So, I’m not quite certain exactly when I first came across Slave Phil’s MasterSlaveLifestyle website. If I had to guess, I think it was last September. I had gotten really sick in June – I almost died, actually – and like many people who’ve come that close their own mortality, I took a good, hard look at my life and totally rethought my priorities. In particular, I looked deeply into my kink objectives, and realized that despite having been a Chicago Dom for almost thirty years, I never actually “joined” the community’s inner circle. I was always just a “satellite” orbiting around the leather scene, but never actually landing. I’m ashamed to say this now, but back then I viewed the kink-world as only about sex – and someplace fun to visit on horny nights, to find a kinky hookup to bring home to my basement dungeon.
It pains me when I realize how many opportunities I missed…
I’m 53 years old right now, and I grew up in a small-town Illinois. We had no Internet, smartphones, social apps, or gay organizations of any sort. Hell, we lived so far in the country, I we didn’t even have cable television; my only exposure to music videos was Friday Night Videos, if my parents let me stay up that late. I wasn’t just a lonely kid, I was a gut-wrenchingly sad gay child with absolutely nobody to talk to – not only about my attraction to men, but also about my growing kink-urges which first surfaced when I was seven (and started tying up my Star Trek action figures with my mother’s thread). I literally thought I was a burgeoning sociopath, until I stumbled upon my first black & white issue of Bound & Gagged magazine, in a dirty bookstore in late 1990.
In the years that followed, I began to accept that I enjoyed BDSM. I used to love watching cowboy & police movies on TV, were guys got tied to trees and perps had their hands cuffed behind their back. (Chuckling…I used to critique bondage on crime shows, saying things like, “He put the knots too close to the captive’s fingers – he can get out!”) I can remember many awkward, drunken nights, cold-cruising bars & Damron parks & rest stops, searching for other gay men to be with. But even then, I was never actually looking for “sex” …rather, I was trying to find someone I could make a “genuine human connection” with. I didn’t want my dick sucked, and with AIDS being rampant, I sure-as-fuck wasn’t going to let some random stranger shove his dick up my ass. And what I wanted wasn’t even “companionship,” what I wanted – what I desperately needed – was the camaraderie of a man who was exactly like me, not a “gay man,” but…a leatherman.
My first trip to a gay bar was on March 18th, 1990 at the long-defunct Club Peorian Disco in Peoria, Il. The bar was sleazy, an aging 1970s relic with orange carpet on the walls, sticky floors & disgusting bathrooms, rampant drug use in the open, and patrons that would even scare police (who were frequently called on weekends). But the one good thing about the Peorian, was that the city’s close-knit leather community would gather there every Friday & Saturday night. I remember watching them from across the bar, downing shot after shot to muster the courage to talk to them – but I never did. Not only was I terrified of them, but I was even more frightened in the fact that I was drawn to them, like an animalistic instinct…
The years went by and my family moved from rural Peoria to metropolitan Chicago. I suddenly found myself in a city with an open kink community, numerous BDSM organizations, and five thriving leather bars. My first experience in a fetish bar – The AA Meat Market – lasted about two minutes; I walked in, looked around, spun on my heel and bolted out the door. My next experience was much better, as Bound & Gagged magazine was hosting a bondage party at The Eagle, and I got delightfully shitfaced before walking through the doors. That night, I stayed for many hours.
In the years that followed, I learned my craft as a “Bondage Top,” and became pretty good at my role. In the fifteen years that came after that, I started calling myself a “Leather Dom,” as I began to introduce Sir/boy roleplay into my bondage scenes – which took them to an entirely new level. During that period – which lasted twenty-plus years – everything I learned was done through books, magazines, internet research, and lots of trial and error and error and error. I made maaaaaaaaaaany mistakes during those days, some stupid & careless, come clumsy & side-splittingly funny, and a few of them just downright dangerous – jeopardizing my reputation in the BDSM community. Luckily, all of those mistakes are in the past, and after 30 years within the leather world, I finally feel I’ve earned the right to call myself “Sir.” And that is a title that I hold as proudly as when I see my author’s name on a bookstore shelf.
But with all that I’ve said to this point, I still haven’t brought up the real reason I’ve written this column. I’ve shared this story because I want to tell everyone of the importance of finding a MENTOR in the leather community, especially if you’re just starting out.
