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.

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with Robert Shively/"Daddy Robert", Sage Mahosadha, Sister Mora Lee D'Klined, Marc Fuentes and Deborah Addington, moderated by Justin Tanis

Join our diverse and distinguished panelists as we investigate the intersection of leathersex and spirituality. What is a spiritual experience, anyway? How do we differentiate it from intense pleasure, intense sensation, an endorphin high, even love?

Does neuropsychology have anything to tell us about “threshold” states of consciousness? Does spiritual experience presuppose a belief in God, or in an eternal soul? How does spiritual experience shape your conscience and values and behavior, or does it?

Do specific practices foster spiritual discovery? What about specific faith traditions and how they view sexuality?

This program is presented in cooperation with the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry.

DEBORAH ADDINGTON has a longstanding reputation in the leather/kink community as a writer, educator, organizer, mentor, and elder. She is the author of A Hand in the Bush: the Fine Art of Vaginal Fisting (1999), Fantasy Made Flesh: the Essential Guide to Erotic Roleplay (2003), and Play Piercing (2006). Deborah is currently in a Ph.D. program in Theology working at the intersection of BDSM sexualities and spirituality/religion. She is an ordained minister in the tradition of modern mysticism and an avid crocheter.

MARC FUENTES has been a member and officer of Defenders/San Francisco since their formation in 1994, currently serving as its President, and a member of Dignity since 1988. He experiences his spirituality through power-exchange relationships and finds a connection with the Divine in nature. He is one of the 18,0000 same-sex couples in California who were legally married in 2008, and had a religious commitment ceremony with his husband in 1993. Marc has been riding motorcycles since 2010 and currently rides a Harley Heritage Softail Classic.

SISTER MORA LEE D’KLINED grew up as a Jehovah's Witness, which meant going door to door with the full Bible-banging, come-to-jesus, I’m right-you're-wrong, only-through-me-can-you-be-saved spiel. She has been active as a Sister of Perpetual Indulgence for over five years in the San Francisco House of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, Inc., and currently serves as its President/Abbess. She has worked with various community organizations, including Folsom Street Events, and lives by the rules “Don’t sell yourself short — always charge full price,” and “Always try to put yourself in the other person’s shoes, especially if they are expensive. Then run away." Mora is a solitary practitioner and a follower of Pan.

SAGE MAHOSADHA was formerly a Catholic monk and has worked as a psychotherapist in private practice, an AIDS/HIV clinical manager and researcher, and as a hospice professional. He is a guiding teacher for the POC (people of color) sangha at Oakland’s East Bay Meditation Center and an independent spiritual teacher and meditation instructor nationally and internationally. Sage is grateful for his over 20 years' involvement with the leather/fetish/kink community, which he approaches as both a spiritual practice and an avenue for physical, emotional and relational development.

A discussion of authority-based (Master/slave, Dominant/submissive) relationships, from 24/7 connections to those lasting only as long as a scene.

How do you look for a D/s or M/s dynamic? How is one founded and nurtured? What are the principles and agreements that make structured relationships work?

What advantages do they confer? What skills do they call on the participants to develop? Are they really so different from egalitarian relationships?

Featuring our guests:

MASTER MORRIS, SLAVE JONATHAN and SLAVE LARRY have been in a leather family for over three years. Master Morris is the head of the household; slave jonathan is his live-in 24/7 slave, while slave larry lives in his own quarters, but is also a full-time slave. Master Morris and slave jonathan hold the current 2013 International Master and slave titles, and slave larry was an integral part of their service to the community.

CLÉO DUBOIS believes consensual powerplay is a valid path to self-discovery, intimacy, and ecstatic sexuality. Out in SM since the early 80s, and inspired by such fellow-travelers as Cynthia Slater, Joseph Bean, Mark Thompson and her life partner, Fakir, in 1995 she founded the Academy of S/M Arts, and since 2002 has offered Erotic Dominance Intensive weekends for women, men, and those who switch.  Cléo's award-winning docufilm, The Pain Game (2000) is now considered a classic, and her writing has been published in numerous celebrated non-fiction lifestyle books. In 2008, Cléo was elected a Leather Marshal of the San Francisco Pride Celebration & Parade and received the Living Leather Heritage award from the Southwest Leather Conference. She blogs weekly on www.cleodubois.wordpress.com, offers office or Skype consultations and guided play for couples of all genders and sexual orientations in the privacy of her dungeon.

