Leatherati Voices

Risky Business - In Praise of Contests

By Deborah Isadora Wade 

I have won two contests in my life.  One was Ms. Alameda County Leather 2009 with Richard Sprott as my Mister.  (I tell you there is nothing better than having a brilliant, handsome sash husband.)  The other contest was the 1954 Most Beautiful Baby of Washington State.  I had a perfectly shaped head (my mother kept the scoring sheets).  Of course as a toddler I had no choice to be in a contest, as an adult I did.  I won both. In what other community would a fat, feminist, ferocious, flawed femme win a contest based on image, personality, smarts and service?  Really!  Think about it.  

Contests are radical.  Contests are the radical body and front stage performance of alternative sexuality.  They support the amazing acceptance of body.  I find fat women and men who live in their bodies who are able to display them with sexual elation knowing they are beautiful, sexy and hot fucking inspiring. Leather contests are about putting the radical belief that how and who we fuck or want to fuck or dream about fucking is not a disease.   Contests support “in your face” joy and power of living our sex out loud.  Sexuality is part us from birth to our last breath.    Sexual power exchange is powerful and extremist; contests celebrate both.

Contests are fun.  Although competition can be fierce, it is supposed to be about being present and visible as a kinky sex pervert.  If you define kinky sex pervert as anyone who as any other kind of sex outside the missionary position, that about covers all of us. We live in a global world with thousands of miles between friends and family.  Contests bring us together to just be, to laugh, to visit, to play, to feast, to celebrate, to just fuck around and to smoke cigars while getting a blow job on the balcony.  In 2009 at IMsL I remember being in the hospitality room for the Cigar and Boots Party.  As one of the few sober people in the room I leaned back against the wall and wallowed in the energy of laughter and moans.  Gloriously fun!  I delight in the memory of partying with Randal Kinnear, Olivier Pratt and PupSparky at 2am in Dallas after the International Master and Slave Contest (during the always yummy South Plains Leatherfest) at IHOP.  Oh, yes.  Fun.  Laughter.  Funny people.  Needles.  Caning bois.  Watching Lenny Bromberg and Donna Sachet banter; fun is a good reason!

Fuck the Politics...Let's Play!

 At the recent Southeast LeatherSIR, Leatherboy and Community Bootblack contests in Atlanta during the Southeast black and Blue weekend, Sir Alan Penrod, ILS 2011 delivered the following welcome speech.  It's one thing to see it on paper.  You should have been there to feel the HEAT of the response.  More than ever, people are ready to put aside the petty and get to the party!

Good evening everyone, I am Alan Penrod, International LeatherSIR 2011

Welcome to our first Southeast Black and Blue Weekend!  A weekend where we can come together as a community of “players” and embrace who we truly are as Leathermen, Leather women, and hard playing, sex loving kinksters.

If you are player, no matter what gets you off; no matter if this is this first time you have ever been to the Eagle or whether you have been in the lifestyle for 25 years, this weekend is for you! No matter whether you are gay, lesbian, straight, bisexual, transgender, or anything else, if you are a player this weekend is for you!

Tonight, Southeast Black and Blue, LLC is proud to re-introduce to Atlanta and the six states that make up the southeast region, three great players contests that called Atlanta home several years ago: Southeast LeatherSIR, Southeast Leatherboy, and Southeast Community Bootblack. These three great contests, combined with our Mr. Southeast Rubber contest, have made for one hot, sexy, steamy, play-filled weekend.

This weekend is an opportunity for Leather, Rubber and BDSM players from Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, and South Carolina to come together and show the rest of country why we are still called “the dirty south”!

While the contests are what brought many of us here this evening, this weekend is about so much more.  This weekend we celebrate what it truly means to march to the beat of a different drummer.  This weekend is a celebration of our rich history and an affirmation of our culture as Leather folk and players. 

This weekend is not about community politics, it’s not about having to always be politically correct, and it is not about politically-charged titleholder platforms. This weekend is not about conforming to someone else’s view of how you should act, what you should do, or who you should be.

This weekend is about embracing the sexual rebel that is inside all of us! This weekend is about being who YOU are, it’s about doing what YOU like to do, it’s about having the sex that YOU like to have, and playing the way YOU want to play. This weekend is about marching to the beat of your own drum and being accepted and respected for that!

This weekend and its contests are about the fun side of leathersex, rubbersex, and BDSM.  It is about getting back to why we are Leathermen, Leather women, and rubber players in the first place: because it’s fun, it’s sensual, it’s hot, it’s sweaty … sometimes it’s just downright dirty … it’s just what we do!

So, to sum up the intent of this weekend of events in a single phrase: “Fuck the politics, let’s play!

 

 

Leather is More than Gay Men

Here's a really interesting and status-quo-challenging article from Sir Chris of House V on the topic of defining leather.  It's a wake up call for sure but I'm not certain how many of us have the courage to answer.  Check out this and many other fantastic posts at House V. 

