Leatherati

Test, Treat, and PrEP

Race Bannon shared this very interesting guest opinion for the Bay Area Reporter that he co-authored with Luke Adams.

30 years on and seroconversion is still a serious issue in our community <shakes head> even given all that we know about prevention.

Check it out after the jump

Interview with Jörg Fockele - Podcast

As a follow up to our coverage of Ritual, which is a compelling BDSM-related segment of a larger AIDS documentary movie Still Around, we spoke with Co-Executive Producer Jörg Fockele about the movie and his experience directing the Ritual segment.

Podcast interview with Jorg Fockele

Still Around is showing at the Castro Theatre on Friday, June 24, 2011 at 1:15 PM.  Advance tickets are available at http://bit.ly/StillAround

 

Interview with Rick Osmon - Video

This Friday, June 24th at 1:15 PM at the Castro Theatre in SF, the documentary Still Around will have its West Coast premiere.  The documentary highlights 15 people who are still around and dealing with the impact of AIDS.

One of the segments is titled Ritual and features an extraordinary hook pull experience with long-time AIDS activist Jorge  Vieto Jr.  We were fortunate enough to speak with Assistant Director Rick Osmon in a two part interview.

Check it out after the jump

On The Front Lines of Safer Sex

 Check out this recent article by Will O'Brien in Metro Weekly about MAL 2009 hottie Matt Bamford.

When it comes to the local LGBT community, it's fair to say Matt Bamford is a bit of a celebrity. After all, he's Mr. Capital Pride Leather 2009 and the reigning Mr. Mid-Atlantic Leather.

In April 2009 -- having just moved to D.C. from Alaska the year prior -- he was not so well known, and certainly not to Dr. Terry Gerace, who headed to Ziegfeld's/Secrets in search of some models for a new safer-sex education effort he was launching.

"That's the story of my life: right place, right time," Bamford says. "I was bartending at Secrets. He had come in to look for some good-looking men and was wearing this 'FUK!T' shirt. I thought, 'Wow.'"

It's the same word that's likely passed countless lips as they view the result: Bamford and other locals in a sexy and edgy safer-sex campaign running online as a component of The Center's HIV Working Group. The campaign runs under two banners: TOOLK!T for the younger crowd, FUK!T for 21 and older.

IML's New Barebacking Policy

Whatever you call it, barebacking, ie fucking without a condom, is the highly charged 3rd rail of sex and the opinions are as strong as the stakes are high.

Is barebacking killing a new wave of us all over again?  Or is it just another risk aware behavior that we need to weigh as we negotiate sex and play.

But the most important question seems to be "what do we do about it?"

In this edition of Leatherati Issues we asked well-known members of the BDSM Kink community to address the decision last year by the International Mr Leather Executive Committee to ban bareback porn vendors and all bareback materials from IML.

Big surprise that their opinions vary widely.

Check em out and get involved in the discussion by either commenting on a specific article or by clicking on the Submit Content link to send us your own contribution or comment.

And most importantly, make sure you know the facts for yourself and make your own intelligent decision so that when things heat up you know whether you're going in without your glove or not.

Loren Berthelsen
Editor in Chief

Fundraising Gone Wrong?

Can good deeds be bad deeds if they're done by good people for good reasons in a bad place with bad people but will help good people with bad problems?

Huh?

Are you familiar with Recon.com?  The mega-men's-crusing-kink-event site out of the UK?  We've had a number of submissions and emails from people who question Recon's recent high profile promotion of an effort to raise money for people afflicted with AIDS in Malawi where almost a million people are living with HIV/AIDS.  That's almost 12% of the population according to the latest figures available through a UCSF AIDS website.  Several team members from Recon are taking part in a 500 K ride across Malawi to raise funds and awareness.  Information on the program and donation links have been firmly ensconced on the Recon home page for some months now.