by Guy Baldwin, M.S.
This article originally appeared in Issue 20 of International Leatherman. Its first and, until now, only presence online was on Leatherati. BED is grateful and honored that Guy has granted us permission to share it here.
I am continually surprised at how frequently conversation in what I’ll call “leather circles” turns to “The Old Guard.” Whether it is on the Internet, at any of the various leather conventions held all around the country nowadays, at contests, in bars, or even over a card game, the Old Guard seems like the topic that will not die. Even more interesting to me is the fact that, except for rank novices, almost everyone seems ready to offer comment on it. When I occasionally turn up at leather events, I am quizzed endlessly and carefully about it. The longish essay I published about it back in the late 80’s remains one of the most frequently quoted things I’ve ever written.
Stranger still is the fact that the Old Guard is usually talked about by people who weren’t part of it as though it were some kind of monolithic, behemoth… homogeneous and static, neither of which was the case… is the case, because yes, the Old Guard is still around and still functioning, although the passage of time pretty much seems to guarantee that it is slowly being transformed into myth and legend as ever fewer and fewer of us are around to offer real descriptions of it. Perhaps the reason it remains a topic of interest is that attempts to describe it as a rigid and dead thing rather than an evolving, living cultural entity will always be doomed to failure. And so, I’ve decided to try to shed a bit more light on the Old Guard, perhaps by trying to talk about it in some different ways.
The Golden Age of Leather
At the risk of annoying bunches of people, I feel safe in saying that the first Golden Age of Leather occurred from about 1972, when the war in Vietnam ended, till about 1982. Depending on where one lived, it began a bit earlier (in the bigger cities) and ended a bit later (in smaller cities). But by 1983 it was clearly in decline as disease began to rear its ugly head, first with reports of rampant intestinal diseases (mostly parasites and something that was called “Gay Bowel Syndrome”), and then with early reports of the “gay cancer,” which gave way to GRID (Gay-Related Immune Disorder), and finally to AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome). By 1985, the party was over or ending in most places. The wind had been knocked out of the sails of the leather world as we had known it, and we began to hunker down for the long night’s journey toward daylight, which may only now be dawning. The jury is still out on that one, however.
Were it not for the arrival of disease on the erotic landscape, it is entirely possible that we would not have the Old Guard as an issue, or perhaps even as an entity today. My guess is that if it had not been for HIV, the process by which our leather “children’” were socialized into the world of leathersex might have continued just as it had for decades, evolving in the more-or-less orderly way that it had done since the 50’s. Each new and slightly different generation of newcomers would have been uniquely assimilated into the existing fabric of leather culture, just as it had always been.
And with this remark I mean to suggest that the world of leathersex might best be viewed as a culture — a subculture if you will — into which people are led by our gonads, ever in search of a deeper and unique erotic adventure and fulfillment. Prior to this subculture’s shattering encounter with HIV, a gay man in search of his kinky identity and fulfillment would eventually cross a threshold into leather space (leather bars, gay motorcycle events, special parties) for the first time. He soon became aware that there was a social order which influenced to a large extent just how both information and experience might become available. That social order is what has come to be called the Old Guard. To think of it as merely sexual is to miss the scope of it entirely.
When I first ventured into leather space back in 1965, I was certainly aware of it, but at that time, it had no name other than, perhaps … “The Leather Scene”… or simply, “The Scene.” And in leather space, there were clearly those who were “in the scene” and those who were not, and it was usually possible to make that distinction just by looking around and being observant.
Some guys in leather space wore what I’ll call “the uniform” and others did not. In between were guys who wore parts of the uniform to one extent or another; the more parts of the uniform one wore, the more closely identified with the scene one was, in general. The parts of the uniform included: boots; faded Levi’s; plain black leather belt; plain T-shirt; a gather of keys (displayed on the right or left hip); leather motorcycle jacket; a jacket overlay (denim) with or without motorcycle club “colors”; leather cap; leather gloves; leather chaps; and leather pants. These were the basics of the uniform in approximately ascending order of significance, although the caps and pants tended to be worn far more often by Dominants than by submissives of any description. And black, always.
