There is a conflict between preserving the thrill of belonging an edgy minority, as a leatherman or kinkster, and making your community accessible. Plus there’s something particularly fun about the secret part of belonging to a secret club. But before we take our secret too seriously, let’s remember that the world of kink is a stage, and all the Sirs and boys are merely players, and if we don’t encourage other people to join in and play their part, the stage will get more empty and less interesting.

Of course, surly and intimidating men in leather peering disdainfully at you from under their muir caps can be hot as fuck. But if you’re just scaring people off instead of luring them, in you’ve probably gone too far.

And sure, when you yearn for your kink, often you just want to know your partner can get the job done, and a beginner ain’t gonna cut it. But one of the most fun things you can do in kink is being part of helping someone else discover it. And if you find it hard to find the perfect boy or Daddy, then what are you doing to help new people into the community, to increase the size and diversity of people in the pool?

Normally LDG offers you someone with years of experience to share their story or their expertise. This month we’re hearing from newcomers from the last couple of years, to be reminded how many thrills we can give them on their journeys of discovery, and what a gift their passion can be to us.

Inspiration for newcomers and old timers alike.

WHEN: Wednesday May 24th 7:30-9:30pm (doors open at 7pm)
WHERE: Mr. S Studio
ADDRESS: 385A 8th Street (second floor, accessible by stairs only)
VIDEO: Available on our Facebook Live: http://facebook.com/sfldg/videos. (Be sure to click follow, then select the edit button under the "following" menu to turn on live notifications!)

Our theme is devious toys you can have in your carry-on that won’t raise any eyebrows with TSA’s security check but they’ll raise a lot more than that at your destination.
 
We will have two presenters, the first will demonstrate and talk about tactile play.  Our second presenter will demonstrate a technique that acts like a single-tail yet uses a simple dish towel.

Tactile Play
You are bound, gagged, blindfolded, immobilized.
You are eager, excited, afraid, dripping.
Will it be scratchy, soft, prickly, penetrating, hot, rough? Yes!!!
And you will come. But not for a long, long time.
You are frustrated.
You want more.
 
Tactile play creates a heightened sense of anticipation and sensory pleasure using common household items. We’ll explore how to use our skin, our largest organ, as an extension of erotic expression. Bring your warped mind and come see for yourself what pleasures lie around your house, just collecting dust. You’ll never see your kitchen utility drawer the same way again.

Bio - Master Bill
BILL has been an active participant in the Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago BDSM communities for over ten years, regularly attending kink and play events globally. His passion for tactile play surfaced at the start of his BDSM journey and he has presented this workshop for various clubs nationally. Dungeon Masters often spend considerable time circling his scenes, eagerly watching and taking notes.

Single Toweling
Towel Dad creates all the effect of a single tail with a simple dish towel.  His take on the locker room towel flick is like nothing you’ve seen before.  A perfect alternative to the risk of bringing your single tail through airport security.  This is a demo not to be missed.
 
Bio – Towel Dad
Towel Dad (BILL B) has been a part of the SF kink scene for 30 years.  Like many others he was initially drawn by the look, feel and smell of leather.  In time, he became attracted to the activities associated with leather and kink.  His favorite toys are floggers needles and dishtowels(!).   He was one of the original LDG Steering Committee members and has served as Program Committee Chair.  He has demoed at several LDG Fetish Fairs.  His poly family includes a boy and a son (both of legal age) who will be participating in his demo.  A longtime Associate member of the 15 Association, he was also a member of Pegasus Motorcycle Owners Club.  He rides a Shadow Aero and hopes to be "the oldest mofo on two (motorized) wheels in SF".

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.

Livestream for the Event

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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.

An evening with the writer, advocate, media gadfly, and founder of the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom.

NCSF is the only group fighting for the rights of the BDSM-leather-fetish communities. NCSF helps people who are discriminated against because of their sexuality — when they’re fired from their jobs or arrested for sexual assault for having kinky sex. NCSF also helps groups and businesses when they’re being persecuted by the media or local authorities. NCSF fought successfully to help convince the American Psychiatric Association that kink is not a mental illness, and NCSF is filing Amicus Briefs in military and civilian appeals court to hold prosecutors to the promise in Lawrence v. Texas that moral judgments can’t be a basis for criminalizing consensual sex. Come find out more about what NCSF does for the leather community!

