There is a conflict between preserving the thrill of belonging an edgy minority, as a leatherman or kinkster, and making your community accessible. Plus there’s something particularly fun about the secret part of belonging to a secret club. But before we take our secret too seriously, let’s remember that the world of kink is a stage, and all the Sirs and boys are merely players, and if we don’t encourage other people to join in and play their part, the stage will get more empty and less interesting.

Of course, surly and intimidating men in leather peering disdainfully at you from under their muir caps can be hot as fuck. But if you’re just scaring people off instead of luring them, in you’ve probably gone too far.

And sure, when you yearn for your kink, often you just want to know your partner can get the job done, and a beginner ain’t gonna cut it. But one of the most fun things you can do in kink is being part of helping someone else discover it. And if you find it hard to find the perfect boy or Daddy, then what are you doing to help new people into the community, to increase the size and diversity of people in the pool?

Normally LDG offers you someone with years of experience to share their story or their expertise. This month we’re hearing from newcomers from the last couple of years, to be reminded how many thrills we can give them on their journeys of discovery, and what a gift their passion can be to us.

Inspiration for newcomers and old timers alike.

WHEN: Wednesday May 24th 7:30-9:30pm (doors open at 7pm)
WHERE: Mr. S Studio
ADDRESS: 385A 8th Street (second floor, accessible by stairs only)
VIDEO: Available on our Facebook Live: http://facebook.com/sfldg/videos. (Be sure to click follow, then select the edit button under the "following" menu to turn on live notifications!)

Let’s talk about ways to make M/s relationships work. What have been your struggles, and or successes? Perhaps he can suggest some ways to deepen the waters between the two of you. Or, is this the right kind of relationship for you?  How do you make an M/s relationship work when the ‘real world’ intervenes?

Structure: too much, or too little?  Let’s talk about one of the most misunderstood relationship formats, as well as other types of power based relationships.

Bio

Mr. Kevin (Craft) came out at the ripe old age of 12, and found kink at 17 and has rarely looked back. He joined the San Francisco 15 Association in 1995. BDSM and Power based connections have been his way of life for 31 years. He began teaching at the OCLA Sampler (Orange Coast Leather Association) in the early 90s, and has traveled across the country to teach at a variety of events, including Living in Leather, Southplains Leatherfest, Dungeon Series in Florida, and even teaching as faculty at the infamous INFERNO event, among others.

Video (Part 1)

Join us for an evening with Mr Kristofer Weston and his Pup Amp as they talk about kink through the ages. Through the generations we’ve seen many changes in the world around us, and kink is no exception. Kristofer comes from a background of intense ritual and rules where a person’s status depended on experience, while Amp has grown up in an age that thrives on social media and retweets to signify worth, but somehow they still see eye to eye. The two kinksters will take us through how their relationship works, the different influences to their lifestyles and how the past world of kink has evolved into the scene we see today. Puppies and Daddies and Leather, oh my!

LIVESTREAM

We are going to experiment with Facebook Live for this program. Please visit http://facebook.com/sfldg, like the page, and look for a live video at 7:30pm Pacific. Your feedback for this new format is welcome. (FYI this means we won't be live on youtube, but I will upload the video there in a few days)

Bios

Kristofer is a porn director, Leather Daddy and bondage expert in the San Francisco area. Having directed over 60 Porn films and working for studios like Falcon and Colt, he knows his way around the adult and kink industry.

Amp is a Seattle born and raised leather Pup. He is an adult personality and model who runs a kink education series called Watts The Safeword.

How do we preserve the richness and wisdom of the leather community? Our stories are worth capturing and celebrating, and one way to make that happen is through oral histories. In this program we’ll explore and practice a number of easy techniques, including

• What it takes to conduct an excellent interview, or be a great interviewee
• How to structure an interview and craft questions
• Easy ways of recording and editing the conversation (audio and/or video)

Knowing who we are as a community is key to keeping our tribe strong and vibrant, and helping new generations find their way. Everyone has a story to tell, and anyone can help record these stories for the future.

pup Spike has been active in the leather communities of San Francisco and South Florida since 2003. He founded goLEATHER, a Fort Lauderdale-based organization to help millennials explore the leather community and support them as they came out into leather. Spike has a passion for documenting personal stories, including interviewing leather folk and preserving their oral histories. He now lives in San Francisco: a great place for a wolf like him to run, grow, howl and breed. And he is active in K9 Unit, a Bay Area organizations for pups of all kinds and those who love them. Spike is the collared pup of Joe Gallagher, IML 1996, and beta to his Alpha, Wolf Freed.

