers well enough to get MANY free drinks and maybe a couch to sleep them off on if I wanted to.
Listen, when I talk about Gay BDSM rules or conventions and let me just say l really have not talked about any of the advanced stuff I know about Leather Protocol and really most anything I might bring up is so basic and common sense every day bar going Gay BDSM shit it amazes me usually I would have to say anything about it.
In other words the crazy ass shit for special occasions or exotic particulars about how to do certain things like formal Master/slave dinners and or how to act at slave auctions or that shit. It’s so fucking specific to maybe even the time period or that event I learned it in… why even bother telling you about it?
You had to be there and see it in action for any of it to make any freaking sense at all.
In fact I think that is exactly what I am trying to get at.
There is a HUGE difference between whatever you people or even some of you Gay people do in the privacy of your own homes these days when doing BDSM and what I am talking about. I am talking about seeing many many many Leather people all getting together and interacting the way we did things back in the day when people actually dealt with each other “personal like” you know face to face and not in some hook up online on some chat room where people “play” at BDSM like a bunch of kids playing dress up pretending they actually know what it’s like to get whipped.
IT’S A BIG HUGE HELLACIOUS difference in my mind at least.
You guys can learn how to beat each other without getting hurt out of any old “how to” BDSM book you want. What I am talking about I picked up from actually knowing and talking to experienced Leather folks and being involved personally every day for years with groups of people living this Gay BDSM type shit as a freaking lifestyle. It’s the difference between fact and theory. Argue about theory all you want but the facts of doing and being experienced at something remain unchanged.
The understanding should be that I am not talking about more specialized things like Puppy or Pony play and some of the even more specific groups out there. I have met people who were involved in those groups mind you but I never really was all that curious about such things. I know enough though to respect them for having their own “community” and ways they go about doing things.
So no, I am honestly not telling “you” how to do all your BDSM.
I am telling you how everybody “who matters to me” and who “I respect” does Gay BDSM and I KNOW they KNOW what they are doing so obviously “they” are not “you”.
So feel free to be pissed off. I not only know something you don’t I got to try it out for real in public no less so it’s not like I care what you think. I am just pointing out how I and other gay guys actually did things for real. I was not asking for your approval.
Tags: eBook Commentary
Erastes wrote,
Hear hear. Your experience has no comparison with the pasted on bdsm I often read. I would never even try to write about it, as my experience has been purely silly hands against the bedstead games. good for you for sticking up for yourself, as if you wouldn’t – LOL.
Link | May 6th, 2011 at 2:04 am
TeddyPig wrote,
Well I am not trying to negate anyone. But coming at me saying “I” was being insulting for correcting the way someone wrote about what people do in my community and describing it absolutely wrong is blatantly putting the wrong shoe on the wrong foot.
Link | May 6th, 2011 at 3:12 am
Cleon wrote,
I really don’t understand people (or in some cases, sockpuppets) jumping into defense at negative reviews. It’s more likely to draw even more attention to the negative review and if you let it slide. Even if you disagree with it, just let it go, man. It’s Goodreads, not the end of the world. I gave Metamorphosis by Kafka 2 stars, but it’s still a literature. It’s just personal taste.
Link | May 6th, 2011 at 9:53 am
Beth wrote,
Teddy,
So, how would you recommend someone research and write about the Gay BDSM scene? Especially if they wanted to write a club or group oriented situation? I see so many people complaining about BDSM books out there (and no I’m not targeting you specifically it’s the generic people comment) yet never recommending any way to research or correct the problems in the stories.
Thanks,
MB
Link | May 6th, 2011 at 10:08 am
TeddyPig wrote,
The best way? Look for old Drummer magazines and read the event columns and editorials where your typical Leathermen types talked about the scene and the gossip and what real people were doing. The Bay Area Reporter also had Mr Marcus the columnist who followed the whole Leather Sash scene and you can usually get a hint at what was going on from him.
Pick up important writers NOT THE ONES that were trying to sell BDSM or tone it down for straight people which you will start to find around the late 80s into the whole Madonna 90s when she started doing all the Erotica stuff with the S&M. Realize also that it was the 80s where the original warriors of the community started dying off.
I have pointed out the other writers that were creating stories for the guys “in the scene”… Larry Townsend, Jack Fritscher, John Preston. These guys were talking to and telling stories for Leathermen not trying to merchandise them to straight people. It’s these books by and for other Leathermen where people should look for the real voices.
You are really trying to catch a glimpse of the attitude and looking for the iconic figures and the type of events that attracted these guys because no one ever really wrote an etiquette or “how to” book for them to use or anything like that. The Leathermen’s Handbook is really just a string of erotica stories so it’s fine for what it is but it was written by a journalist still new to the scene and doing research but there was way more detailed and experienced erotica out there written “for Leathermen” that would be more useful to you.
Link | May 6th, 2011 at 10:44 am
Beth wrote,
Thank you, sir. The advice is greatly appreciated. I’ll have to start looking for those sources.
Link | May 6th, 2011 at 10:46 am
Reggie wrote,
Wow TP, your life has sure been eventful!
A couple of things you said really struck me-
1-”Realize also that it was the 80s where the original warriors of the community started dying off…”
2- “You are really trying to catch a glimpse of the attitude and looking for the iconic figures and the type of events that attracted these guys because no one ever really wrote an etiquette or “how to” book for them to use or anything like that…”
It was a unique time between the 60′s and the 80′s before the devastation of AIDs struck and as you say not much has been written about this “club” scene (for lack of better vocab). There are a lot of reasons behind the lack of documentation but fiction might be a way of capturing some of the essence of this time and people. Have you ever thought about using your vision of this time as a backdrop for a fictional series? Maybe someday it would be a way to preserve something of the community that is now changed/gone. Fiction can concentrate on the HEAs!! 8)
Thanks TP for speaking up! I get soo tired of PCness, like people can’t just agree to disagree without getting bent.
Link | May 6th, 2011 at 8:56 pm
TeddyPig wrote,
Reggie I came out right at the very end of the seventies and the beginning of the eighties in San Francisco. So I am not THAT ancient dude. I do agree that Leather community has changed but not the real hardcore folks since my heyday there are many folks I know who are still out there contributing and doing their thing. They just don’t do the bars as much and I think the bar scene is dying but they are still doing the Leather Motorcycle Clubs and things like Inferno.
Link | May 7th, 2011 at 5:23 am