Jack Fritscher ~ Leather Blues
From: Gay Sunshine Press

Now on Amazon Kindle!

Jack Fritscher is probably one of the biggest larger than life characters of Gay BDSM Leather. He was editor of one of the long standing touch stones of the Leather community Drummer Magazine and lover to the very famous photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and best buddies with Larry Townsend. Shit, if there was a place to be or a person to know in the Leather scene in any given era he is usually involved.

What some people might not know with all the biographies and such he has written is he started out as a writer and author of erotica and some really wild erotica at that. Now I have to warn you the Gay BDSM sexuality found in Leather Blues is NOT anything like John Preston’s Mr. Benson all cleaned up with it’s good manners and that gentle introduction of BDSM that it does so well. All done up in romantic undertones and even given an HEA.

Leather Blues on the other hand is an extremely short story that was written in 1968 and it is about Leather with a capitol L. It’s about danger and risk with violent, bloody, piss covered, in your face sexual images and at it’s core it’s about, that term Jack coined, exploring “Homomasculinity”. Several guys I know in the Leather community today have mentioned this particular story when we have talked about what lead them into the scene and I can see why.

This story is about motorcycles and men in Leather sharing sexual experiences and sharing danger and sharing risk and in the end it’s about earning that feeling of brotherhood with other men. It’s hard core and chaotic and rebellious and it describes all those dark nasty things that draw guys into putting on a leather jacket and walking into a Leather bar and no one is wearing a stupid colored hanky or memorizing their safe word.

So IF, and only IF, you can step out of your comfort zone and want to see Gay BDSM Erotica outside the typical textureless, safety first, politically correct, bland as hell, latex wrapper it gets stuck in these days take a step back in time where all the raw ingredients of present day Leather got their start. It might shock you but I think people just might need to be shocked to really come to understand the difference between what people say “should be” good Gay BDSM Erotica and what is actually “read and loved” in Gay BDSM Erotica because I think there is a big difference. If I was a writer I would much rather write something that is edgy and loved than what is consider acceptable and politically correct.

Finally you can get this sucker in eBook.

Instigator Magazine

You might have heard me go on and on about Drummer Magazine and the HUGE influence it had on me growing up and the HUGE influence it once had on the Gay Community in general. Anyway, as you know Drummer is dead and gone but I have always kept an eye out for the next big thing.

I think that might be Instigator Magazine.

It does not quite replace Drummer. It’s just slicker and more advertisement oriented and frankly I wish they would spend less on the looks of the magazine and more space letting their sick twisted fucked up writers write about whatever. It is also a magazine that constantly gets in to trouble for exploring the type of Kinks and Sexualities that will shock the hell out of you.

So keep that in mind when you read about such things as Racial Sex Play and all sorts of crazy messed up things people do in those dark foreboding back rooms and bathrooms and wherever the sick and twisted perverts I love hang out at.

Also you will not find this magazine pumping content on the web. They just do not believe in such things and they frankly HATE most of the commentators and web denizens that have taken over the online “Leather Community”. In this case using the word HATE is not as strong a word as they would use. These guys believe in “actions not words” and “full on fucking” not a bunch of pontification on whatever pop psychology is being promoted at the moment.

Instigator Magazine is not a “How To Manual” it’s more of a catalog about what these guys who do this stuff think. They do not want you to join their club, they want you to look and listen and then do your own damn thing.

So take this as my full on FUCK YEAH recommendation of a resource meant to make you wince and wake you up and stimulate your mind for a change. Get a copy and take it for a ride or at least read it for the articles because these guys have some really important things to say.

Single issues can be found at the usual local Gay Bookstores or anywhere with an adventurous porn magazine section.