Leather vests were rare. Body harnesses and arm bands were still unheard of; the hankie code had yet to be invented; and one never saw a whip in public. Even the display of handcuffs was rare and was considered to be pushing the boundaries of good taste. The 50’s after all, were close behind us. But these were just the parts that were visible to the naked eye, and only one third of what it took to be fully in the scene. The uniform was the easy part, in spite of the fact that there were only a tiny handful of stores in a few cities that catered specifically to our needs. There were also no leather magazines, no organizations other than the bike clubs, and no title contests. There was nothing but that insistent urge and the heady sex-energy that permeated what few leather bars did exist back then.
The second part of being in the scene consisted of entering the network of interpersonal connections among the uniformed men who were already a functioning part of the local leather scene. Forging these connections was the true gateway into the leather scene and the part that was (and I think remains) the main challenge for those with these erotic interests. This piece has always been the tough part because unless one had the right social skills and!or the right appearance, entrée into the scene could be daunting. Yet I suppose the same could be said for gaining entrée to a great many sorts of human groups.
Those with a few connections but not the uniform were perceived to be groupies or wannabes, and those with the uniform but no connections were either outsiders, loners or outlaws, depending on their behavior.
Lastly, one had to behave properly in three arenas: out in the general public; in the social leather public, that is to say in leather spaces; and in erotic situations. The last two parts of this information were simply not available unless one had previously made the right connections to the men already in the local leather scene.
And what “properly” meant out in the general public was to behave like an “officer and a gentleman.” It must always be remembered that the early leather scene included a significant number of military veterans who had recently returned from World War II. Their military exposure socialized them into an understanding of the stratification of authority, the manners of a good soldier, and the preservation of what is known as esprit de corps… loosely translated as “the spirit of the group.” Today we might refer to it as “the maintenance of group cohesion and identity” based on the shared values of loyalty, honor, trust, masculinity, and fraternity.
And what the word “properly” meant in leather social situations and erotic encounters was that one had to follow what has recently come to be called “the Protocols.” These consisted of the rules of encounter between leathermen based on status in the community, or on your erotic orientation (Master or slave — Top or bottom), or on what I suppose I have to call marital status, i.e., who your partner of the moment was.
The Protocols, depending on from whom, when and where you learned them, or whom you were with at the moment, might cover any number of things, including: making eye contact with others; restrictions on physical touching; where you stood; how you walked with another man; the use of honorific titles like “Sir” or “Master”; how you dressed; how you could sit; your appearance; whom you could speak directly with; how you took a piss; table manners; how you had sex; and what might be expected of you in any given situation…and a number of other things as well.
Contrary to popular belief, there was tremendous variation in the Protocols… and still is. Part of the reason for this variation is the fact that Dominants of any sort (Master, Top, Dad, Coach…what have you) can alter or suspend the Protocols for themselves and the submissives they are with at any time within certain limits. The Protocols were sort of like what we might call the “default” settings on our erotic behavior, and they varied by locale and from network to network.
Since so much of what we enjoy about leathersex has to do with power and its expression as authority, the Protocols offered us a way to make that all happen that had a reassuring structure to it. The need for this comfort is most likely the reason why the Old Guard Protocols have endured for so long-they feel good to so many people.
Through the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, and into the 80’s, each city that had a leather scene usually included two nobilities; initially they were pretty much one and the same, but as time passed, they became more and more distinct from each other. They were the Old Guard and the Motorcycle Club scene.
I don’t want to take a lot of time with the details of the bike club scene here in spite of the fact that the club network was a central feature of the leather world from its inception in the late 1940’s right on into the 80’s. We must never allow the mainstream gay and lesbian community to forget that the gay bike clubs which fanned following WWII were among the first gay organizations in the U.S., or that the first gay fund-raising arose when the clubs raised money to support those members who became injured. As far as I’ve been able to learn, the elected officers of those clubs were among the first elected gay leaders in this country.