JUSTIN TANIS is an artist, writer, photographer, scholar, and activist. He earned his M.Div. degree at Harvard Divinity School and his Doctor of Ministry degree from San Francisco Theological Seminary. He contributed chapters to The Queer Bible Commentary and Take Back the Word: A Queer Reading of the Bible, and his published dissertation was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in 2003. Justin’s long record of advocacy includes ACT-UP, Queer Nation, and a stint as education and outreach manager for the National Center for Transgender Equality. He has presented at numerous leather events including Leather Leadership Conference, Southplains Leatherfest, the Master/slave Conference, Los Angeles Leather Weekend and Rio Grande Leather. He was the recipient of the 2008 Pantheon of Leather Rocky Mountain Regional Award, the Spirit of Service award from Southwest Leather Conference in 2011, and the 2011 “Master Jack McGeorge Excellence in Education Award.” Justin serves as managing director of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry in Berkeley and is currently working on a second  doctoral degree.

DADDY ROBERT, ERIK WILL and DEREKK COOK consider they are in a cascading power dynamic. Robert and Erik met in 2011 at a Kink.com shoot and decided to call each other “Daddy” and “boy” on their first date, which was also Erik’s first flogging; Erik was collared a few months later. Erik and Derekk met at the 2012 Bay Area Leather Alliance weekend, and after a series of one-month contracts, Derekk was collared. Pay attention now: Derekk is Robert’s boy. Erik is Derekk’s Daddy. Robert is Erik’s Daddy and Sir and is Derek’s Daddybear. (Robert is also in an 11-year non-power-dynamic relationship with his life partner Bruce, who has a boyfriend of 1 year.) Erik serves as chairman of the S.F. Leathermen’s Discussion Group, Daddy Robert serves on our SFLDG board, and Derekk is one of our most valued (and put-upon) volunteers.

Okay, forgive the hyperbole. We’ll be the first to acknowledge that Bay Area leather clubs and membership organizations are probably healthier and more active than any time in the past twenty years.

But there’s no denying that the mainstreaming of kink and the explosive increase of the leather/fetish community nationally have outstripped the growth of clubs and challenged their relevance.

Many of our oldest, most venerated clubs are gone (the Warlocks, the CMC, Gay Male S/M Activists, the artsy Rainbow MC, the once-great Knights of Malta), while others are a shadow of what they once were (the Eulenspiegel Society, National Leather Association, the Rocky Mountaineers, the Wasatch Leathermen).

But others are going as strong or stronger than ever: the Satyrs, the 15, the Chicago Hellfire Club. What makes the difference?

What makes a club endure? Is it aggressive recruitment? Opening up to all genders and orientations? Or is it keeping membership criteria narrow and highly selective? Is it in the governance, the structure, the mission?

What attracts us to a specific club? Nowadays the pleasures of leather are openly on offer, on the web, on the street, at events open to the public. If nobody needs a membership to be introduced to our traditions, our vocabulary, our styles of play, will clubs become obsolete?

And what would a community without membership clubs look like? Might it be more in keeping with the shared needs and allegiances we have developed? The NLA was founded with a vision of becoming a national leather membership organization, pan-gender, pan-orientation. With only a few chapters surviving, that dream seems to have died — some would say because we are a nation of clubs.

Join us and our panelists for a conversation about the history and future of clubs, how they differ, how they don’t, what they ask, what they offer, and whether they can successfully adapt to the evolving contours of the alt-sex communities today.

THE PANEL:

STEPHEN CHARLES has been a part of the San Francisco leather/fetish/BDSM community for fifteen years. He is a co-founder of GearUp Men's Weekend and was awarded the title of Mr. Homoto Leather 2012.

JORDY JONES is a leatherman and a gentleman, a lifelong pervert, and a Fraternal member of The 15 Association, founded in San Francisco in 1980.

