From Issue 2.6 - June/July 1996
If I had chosen discretion over desire, I never would have had my
first happy SM experience, which started when a horny, stunningly
beautiful man in leather cruised my butt and motioned me into a
storefront doorway at 8th and Folsom. He opened his vest, and I sucked
his beefy, exposed nipple until I became nervous about potential
passers-by. Thankfully, he responded by grabbing me behind the neck
and dragging me (and my surprised hard-on!) down an alley, into his
flat, and onto his eye-bolted bed. And into another world.
-- Bill Brent, editor, Black Sheets and The Black Book
I completely intellectualized the process of coming out into SM,
carefully reading both pro (Coming to Power, Lesbian S/M Safe Sex
Manual) and con (Against Our Will and other Dworkinite
texts). Finally, I just said "fuck it," and proceeded with the
physical manifestation of a deep, undeniable desire to beat the crap
out of a woman and have her do it to me, plus lots of fucking.
-- Lydia Steptoe, writer of lesbian SM fiction
When I was 12 years old I had my first S&M experience. I would bug the
15 year old son of my mother's boyfriend until he would torture
me. The tortures became more and more sexual as time went on. Finally,
I was leading him astray and he didn't want to do it anymore because
my ideas were getting "too weird." Finally, at the age of 21 in
San Francisco, I bought my first pair of chaps and had my first
"adult" S&M experience with a hot top who just looked at me in
the Arena Bar and said, "Are you ready to go?" I said "Yes,
sir!" I became one of those creatures my mother warned me about.
-- Greg L. Pennington, San Francisco
I found my father's same-sex porn and photos of his own genital
cuttings and modifications after he died. Being curious, I
investigated, and discovered a marvelous world of sexuality shunned by
most mortals. At a sex toy party I picked up a flogger and twirled and
snapped it over another woman's bottom. Being experienced, she
suggested that I attend the next Catacombs party and find a delicious
bottom to use it on. She had some sort of belief that I had an innate
skill with whips...
-- Tala Brandeis, leatherdyke activist and single-tail whip weilder, San Francisco
As a high-school virgin, I really wanted to be tied up by my
boyfriend, but I was too shy to say anything. So I carried long
strands of ribbon in my pockets and hoped he'd get the idea. He never
did. And neither did anyone else. Years later, on the phone from
Texas, my high-school boyfriend confessed, "I always knew you were
into kinky stuff. But I never told you that I was into it, too." "You
waited thirteen years to tell me that? Well, when are you going to
visit?" I have a Polaroid from a few months later. His first time and
mine. I'm on my back, wearing soft white rope attached to a futon
frame, a scarf around my eyes, and blue bikini panties. Later, through
an endorphin haze, I mumbled, "You know, I was kind of worried that
doing it in real life would be a let-down compared to my
fantasies. But it was much better."
-- Firecat, San Francisco Bay Area writer and consultant
In 1988 I had no clue that there was a scene. One night I phoned a
party line and met a guy named BlueMan. He told me about another line,
the B&D line, and we called it. "Isn't it a hoot?" he asked. I was
pretty shocked that there were nice, normal, intelligent people doing
the fantasies that I had always thought were shameful and bad. I took
Lolita as my handle and began to call the line as an innocent young
girl. I learned a lot, and eventually met my first Master, my first
slave, and my first TV "girlfriend" through the line.
--Lolita, New York City
I can't say that I'm one of those that saw the light and pleasures of
SM at an early age. But I also wasn't one of those kids that had a
rigid sense of gender, mom, dad, and apple pie, either. As an
adolescent I used to dress myself up for my own pleasure after the
family had gone to sleep. I marveled at my transformations; I lived
for Halloween each year. Moving to the Bay Area allowed me ample
opportunity for going out in fab glam outfits and expressing my
personae. I realized that I'm actually a tall, styilin', alien
bisexual drag queen trapped in the body of petite woman. I started
lurking about at fetishy clubs and events. Although I had been playing
bondage games with my lovers since I first became sexually active, I
never really gave it a thought that I was (gulp) Kinky. I just thought
I was a bit adventurous and naughty. At the various clubs I started to
meet others like me, got invited to parties, and realized that I am a
Perv, surrounded by a bunch of other Pervs and Freaks. IÕm still
adventurous and naughty. But now I wave it around like a big bright
neon and metallic flag with a latex fringe border, while wearing thigh
high platform boots and brandishing a wicked cane and a very small
fist.
-- Midori, fetish diva
I knew that I was attracted to sex with men since I was a 15 year old
boy, but I also knew that I in no way related to the effeminate men
publicly known as "faggots" in the small deep south town in which I
was reared. So I tended to associate with the rougher men who liked
man-to-man action but who would never call themselves "queer." In
1974, at the age of 19, having just perused a paperback bookstore's
offering of science-fiction, I went down the "crafts" aisle to avoid a
number of people blocking the aisle of more popular sellers, when a
book with a yellow cover with a man wearing a studded leather jacket
caught my eye. I stopped, opened it randomly, and read something to
the effect of "Does the sight of a dominant guy in black leather turn
you on?" My immediate hard-on answered that question. I bought the
book, which was Larry Townsend's Leatherman's Handbook, and slowly
made my entry through what was still left of the apprenticeship system
in Atlanta, New York City, and Chicago.
-- Joseph Tsiyonv, systems analyst and International Gay Rodeo Association steer wrestler
Was it the delightful and musky aroma of grandmum's kid leather pumps
that emanated power and comfort to this mischievous child? Was it
tying my playmates to trees and watching them struggle against their
bonds? Or was it painting a supple young bottom a fiery red and
feeling the sting and warmth upon my hand. No, I believe my favorite
was the allure of the mystical garden hose and the magic and delights
that it provided.
-- Mistress Paloma, Mistress-at-large
My first introduction to SM was literary, romantic, theoretical. I
fell in love with a cold, imperious red-haired bitch about the same
time a friend lent me a copy of (the then out of print) Venus in
Furs. The relationship went unconsummated, however, and my interest
remained philosophical until a few years later. Then, after the
wrenching and untimely death of a lover, I met Mistress Shane, a
beautiful young professional dominatrix who taught me how to transmute
my guilt and mental anguish into physical punishment and
absolution. Then she taught me how the process could be used for
pleasure, and sent me out into this sick world to wreak what havoc I
could. And so I have done.
-- David Aaron Clark, author and editor
Having always been thought of "as a little different," as soon
as I arrived in San Francisco my first stop was at a leather
bar. Suddenly, I found myself surrounded by men of my same
persuasion. Not just gay, but willing to experiment and push to the
limit. Any fears or doubts I may have had before were gone. I was at
home. I was relieved, and my bound emotions were suddenly released. I
felt as if I had just experienced a giant ejaculation. I continue to
explore this wonderful new world to this day.
--Philip M. Turner, SF Leather Daddy XI
Ten years ago, I was kicked out of the midwestern feminist collective
rape crisis center for being suspected of beating up my girlfriend. My
roommate's girlfriend (who was also in the collective) had seen a copy
of Coming to Power on the floor next to my bed and assumed my
girlfriend and I were doing SM (we were actually just thinking about
doing it). Since we'd already been accused and suffered the
consequences, we decided to try it, and happily moved to the Bay Area
to be leatherdykes.
-- Anne Williams, femme stud with power tools