By Deborah Isadora Wade
Awards!
In Hollywood and the Leather Community spring is when the diva comes out in all of us and we like to give ourselves awards for it! We also like to hold our contests in the spring. It is award and contest time again in the Bay Area. Woo hoooo!
My favorite Bay Area Awards are the Golden Gate Guard’s Golden Dildeauxs, a yearly fluff of an award for giggles and cleaver fundraising. The big gold plywood unsanded cocks glued to a round wood disk and GGG in handwritten gold lettering is one of my most cherished possessions! I won one for “The Hostess with The Mostest” for the year I may have gone through a few beaus. My proudest, however are for “The Devil Wears Prada 2010”and for “The Devil Wears Off Ramp 2011” for leather fashionista of the Bay Area. Yes, I beat Lance Holman (Mr. SF 2010), who is younger, prettier and smarter than me two years in row! Got to love it when Momma beats the best dressed Leather god and most sought after leather dyke baby Daddy in the Universe; I kid you not. This to me is one of the most important awards of my life. Yes, it is shallow, tongue in cheek, fundraising and fun. Dun mess with my Dildeauxs, I would get very cranky.
So, getting ready to report on the Bay Area Leather Alliance Awards I did a little research. The Alliance is made up of two former entitees: The Inter-Club Fund and The Leather Forum. The ICF Awards were , according to the ICF Awards Book 2007, “The Motorcycle Awards, A major annual activity of the Fund is producing these Motorcycle Awards. This event honors individuals who have demonstrated skill in motorcycle riding as well as those who have exhibited special support of the member clubs and the surrounding community during the awards year. In addition this event is a fund raising activity for the grant fund.” The Inter Club Fund, made up of local motorcycle clubs was founded to provide coordination of rides and to provide emergency funds helping those who had accidents or health concerns. The Leather Forum was founded to coordinate calendars. In the 80’s between the Imperial Systems and the early Leather Clubs we raised dollars because we took responsible for taking care of our own, literally. It was a fund raiser. It had meaning and was fun.
The community voted Lance Holman (Mr. SF Leather 2010) the Man of the Year, Jody (International slave 2011) Woman of the Year, Alotta Boutte’ Entertainer of the Year, and Leland Carina voted Rookie of the Year. The Frank Benoit Award went to Jim Sullivan, The Philip M. Turner went to Mama and the Golden Gate Guards rumbled through and took almost all the run awards.
Today a portion of the proceeds from the LA Awards goes to the grant fund. When the two entities merged they became the organization they are now (The Bay Area Leather Alliance). What once was a coordination of events and grant giving to the motorcycle/leather community now is spending a lot of time and money producing events in the community. (The BA Leather Alliance Awards, Mr. SF Leather, The Alden E. Spafford Progressive Dinner, The Holiday Volunteer Appreciation Dinner, Leather Alley at Pride, etc.) The organization is changing.
Mr. San Francisco Leather
Mr. San Francisco was a blessing. Remember when we used to have sex? Remember when a fantasy was about play and sex? It was a pleasure to watch and listen to the enthusiasm of the leather community both bid Lance Holman (Mr. SF Leather 2010) a lovely goodbye and enjoy an evening of entertainment and banter. Lenny Bromberg and Donna Sachet were exquisite, per usual, with repartee that was funny, fast and furious. The contestants were smart, articulate, handsome and all of them worthy of the title. The title went to Darren Bondy. Darren has a history of community work in both Miami and San Francisco. He is also Mr. September 2011 in the Bare Chest Calendar and also the current Mr. Powerhouse 2011. Welcome to the title holder community!
LLC
The Leather Leadership Conference held its yearly conference in Los Angeles. LLC mission is “dedicated to strengthening the Leather/BDSM/Kink/Fetish community through the development of the leadership skills of community members and fostering a greater sense of connection between and within community groups.” We all sat in anticipation of the opening ceremony and a speech by Guy Baldwin. The opening was entertaining, although bereft of leather women. Again. People. Really. We all noticed it. Oh, yes, we did. Sometimes absence is not silent but screams at us.
Then the elder stepped up to the podium and pointed out the elephant. He actually talked and we all listened with a mix of awe, fear, anger, hurt and curiosity. Guy Baldwin’s talk was hard to hear, made me uncomfortable and it made me think. It sparked lots of my conversations over the next few weeks. You can read Guy’s words but what I heard included three themes: we need to do actual, factual, professional and usable research on the problems unique to our community, how do we stay viable as a teaching community?, and how do we work to end our own inner kink-phobia, to be proud of who we are and take care of ourselves? All of them are things leadership needs to consider.
We all have bruised spots from the whack of change. Change is a scary word. Almost as scary as “evaluate” or God/dess forbid, “strategize”.
As a teacher I was challenged by his words. Being challenged makes my sweet fat Aries ass lust for the test. Just as we all have individual relationships and play agreements, we also have different learning and leadership styles. As a teacher, I am always trying to present in ways that reach all learning styles and capabilities. I agree there are so many ways to learn in our community including real time, in person, sit across from someone and be personally responsible for your words and actions. This form of learning is not something I totally want to dismiss as passé’ in our technological culture. That being said, as a teacher, I was challenged by Guy’s words and his emotional plea for evaluation of my teaching content and our teaching venues.
