BijouBlog

 

It started in Chicago, as long ago as 1972 (only a few years after the Stonewall revolutionary event), on a pool table at the Gold Coast Bar. The first leather contest. The winner was John Lunning.

Chuck Renslow, now a legendary figure, was the driving force in the development of the whole gay leather culture. After this event, he soon discovered that one way to put a public face on what was going in the backrooms and other shadowy places was by founding what some claim was (and still is) a “leather beauty contest.” Think: kind of a Mr. America take-off but add bdsm-related gear and activities; anything to grab the audience's attention (and cocks). In fact, one anecdotal source claims that at the first contest “slaves” were dragged onto the stage.

Soon the contest became so popular that it outgrew the bar, and in 1979 the first official International Mr. Leather contest occurred at a local hotel.

A dozen candidates in full leather and swimwear (changed to jockstraps in later years), paraded before an audience of about 300 men.

David Kloss, an oil rig worker (now that's once macho occupation!) representing The Brig bar in San Francisco, won the first title.

According to Jack Fritscher in the September 1979 issue of Drummer Magazine:

“The other men, daring to put their pecs and ass on the world’s toughest Chorus Line, were: Terry Hunter, Carol’s Speakeasy, Chicago; Reg Simpson, RR, Miami; Donald Rahn, Foxhole, Denver; Stan Masterson, Landmark, Daytona Beach, FL; Daan [sic] Jefferson, Gold Coast, Chicago; Jim Kazlik, Wreckroom, Milwaukee; Harry Shattuck, South Town Lumber Co., Denver; Bill Maggio, Harder Than Hell Productions, Chicago; Jesse Capello [second IML Runner-up], Café LaFitte in Exile/Coral Bar, New Orleans; Durk Dehner [first IML Runner-up who was a Drummer model from Lou Thomas’ Target Studio, and future founder of Tom of Finland Foundation], American Uniform Association, L. A.; Bruce Wachholder, Touche, Chicago; David Kloss, the Brig, San Francisco. The judges were Chuck Gockenmeyer, General Manager of Leatherman Inc, New York; Robert Dunn, Advertising Director, Drummer magazine; Dom Orejudos (Etienne); Tom Gora, In Touch magazine; and Lou Thomas, Target Studio, New York.”

The list above seems a roll call of both men and organizations who have now become iconic in the leather community.

The contestants, Jack Fritscher wrote in the September 1979 Drummer Magazine, typified “the new homomasculinity.”

The seventies were indeed the era of “gay macho,” popularized (and perhaps even satirized in the Village People phenomenon). But rather than just thinking of it as an era of “guys gone wild,” one also needs to understand that also during this time guys into leather/bdsm were establishing their own communities. The seventies saw the foundation of the Chicago Hellfire Club (its first Inferno event took place in September 1976 to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the Club). Other organizations that began in this period was M.A.F.I.A. (a club for guys into fisting) and Rodeo Riders, a social group for guys who enjoy sex, gear, and each other in a variety of social settings. These three clubs are still going strong now!

Chicago, with is unique mix of Midwestern communal values and gritty individualism, apparently was the ideal place for this movement to take shape.

Thanks to jackfritscher.com and the Leather Archives & Museum for much of the material in this blog.

If you're in or traveling to Chicago for this year's IML, don't miss Men's Room at the Bijou, presented by the Leather Archives, on Saturday May 23!

Posted on craigslist, missed connections:

Thursday night it was the backyard at Manhandler. You were sucking guys off with your shirt off. You smoked a lot. That's nasty by the way. You seemed to be in my proximity or in my face the whole time I was there. You were inside fucking with your tired little cell phone (probably seeking even more cum from the web) and I got a good look at your face in the light. No wonder you lurk around dark sex venues. You are at least 55, maybe 60, wrinkled, fugly, and that Sean Hayes hairstyle has GOT to go. Please, do us all a favor, and take the summer off from sex. Don't come to water sports parties or bear naked or anything else. Stay home, or whatever the fuck. And the next time you try to elbow your way into the middle of my sex with someone, I'm going to give you a swift kick into your dried up decayed little balls. You know who you are, the one who looks like Jack from Will and Grace, and wears that ridiculous half-lopsided little harness thing sometimes. Go pickle yourself, hon.

Reply to the above: OMG I know exactly who you're describing. He is everywhere!!!! And so rude and will try to horn in on your action. He needs to stay home for about 20 years until sex no longer matters lol.

I am damn mad. I understand the poster's need to vent on one level, but I actually felt sorry for the person this individual was complaining about.

I wasn't surprised by the poster's crass materialism (”tired little cellphone”) and of course, obviously, the insults about the person's age and physical appearance. Such unabated viciousness seems to be common these days in a culture of narcissism and entitlement.

And let's face it: these have always been problems with ageism in the gay community, as well as the rampant discrimination against those who don't possess an ideally perfect youthful body. Even in vintage Hollywood, an actress over 35 was over the hill.

And the prejudice against age and those who don't match up to certain physical standards has escalated in a world where sex is available on a phone app, bodies can be photoshopped, and Kim Kardashian is a role model.

Regarding the reason for the vent, I do understand the etiquette about not “horning” in on public sex scenes, but rather than posting something so hurtful anonymously (the coward's way out), how about speaking kindly to the person and perhaps explaining the etiquette, for a start?

(But then, in the middle of a circle jerk, counseling might not come to mind.)

As I said above, I feel deeply sorry for this person who was the target of such vitriol. Loneliness … sexual addiction … who knows what drives this person to behave this way? I think his fate is the fate of so many unattached older gay men, many of whom don't know how to develop relationships (or, even more sadly, they could be lonely survivors of the AIDS epidemic of the eighties) because their only exposure to gay life was “dark sex venues,” which before today's environment of acceptance, were often the only places a gay person could connect?

