I have written on this blog fairly often that I feel that I am just a regular guy, a motorcycle rider, one who chooses to wear leather garments regularly (rather than just as a costume or once-a-year events), and a guy who happens to be gay.
I received an email from a reader, a fellow biker, and who recently came out. He explained his feelings to me. With his permission, here is what he said–
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It has been quite cold lately here in BHDville. When I got home from work the other day, I changed clothes from my dressy work duds to more comfortable clothing and boots. Because it is so cold, I thought nothing of pulling on a pair of regular black leather jeans, my new long-sleeved leather shirt, and a pair of Chippewa hi-shine engineer boots. Comfy casual wear for me.
I prepared dinner for the spouse and myself, then pulled on my Langlitz Crescent jacket, donned a Harley ball cap and headed out to a community meeting…
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Since my collection of various leather jeans and pants are shown on my website, and I have blogged frequently about wearing leather, sometimes I get questions from curious men about wearing leather, and how to fit leather jeans.
Context: I am an average middle-aged married man who works in a professional office in a major city (suburbs, actually) on the East Coast of the United States. I’m no young rock star or California hipster. Why leather and why me?
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Sigh, I had an uncomfortable email exchange with someone who did not take my gentle “RSVP, no” for an answer to an invitation to a holiday party he is organizing.
The invitation read…
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Someone with whom I am having an intriguing email dialogue asked me this question:
I remember reading an old blog post of yours that mentioned that you had always worn leather for riding a motorcycle, and that therefore, no one suspected that you were a gay man into leather. When you finally wore full leather all the time, did you ever feel like you had a second coming out experience since it was admitting that you belong to a subculture within a subculture?
Excellent question! My response (after the jump):
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As is my custom on cold winter days, I choose to wear leather jeans, boots, and when I go out, I wear a leather jacket.
It struck me funny when I was escorting three lovely old ladies at the grocery store, a rather good-looking guy with a trimmed beard and buff bod looked me up and down and said,
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It is “leather weekend” in Washington, DC. This is the time of year when the gay social club, the Centaurs, host Mid-Atlantic Leather (MAL) Weekend featuring the Mid-Atlantic Leather Contest which feeds into International Mr. Leather contest hosted in Chicago on the last weekend of May.
My spouse was feeling pretty good earlier this week, and suggested we drop in at the leather market at the host hotel on Saturday. I thought it would be interesting to see what was going on since it has been eight years since we were there last.
On Saturday, we donned our leathers, but…
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A friend of mine brought to my attention that an observation was shared on an on-line boot board about what guys were wearing at the recent Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco. The observation was, “They say that the Folsom Street Fair is the largest leather event in the world, but I’m sorry to report that only a small percentage of the crowd wore leather, and even a smaller number wore boots. It was shorts, jock straps, jeans, or nothing at all, along with thousands of sneakers, sneakers and more sneakers.”
My friend asked me what I thought about this. I have some ideas about how the demographics have changed in today’s culture among 20- and 30- year olds, compared with the culture and norms of the days when I was their age (1980s through mid 90s).
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Thanks to a loyal blog reader for bringing this to my attention: come September, Finland will be releasing three new stamps using imagery from the famously iconic drawings of Touko Laaksonen, otherwise known as Tom of Finland.
According to the Finland Postal Service,
His emphatically masculine homoerotic drawings have attained iconic status in their genre and had an influence on, for instance, pop culture and fashion. In his works, Tom of Finland utilized the self-irony and humor typical of subcultures. During his career, Tom of Finland produced more than 3,500 drawings… The drawings on the stamp sheet represent strong and confident male figures typical of their designer.
As I said, I think I’ll take up stamp collecting again:
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I seldom have such insight as to the influence of this blog.
A few months ago, someone wrote an email to me to ask some questions about boots. I replied, and we began a cordial exchange of email from time to time. I am always happy to answer questions and share what I have learned.
The other day, this gentleman sent me a message with the subject line, “gratitude.” Man, it blew me away….
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