Queer people have long found community and identity in the pages of smutty comics; come celebrate this legacy with Bay Area cartoonists Justin Hall and Jon Macy.  They will break down the artistry and history of queer erotic comics through a combination of slideshows, personal anecdotes, and theoretical discussion.

How is kink and fetish best portrayed? What unique features of the comics’ medium determine its creation of engaging pornographic stories? How does the combination of narrative and visual imagery create powerful sexual content, and how is this different from film or prose? Come explore these questions and ask a few of your own during this stimulating evening!

Justin Hall is a San Francisco based cartoonist and educator. He is the editor of No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics, which won a Lambda Literary Award and received an Eisner Award nomination. He created the comics series True Travel Tales, Glamazonia, and Hard To Swallow, with his work also appearing in such places as the Houghton Miflin Best American Comics, Best Erotic Comics, and the San Francisco Bay Guardian. Hall has curated shows of comics art at the S.F. Cartoon Art Museum and the Schwules (Gay) Museum in Berlin, and helped create the Artists’ Area at the Folsom Street Fair. He has been on the boards of the nonprofits Prism Comics (supporting LGBTQ comics) and Our Books (supporting Cambodian comics), and has done academic writing on comics for the Routledge and Cambridge presses. He teaches at the California College of the Arts as an Assistant Professor of Comics.

Jon Macy has contributed to many queer magazines and anthologies including MEATMEN, BOY TROUBLE, INTERNATIONAL LEATHERMAN, NO STRAIGHT LINES, and QUEER. He is perhaps best known for his graphic novel TELENY & CAMILLE which won the 2010 Lambda Literary award for gay erotica. His most recent work is FEARFUL HUNTER published by Northwest Press. He lives in feisty Oakland, California.

Livestream for the Event

SFLDG is a 501(c)3. Your donations help us host, stream, and record programs like this every month. Please consider helping us do that.

Is there an FtM "community," or do trans leathermen feel primary allegiance to the tribe of their gender or orientation? How do trans men frame the "out" issue in leather, for instance in play situations? How big an issue is language? What changes in leather would transmen like to see? Do they see transitioning as a personal/sociobiological imperative or a political act as well?

Join us for a searching, in-depth look at what it means to be a trans leatherman in today's leather world. Not a PSA or another simple "plea for tolerance," but a mature -- and potentially highly politically incorrect -- discussion by four of our most thoughtful, most respected, most accomplished transmen in leather.

BOYJEAN has been involved with the leather community for almost twenty years and has identified as a boy as long as he can remember. Over that time he began to embark on a journey to more closely match his outer appearance with his inner identity. Coming out as trans has been a powerful part of his journey and a continually evolving process. boyjean is blessed to have two people in his life that support and encourage him along this path and a community that provides a place for him to be himself. He was a co-founder in 2006 of Leather Traditions, the San Francisco-based educational and mentoring group, and in 2007 he was awarded the titles of Northern California Bootblack and International Community Bootblack.

BOY TYLER FONG, American Leatherboy 2011, has been in the leather scene for over ten years. Though his first scene was at a Female-to-Male conference at Seattle's Wet Spot with a female top, he has explored his interests in BDSM with gay men. He was fortunate to have San Francisco and the surrounding Bay Area's vast resources -- and men with a variety of skills and interests -- from which to pick and choose. His early years were cautious, owing partly to the relative invisibility of transmen, and partly to the fact that life as a gay man was all a completely new world at age thirty. In 2003 he represented Transgender San Francisco as Mr TGSF to raise awareness of FtM's. In 2008 International LeatherSIR/boy eliminated the "born male" and "male at birth" requirement for its Sir and boy contestants. boy tyler served one year as Northern California Leatherboy 2008 and has been involved with this contest as volunteer and bootblack co-coordinator in 2011. He currently serves as Outreach Chair of the Fraternal members committee of The 15 Association. Work in public health and performance with three community music groups gives him ample opportunity to educate and share his experiences as a transman in the BDSM community.

