I get a lot of email at “Savage Love” from gay leather/SM guys complaining about how lame gay leather bars are these days. No one wears leather to leather bars anymore, most of the guys at leather bars aren’t into leather, everyone is hooking up online now, famous leather bars are closing, etc. BLUF has issued a challenge to these leather guys: stop complaining about how there aren’t any guys in gear at the leather bars and gear the fuck up and go the fuck out:
Lots of people say [they] don’t want to be the only ones in a bar in full leather; and, to an extent, that’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more of us who stay home because we don’t think there’ll be many other people in gear, the worse the bar scene will become. Everyone ends up saving themselves for ‘special events,’ whether it’s a BLUF party, one of Recon’s Full Fetish events, or something else…. Great though big parties can be, there aren’t many bars that can survive on just a few party nights a year, especially when commercial promoters take their cut. They need our support to stay open—otherwise we’ll come out of the recession, to a chorus of people asking “Where are all the leather bars?”
…
[Take] the 12×12 pledge. It’s simple: We don’t want you to prop up the bar every night. Or to make a point of going out every weekend. But we would like to you step away from the PC, and get out in your gear. We want as many leather and fetish guys as possible to try to make sure that in 2012, they visit their local leather bars, at least twelve times. If enough of us do, perhaps we can make a difference, and make sure that the leather bars we do have aren’t just places for special events from time to time, but somewhere we can meet like minded people, whenever we do feel like going out.
In other words: the time you’re spending in front of your computer composing letters to Dan Savage about how no one is out in the leather bars in leather gear, leather guys? You could be spending that time in leather bars in leather gear. Just sayin’.
BLUF12x12’s Facebook page is here.
Or it could be that just not as many guys are into leather or the other old school sterotypes these days. Maybe the community is growing up a little bit?
As much as I hate how much this phrase is overused; Talk about a first-world problem!
BTW, hasn’t this been a complaint about the leather bars for at least the past 16 years that I can think of? When I first moved to Seattle in 1995 people were complaining that the Eagle and the Cuff weren’t “really” leather bars. (Then the Cuff added a dance floor) And that they were letting guy in without leather and even worse… STRAIGHT PEOPLE!!!! AACCKK!!!
Sorry, it just seems that this complaint is a rerun.
Ugh, the smell of leather and rancid crisco is unbearable anyway. And some old queen with a sagging ass in a pair of chaps was the last straw. Rent a warehouse and throw a private party.
@5, you mean those weren’t horses pulling a plow that I seen at the Eagle three weeks ago? I’ll be damned…I thought the Eagle became a livestock bar.
Damn this is really IMPORTANT people!
It’s not like children are starving in Africa or anything….
This reminds me of a club I went to in Ann Arbor a few years ago, there was a straight couple (could tell because of strategic bulges) dressed in leather horse gear – as in full body, dressed like horses, head and all. All in leather.
And that wasn’t a leather bar/club, either.
“You call this a ponyplay bar? Where’s the fucking trough?”
This isn’t a bad call to action for any bar that you like. I’ve put 4 local bars into bankruptcy (not in Seattle) and most of the surrounding ones had already closed, mostly due to poor turnout. So if you care about the bar at all – GO! Otherwise, leather or no, it won’t be there in 2013. Guaranteed.
Jesus Fucking Christ on a crutch but there are some bitchy queens in this thread!
Yes, the leather scene as fondly remembered by a lot of guys had its heyday in the ’70s and ’80s. Yes, it reflects a level of hedonism that a lot of gay quislings are running from as fast as they can into bourgeois, suburban respectability. Yes, it’s a scene hit hard by AIDS and police raids (which once upon a time would have gotten us rioting in the streets, but of course we’ve been domesticated now) and simple age.
All of that being said, I think it’s amply clear that the level of interest in sexual fetishes and kinks has never been higher. Back in the day, the natural place to explore those kinks would have been in the leather bar. Nowadays, it’s generally done online (and it can’t be said enough just how much the Internet has been killing off many of the former mainstays of the gay community).
Yes, it’s a good idea to get out and get into your gear a hell of a lot more often than we generally do. On the other hand, the bars themselves could do a lot more to encourage this. Our local “Eagle” has, last time I checked, one night out of the month where it does anything at all to encourage guys to come out in gear. One-Fucking-Night-a-MONTH.
Formerly, the bars encouraged gear in a bunch of different ways: drink discounts, waived cover charges, access to certain parts of the bar, tight coordination with local groups, kink and fetish demonstrations, etc. Going back to the days of dress codes is clearly not going to happen in this day and age (although is it really asking too much to keep out the guys drenched in perfume?), but there’s no reason the bars themselves couldn’t do more to encourage the scene.
This is a two-way street, and perhaps the leathermen really do need to make the first move (I plan on doing this challenge in 2012). But the bars themselves have also allowed themselves to drift away from their original mission.