John Preston ~ Mr. Benson
From: Cleis Press

Somewhere there’s speaking
It’s already coming in
Oh and it’s rising at the back of your mind
You never could get it
Unless you were fed it

Now you’re here and you don’t know why
But under skinned knees and the skid marks
Past the places where you used to learn
You howl and listen
Listen and wait for
The echoes of angels who won’t return
Vertical Horizon ~ Everything You Want

And Here’s To You Mr. Benson

I miss Drummer Magazine, DAMN IT! It was the first Gay magazine I ever subscribed to, part pornography, part pop culture critique, part advice for the truly perverted man, sometimes as funny as shit when they looked at some off-the-wall fetish and always very masculine, in fact it’s title read America’s Mag For The Masculine Male. I love these commentators I see today revising history to fit the latest fad they are talking about like the Bear culture and going on about how Bears brought masculinity back to the Gay community and how they overnight founded a revolution, an anti-mainstream movement. Bullshit! Look at the original untouched grainy pictures and the original Leathermen published in these old copies of this one magazine. Drummer Magazine and the Leather community were years ahead in exploring masculinity, when the Bear movement was simply yet another fetish that Drummer covered in one of their themed issues.

I guess in talking about Drummer being a big Leather icon for me and most likely many others of my time I have to admit that I got involved reading it in the late 80′s and early 90′s when it was already slowly transforming itself first with slicked pages and then with even slicker models into a less honest S&M oriented forum. Some people swear that the only good Drummer were those with the grainy pictures and the news print pages. Sad to say even by the time I was finding Leather and Drummer Magazine it had been quite a while since Drummer had truly been instrumental in giving the hyper masculine world of Leather and Gay S&M a powerful voice with stories like this book right here. Drummer Magazine died a hateful, messy, irrelevant death in 1999.

John Preston originally wrote Mr. Benson as a short story, a small run through of what it would later become. The editors at Drummer Magazine were so impressed with the writing that they sent it back and requested that the story be rewritten into a novel for serialization. This novel was then run with its first chapter appearing in issue 29 in 1979 till the final chapter was published in issue 38 in 1980. I myself only have issues 35 through 38 of those. Mr. Benson became an eagerly awaited almost mythic tale and Drummer became the magazine to read for most Gay men. Soon t-shirts would appear with the words Looking For Mr. Benson across the chest and for the really daring and together Leather Tops they added a question mark to the end.

The story itself is actually quite simple it’s about two guys meeting in a nameless pseudo-Leather bar off Christopher Street in New York. Jamie the young bottom thinks he has got what it takes to handle Mr. Benson and soon learns he knows nothing at all. Most of the rest of the book is about Jamie’s journey into becoming Mr. Benson’s slave, his exploration of the mindset involved and the various nasty things that occur to him and with a relatively short side story that I can only best describe as something of a Nancy Slave and The Whipping Boys mystery that even included a van and yet no one asked for Scooby Snacks.

I want you to think about those boots, boy, think about the feel inside them. Think about how much you want to lick the surface of the leather… how much you want to suck on the feet inside. Think about them rubbing into your mouth and pressing against your balls… Keep those boots in your mind, boy… You have to learn every part of my body is to be taken care of, every part of my body is another chance at sex for you… I want you to get hard thinking about my toes… my fingers… every single part of my body.

Despite my picking on some of it’s minor flaws I honestly wish I had read Mr. Benson sooner than I did, it is an important addition to my book shelf and the writing really is not bad as S&M Erotica goes, in fact it’s very good. But… I have to agree with the comment John my Top once made about John Preston’s book giving people an inaccurate and highly fantasized expectation of what a real S&M relationship is about.

Let’s go over some common sense stuff for a minute since I am recommending this book.

Full Time Roles
Um well, first up, Mr. Benson has Jamie quit his job to become a full time slave. I myself have never been given a chance at this type of an arrangement and quite honestly I most likely would not take it despite whatever escapist fantasies I may still secretly enjoy. The saving grace here is that John Preston added an epilogue when the story was published in book form that goes a little further to explain this issue. Mr. Benson states clearly how much work it is to maintain the Top role with Jamie full time and from my experience as a bottom I can also state this is honestly the truth.

Even though you do eventually learn the habits, protocol, even the Top’s particular expectations of the role as second nature it’s not easy to pickup and it can take years to get it all down, from my view at least. Then to add to that difficulty the idea of having to maintain these roles from the start full time with no time-outs or downtime? Nice fantasy but not likely to happen. The other problem is not many people I know can afford the luxury of a 24/7 slave running around the house. When I was with John I was in the Navy and involved with a Motorcycle Club so just consider what type of a head-trip it would have been for me to change between those roles constantly with no decompression because yes, even a sailor has a role he plays. Think about coming home from work and not being able to relax or unwind. I don’t know if these type of role problems grow less or worse if you continue to be trained as what I was taught to consider a slave, since I never reached that level of commitment myself (although I do know the protocol gets stricter and even more defining), I still can’t believe it changes the issues of maintaining roles that much.