TYLER McCORMICK's journey into leather and fetish began in childhood with vivid pictures and images. Watching television and seeing the good guy get tied up was exciting! Tyler always wanted to be the guy tying the knots. Tyler has been an out and proud leatherman for over twelve years, and is still humbled by his selection as International Mr. Leather 2010 and the many wonderful people and communities he has met in his travels. Tyler teaches workshops and classes, works as a case manager for New Mexico AIDS Services, and serves on the board of the New Mexico Leather Wolves. He often voices a simple, but powerful message wherever he goes: “Strive to be a light for others. Be open and honest and do not to let fear limit you. Give of yourself and help those around you find their own path.” Many people have assisted and guided Tyler on his journey and he never hesitates to acknowledge those gifts while striving to honor them by contributing to others as they make their way through the world. Tyler is committed to helping make the Leather community better, one kinky tribe member at a time.

ZACH D is a queer-identified transman who has been involved in the San Francisco Bay Area Leather Community since 2004. Although his first fetishes can be traced to early childhood, he stepped into the community with both feet upon landing in the Bay Area. As a butch dyke in the LGBT community, he volunteered time with the Exiles, served as a patch holder and board member of the SF Dykes on Bikes, put in DM time at the Citadel and considerable time with the San Francisco Bay Area Leather Alliance as a Dykes on Bikes representative. Zach began his transition in late 2009, a decision he considered and researched seriously for almost ten years prior. Once he made the decision, surgeries were complete and hormones were in place within six months, and since that time has been traversing the boundaries of what it means to be a transman in leather, defining alliances and finding those places which call to him as haven. He is celebrating fourteen years with his wonderful Femme partner, Lady Raven, who is also active in the leather community.

A rare public presentation by the celebrated author and preeminent historian of leather, Gayle Rubin. Gayle will discuss prominent figures, events, and subcultural trends in the heyday of San Francisco men's leather, from the 1960s to the 1980s, and bring us a slideshow of photos, ephemera, and artifacts (including literary) from her private archives. You won't want to miss this once-in-a-blue-moon opportunity.

GAYLE RUBIN, Ph. D., is a scholar and activist who was one of the founders of Samois, the first lesbian SM support group, in 1978. She has been conducting research on leather culture and history since the late 1970s, and has been deeply involved in the preservation of leather archives and artifacts. She served on the Board of Directors of the Leather Archives and Museum from 1992 to 2000 and has helped build the leather collections of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Historical Society (GLBTHS). In 1991, she became the first woman to judge a major national gay male title contest (Mr. Drummer). In 2000 Rubin received the National Leather Association Lifetime Achievement Award and was selected by the Leather Archives & Museum as a “Centurion” – one of twenty in the 20th century recognized for outstanding contributions to Leather.

Rubin is a college professor who teaches classes in gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender studies. Newest in her distinguished list of publications are her collected essays in DEVIATIONS: A GAYLE RUBIN READER and VALLEY OF THE KINGS: LEATHERMEN IN SAN FRANCISCO, 1960 – 1990, scheduled for publication next year but already hailed as the most authoritative history of gay men's leather in San Francisco.

From their "About" page: "LEATHERATI.COM launched in 2009 after a long (and productive!) gestation in the minds of Loren Berthelsen and Alex Lindsay. Sensing a gaping hole in the informatosphere for things leathery but not adult-rated, the duo leveraged their long-standing involvement in the leather community to bring you the most comprehensive leather content site available today. Leatherati explores our unique lifestyle of contests and titleholders, travel and events, dining and drinking, entertainment and shopping and of course, news and opinion."

As our brick-and-mortar leather venues shrink in number, LEATHERATI offers a kind of gathering-place we've never had before: not regional but national and international in scope; representing all orientations and genders, but LGBT-dominated; interactive, but not devoted to hook-ups; open to a broad spectrum of viewpoints without abandoning standards for accuracy and quality in its contributors.

