Leatherati

Leather Identity Project - What is a Boy?

I love graphs!  Almost as much as I love boys.

Check out this fun and informative data breakout from the Leather Identity Project.  Not only did they explore what boys think it is to be a boy but they delved in to perceptions from non-boys as well.  Fascinating stuff.

Be sure to take part in their current polls while you're on their site.

Boy data after the jump

Open and Kinky?

We just finished up another Leatherati Poll, this time on being open and kinky.

We asked "How open are you about your kink?" and got the following results:

It's about the breakout we expected to receive, although we expected that folks would be open to co-workers about their extra-curricular activities.

Leatherati Poll - Impact of a Transgender IML

Alex Lindsay, American Leatherman 2009

There has been a lot of discussion of late regarding the impact that the selection of Tyler McCormick, who is transgendered, as IML will have on the leather community.  The specific question we asked was: How will the selection of a disabled and transgendered man impact IML and the leather community? There have been articles and emails, conversations, and arguments.  We also expected that there would be a certain degree of ambivalence in this poll, and that was clearly the case.

The second and third most popular choices - statistically tied at (26.1% and 26.5%) are the perfect evidence of this bipolarity. On the one hand we have a quarter or respondents indicating that IML is now representative of the entire community, and on the other an equal number who state that IML no longer represents them.

In my opinion, this is a reflection of a philosophical rift that has been growing in intensity within the leather community—whether we should be working toward greater inclusiveness, or if we need to protect our individual identities. This is not to state that one or the other is the right direction for the community, simply that they appear to be beliefs held by comparably sized groups.  This is an area in which there is already ongoing discussion in various quarters.  I believe that we are seeing this reflected as well in events that are being produced - a quick look through the Facebook event calendar for the community will show a large number of events with a very broad target audience, not particularly geared toward men or women as an example.  It will also show a growing number of events with a very narrow target.  The number of events geared toward specific fetishes is increasing, and these are often targeted toward men only.  We are simultaneously becoming a melting pot and a federation of homogeneous focused interest groups.

Poll Results - What the hell should our clubs doing anyway?

by Loren Berthelsen, Editor in Chief

Leatherati's latest poll, which asked readers to tell us what they thought are the 3 most important activities our leather clubs and organizations should be engaged in, was prompted by a strange three-way divergence between perception and intention and reality.

Here's what I mean.  We interact with a lot of people in our community from very diverse backgrounds.  When you ask people officially, say in the context of an interview, what their club or organization does or what their mission is the answer is universally, "Fundraising". 

But...when you get people to let their hair down, their off the cuff answers are quite different.  Despite fundraising being the purported most important task of their club, people are really and truly tired of fundraising themselves and being confronted with fundraising at every turn and every event.

Let's look at the results.  The top three answers were:

#1 - Education - BDSM Leadership Skill - 56.4%
#2 - BDSM Play and Sex - 47.9%
#3 - Promote Brotherhood - 44.3%

And what came in almost dead last?

#9 - Fundraising - 8.6%

American Leatherman 2009 On The Leatherati Poll

Survey says!

Leatherati.com has an ongoing feature of placing a poll on the site on some topic of interest to the community. For me that provides great material for discussing the issues surrounding the poll in question. So, from time to time, when the polls complete, I'll be reviewing the responses, providing my interpretation of the results, some thoughts on the topic and the results, and looking for additional questions to ask to open discussion with the larger community out there.

The latest poll asked the big question "What purpose(s) do leather contests serve?"

First, the facts: there were 140 respondents to the poll. This may seem like a small sample but it is important to consider that nationwide polls attempting to account for the full population often will have a sample on the order of 2000 responses. 140 responses is a very healthy sample set for casual polling.

Each respondent could select up to three choices.

The results, in order by popularity:
Gather the Tribe (53.6%)
Dress Up/Show Off (30.0%)
Honor Our Heritage (27.9%)
Create Leaders (24.3%)
Fundraising (23.6%)
Pump Up Egos (22.9%)
Build Bridges (16.4%)
Bring in Newbies (15.7%)
Support Businesses (11.4%)
No Purpose (10.0%)

Poll Results - Integrated Play Spaces

Laissez Faire seems to be the mode du jour, but is it really?

Our leather/kink community is growing up...and having some growing pains to contend with.  One of the most interesting discussions we get in to is the issue of inclusiveness.  And believe me there are lots of thorny discussions which go way beyond simple black/white gender issues.  Were talking about multi-sexual, multi-gender, multi-indentified kinksters here and if there's one thing we excel at, it's not fitting in!

We laser focused on one question for our December poll - What is your opinion of integrated play spaces? - with four possible answers.  Yes, it's simplistic considering the complex makeup of our communities, but we had to start somewhere!.  Here's a look at the results:

6.1% Play spaces should always be inclusive of all genders and all sexualities

59.2% Every group should choose what works best for their members

6.1% Play spaces should be gender and sexuality inclusive but should have separate areas

28.6% Play spaces should remain segregated: men-only, women-only, gay-only, het-only, etc.