The Pridelets Files for September 30
On this day in 2000, Joseph Bean contemplates "The Future of Leather" at the Great Lakes Leather Conference in Louisville, Kentucky.
"The Future of Leather, now your future very much more than it is mine, is in grave danger if we pursue the paths that are becoming well-worn today.
I say that leather is a gypsy thing. If it has grown roots, they should be harvested. If it has settled on a foundation, that should be broken and abandoned. What we should be longing for is the passion, the darkness, the guilt, the fear, and the uncertainty which are done away with as leather and SM become a respectable, monitored subculture. If we are no longer rebels, so be it, but don’t let us stop tasting what is forbidden and daring what is impossible and repeating what is unsavory. If we are no longer criminals, so be it, but let us place before all other values the pursuit of self-transformation which can include sex and sexuality only if they are bliss-inclined which means they have to be aimed at the darkness. ...
If there is a Future of Leather that has a place for the likes of me as I was 30 years ago, it will not be discovered or made by the likes of me as I am today.
More true and more important than anything else I can say about the future of leather, there is this one thing that I can say which is directed only to the new and the young: Don’t adjust. Bend not the slightest bit. Find what answers the yearning of your own passion and accept nothing else… nothing less. ...
I come from a time and world in which leathersex was a life apart--not a thing apart from life. ... I can not tell you what will be the future of leather, but I would ask you to ask yourselves as you make and live in it: Don’t you want lives in leather to be something more?
Bring back the darkness. Bring back the passion, and give leathermen and leatherwomen hereafter something to live for, something to anticipate and fearfully shiver about. Only then will the museums, art shows, legal battles and conferences be justified."
BIRTHGAYS (and the occasional straights)
* 1207 - Muslim jurist, theologian, poet and Sufi mystic Jalal al-Din
Muhammad Rumi
* 1924 - Author Truman Capote
* 1935 - The man behind my parent's "song," Johnny Mathis
* 1978 - New England's GLAD (Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders)
THE BEDSIDE TABLE
"Gay Art: A Historic Collection" by Felix Lance Falkon, Thomas Waugh
When originally published by Greenleaf Editions in 1972, A Historic Collection of Gay Art was the first book of its kind to document expressions of gay male sexuality as depicted in visual art, from antiquity to pop culture. Its frank and unapologetic survey of the pleasures of the flesh was, for gay men, unprecedented, and it remains the starting-point for modern-day discussions of erotic gay male artwork and comics.
This new edition has been updated by the original author, Felix Lance Falkon, and Thomas Waugh, author of the similarly themed bestsellers Out/Lines and Lust Unearthed. It features erotic line drawings and other artwork from ancient Greece to 1970s America, by artists both anonymous and infamous (including Tom of Finland, Graewolf, Blade, and Aubrey Beardsley), as well as an insightful narrative that provides a fascinating historical context for these images, including their production and dissemination.
"Gay Art" also provides a modern-day discussion about pleasure and permission: questions about how we define erotic imagery and what we should and should not be allowed to see. Subversive, smart, and sexy, "Gay Art" takes erotic images from the past out of the closet and into the light of present day.
This work is copyright© 2006 Thomas Allen Heald, all rights reserved. Contact the author at tom@idontgetit.org and the latest column are always available at www.Pridelets.com.
"The Future of Leather, now your future very much more than it is mine, is in grave danger if we pursue the paths that are becoming well-worn today.
I say that leather is a gypsy thing. If it has grown roots, they should be harvested. If it has settled on a foundation, that should be broken and abandoned. What we should be longing for is the passion, the darkness, the guilt, the fear, and the uncertainty which are done away with as leather and SM become a respectable, monitored subculture. If we are no longer rebels, so be it, but don’t let us stop tasting what is forbidden and daring what is impossible and repeating what is unsavory. If we are no longer criminals, so be it, but let us place before all other values the pursuit of self-transformation which can include sex and sexuality only if they are bliss-inclined which means they have to be aimed at the darkness. ...
If there is a Future of Leather that has a place for the likes of me as I was 30 years ago, it will not be discovered or made by the likes of me as I am today.
More true and more important than anything else I can say about the future of leather, there is this one thing that I can say which is directed only to the new and the young: Don’t adjust. Bend not the slightest bit. Find what answers the yearning of your own passion and accept nothing else… nothing less. ...
I come from a time and world in which leathersex was a life apart--not a thing apart from life. ... I can not tell you what will be the future of leather, but I would ask you to ask yourselves as you make and live in it: Don’t you want lives in leather to be something more?
Bring back the darkness. Bring back the passion, and give leathermen and leatherwomen hereafter something to live for, something to anticipate and fearfully shiver about. Only then will the museums, art shows, legal battles and conferences be justified."
BIRTHGAYS (and the occasional straights)
* 1207 - Muslim jurist, theologian, poet and Sufi mystic Jalal al-Din
Muhammad Rumi
* 1924 - Author Truman Capote
* 1935 - The man behind my parent's "song," Johnny Mathis
* 1978 - New England's GLAD (Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders)
THE BEDSIDE TABLE
"Gay Art: A Historic Collection" by Felix Lance Falkon, Thomas Waugh
When originally published by Greenleaf Editions in 1972, A Historic Collection of Gay Art was the first book of its kind to document expressions of gay male sexuality as depicted in visual art, from antiquity to pop culture. Its frank and unapologetic survey of the pleasures of the flesh was, for gay men, unprecedented, and it remains the starting-point for modern-day discussions of erotic gay male artwork and comics.
This new edition has been updated by the original author, Felix Lance Falkon, and Thomas Waugh, author of the similarly themed bestsellers Out/Lines and Lust Unearthed. It features erotic line drawings and other artwork from ancient Greece to 1970s America, by artists both anonymous and infamous (including Tom of Finland, Graewolf, Blade, and Aubrey Beardsley), as well as an insightful narrative that provides a fascinating historical context for these images, including their production and dissemination.
"Gay Art" also provides a modern-day discussion about pleasure and permission: questions about how we define erotic imagery and what we should and should not be allowed to see. Subversive, smart, and sexy, "Gay Art" takes erotic images from the past out of the closet and into the light of present day.
This work is copyright© 2006 Thomas Allen Heald, all rights reserved. Contact the author at tom@idontgetit.org and the latest column are always available at www.Pridelets.com.
posted by Thomas @ 3:27 AM
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