Loren and Alex will be up from L.A. to talk about the founding of LEATHERATI, their struggles and successes along the way, their vision for its future; and you are invited to join in a wide-ranging discussion about the issues we face while our self-definition as a community is in transition:

• How to address -- if that's even possible -- gay men's waning participation in predominantly non-gay events such as SW Leather, South Plains Leather, the Master/slave Conference, many others?
• Why is gay leather culture viewed as the fount of our current leather/BDSM/kink communities?
• Is leather the same as BDSM?
• What is the future of online leather culture?
• What do we want to see more of in LEATHERATI.COM, in terms of both direction and content?

An evening with one of the most celebrated leathermen of our time. Hardy will reflect on his coming-up in leather, on the distinctive regional traditions of the Texan men's community, on the four decades of progress and peril he's witnessed in our national organizations; and will give a demonstration of the gifts that made him the man who literally wrote the book on CBT.

HARDY HABERMAN has been active in the leather community since the mid-70's and a member of many BDSM/Fetish organizations, including Dallas Motorcycle Club, Leather Rose Society, National Leather Association (NLA)-Dallas, the (Dallas) Discipline Corps, and Inquisition-Dallas, of which he is a founding member. Considering himself a "Pain Technologist," he specializes in CBT and has an unusual fondness for clips, clamps and clothespins, as well as more esoteric SM play.

Professionally he is a marketing specialist and filmmaker. His 1995 documentary on the leather lifestyle, "LEATHER," has won numerous awards and appeared in festivals around the world; and his latest film, "Out of the Darkness: The Reality of SM," is currently being used by health care professionals around the world. (Frameline has recently posted "LEATHER" for viewing: View on YouTUBE)

Outside work, Hardy is a gay activist, author and speaker on aspects of the SM/Leather scene. His books "The Family Jewels: a guide to male genital play and torment" (published by Greenery Press) and “More Family Jewels”, "Playing With Pain” And “Soul of a Second Skin” (published by Nazca Plains Publishing) are available at bookstores everywhere.

He is a regular columnist for the Dallas Voice, commenting on politics, leather and the LGBT community.

He was awarded NLA-International's "Man of the Year" award in 1999 and the NLA-I Lifetime Achievement award in 2007. In 2010, Hardy was honored with the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force's Leather Leadership award.

Since April of 1995, he and his boy Patrick have been living together in Dallas with their feline Mistress Elvira and troublemaker Jack-The-Cat.

The coordinators of Rubbermen of San Francisco join us for a discussion/demonstration of rubber as gear and rubber as kink:

• Kinds of rubber and how to buy it
• The care and feeding of rubber and how to store it
• Tears, repairs, and how do I get this on?
• Playing with rubber
• Rubber bondage!

From RMSF:

"Last summer Seven Mitchell and Rick 'RankInSF' Holte combined visions to launch the new face of RMSF. The two, from very different backgrounds, unite in the bonds of rubber to present an LDG experience like never before!

"Seven is an artist and and latex designer for Mr S., and he also brings his vision of rubber fashion to the stage as a performer under the identity of Aurora Switchblade.

"Rick has been incorporating rubber into his life from the time he was old enough to put on a pair of waders. Before he found the BDSM world (working in a bondage nightclub in Minneapolis, where he also designed his own line of fetish gear), he was a scuba instructor -- fulfilling his need to wear rubber in his daily life.

"Seven and Rick promise not only to educate you in how rubber can enhance your erotic experience, they will entertain you and inspire you to share their obsession for rubber. The presentation will attempt to stimulate all of your physical senses and stir your imagination! Get a good seat and don’t block the aisle cause this will be an interactive experience."

PLEASE NOTE CHANGE TO THIRD WEDNESDAY THIS MONTH (NOT FOURTH)!

The jump from mild to wild requires trust, parity, creative timing, subtle on-going negotiations, emotional risk-taking, and appreciation of energetic exchanges. There are also the responsibilities of safety, skills, and limits. 

As leatherfolk, the archetypes we embody in our erotic personas contribute greatly to making our scenes soar. Cléo Dubois, longtime friend of the men's leather/kink/BDSM community, will share with you what she has discovered in her 30 years of playing, illustrated by many pictures from 1981 till now.

Whether you identify as a Top, Dominant, switch, bottom, submissive or versatile player, you’ll examine what’s behind your love of leather, BDSM, sensation play, training, surrender, switching. Knowing who you are and what you want are keys to greater connection and connected hot and versatile play.

Of course a spontaneous sizzling scene will accompany Cleo's presentation.