For my purposes here, it is important to say that the clubs sponsored events called “runs” which were motorcycle road trips to campout locations, usually over a long weekend, at which the members and guests partied… and played. Before many cities had a leather bar, there was a bike club, and its events provided the first real leather space for a great many guys of those early eras, including myself.
Many of the members and guests of these bike clubs went in for what we called rough sex at the time, and some of them were also leather fetishists into bondage and SM. It is not difficult to see how the influence of those who had military backgrounds made mixing authority with sex relatively easy. The club leaders had some status in their areas and became a sort of temporary nobility and revolving role-models for leather men, depending on their character, which itself had often been influenced by military service.
But not all the members were interested in what today we would call leathersex, and in time, those who were interested in tins sort of sex slowly began to segregate themselves out of the bike club scene, unless, of course, they were avid motorcyclists. The guys who craved the leathersex experience were the primordial soup in which the Old Guard was first born. Early on, they were very much part of tile bike club scene, and progressively less and less so as time wore on…. Today, they are almost entirely distinct entities, especially in larger cities.
It seems somehow ironic that in many places, the bike clubs actually gave rise to the leather bars… but once the bars took hold, the bike clubs were no longer the only game in town. Slowly support for them began to dwindle, with the result that in most places now, only the avid riders are still involved in club life.
The Old Guard Feudal Nobility
One of the easier and more useful ways to imagine the Old Guard is to imagine each city with a few leather “barons.” (“Baron” is just a word I’m using for the purpose of clarity; I could just as easily have chosen duke, or earl. There were no titles these guys had except in a couple of cities where the title “Grand Master” was and still is rarely used.) These were men who had been in The Life for a while, understood the rules of behavior, had experience and were level-headed village elders. Each of these elders functioned essentially as a sort of godfather, and had what could loosely be called “families,” or “clans.”
Based on his own background, each of these had a set of his own traditions which those in his family were expected to observe as a condition of participation in his family. The most important thing to remember here is that there were some traditions the clans had in common, and there were other traditions that were specific to each particular lineage. It was possible to participate in the clan-circles of more than one of these barons at a time as long as the barons themselves were on friendly terms with each other or ignorant of each other.
So, for example, Joe Blow in Kansas City might have come of age in the leather scene in New York City and then later established himself in KC, along with the traditions he knew and understood. He most often added some Protocols to suit his own taste, and deleted or modified others … especially if he was a Dominant. If he was sexually active and “family minded,” he would soon come to the attention of others in the community. In time, he would have his own clan with its satellite members, and be accepted as an equal by other local barons. Very big cities might have as many as ten to fifteen such men, whereas smaller ones like Denver might have only three or four in 1965.
As often as not, one baron would have limited (or extensive) connections to one or more barons in the same or in different cities. These connections were often used to make formal introductions for traveling members of their clans, and to give either recommendations or warnings about local players. It has been my impression that detailed exchanges between them about the Protocols were not common. Respect for privacy would probably have been cited as the reason.
These leather clans were the basic mechanism by which newcomers came to be socialized into the Life. In some places, the local barons might have a more formal process for this socialization, and in others, it was less formal.
Certainly one of the miracles of this process was that “baronage” was not necessarily role dependent. In the leather family in which I came out as a leatherman, the people at the top of the pyramid were mostly bottoms who had years of experience. In such a situation, It would be easily possible for the godfather or baron to be a smallish bottom in his early 40’s, and for the newcomers to be Tops ranging in age from early 20’s to mid-to-late 40’s. But more commonly, the barons were Dominants-either Masters or Tops.
These clans supplied many of the things we couldn’t get from our own families of origin, including advice for love life and sex life; a home-life with our own kind; information about how leathersex worked; a place to barbecue on weekends; information on who were the responsible players in the community and who was best avoided; the very important Protocols, of course; and general mentoring.