So Jamie has gone and told you his life story. I knew the little fucker was up to something. He’s been in his little playroom for hours every day, and I’ve known he’s been using the typewriter whenever I’ve left him alone in the apartment. I don’t care that he’s written it all down, not at all. It does sort of amuse me to read the result, though. Bottoms are so typical. They inject everything with so much symbolism and so much jargon. Not that he hasn’t told you the truth, at least basically. He’s right about the meeting, the training I put him through, and the ridiculous mess he got himself into. He’s even right when he tells you this is basically a love story. I’m man enough to admit I love the little bastard.

Real Tops Do It All/real bottoms accept everything
Most Tops I have met do not get off on or perform everyone of the following fist/fuck/whip/flog/water sports/scat/gang bang/bind/suspend/shave/pierce etc etc etc.
Most bottoms I know do not get off on or provide everyone of the following fist/fuck/whip/flog/water sports/scat/gang bang/bind/suspend/shave/pierce etc etc etc.
Doing all of this and being seriously into all of this would be interesting, and most likely make you quite popular. Expecting this to be the norm in reality or a requirement for being hardcore is a really bad idea. This is why there are always initial negotiations (Which is not shown in the book.) especially if you do not intimately know the person whom you are doing these things with. Just to really mess with allot of peoples fantasies here, quite a few Leather Tops I have met do not even fuck after the scene, they go home to their lovers. Just so you know.

The only other small quibbles I have with the story, that seemed sorta off from my experience was some other hard to describe intangibles like, there are many reasons men get involved in S&M and many reasons men choose to serve a Master, this fantasy only covers a few of any possible combination of reasons for these choices.

Then there’s the whole branding scene the night Jamie becomes Mr. Benson’s slave close to the beginning of the book. Now, I am not stating no one does the branding thing. But… one of the things John always said was a Top always keeps his bottoms recyclable. In other words, the bottom should be able to trust the Top and at the bare minimum expect to be able to leave the relationship in the exact same or even better shape than he came to him in. Branding is sort of a permanent deal to happen so quickly without the required commitment or even slave (absolute ownership) aspects being discussed like when Mr. Benson does the tit-piercing scene at the end of the book, you almost want to reverse the events. See, there are things I have a hard time describing in all this, changes in the rules so to speak, that would be hard to write about without a whole other post so let’s just leave it at “levels of commitment that do not follow the actions very well”. Not the best wording in the world there.

Anyway this is Grade A Gay BDSM Erotica you must read this.

So yet again I say here’s hoping this book makes it into eBook format soon.
Why are the Gay Presses being the last to adopt eBooks?

Here There Be Dragons!

The images and video cover art I show you on this post will not be sexually explicit to most people but any of the links may lead to pages that may not be politically correct and will most likely contain many examples of older hyper-masculine iconography and sexuality and subjects that many consider to this day taboo or forbidden. Please tread carefully with respect into these backrooms and archives of Gay Leather/BDSM and Gay Pornography and remember what the rabbit said.

It should surprise none of you that I should consider myself a gay dinosaur. I came out in San Francisco the summer of 1979 at the ass end of what could be called the golden era, the time before the crisis.

To me it was a time of the all night, all week, party in excess, of Saturday night Ritch Street Baths, of Hibernia Beach, of Sunday afternoons South of Market, of sexual debauchery and exhibition and exploration and individuality in extreme in full view every day and also of darker things. Young people like myself got their innocence stripped from them almost as a form of ritual, intelligent men fell into cycles of addiction and abuse. Gay sex as it turned out was not only liberating but also rough, raw, predatory and most likely selfish and later, for many of my friends, a death sentence. It was the wild west, and it was Disneyland, and it was at times a house of horrors. I won’t lie.

Anyway, this is not some pity party because I enjoyed myself too much.  This is about what I was shown when I came out and how I view 70s gay porn and especially the rare hyper-masculine films I see as an entirely different creature than what we see for sale today. I can at times roll my eyes at the slick muscle bound hairless models and the brain dead politically conscientious “safe sex” of today’s porn because for me there is something missing.