CLÉO DUBOIS considers BDSM a lifelong passion. A Dominant Woman who also enjoys bottoming, a community player and ritualist, she believes that consensual power-play is a valid path to self-discovery, intimacy, sexual healing and ecstatic sexuality.

Out in SM in the early 80s, and inspired by such fellow-travelers as Cynthia Slater, Joseph Bean, Mark Thompson and her life partner, Fakir, she found her voice as an ethical kink presenter at leather conferences such as Thunder in the Mountains, LIL (Living in Leather), welcomed by groups like Outcasts, the Society of Janus, the National Leather Association, the Exiles.

In 1995 she founded the Academy of S/M Arts (www.sm-arts.com) and in 2002 offered the first Erotic Dominance Intensive for Women. With Eve Minax and Selena Raven, she now holds weekend Intensives for Dominant Women, for Dominant Men, and for those who Switch, several times a year at the San Francisco Citadel. In 2010 an intimate weekend for BDSM couples was added.

Her award-winning docufilm, The Pain Game, noted for its authenticity in embodying the spirit of connected SM play, has become a classic. Her writing has been published in numerous non-fiction lifestyle books, starting with Different Loving, and notably in a monthly column for Gloria Brame's “20 Up SM project” on her own BDSM relationships and polyamorous lifestyle. Her perspective on body rituals appears in the recently released Spirit of Desire: Personal Explorations of Sacred Kink, edited by Lee Harrington.

In 2008, Cléo was selected a Leather Marshal of the San Francisco Pride Celebration & Parade, and also received the Living Leather Heritage award from the Southwest Leather Conference.

YOSSIE SILVERMAN, the Blacksteel guy, is certainly no stranger to the men's community, where he is loved and respected as piercer, leatherman, shaman.

LDG programs start promptly at 7:30 p.m. Leather, gear or fetish wear always encouraged, never required. No admission charge. Open to all adults. We advise arriving early as seating is limited.

Breath Play is obviously one of the most potentially dangerous SM activities, requiring responsibility, trust and scrupulous safety practices. Practitioners describe Breath Play as sensual, euphoric, and erotic.

Note that solo breath play can be fatal and intended "safeguards" often fail, find an experienced partner with whom to play and learn.

We will explore techniques, methods and safety, and will conclude with a question/answer session and hands-on play.

Mark Frazier is co-owner and executive producer of the International Leather Sir/boy and Community Bootblack contests. He currently owns the Dallas Eagle and is also an ER Nurse.

Mark has been involved in the Leather lifestyle for well over 20 years. He has had the privilege of holding leather titles ranging from state and regional to International, holding board positions on prominent local and national organizations, and receiving many awards and accolades.

His most current project is documenting the leather history of North Texas from the 1950s through current day. It is his hope to have the project completed by the summer of 2011.

If you have ever had a scene that lured you with the promise of edgy intensity,but wondered if you could handle the situation before, during or afterward, thisdiscussion is for you. We will explore the reasons some people enjoy play that isvery edgy psychologically, emotionally and physically, and how you can go aboutmaking that fantasy a reality. Inherent in this discussion is the level ofresponsibility of both/all partners, how to manage risk, and how you can supportyour partner in the aftermath.

Edgy play can be hot, and we will look at ways to avoid some common pitfalls, aswell as how to recover with grace and honor when things go off of the plannedpath.

PLEASE BE ADVISED: Some highly controversial scenes (i.e. racial or incest play,weaponry, etc.) will be discussed. Please do not attend if these are outside ofyour comfort zone.

MOLLENA WILLIAMS, writer, actress, educator, has been active in BDSM and theleather community since 1996. She was named Ms San Francisco Leather in 2009 andInternational Ms Leather in 2010. She has presented on leather, BDSM and kinktopics across the US, Europe and Canada (including at the Pride Festival inStockholm, Sweden, where she became the first woman invited to march with theScandinavian Leathermen’s Association!).

A founding member of Crowded Fire Theater Company, Mo blogs on http://mollena.comand is the author of The Toybag Guide: Taboo Play. Other published work includesthe essay “BDSM and Race Play” in Rachel Kramer Bussel’s Best Sex Writing 2010 anda challenging essay on race play in the upcoming anthology Spirit of Desire: Journeys in Sacred Kink, edited by Lee Harrington. Her solo show, "69 Stories: One Pervert's Tale," played to packed houses here in San Francisco and in Vancouver last year.