RYAN MATTSON discovered his love of kink and leather in Seattle in 2003. He chairs the Young Leathermen’s Discussion Group, is President of the new Bay Area boys of Leather, and has helped coordinate several leather contests & events locally.

MARC OWENS (aka "pony") joined the leather and kink community in 2000. He is a member of the Golden Gate Guards, Alameda County Leather Corps, The 15 Association, and Mama’s Family. In 2010 he was named Mr. Alameda County Leather. As a leatherboy he believes the leather lifestyle is about honor, respect, and doing what you can to help other people.

KEITH SATTELMAIER was introduced to the Men of Discipline by a guy he stalked for years at the Loading Dock (who turned out to be from his own Texas hometown) and met his future Sir/Master at his first MOD Boot Camp. Currently he is serving his second year as MOD Colonel. He believes there’s a home for everyone in the leather community: his happens to be in the military-style uniform club.

ROGER SULLIVAN is an experienced leather daddy and a member of the Golden Gate Guards since 2007. In 2013 he has served as the Guards’ Road Captain and has been elected to serve as President in 2014. Professionally he is a manager and technology consultant in  areas of systems testing, validation and compliance.

Distinct blends of tradition, tolerance, values, social structures, governance, even healthcare have led to the evolution of striking differences between the practice of men’s leather in Europe and here in the U.S.

Four respected men’s community leaders closely familiar with the leather scene here and in various European cities join us for a discussion of those differences, and of what our respective leather/BDSM communities have to learn from each other.

Originally from Italy, JACK DUKE lives in Dallas, Texas and works as a gelato master across the United States. (Italians take their ice cream seriously!) He has been involved in the leather community for over twelve years, both in Europe and America. Sir Jack is the current International LeatherSIR 2012. He previously held the titles of Gulf Coast LeatherSIR 2012, Mr. Dallas Eagle 2010, Mr. Texas Leather 2010, and he placed 2nd runner up at IML in 2010. Jack is a member of Leather Club Roma, the Leather Archives & Museum, and ARCIGay, the pan-Italian LGBT advocacy group, and an associate member of Misfits and of FireDancers. He has been actively working to create a “cross-connection” between the leather communities in America and Europe, with a view to enriching fellowship, kink, play and sexual freedom in both.

THIB GUICHERD-CALLIN, a Silicon Valley transplant from France, has been an instigator of kinky gear fun in the Bay Area for a decade. He volunteers at leather conventions and contests as a member of the Santa Clara County Leather Association, Alameda County Leather Corps, and California Boots and Breeches Corps. In the LGBT community, he volunteers at the Billy DeFrank Community Center and as president of the Saga North LGBT Ski and Snowboard Club of Northern California. He currently serves as Mr. Santa Clara County Leather and in 2011 won the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence's “Hunky Jesus” contest. In May 2013 Thib was named 1st runner-up at International Mr Leather XXXV.

 JONATHAN SCHRODER moved to Germany in 2001 and spent several years exploring the fetish scene there and in other countries. He came across Mr. S Leather in 2003 while on vacation and moved to San Francisco shortly afterwards. Now in his tenth year at Mr. S, he serves as general manager for the company and travels each year back to Germany, usually for the Easter Leather Gathering that brings together thousands of kinky men for a long weekend of uninhibited sex. These trips also remind him of his roots in a fetish world that is quite different from that which we experience in America.

TIM VOLLMER, Ph.D. is a writer, cultural anthropologist and community organizer. He studied and taught at U.C. Berkeley, where he also worked as a research scientist concentrating on German culture, the social environment of bars and taverns, and gender dynamics among gay men. In the early 1990s, Tim was the managing editor of the gay newspaper San Francisco Sentinel, where he also wrote a weekly column focusing on gay male sex culture. He is currently board President of the nonprofit San Francisco Gay Men's Community Initiative. Having grown up in the Bay Area, Tim has been involved in the San Francisco leather scene since his first underage visits to long-gone iconic bars like the Brig, the Black and Blue, and the Ambush in the late '70s.  He now divides his time between San Francisco, San Jose, and Berlin, Germany.

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 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.