As mentioned, when I was young there was no Internet, community resources, and homosexuality as a whole was considered mental illness. Add into the mix that a young gay kid might also have an interest in kink, and it’s amazing that so many of us Boomers/GenX’rs have survived that period (and did not succumb to darker “thoughts” that loneliness-driven-grief can bring). And I went through all this period without a mentor of any kind. No teacher, no coach, no big brother – nothing. It was only…me, and still to this day at the tender age of 53, I often find myself suffering for it.
But these days are different. Christ, there’s probably some 14-year-old gay boy (stuck in some God-forsaken rural Midwestern shithole) who’s only just stumbled across Slave Phil’s website today and is reading this article right now. PLEASE KNOW that there are other guys who are exactly like you, young men who are ashamed in being a natural submissive – and others who feel guilt with their predisposition towards being a dominant. This isn’t mental illness, and it sure as shit ain’t parental or religious shame. This is you, sweet beautiful you, and as soon as you accept that fact, I 100% guarantee that your self-reproach will disappear immediately – and you’ll find yourself not only happier, but with the knowledge that when find your Master, Sir, slave, or boy, you’ll ultimately experience the JOY you’ve always needed, the warmth that will finally fill your heart...
And I guess the reason I mention all this is because I’ve just lost my own “first mentor.” I only knew him briefly, we originally met on Recon in 2015, and more recently spent HOURS texting/talking on the phone over the past four months; even though we had a combined six decades of BDSM experience between us, we still learned a lot from each other – myself from him in particular. But even great relationships can go sideways on a moment’s notice, and ours fell apart within a little over three weeks. When our conversation ended for good, it made me realize how I’d wished I’d met this man three decades earlier, back when I was first started exploring BDSM, in the days when I was inexperienced, terrified, and completely alone.
No matter what your age, there is no greater bond than the camaraderie shared by the BDSM brotherhood. It took me thirty years to realize this, and now that I’ve experienced it, I will never let it go – and will spend the rest of whatever time I have left trying to find it again. But even with my own personal search, I will always keep watch for those terrified newbies who watch from clubroom corners, easy prey for predators – and desperate for someone to show them how our brotherhood works. Those are the leatherman who need us with experience to put a gloved hand on their shoulder and tell them: “Stay close to me.”
Those are the leathermen of our future –
And those are our children that we must wrap our gloved hands around from behind, pull them against our Schott biker’s jacket, lower our Muirs in an act of love, and protect them like the leather guardian angels that all of us truly are.
Thanks for reading,
- Sir Dave
It pains me when I realize how many opportunities I missed…
I’m 53 years old right now, and I grew up in a small-town Illinois. We had no Internet, smartphones, social apps, or gay organizations of any sort. Hell, we lived so far in the country, I we didn’t even have cable television; my only exposure to music videos was Friday Night Videos, if my parents let me stay up that late. I wasn’t just a lonely kid, I was a gut-wrenchingly sad gay child with absolutely nobody to talk to – not only about my attraction to men, but also about my growing kink-urges which first surfaced when I was seven (and started tying up my Star Trek action figures with my mother’s thread). I literally thought I was a burgeoning sociopath, until I stumbled upon my first black & white issue of Bound & Gagged magazine, in a dirty bookstore in late 1990.
In the years that followed, I began to accept that I enjoyed BDSM. I used to love watching cowboy & police movies on TV, were guys got tied to trees and perps had their hands cuffed behind their back. (Chuckling…I used to critique bondage on crime shows, saying things like, “He put the knots too close to the captive’s fingers – he can get out!”) I can remember many awkward, drunken nights, cold-cruising bars & Damron parks & rest stops, searching for other gay men to be with. But even then, I was never actually looking for “sex” …rather, I was trying to find someone I could make a “genuine human connection” with. I didn’t want my dick sucked, and with AIDS being rampant, I sure-as-fuck wasn’t going to let some random stranger shove his dick up my ass. And what I wanted wasn’t even “companionship,” what I wanted – what I desperately needed – was the camaraderie of a man who was exactly like me, not a “gay man,” but…a leatherman.
