If you look around you will find references to the almost mythical greatness of the Old Guard Leather community. Many feel this community, based in gay SM and Fetishist men, is the root of what we currently call the BDSM Community. We who now pursue BDSM look back on stories of those times gone by and sigh wistfully of the supposed good old days. The intensity of it. The raw sexuality. The underground mystique of those days and the Old Guard ways.
It may be that we all eventually become Old Guard.
Old Guard Leather is what we call those people who explored BDSM back before our time. They did things differently and the things we hear about now have had a great deal of their harsh roughness worn away by the passage of time. A lot of the reality has gone missing in a game of BDSM broken telephone over the decades. What many think of as Old Guard traditions and ritualism is a romanticized and simplistic version passed along by outsiders repeating stories they have heard or read. Idealized and revised to sound sexy and appropriate in this very different social time.
When the Old Guard were exploring BDSM it was about as safe to be an 'out' gay man as it was to be black. Absolutely everything about their sexuality had to be kept underground. Between persecution by the authorities and rejection by the citizenry the gay community had to close ranks and screen anybody who was seeking admission into their world. It was likely a time of fear and caution for any man who wanted to link-up with another man for sex. All these souls, so isolated from one another, now were also looking for hot leather sex. Anonymous by necessity.
What we hear of is the traditions of "earning your leathers" and the secure world where any submissive would know he could take it from any Dominant in the community because of a sense of Brotherhood, Fraternity, Semper Fidelis. Old Guard Leather stories neglect to address the terror of living in a society that reviled them. They had to have that tight community if they were to survive. You might not know His name but if he was wearing the cap and was at an event you knew He had earned it and so you did have a place where there was a sense of safety. That Dominant knew something about Leather Sex or he damned well wouldn't be wearing the badges of his role. The Community wouldn't let him. Such protocols kept out the undercover cops and gay bashers who would equally love to get a gay submissive tied up for a while.
I'm not in any way ridiculing or minimizing the World that those men built for themselves in the way back when. It must have been amazing. What I am trying to highlight is that those BDSM'rs of long ago had as many and probably far more problems pursuing Leather Sex (BDSM) than we do now. Yet we hear the stories and dream our little dreamy dreams of Old Guard and Old Leather and wishing it could be like that again. We want the tight community and sense of comradery but would likely not be willing to accept the persecution from everyone else.
It's like members of the Society for Creative Anachronisms (SCA) who dress-up in medieval armour to fight glorious battles and attend crowning ceremonies for Kings of their local groups. They adore the pomp and circumstance but rarely think of the deaths by dysentery, arbitrary raping of peasants or lack of electricity and running water. The neglect to consider that statistically they would most likely have been peasants with short, miserable lives.
They remember and want to relive the glory but without the dirty underbelly of the 'reality' they believe they are so accurately reproducing. Arguing about the appropriate style of handstitching to be used on a gown but continuing to bathe in lemon-scented soap and brush their teeth with minty-fresh gel each day.
My girl and I have each written recently of a growing disillusionment with parts of the BDSM Community. It is no longer meeting our needs for social interaction. I've heard others referring to "the kids" who are making up the munches and play parties of late. Not all necessarily so very young but all new to this BDSM thing and pursuing it in a new way. We seem to be members of a generation of BDSM adventurers who are becoming outdated.
The Internet was in its infancy when we started out. Text based chat rooms made connections possible but nothing like the profusion of websites, online videos and other virtual resources available today. Play parties were 2 or 3 a year where now that many can be enjoyed per week if one is willing to do a bit of driving. Munches, brunches and other informal meetings are to be had as required and are publicized through the web or Internet so they are easy to find while I had to connect through a facility in San Francisco to locate my group here in Kitchener.
Again, things are changing and the Community I started out in seems to be going underground to avoid contact with "the kids" that are making up the current groups. We are stepping away from a Community that no longer holds the values we needed in our days. Values we held to protect ourselves from a public who did not understand and were afraid of those who practiced S&M. We had our own protocols and traditions and it wasn't as hard to find us as it was for those Old Guard men in their time but it was harder than it is now.
Now there is S&M on television every weekend. We have car companies putting up fetish sites to sell their new models for 2008. Movies have strongly fetishistic wardrobes and some are even outright fetish films about Dominance and submission and the sensuality and sexuality of that life. Books on flogging, whipping and rope bondage are available in Coles, Chapters and Borders instead of sleazy underground sex shops. You can buy handcuffs, whips, crops and canes at the Stag Shop and other franchise pornographers during business hours which are extended during the holidays to allow you to get that special someone a leather blindfold for Christmas.
Don't even get me started about the prices.
It's a different world, a different culture and BDSM is becoming as edgy as taking up jogging. With the loss of that edginess some of us may be becoming the dinosaurs of a bygone era. Stepping aside for the Dominants who pour a few drinks into their submissive partner, get her involved in a three-way in a hottub and call it D/s. Feeling out of place in parties that allow scenes to include whips, canes and knives but don't allow welts or other marks to be left on the submissives' bodies.
Perhaps someday somebody will look back on our time and sigh wistfully about the way it was.
Achilles