When I moved to San Francisco after college in 1971, the clan circles I moved in tended to be headed by Masters or Tops, but the more senior bottoms or slaves were always deferred to by younger or less experienced Dominants of any description. This central fact of the pecking order of these clans makes it clear in retrospect that the objective, even though it was unspoken, was always the socialization and acculturation of newcomers as well as support for the elders. This is what I believe made it tribal in nature.
To most of us at the time, it just felt like we had a great circle of friends that functioned as family, but it was much, much more than that when viewed through the perspective of decades… there was more love there than I realized at the time, although I doubt we’d have called it that back then… I wish we had, but it was a different era.
It was in such a setting that I learned the rules of deportment (the Protocols) for a well-rounded weatherman. As I began to get a more secure feel for how things worked, I was given limited mentoring responsibilities for guys less experienced than myself. Years later, I began to realize that I had taken my own place as an elder, but that had been true for a while before I was willing to admit to it.
The Nobility Begins to Unravel
All but the most sophisticated and worldly barons handed down their sets of Protocols, the forms of behavior, as if they were both traditional and universal, when in fact they were not. It was the approximate equivalent of having 12 Emily Posts or Martha Stewarts (May the Leather Gods protect us!) dictating how table manners should be done. The result was that in time, considerable differences of opinion slowly began to emerge about exactly how certain things were supposed to be done. “Earning” one’s leathers happened in a very formal way in one clan, but not so formally in another, for example. In some ways, this was a dim reflection of the inter-service rivalries that existed between the Army and the Navy, for example, during World War II, and still exist to some extent. And this may be why some people become so passionate about the right way to do things in the leather world. Tradition, after all, had to be respected and preserved!
My first clue that the rules were not standard came to me in the form of a surprising conversation that a clan elder had with me when I was planning my first visit to the East Coast from Denver — I was 20 at that time. I was taken aside and it was very carefully explained to me that in the East, Masters and Tops “dressed” on the right side — wore their keys on the right hip, and not on the left, as was the standard west of the Mississippi. The fact that he even knew about this variation qualified him as “one of the knowledgeable ones” in my young eyes, but I was stunned by his information. (By now, the West Coast standard has become world-wide, and Dominants wear their markings on the left side.)
Publicly, the barons tended to respect each other, but privately, many of them made judgments about each other when differences of Protocol began to emerge. The people in each baron’s circle were usually made aware of his opinions on these matters. Intolerance and gossip began to take its toll eventually.
Once the American population began to become more mobile as air travel came to be within the economic reach of the middle and lower classes, leathermen soon came to discover that there was considerable variation in how the barons did things from place to place. Some of the barons themselves were so provincial that they themselves were unaware of the range of variation in the Protocols of the leather world. In Europe, the Medieval feudal system disintegrated in part because the lower classes became more educated and well-traveled.
As this awareness about differences in the Protocols began to spread, respect for the baronial class of leathermen slowly began to shift. With the birth of SM organizations in the early 1970’s, their information was spread to anyone just for the asking, and the role of the barons became progressively less and less important. Many of the barons became teachers in those organizations in the early years, and as such, were forced to be less dogmatic and rigid themselves. It is entirely possible that even if HIV had not come along, these cracks in the Old Guard would eventually have produced the situation we now have, or one very much like it.
These variations in protocol echo even today, I often discover that those most critical of the Old Guard actually first learned about it or were exposed to it in one of its more rigid and conservative manifestations, whereas those less critical came to know the Old Guard from one of the more flexible branches of it. The leather population has been so shuffled around today, that in any city, one can now find Orthodox, Conservative and Reformed branches of the Old Guard traditions, just as one might in Judaism. In Old Guard terms, Orthodox could easily stand for Master/slave oriented people; Conservative could be seen as Top/bottom wiring; and Reformed could include the “anything goes” people. No wonder newcomers have to stand back from it all and shake their heads!