SUSAN WRIGHT founded the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom in 1997, a national advocacy organization for the BDSM, swing and polyamory communities, and currently serves as spokesperson for the organization. She chaired the successful DSM-5 Revision Project, and coordinated the SM Policy Reform Project for the National Organization for Women (NOW) which resulted in rescinding their anti-BDSM policy at their national conference in 1999. Susan has published over 30 books including kinky romance novels as well as urban fantasy, SF-Fantasy and Star Trek novels. www.susanwright.info

Join us for this one-time opportunity to hear activist, advocate, educator and public-health official Frank Strona review, in words and pictures, a life lived in two lanes — as an unabashed sexual radical and a high-profile player in the civic and national health policy arena.

With special guest host and moderator, Frank's longtime friend Race Bannon.

*  *  *  *  *

FRANK STRONA’s career has fused a passionate commitment to gay men’s sexual freedom with a passionate commitment to gay men’s health. In his twenties, in Boston, he threw his energies into both the outspoken Gay Community News and the AIDS Action Committee’s “Safe Company,” an aggressive sex-positive outreach to places nice people didn’t talk about. He landed in San Francisco as managing editor for Brush Creek Media,  working on the original Bear magazine under Richard Bulger, and went on to shape the launch of Powerplay before joining the historic Desmodus Inc. publishing house, where he worked alongside the great minds and hearts at Drummer and the Desmodus family of titles.

Keenly aware of the power and value of a sex-positive voice in the jumble of health initiatives targeting gay men, Frank took a volunteer position with the then-named AIDS Health Project, first as a counselor and then as one of its cadre of trainers for the state of California. In 2000, as his friends and loved ones continued to get sick and die, Frank decided to leave adult erotica and his “orgasm coach” role as a sex-and-pleasure personality to work full-time as an education and content consultant for gay and bisexual men’s health. He was employed as Men’s Coordinator for Marin AIDS Project and as Preventative Health Manager at Walden House. He traveled and lectured with the crew of Mr S Leather and of Le Château Erotique. He served terms on San Francisco’s HIV Prevention Council as well as California’s State HIV Planning Group.

2003 presented perhaps his greatest personal challenges when Frank went back to school for his master’s degree in public health while also accepting an assignment from the Centers for Disease Control on San Francisco’s STD Prevention & Control leadership team. He has since gone on to complete his coursework for a doctorate and is currently surveying men’s pleasure and sex themes (www.GayMenSpeak.com) for his dissertation, while maintaining an active portfolio of social and volunteer efforts, including roles on the boards of St James Infirmary, the Lazy Bear Fund, and the Center for Sex and Culture, among others.

Since 2010, Frank has served as the Unit Chief at San Francisco City Clinic and held part-time teaching roles with both San Jose State University and National University. More recently, his skills and experience were recruited by The Alternative Sexualities Health Research Alliance (TASHRA), where he is working alongside Richard Sprott, Charles Moser, Race Bannon and other luminaries of our Bay Area scene to explore how better to meet the healthcare needs of those outside the sexual mainstream.

Learn more about Frank, his private practice and workshops, on his website.

Peter Fiske in Conversation with Erik Will, followed by a whipping demonstration

Please join us for a celebration of San Francisco's, California's, IML's and the USA's beloved "Leather Yoda" as he marks fifty years in leather and BDSM. We'll talk a walk down memory lane with Peter, view selections from his renowned whip collection, and see a demonstration of his legendary singletail skills.

There is only one Peter Fiske, folks. Like all great leathermen, he's an original, and unlike so many great names of the past, he's still with us and active as ever, living proof that sweetness and sadism need not be mutually exclusive. Don't miss this opportunity to get up close and personal with a bonafide icon who doesn't seem to know he is one.

PETER FISKE has beeen a leatherman since March 1964. He is a Stonewall veteran and continues to be an activist in the LGBT and leather communities, working tirelessly for inclusion and acceptance for all in BDSM and Leather. He served on the board of the S.F. AIDS Emergency Fund from 1997 to 2002, as President of AEF in 2000, and is a co-founder of the BCEF (Breast Cancer Emergency Fund). He served as well on the S.F. Pride board from 2002 to 2005 and as S.F. Leather Daddy XXI.

