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Cal Rider shares the evolution of #Gear365; a global movement encouraging people to embrace their gear fetishes as a deep part of their identity & sexuality by wearing their 'chosen skin' in daily life.
Cal Rider (aka Charles Abel-Lear) calls himself an accidental icon to the world gear fetish. Originally from small-town Minnesota, this Sacramento leatherman founded a movement that has taken social media by storm. It’s known as #Gear365.
“It started off as a YouTube video I posted stating my new year’s resolution to wear some form of gear every day in 2018,” says Cal. “From there, it quickly morphed into a mission to help gear fetishists across the world embrace wearing their ‘second skin’ in daily life.” The movement inspires people to let go of any fear or shame associated with their gear fetishes, replacing them with a sense of pride and confidence. By the end of 2018, the Gear365 hashtag had tens-of-thousands of posts from gear fetishists across worldwide.
Cal believes the reason behind #Gear365’s explosive success is simple; “All these gear-lovers were looking for the same things I was. They want to know there are others just like themselves out there in the world. They want to let go of any shame or stigma behind their gear fetishes. They want people to know who they truly are and live their authentic lives in their ‘second skin.’ By opening up to the world about my personal desires, the world opened up and shared theirs with me. It’s the greatest gift I could have ever received.”
“Leather is far more than sexual -- although sex in it is pretty great,” Cal says coyly. “It’s so much deeper than just sex. It’s been an intrinsic part of my mental and spiritual being from early childhood onward. It has and always will have this effect where it transforms my mind, body and soul from the inside out. But I grew up feeling quite alone with my attractions. In small-town Minnesota, people didn’t wear leather the way I wanted to… and they certainly didn’t take to homosexuality. I learned to hide my ‘depraved’ desires and began associating them with a deep sense of shame. This led to a number of years of extreme weight gain, depression and isolation. I felt so alone.”
In his #Gear365 blogs and YouTube videos, Cal often touches on his personal history with depression and the stigma over expressing our fetishes – and more so, how he’s overcome them. He’s received an overwhelming response from people all over the globe who have or are going through similar struggles and their triumphant work to break through them.
A year-and-a-half into the movement, #Gear365 currently has over 30,000 Instagram posts and a combined 5,600 members in the Facebook groups. The feeds are full of stories of people doing things in their ‘second skins’ where they had never before imagined they could. Cal and thousands of others are finding the strength to get the gear out of their closets, on to their bodies and out into the streets – living our best lives as our true, geared up selves. “With Gear365, strength truly is in numbers.”