Mollena's been interviewed for The Bottoming Book, Colorlines magazine, Bitchmagazine, the Playboy Advisor and the Huffington Post, to name a few. She isfeatured in the award winning documentary "Vice & Consent" (and you can see herall tied up in the instructional video, "Jay Wiseman Teaches Rope Bondage").

LDG programs start promptly at 7:30 p.m. Leather, gear or fetish wear alwaysencouraged, never required. We advise arriving early as seating is limited.

* * * * * *

LDG is gearing up for our 8th annual Fetish Fair at the SF Citadel, Wednesday,September 21st (not the usual fourth Wednesday, but the Wednesday before Folsom). We'll showcase some of the Bay Area’s most accomplished Tops & bottomsdemonstrating a broad range of male-on-male kink.

If you are interested in volunteering for Fetish Fair, including as a demoparticipant, drop us a line at: volunteer@sfldg.org

A panel discussion with: Guy Baldwin, Race Bannon, Gayle Rubin & Michael Thorn

Even as the brick-and-mortar institutions of leather – leather bars, clubs, retailers – become more scarce, the robustness of virtual venues as various as Recon and Nastykinkpigs.com is evidence there are more kinky gay men than ever before, with an online reach that is both much broader than Folsom Street and more immediate in finding partners to satisfy our specific tastes than flagging ever was.

But can you call it a “community” when there’s nobody there but you and your iPhone and a knock on the door later on if you get lucky? And if you don’t, hey, there’s no “last call” on the internet...

So what about capital-L Leather? Was it just a precursor, the 8-track player of kinky gay sex, and now has morphed into something we don’t have a label for? Or was it and does it remain something separate and vital, with its codes and traditions and veneration of masculinity?

Has it just changed neighborhoods, belonging now to leatherdykes and the pansexual scene – to the relief of gay men weary of black leather and its hyperbutch insistence, who want to play with a rainbow of fetishes (sports gear, neoprene, pantyhose) and not be named by them? Or are we thinking of those very same guys when we say “leather” these days?

Join us for a discussion of Leather’s past, present and cloudy future, with a panel of some of the most celebrated names in kink:

GAYLE RUBIN is a scholar and activist who was one of the founders of Samois, the first lesbian SM support group, in 1978. She has been conducting research on leather culture and history since the late 1970s, and has been deeply involved in the preservation of leather archives and artifacts. She served on the Board of Directors of the Leather Archives and Museum from 1992 to 2000 and has helped build the leather collections of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Historical Society (GLBTHS). In 1991, she became the first woman to judge a major national gay male title contest (Mr. Drummer). In 2000 Rubin received the National Leather Association Lifetime Achievement Award and was selected by the Leather Archives & Museum as a “Centurion” – one of twenty in the 20th century recognized for outstanding contributions to Leather.

Rubin is a college professor who teaches classes in gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender studies. Soon to be added to her distinguished list of publications are the forthcoming books DEVIATIONS: SEX, GENDER AND POLITICS (Fall 2011) and VALLEY OF THE KINGS: LEATHERMEN IN SAN FRANCISCO, 1960-1990 (for 2012), which has already been hailed as the most authoritative history of gay male leather in San Francisco.

RACE BANNON has been exploring nontraditional sex since 1973 as an organizer, educator, commentator, activist and leader. With Guy Baldwin he founded the Kink-Aware Professionals directory (now managed by the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom) and initiated The DSM Project, a grassroots coalition dedicated to changing the way psychotherapeutic professionals view BDSM and its practitioners. He is author of the best-selling classic LEARNING THE ROPES: A BASIC GUIDE TO SAFE AND FUN SM LOVEMAKING, and founder of Daedalus Publishing, the first publishing house dedicated to non-fiction books about leather/SM/fetish sexuality.

Among his many honors and distinctions are the Mister Marcus Hernandez Lifetime Achievement Pantheon of Leather Community Service Award in 2010 and the National Leather Association Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006. He is known to thousands in the U.S. and beyond from his nearly 400 speaking engagements. He currently sits on the boards of the Community-Academic Consortium for Research on Alternative Sexualities (CARAS) and the Leather Hall of Fame.