When HIV hit the leather world, the Old Guard took a very heavy hit early on. In a matter of months, the attention of the many clans around the country was suddenly confronted with new challenges. The bike club tradition of raising money for injured members was easily translated to fund-raising charities to support the burgeoning HIV damage being done in people’s lives, Many of the most effective early leaders in the HIV support effort came from the leather world for exactly this reason-we had practice at it.
Apart from the terrible losses we suffered, the most unfortunate consequence of the HIV nightmare was that much of the attention elders had invested in the socialization and support of newcomers to the leather scene-to our children, as it were, was no longer available. The elders became preoccupied with helping each other, or trying to. And as in any culture, when elders can make no time for their children, those elders become ever more irrelevant, as children begin to seek their own solutions.
The cracks in the Old Guard were the result of expanding awareness of variation in the Protocols, the unkind ways that some of the barons treated others with different ways of doing things, the development of leather organizations. All these cracks and some others would have guaranteed a significant change anyway. So would the assimilation of the soldiers coming back from Vietnam as disillusioned losers-so different from the triumphant victors following WWII. But the arrival of HIV was a hammer blow to the social ecosystem of the leather world, the centerpiece of which was the Old Guard, and it has never been the same. None of us will
At its best, the Old Guard was protective of newcomers and elders alike, and offered a balanced and structured way to investigate sexualities that were challenging and demanding, and even sometimes life-threatening. It was an orderly way by which information was transmitted from elders to newcomers, from generation to generation in a graduated way as people were ready for deeper information about how leathersex worked. It did so by creating a network of people based on mutual affection, respect for age and experience, and a shared interest in things socially taboo.
It guarded the mysteries of leather ritual from those who would have exploited them for theatrical effect, chic, or merely from dilettantism — all things that we are confronted with now to one degree or another, and on a scale that would have embarrassed and saddened the elders of 30 years ago. For better or for worse, most of them are not around to witness it today. But some are.
At its worst, the Old Guard sanctified misconceptions by calling them “traditions”; the myth of slave training is just one case in point most Masters know next to nothing about submission, for example. It also tended to over control the rate of learning for newbies, and underestimated the potential of its own membership. While it fostered friendships fairly well, it often had problems with real intimacy and had trouble integrating issues of romance and love with SM sexualities. And it had a very hard time discussing any of these things in anything like an open way. At the same time, it was sadly elitist, racist and ageist as well.
Today, the Old Guard seems somehow dated to many in the leather world. And of course, it is. But so are Gone With the Wind; Fred Astair and Ginger Rodgers; The Micky Mouse Club; Nietzsche, Karl Marx and Freud. Clearly, there were good things in all of these mixed in with some not so good things. Certainly one reason people remain interested in the Old Guard is that we had a good fix on a number of things that were truly sexy, and which offered a reassuring structure to the expressions of Dominance and submission… the mixture of authority with sexuality.
Interest in that mixture is not likely to become irrelevant any time soon; Gone With the Wind, after all, has just been re-released and is expected to play to packed houses. In a very similar way, the Old Guard is classical and timeless.., and younger leather folks are taking a renewed interest in it. Time will tell.
Read all four essays in the Baldwin Collection
1 – Old Guard: Origins, Tradition, Mystique, and Rules
2 – Let’s Not Take the Olde Guard Judges Too Seriously
3 – Classical Leather Culture Revisited
Guy Baldwin has been a history-maker and Leather icon in the BDSM Community since the 1980s. The holder of numerous important awards, and an inductee in the Leather Hall of Fame, Guy is a therapist by profession and the author of two classic BDSM books.
TIES THAT BIND: SM/Leather/Fetish Erotic Style Issues, Commentaries, and Advice, Guy Baldwin, M.S.
SlaveCraft: Roadmaps for Erotic Servitude, principles, skills and tools By a grateful slave, with Guy Baldwin, M.S., Introduction and Afterward by Patrick Califia, M.A. Additional material by Joseph Bean