I tend to ask people, now-a-daze, if it is okay to disagree with them. I am amazed at how many people don’t do well with differing opinions, skills and life tailoring. I don’t want, as an elder, to be seen as a bitter, cynical or angry old coot but yanno, sometimes as Stephanie Powers said, “Unfortunately, sometimes people don’t hear you until you scream.” Mr. Baldwin screamed. Now our job is to listen and build positive and constructive communities that are viable to our culture, make use of technology and remember basic human needs. We are brilliant people. I know we can do this with humour, virtuosity and joie de vivre.
IMsL, My Heart Throbs in San Francisco (Along with Other Body Parts)
IMsL is more than just a contest. I love IMsL. It is so womenfied. It is run on a prayer, a wing, lots of volunteers, dyke drama and laughter. What I mean is that it is an experience of all the senses. Biased? Me? Yes. Not many of us admit our biases, but IMsL is one of my blind spots, no matter how horrid the fantasy or brilliant, or who wins the actual Title, someone is actually getting caned in the dungeon and having sex in their err, her, err hys err his err zer rooms. Sweet Turan, this is a place people actually can fuck instead of attending a contest because the dungeon is open during the contest. This is where I get to see my family from all over the world. Yes, world. Those who say IMsL is not international insults all the women and men who come from outside the US to this event. There are more and more all the time.
About 700 people watched as Sara Vibes won her title as International Ms Leather 2011 and kd won her title of International Ms Bootblack 2011. Congratulations to them both. kd, being an artist is the gateway that enabled her to become a bootblack. The very nature of leathercare, leather worship, and leather community are all similar and connected to the core of being an artist. kd uses her art as a platform for conversation and education, and similarly uses her bootblacking as a means to support her community, open up dialogues about leather, and to get her hands good and dirty.
Sarah was born and raised in New York City. She is a black, polyamorous, queer, kinky, dandy top heavy princess. Vibes is a musician, writer, sex blogger and educator in training and a star fucker. AND her fantasy actually was fun and had sex in it! Young, vivacious and beautiful she will bring her own power to her title, just as all the women’ did before her. The vision of all the title holders on stage was powerful to all of us. From Judy Tall Wing to Mollena Williams, Sara walks a path that many women have walked before and she will bring her own power with her.
I simply love IMsL. I love the variety of women. I love the men who support us and party with us. I love the smell of women in leather. I love the screams/moans/laughs coming from the different dungeons. I love teachers who give their time and expertise. I love the people with headsets who talk to themselves all weekend. I love the giggles of girls. I love watching people watch us. I love the brave who make tourists erase pictures. I love caning bois bottoms. I love the lobby bunnies. I love the screaming delight of reunions and I even love the “Oh my gawd, every one of my fucking exes are in the dungeon.”
Home comes in many forms. Glenda, Rhonda and Tomo and their millions of volunteers bring us the best party of the year. Yes, it is the best. IMsL brings us food, drink, frolic, frenzied, lascivious, sexy, drama-filled, fucking fun event of the year for women.
Community
There is a big difference between "doing things right" and "doing the right things." The first is tactical thinking, and the second is strategic thinking; the first is management, and the second is leadership. We are a community, like all communities, of like minded individuals, we have our differences, we have our blind spots, we forget entire parts of our community and our leadership is always held accountable for its flaws while seldom lauded for our fabulousness. Contests, fundraisers, awards, conferences are all subject to discussion, evaluation and strategizing. I hope I never forget that we tend to wrap our leaders in a target. While the weapons of fear and derision are the choice of cowards; wit, planning, and positive energy are the tools of collaboration. Sometimes the need for change has to come with a screaming message while the stratagem for change needs to be reasonably voiced. I look forward to a full throated, strategically led chorus of collaborative change and growth.
Bio:
Deborah Isadora Wade is a fiery, flawed and fabulous femme. Retiring from social work and administration in 1999, she was a college instructor for University of Minnesota and The Women's Theological Institute. She was awarded a National Community Service Medal for her work in building collaborations and her 30 years of work with homeless families, domestic violence and sexual assault survivors. Deborah was a columnist for Lavender Press (Minneapolis/St. Paul) and Of A Like Mind. She is Co-Author of Partners in Change: Building Collaboration, a book on moving organizations from networking to full collaborative ventures. She has been part of the leather community for ten years. A proud member of Alameda County Leather Corps, she is Ms. Alameda County Leather 2009. As Mama’s Dragondancer, she is an adoring Momma, a delicious diva, a bossy and boisterous broad and a wee masochist. She may have a wee shoe fetish, umm collection.
Deborah, you are such a fabulous writer, and this sums up the recent SF scene beautifully. Like you, I'm proudest of winning a Golden Dildeaux this year - mine for "No Country for Old Men (our favorite silver fox)."
And you're right that in our efforts to improve, we sometimes come down too hard on ourselves. All in all, these events entertained, challenged and celebrated us. And isn't that what community is supposed to do?
Posted by: Rio | 04/28/2011 at 02:25 PM