Guy Baldwin’s NLA 2011 Keynote Address

Oh hell yeah!

I am so glad I finally got to see this speech. It is a wonderful as I heard it was. Thank you Guy Baldwin.
With what has happened to the gay leather community in recent years I have felt the men who taught me back in the 80’s were rolling in their graves (or in some cases blowing around in their urns). But your speech brought back the dreams, goals and life that they had and wanted passed on. If we let what they (and ultimately us) go then they are truly gone and in nothing but bone and ash.
Thank you, as one who is way ready to come home.
Ed Kosary
Dallas, TX

For many years our community has been programmed to think that it’s not “Politically Correct” to have our own gender specific play spaces. These are special spaces where we can explore our gender’s unique sexual needs, energy and environment. They’re forums where we can choose to play and have sex in the way that best suites our gender’s specific “barn of piggy-ness.”

Politically correctness has royally screwed our community and mind-fucked generations of good Leather people. I would bet that if the truth were revealed, the vast majority of Leathermen and Leatherwomen don’t want a full dissemination into each other lives. They want to have a certain degree of separatism. So maybe it’s not so ugly after all.

Sometimes it’s best to be on the outside looking in on others. Learning and watching what other groups are doing only strengthens the organizations you actually belong to. Every group doesn’t have to be all things to all people. Just like our spaces, we need other safe places to be Leatherman, Leatherwomen, Leatherdykes, and Transleather etc. We each have different needs, and have to relate to those around us to have those needs met.

Obviously we must support each other when the need arises but why do we need to be a part of every aspect of each other’s life? Personally, I don’t want nor need it. Think of it as a Leather neighborhood. The men live on one corner, the women next door, the trans across the street, the youth up the street. We are all together in one common place living our lives, and when the times call for it, we come together as a strong, cohesive community. When the need is met, we return to our homes in the Leather neighborhood. Is this wrong? I don’t think so.

Hi Race,
Thanks for posting this here on your blog. I found Guy’s challenge to the het community to be surprising and quite moving, so much so that I felt compelled to respond. Unfortunately I was unable to find any internet contact information for Mr. Baldwin. I hope you will not object to my posting my letter here.

Dear Guy,

My wife Shy and I met you at Adam Swenson’s lecture: “Hurts so good: What’s bad about masochistic pain?” presented to the Center for Sex and Gender Research, California State University Northridge (4/24/09). We were pleased to make your acquaintance as we had found your book The Ties That Bind to be one of the better sources for intimate D/s advice & issues. The more I learn about this lifestyle the less I know, so I thank you for teaching me many ways in which I’m still a neophyte.

Recently I had the opportunity to watch your keynote speech at the 2011 NLA conference. I had always believed that the gay leathermen were the true trailblazers of the BDSM movement, and it was fascinating to hear your history of the events which spawned those first few het leather groups, and of the active role leathermen played in establishing them. I know that I have always admired the courage of those trailblazers, or rather of those of you who were trailblazers from the beginning.

Most significantly, I found your appeal on the topic of coming out to be powerfully compelling. My partners and I do use scene names, often for role-play/headspace reasons, but honestly also due to reasons you noted: concerns about the consequences to job/family/freedom of coming out in certain circles.

But what shattered my then-existing paradigm was the simple statement:

“If all the het world wanted from us (wanted from gay leathermen) was information about the magic of BDSM, and the techniques and tools to conjure that magic, only to then withdraw back into a hiding place of secrecy and fear… well then, the most hard-won lessons and values of gay men have gone to waste.”

I’ve come a long way since my first coming out. I had to come out to myself. Then to friends, my partners, my family I gradually shared my lifestyle. But why is there that fear of being fully open to the public? I’ve posted evidence of my kink on a few fetish dating sites; you can see my face but not my full name. You describe uncommon integrity, and in so doing I hear the gravity of your conviction that this complete coming out is beyond essential. Am I missing this point? As you say, we must consider the next generation who will see us as leaders and learn to model hiding rather than asserting their rights.

I think I understand: if we operate as though we have no rights, then we have relinquished them; the movement cannot move forward while closeted.

I hear the frustration behind your appeal that perhaps the het leather leaders haven’t seemed to apprehend the lesson of coming out. As someone who was extensively educated in various ways by that community (and most of the local lifestyle institutions) I never heard anyone discuss scene names and the closeting of the het leather community. They didn’t get it, so we (the next generation) didn’t get it either.

It is my sincere hope that your calling to return your energy to your own people does not delineate a rift in the alliance which many of us feel towards you. Perhaps both our next generations need that extra attention. But I believe it is essential to keep a level of social awareness of one another and the conventions and traditions we hold dear. Ignorance breeds fear and can re-ignite the fires of prejudice and hate. On the other hand, it is quite possible for neighbors with vastly different lifestyles and views to join forces and stand together in the name of a common cause- this is the synergy I would hate to see slowly fading away.

And don’t worry too much about het leather learning those lessons! Sadly those lessons will get learned, but perhaps not as easily as the heeding of good advice. It seems the curse of Man to repeat his worst mistakes.

Thanks once again for your openness and for the wealth of all that you have taught us! I wish you joy and fulfillment upon your journey of erotic discovery, and I hope that your new focus on your fellow brothers in the gay leather community will achieve your goal of leaving a better world for your posterity.

Sincerely,
Kevin Gault