MICHAEL THORN has been active in the leather community for over 22 years, slinging drinks at the AAMeatMarket and the Chicago Eagle, hosting Crowbar’s big gay night and producing IML’s Post-Award Party at Kaboom, blacking boots alongside Harry Shattuck and managing Der Stiefelknecht (“The Bootjack”) in Vienna, selling for Mr S. and helping to launch Fort Troff, giving a keynote address at the Leather Leadership Conference 2008 here in San Francisco.

As editor-in-chief of INSTIGATOR magazine for the past eight years, he is in daily contact with leather “retailers, clubs, bars, promoters, non-profits, studios, porn stars, websites, local rags, community leaders, coalitions fending off the Justice Department, craftsmen, writers, artists, and a freakishly devoted readership” in 52 countries around the world.

GUY BALDWIN – leatherman, author, activist and pioneering psychotherapist – has worked clinically with erotically uncommon clients for the last 30 years. An acclaimed speaker, he has delivered keynote addresses for the Leather Leadership Conference, the International Master/slave Weekend & South Plains Leatherfest, the “Living in Leather” convention of the National Leather Association, the Austin Bash and the Dominion Gathering, to name a few. Of his published work, he is perhaps best known for his essays in DRUMMER magazine, many of which were collected in his 1993 book, TIES THAT BIND. His 2002 SLAVECRAFT, now in its fourth printing, offers a compelling and controversial look at the inner dynamics of erotic servitude in the Master/slave dynamic.

In 1989, he was selected Mr. National Leather Association and the 11th International Mr. Leather, and is the only person ever to hold both titles concurrently. He has been awarded both the Pantheon and Dominion Lifetime Achievement Awards, and in 2000 was named “Centurion” by the Leather Archives & Museum – one of twenty in the 20th century recognized for outstanding contributions to Leather. He was among the first inductees to the Society of Janus Hall Of Fame in 2004 and received the first Master/slave Heritage Award at the 2009 Master/slave Conference. In 2008 he received the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s third-ever “Leather Leadership Award,” in recognition of his lifelong commitment to the leather community.

LDG programs start promptly at 7:30 p.m. We advise arriving early as seating is limited.

And after the program, we invite you to continue the conversation with us and other attendees while patronizing any or all of our sponsors providing refreshments Wednesday evening:

CAFÉ FLORE: http://cafeflore.com/
POWERHOUSE: http://www.powerhouse-sf.com/
TRUCK: http://www.trucksf.com/

PLEASE NOTE: the program will be video-recorded by LDG. No other recording devices will be permitted. Watch our website for information about availability of the video and/or a transcript. Thanks for your patience.

What better way to commemorate Pride than with leather icon Peter Fiske? Few men in our community are more loved, respected and celebrated than this month's presenter. 

A friend of LDG from the beginning -- 15 years ago -- Peter will bring a selection from his legendary collection of rare and unusual whips, talk about buying whips, using them safely, and the art of the singletail, from administering marks of pleasure to making a hot scene happen with your whip.

Daddy Peter Fiske has beeen a leatherman since March 1964. He is a Stonewall veteran and member of Stonewall Veterans Association (SVA) New York, NY. Peter is SF Leather Daddy XXI and he is Chairman of Delta International, Chairman Emeritus of the 15 Association, and a co-founder of the Breast Cancer Emergency Fund (BCEF) of SF. His community service includes: board member and president of SF AIDS Emergency Fund and board member of SF LGBT Pride.

Peter's awards include two Pantheon of Leather Awards and one Pantheon Lifetime Achievement Award. Peter has also been honored with the Hank Cook Service award by AEF San Francisco and by SFLGBT Pride with the 2005 Heritage of Pride award for longtime service to the SFLGBT community.

Daddy Peter is a well known educator and has presented at hundreds of events over the years, including many times at LDG. He has also presented at Avatar, Inferno, Delta, the 15 Association, Society of Janus and at numerous events all over the US. For over 45 years Peter has been an activist and leatherman working tirelessly to better the lives of leatherfolk everywhere.

LDG programs start promptly at 7:30 p.m. Doors open at 7:10 p.m. We advise arriving early as seating is limited. Program will include a demonstration.