I grew up appreciating a much more taboo and forbidden and experimental and raw form of the porn product. In fact none of these films I will refer to here I ever considered as simply run-of-the-mill porno. These porn stars and porn directors were not plastic ken dolls and their movie making pimps. These were gritty movies with real intelligent men performing with all the good and bad parts of gay sexuality being shown. They had a “fuck you” point of view, they had shocking erotic story lines, they were created by artists seeking to show you “the desert of the real” more than getting you to buy a product and get off on the pretty boys.

For further study please refer to my favorite websites.

My friend BJ’s Gay Porno-Crazed Ramblings blog
and
Jack Fritscher and his Drummer Magazine website

Scorpio Rising ~ Kenneth Anger 1963

This is 196 “fucking” 3 folks, the year I was born. Let me present to you Kenneth Anger, the granddaddy of gay Leather/BDSM movies and not a single thing in this video is sexually explicit. But it sure is hyper-masculine from beginning to end. In fact it is avant-garde much like Andy Warhol who was also doing his movie Blow Job around the same time.

You will see the same iconography used by a much more familiar artist Tom of Finland in his drawings.

Here is a picture of a 1964 San Francisco Gay Leather bar The Tool Box which can give you some idea how the gay Leather/BDSM scene was already in full swing. I could also tell you about the first gay porn movie which is Boys In The Sand ~ Wakefield Poole 1971 but that to me is just a stepping stone since it is the following year with the release of L.A. Plays Itself ~ Fred Halsted 1972 that things really get rolling.

Fred Halsted movies are hyper-masculine porn legends and are nothing if they are not raw and sleazy and nasty. They are “hardcore” if there ever was anything defined as “hardcore”. Fred Halsted distilled the first hyper-masculine porn movie, an original copy of L.A. Plays Itself is owned by MOMA, but unfortunately L.A. Plays Itself is no longer available anywhere for purchase which is too bad. Catch this if it ever shows up at an art movie house near you but be aware it is not nice or gentle or mainstream and I hope someone eventually gets this on DVD.

We are getting closer to some of my very favorite movies but let’s stop over and look at Born to Raise Hell ~ Roger Earl 1974 which is the very first full on dungeon gay S&M porn movie. This one is important because everything about this movie is about as real as you are going to get. Everyone in this thing actually was a known participant in the gay BDSM scene and they worked it here because this movie is considered “the one” all other gay BDSM movies get compared to. You can still pick this DVD up over at Bijou World who has a ton of old 70s gay porn by the way like Falconhead ~ Micheal Zen 1976 which is artsy fartsy but loved early gay BDSM movie from around the same era.

So let’s hit it, the BIG THREE taking the most prominent position on my gay porn keeper shelf.
I present to you The Joe Gage Trilogy.

Kansas City Trucking Co. 1976
El Paso Wrecking Corp. 1977
L.A. Tool & Die 1979

If this era ended with a big bang it was right here in these three movies it got summarized. Even though today they are mangled and cut up and shredded by various censors over time before they got the chance to be saved onto DVD format you can still purchase them. As long as you realize the definitive versions with all the various experimental sex scenes found too troubling for the general public need to still be recovered. These movies had all the hyper-masculine sensibilities of a Kenneth Anger art film filtered through the raw “in your face” porno sexuality of Fred Halsted all smashed together and laid out for three awesome chapters. In fact El Paso Wrecking Corp. is probably one of the few gay porn movies I have seen that included a woman watching and masturbating during one of the scenes. If Joe Gage thought it represented a hyper-masculine fetish from country western music to truck drivers you can bet it can be found in these movies.

Maybe for people to understand my view point you have to look at these movies and hopefully “get” why I think you cannot just cut out the sex from any discussion of homosexual culture be it gay or lesbian. As much as I think you cannot sensibly discuss Gay Lit and forget to add in such touchstone classics as The Leatherman’s Handbook or Mr. Benson. Those books are still being bought and read even today so they still mean something. These films and these books must have had an influence on the gay culture of their time unfortunately we may have lost the very people who could factually discuss their exact influences but I think you cannot simply sweep them under the rug because they happen to shock people or are considered dirty.

A discussion of homosexuality is to me inherently a discussion about sex. If you are discussing sex you better be ready to handle what you find in the guys porn collection.