And finally, to the person who posted that craiglist ad: Who are you to judge? You also seem to frequent these “dark sex venues.”

I don't think I would be wrong in predicting that you will be that person in about twenty years. Karma's a bitch, bitch!

 

Even accounts of guys jacking each other off in the saunas and steam rooms of gyms and health clubs (that seems to be a major location for missed connections) seem to him rather far-fetched. Along these lines, there also seems to be a common theme in these ads of noticing hot cable TV or computer/internet repair people and asking them to return so to pay them back in nonmonetary ways (now I would agree that is definitely a porn jack-off fantasy).

I can’t vouch for any of the above; I do know that the usual places for public cruising are still bathrooms (Macy’s seems to be a popular site) and, in the Chicago area, certain forest preserves. Surprisingly, based on my perusal of recent ads, bars, even “rougher” ones like Touché, which still contains a backroom for sexual activity, don’t even make the list these days as missed connection potential.

Actually, there have been more and more accounts of guys noticing each other and mildly flirting in “suburban family” restaurants like Applebee’s. Here’s a typical one:

"Applebee's, Sunday brunch (Matteson) – 28 You, blond with deep blue eyes, wearing a tight black t-shirt, were eating with what seemed to be your parents and grandmother. You complimented me on my sweater and asked me what I was eating. You are so cute. Hope you see this."

The usual question one asks is if any of these missed connections ever end up connecting. I wonder if these ads reflect the shift in social norms, not only because the way people now connect in nonphysical ways like social media, but the gradual acceptance of LGBT into the mainstream culture. Maybe physical affection on trains and flirting in ostensibly straight locations outside “gay ghettos” shows this trend.

What I find particularly significant about ads like the above Applebee’s one is the face-to-face social interaction component. There’s more to a connection than staring at a bulge through clouds of steam, however stimulating. A little bit of small talk without relying on electronic devices can lead to bigger, deeper talks. And down the road you might end up sitting with your husband in a restaurant. Now that scenario might be just as much of a fantasy as doing it with the cable repairman or the guy working out next to you.

But remember, to quote the famous poet John Donne, “no man is an island,” even in the lonely yet crowded world of missed connections.

A former friend of mine who entered a lavender marriage with a former female friend (yes, I am a big gossip) reeled in horror when I told him my little kitten (who passed away from feline leukemia in 1989 after I had her for only six months) was in the room when I was jacking off. Yes, that little kitten might pick up some unsavory habits. Yikes!

In 2002, I got my cat, “The Honey,” (she passed away in 2013) who developed into the attention whore of the century. She would not only watch, but sometimes, while various sexual acts were going on, would do her usual “show the belly” routine, which in cat body language, means, ultimate trust. Once, my late partner was getting a blow job in my living room from another guy (I was out that afternoon), and he told me she was in fine “show the belly” form.

I don't think The Honey was getting off on the sex. Instead, another human was there who could supply her with attention. And given that cats are territorial, rather than trying to mark boundaries by excluding outsiders, she wanted to be inclusive, on her terms. As I used to say, if something major (a hot guy in full leather cop mode getting his cock sucked and boots licked, certainly major) was going on in her queendom, she had to be involved in it somehow.

The presence of cats seems to be a common trope, perhaps, in our classic gay films.

One of our classic films, The Night Before, does involve a gay couple picking out a kitten as part of their bonding. I'm not sure if one could imply the kitten was present when they have sex later.
 

In Always Ready, a cat sleeps on Casey Donovan's bed, the scene of many interesting activities, of course.

In From Paris to New York, a white fluffy cat jumps on the furniture and hangs out during the sex scene.

A cat in Wanted: Billy the Kid rolls around, trying to get attention, while two men have sex.

And in In Heat, during the frightening BDSM scene, a cat is chilling out in the background, indifferent to what is basically a home invasion.

(I'm not sure if cats can consistently function as “watch cats.” And they're definitely not “man's best friends.” They're not dogs.)

Tumblr, source of all things weird, even offers a site, Indifferent Cats in Amateur Porn.

Well, it certainly fits the criteria as it focus on the two most popular  Internet obsessions: cats and porn.

Just think: not too long ago, Chicago's landscape was covered with filthy, lumpy ice.

Now, in the Middle Ages, people really celebrated spring: so many songs about flowers blooming and animals and people screwing:
 

That was a time when life was much more precarious, and so when the inevitable cycle of nature began anew after a long winter (often a time of deprivation but also semi-hibernation, depending on the state of the autumn harvest). When spring arrived, the people celebrated, but they also had to participate in that cycle by literally sowing seed: a cycle of work and pleasure.

We've lost that intimate working connection with the land; thus our bodies and souls can't really hibernate or prepare to rejuvenate the way nature intends.

Sex in front of a fireplace in the dead of winter is wonderful, but if one is exhausted from commuting across windswept tundras, a cup of steaming hot tea is more enjoyable. (I wonder how the inhabitants of lands near the Arctic Circle fare with their long, sunless winters and short summers.)

T.S. Eliot claimed April is the cruelest month. I might say March is more cruel, which lately seems like the last, often vicious in-your-face blast of winter rather than a harbinger of cute lambs, bunnies, baskets of pussy willows, sprouting crocuses, and dewy grass. The weathermen Tom Skilling on WGN-TV Chicago actually called the month “schizophrenic” because of its extreme weather contrasts.

But there's one day, usually in early May, when I wake up and it everything has bloomed, like it happened overnight through some miraculous intervention.

It's unexpected, like the best sex. I want it to happen, but I won't know it has happened until it actually has happened!