My first trip to a gay bar was on March 18th, 1990 at the long-defunct Club Peorian Disco in Peoria, Il. The bar was sleazy, an aging 1970s relic with orange carpet on the walls, sticky floors & disgusting bathrooms, rampant drug use in the open, and patrons that would even scare police (who were frequently called on weekends). But the one good thing about the Peorian, was that the city’s close-knit leather community would gather there every Friday & Saturday night. I remember watching them from across the bar, downing shot after shot to muster the courage to talk to them – but I never did. Not only was I terrified of them, but I was even more frightened in the fact that I was drawn to them, like an animalistic instinct…
The years went by and my family moved from rural Peoria to metropolitan Chicago. I suddenly found myself in a city with an open kink community, numerous BDSM organizations, and five thriving leather bars. My first experience in a fetish bar – The AA Meat Market – lasted about two minutes; I walked in, looked around, spun on my heel and bolted out the door. My next experience was much better, as Bound & Gagged magazine was hosting a bondage party at The Eagle, and I got delightfully shitfaced before walking through the doors. That night, I stayed for many hours.
In the years that followed, I learned my craft as a “Bondage Top,” and became pretty good at my role. In the fifteen years that came after that, I started calling myself a “Leather Dom,” as I began to introduce Sir/boy roleplay into my bondage scenes – which took them to an entirely new level. During that period – which lasted twenty-plus years – everything I learned was done through books, magazines, internet research, and lots of trial and error and error and error. I made maaaaaaaaaaany mistakes during those days, some stupid & careless, come clumsy & side-splittingly funny, and a few of them just downright dangerous – jeopardizing my reputation in the BDSM community. Luckily, all of those mistakes are in the past, and after 30 years within the leather world, I finally feel I’ve earned the right to call myself “Sir.” And that is a title that I hold as proudly as when I see my author’s name on a bookstore shelf.
But with all that I’ve said to this point, I still haven’t brought up the real reason I’ve written this column. I’ve shared this story because I want to tell everyone of the importance of finding a MENTOR in the leather community, especially if you’re just starting out.
As mentioned, when I was young there was no Internet, community resources, and homosexuality as a whole was considered mental illness. Add into the mix that a young gay kid might also have an interest in kink, and it’s amazing that so many of us Boomers/GenX’rs have survived that period (and did not succumb to darker “thoughts” that loneliness-driven-grief can bring). And I went through all this period without a mentor of any kind. No teacher, no coach, no big brother – nothing. It was only…me, and still to this day at the tender age of 53, I often find myself suffering for it.
But these days are different. Christ, there’s probably some 14-year-old gay boy (stuck in some God-forsaken rural Midwestern shithole) who’s only just stumbled across Slave Phil’s website today and is reading this article right now. PLEASE KNOW that there are other guys who are exactly like you, young men who are ashamed in being a natural submissive – and others who feel guilt with their predisposition towards being a dominant. This isn’t mental illness, and it sure as shit ain’t parental or religious shame. This is you, sweet beautiful you, and as soon as you accept that fact, I 100% guarantee that your self-reproach will disappear immediately – and you’ll find yourself not only happier, but with the knowledge that when find your Master, Sir, slave, or boy, you’ll ultimately experience the JOY you’ve always needed, the warmth that will finally fill your heart...
And I guess the reason I mention all this is because I’ve just lost my own “first mentor.” I only knew him briefly, we originally met on Recon in 2015, and more recently spent HOURS texting/talking on the phone over the past four months; even though we had a combined six decades of BDSM experience between us, we still learned a lot from each other – myself from him in particular. But even great relationships can go sideways on a moment’s notice, and ours fell apart within a little over three weeks. When our conversation ended for good, it made me realize how I’d wished I’d met this man three decades earlier, back when I was first started exploring BDSM, in the days when I was inexperienced, terrified, and completely alone.
No matter what your age, there is no greater bond than the camaraderie shared by the BDSM brotherhood. It took me thirty years to realize this, and now that I’ve experienced it, I will never let it go – and will spend the rest of whatever time I have left trying to find it again. But even with my own personal search, I will always keep watch for those terrified newbies who watch from clubroom corners, easy prey for predators – and desperate for someone to show them how our brotherhood works. Those are the leatherman who need us with experience to put a gloved hand on their shoulder and tell them: “Stay close to me.”
Those are the leathermen of our future –
And those are our children that we must wrap our gloved hands around from behind, pull them against our Schott biker’s jacket, lower our Muirs in an act of love, and protect them like the leather guardian angels that all of us truly are.
Thanks for reading,
- Sir Dave