In 1984, Geoff Mains wrote the pivotal book,Urban Aboriginals. This book was an in-depth look into the world of Gay men in Leather communities. Often Gay and Leather communities are lumped together and it is assumed that all homosexual men are part of Leather communities. Because of the change in the wider understandings of homosexuality, the uniform for Gay men became more varied and less focused on a unified look. Before World War II, military uniforms would mask homosexuality and allow Gay men to keep their identity private. In the 1980’s, the homosexual identity and visual markers for homosexuals was much more mainstream.
Almost two decades later, Cain Berlinger, a Black gay man in Leather, wrote the book Black Men in Leather. Urban Aboriginals talked about intersections of gay and Leather identities, but included nothing about race, women, and transgender identified individuals in Leather communities. Berlinger wanted to close the racial gap in literature on Black Leather communities. Black Men in Leather was a larger interview project that asked Black gay men in Leather about their experiences. Through his interviews Berlinger found that many Black men did not want to talk about their experiences openly:
“ It was difficult to reach many MOC and MOCL. Many of those polled were not in the Leather Community, and others were unaware of the need for their participation. Used to being ignored and convinced their concerns counted for nothing, many MOC simply ignored the calls for submissions, while others questioned the value of having their view seen at all.”
Intersectionality and Subcultures
In 2014, I was introduced to the word intersectionality. Often in academic environments, there are worlds that seem so out of touch with common vernacular. Intersectionality was hard to put a simple definition and understanding on. Intersectionality is described as:
[A] term first coined in 1989 by American civil rights advocate and leading scholar of critical race theory, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw. It is the study of overlapping or intersecting social identities and related systems of oppression, domination, or discrimination. The theory suggests that—and seeks to examine how—various biological, social and cultural categories such as gender, race, class, ability, sexual orientation, religion, caste, age, nationality and other sectarian axes of identity interact on multiple and often simultaneous levels.
Although the word intersectionality has a date of creation, the idea has had a huge impact on my life long before I heard the term. As a Black Queer woman, these identities are a constant reminder of my ranking in U.S. and globally. As a Black person, I face race based discrimination, as a cis-gendered women I face gender based discrimination, and a queer person I face sexual discrimination. Also it is a tough reality, my identity is special and makes my experiences in the U.S. unique. This pride and sense of community I and many people with intersecting identities feel can be described as a subculture. Mains talks about subculture in this quote:
“(Subculture ) provides its members with self identification as a group. It provides a network within which individuals focus their primary relationships. And most importantly, it creates a prism through which they are able to refract larger cultural values in terms of their own experience.”
Mains talks more about the Leather identity specifically:
“Leathermen live their lives in a form of mental isolation from the mainstream of society that has been maintained by stigma. An almost universal condemnation of leather sex, more commonly understood only as sado-masochism , raises a barrier about their social life, companionships, and expectations. It does so in much the same way that Gay and non Gay experiences have long be separated. Leathermen may don business suits and partake of the larger world, sometimes on the proviso that they downplay those parts of their lives that society deems unacceptable, but mote usually on the basis that they remain silent.”
Mains does a fantastic job explaining how intersecting identities are viewed and expressed in different parts of larger society. The same way military uniforms disguised homosexuality, business suits cloak Leather fantasies, identities, and communities. Although White Gay men may be able to “blind in” and hide their identity, for many people of color, the skin can not be easily disguised with an outfit. Race is one of the most visual parts of our human identity and unlike homosexuality and racial identity cannot be readily hidden. Berlinger interviewed many Black men about their intersecting identity especially their Black and Leather identities. Berlinger talks about his own experiences:
“As a Black man in Leather, I found the safest refuge was in the community that I felt sometimes only saw me as a super-stud with an enormous endowment who fornicated all night long. Cloaked in what many White men see as an innocent sexual myth… Let’s not forget that the community is ‘accepting’. There is however, little room for intellectual maneuverability when you have to be either funny or sexual to survive, like functioning in a cultural prison.”
This quotes makes me wonder: Did Etienne fear being in a cultural prison as a Leatherman of color and as an artist of color? Since he is not Black or White, did he navigate the leather community differently? I also think back to Etienne’s sexualization of White men in his work. If I compare that fact to what Berlinger says about being trapped in a cultural prison, I wonder if Etienne wanted to turn the table and fetishize the White male body.