Daddy Peter has been a mentor and BDSM educator/player all his adult life,presenting hundreds of programs all over the country.  He is the senior member and Chairman Emeritus of the 15 Association and former Chairman and Co-Ordinator of Delta International. He is a two-time Pantheon of Leather awardee, for the Western region and for Lifetime Achievemen, and was also honored with the Hank Cook Service award by AEF and by S.F. Pride with the 2005 Heritage of Pride award for longtime service to the S.F. LGBT community.

"How did I get to be a village elder? I don't know, but I care about those coming into Leather now and about our future. I will continue to work (and play!) as long as I can to keep BDSM healthy, safe and fun, and to keep us free to be ourselves. My motto is Play Hard, Live Free, support the LA&M and always tip your bartenders generously."

From the ONYX website:

"ONYX is an organization formed and operated by Men of Color who enjoy the leather lifestyle. ONYX sets as its goal, to provide an informational and social organization to address issues specific to people of color who chose to project the positive aspects of the leather lifestyle and support our community and economic initiatives.

"Support, spirituality, safety and saneness are keys to attaining our goals. Toward this end, it is the principle aim of ONYX to develop in its members the highest standards of loyalty to the laws and established code of ONYX and to treat all in society with honor, unselfishness and tolerance."

Growing in size and reputation nationally and internationally since its founding in 1995, ONYX is admired as a club for its warmth, dignity, and purpose (not to mention its great parties). Its public stands on issues are classy and balanced, and in an era when many clubs are losing membership and struggling for survival, ONYX only gets stronger. We'll talk to its founder and its national council's treasurer about the history, struggles, mission, membership and policies of a club that seems to do everything right.

MUFASA ALI, the inaugural Mr. World Leather 2006, is the founder of ONYX, an international club supporting Leathermen of Color and the recipient of the 2013 Pantheon of Leather Large Club of the Year Award. He currently serves as the Chair of the ONYX National Council. As a member of the leather community for over 20 years, Mufasa is a requested presenter on such topics as People of Color in Leather, Leather Family Relationships, Leather and Spirituality, Old-Guard vs New-Guard Leather Protocol, and various fetish demos such as flagellation, spanking and percussion.  He is the founder and primary facilitator of the People of Color Leather Caucus seminars at IML and Black Beat Inc. Mufasa is an activist and has served on Illinois Unites for Marriage, the Chicago Black Gay Men’s Caucus, the AIDS Legal Counsel of Chicago and the Chicago Advisory Council on LGBT Issues.  He has been honored with various leather community awards including the prestigious Vi Johnson Award and the Black Beat Inc. Community Service Award.  Mufasa is a change management consultant and spiritual life coach, ordained minister, husband, father, Daddy and Sir.

Daddy Rod is a leather/BDSM educator and HIV activist based out of the Atlanta area, where he is currently Road Captain of ONYX Southeast Chapter. He is also Treasurer of the ONYX National Council.  As a member of the leather community for over 15 years, Daddy Rod is a requested presenter on such topics as People of Color in Leather, Leather Family Relationships, and various fetish demos such as spanking, ass play, and sensory play. He has also served as Tally Master at Mr. and Ms. Atlanta Eagle competitions and as a judge for Southeast Leather Sir/Boy and Bootblack at the Southeast Black and Blue weekend in 2013. Daddy Rod is also a LGBT youth activist working with Lost-N-Found which helps raise awareness of homeless LGBT youth in the Metro Atlanta area. This spring, he will be honored at Blatino Oasis as Man of the Year in the Leather Community for his education workshops and activism. Daddy Rod is a freelance photographer, DJ, and soon-to-be erotic/fetish model. ☺

Note: Mufasa and Daddy Rod will also host an organizational meeting for the new Northern California/Northwest Chapter of ONYX on FRIDAY, MARCH 28TH, from 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. at the Mr S studio, 385A Eighth Street, followed by a social at the S.F. Eagle, 398 12th Street at Harrison. 

A double-decker program with one of our favorite men and presenters!

1) Mark will describe and demonstrate the purpose and application of canes, belts and straps.

2) Mark will give us a talking tour of the mind, heart and history of one of America's great leathermen.

MARK FRAZIER has been involved in the leather and kink lifestyle for over 25 years and has led over 1700 workshops. He has had the privilege of owning nightclubs, holding leather titles ranging from local to International, holding board positions and memberships on numerous prominent local to international organizations, and has been honored with many awards and accolades. Mark currently resides in Dallas, Texas, where he co-owns the Dallas Eagle.

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.