Recently, in a discussion about title contests, the observation was made that it is becoming increasingly difficult to find people willing to run for a title. In part, I can understand people’s hesitancy. First, a titleholder (at least in the Pacific Northwest) receives very little support from the community and from the title granting organization. Their travel funds are almost nonexistent. Any fundraising they do for charity must also correspond with fundraising to support themselves. And, money is tight all around. Second, the title patch on their back often acts as a target as well. People with titles are held up in the community as leaders and decision-makers, often asked to intercede in difficult situations. And, many would rather avoid such situations. Finally, there is the whole problem of losing. Generally speaking, no one likes to lose and losing a title contest is a rather high-profile loss. But, I don’t think these are the only reasons it has become increasingly difficult to find people willing to participate in title contests.

For much of Leather history, it was organized around a specific identity (and in many ways, it still is). This homogeneous identity, the cisgender gay male identity, both created cultural power and also division. Cultural power is a double-edged sword. It can create identity or further strengthen an existing identity but it can also restrain or oppress identity. Also, the dividing of one group from another that comes along with identity centrism can create a sense of belonging, a sense of tribe but it can also isolate people and be used as a tool of oppression. The end result of all these various forces interacting is the problem of assimilation. And, I think this is the problem at the root of the title contest issue mentioned above.

IML Statistics by Region

IMsL 2008 Hobbit put together this really fascinating analysis of of the ratio of judges to contestants in IML.  Love me some statistics! 

International Mr Leather contestant to judge statistics by region

Why I did this:

I have heard many people complain that their region is always underrepresented on the IML judging panel. I decided to "run the numbers" and generate statistics to prove or disprove this.

Hypothesis:

the percentage of judges for International Mr Leather from the Eastern United States is overrepresented on the judging panel relative to the percentage of contestants from the same region.

Summary

I found that for the Eastern United States for the 5 years that I gathered data the average ratio of judges to contestants was 2.5 judges for each 1 contestant (2.5:1). The greatest disparity year was 2005 when 44% of the judges were from the Eastern United States and only 11% of the contestants were from the Eastern United States. The least disparity year was 2006, when 11% of the judges and 9% of the contestants were from the Eastern United States. Thus showing that the number of judges from the Eastern region is consistently over-represented relative to the number of contestants from the Eastern region.

Out Of Whole Cloth

The author of this article asked to remain anonymous.  He is a contest producer who has been around the community for more than 25 years and has some strong opinions about the state of affairs. 

Remember the old 6 Million Dollar Man series?  "We can rebuild him...we have the technology."  That line has been a late night comedy staple for decades and unfortunately it's become a sad but true battle cry in the titleholder community.

I can't tell you how many contests I've been to in recent years where the winner literally put on his first leather in the weeks before the contest.  Or worse borrowed them on the way to the stage.

How does that possibly serve the leather community?

Competing or Campaigning?

Leather Contests run the gamut from impromptu bar events with contestants drafted from the audience to International Mr Leather which requires thousands of hours of prep time for contestants and tens of thousands of dollars in wardrobe and travel.

But how much is too much?  When do you go from being a competitor to being on the campaign trail?

Leather Carpetbaggers

Mike Gerle, IML 2007, takes on the crisis of identity and authenticity in our leather titleholder community in this insightful and hard-hitting article. The topic he's confronting will be uncomfortable for some in our community which makes it all the more important that this discussion begins to take place.  This article also recently appeared in print for Instigator Magazine.

As I lay there in bed pondering my participation in some recent local fundraisers, I became more and more unsettled and had to ask myself why I was feeling so pissed off.  Why was I unsettled by an event that raised a bunch of money for a worthy cause?  Hell, all the fundraisers that weekend raised a bunch of money for several different causes. So, what sort of asshole am I to bemoan such charitable acts?

The answer is simple:  I am witnessing my leather world being overrun by non-kinky people manipulating the powerful energy of the leather tribe into a vehicle for their own self-promotion.  This has got to stop.

If for no other reason, it is driving the kinky men I want to hook up with out of the few spaces we have left. This is cock-blocking on an enormous scale. 

Leather Titles - Are they still relevant?

BIll Hoeppner, International Leatherboy 2008, has been around more than a few contests in his time in the community.  In this article originally published in October of 2009, Bill looks at the relevance of titles and title holders.

There is conversation in the Leather Community, locally and nationally as to the relevance of the Leather Title system.  Does it still serve a purpose?  Does it still serve the greater good?  Let’s look at its origins and how it has changed over the past 30 years.

In 1979 two contests, International Mr. Leather (IML) and Drummer laid the ground work for the future.  Both were born out of a desire to make money, one to bring in new business and the other to sell Magazines.  It’s as simple as that.

IML held it first contest in Chicago at the Gold Coast Bar where they presented their first winners medallion to David Kloss.  Originally known as “The Mr. Gold Coast Contest”, it drew many out of town patrons and contestants.  Concurrently, Drummer Magazine was looking for creative ways to bring in hot, masculine men as cover models to help sell Magazines.  In 1979, Val Martin literally walked through doors of the Drummer Magazine nude and John Embry, the magazine founder and editor, decided he would be the first Mr. Drummer. Well it worked.