Digital Kink

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Welcome to Full Cow, a podcast about leather and kink where your host, Edge (he/him), shares his 30+ years of experience in the community. In this episode we look at Digital Kink, starting with a personal history of the evolution of virtual kink spaces followed by a brief guide to navigating these spaces. Then we have the promised interview with Master J Tebias Perry, author of the book Leather Mentorship, followed by some really interesting Ask Edge questions.

Here are some useful links from the episode:

• Leather Mentorship: Direct link to the book on Amazon.

Support the show

Ask Edge! Go to https://www.speakpipe.com/LTHREDGE to leave ask a question or leave feedback. Find Edge's other content on Instagram and Twitter. Also visit his archive of educational videos, Tchick-Tchick.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Let's talk about Digital King, that you are an
adult.
Welcome to Full Cow, a podcastabout leather kink and BDSM.

(00:42):
My name is Edge, my pronounsare he, him, and I'm your host.
This time we'll be talkingabout digital kink, primarily
the history of how kink movedinto digital spaces.
I will provide perhaps a quickhow-to segment but, given the
demographic of my audience allof y'all are better at digital

(01:06):
kink than I am, as you arenative to these spaces.
Then I have a throwback sort ofinterview which should have
been in the last episode but Iwas unable to schedule it.
But we will be talking withMaster J Tobias Perry about his
book Leather Mentorship, andthen we'll finish off with an
Ask Edge segment.

(01:27):
So I'm hoping it's aninteresting episode.
I certainly think it's a prettygood one.
And let's get started.
I am part of a very uniqueleather generation.
I am part of that generationthat made the transition from an

(01:49):
analog kink community thatexisted primarily through bars,
runs, events and magazines intothe digital leather kink
community, which exists quitevibrantly today.
That also means I was part ofthe community that was building

(02:10):
online digital spaces forKingsters and in this segment I
just wanted to give you a bit ofa history of where we came from
and what that was like Now.
In the before time, in the long, long ago, the two ways to
really meet people you had bars,which were uneven even back

(02:33):
then.
As much as we want to complainabout the dearth of leather men
at leather bars now, the truthis back in the day there was
probably more leather, but Iwent home alone many, many, many
nights, so from my perspectiveit was always kind of chancy at
the bar.
I do think I had better chancesback then.

(02:56):
Of course I was younger backthen too, and that never hurts.
But beyond that the way to meetpeople was through magazines
like Drummer International,leatherman, bound and Gagged,
and all of these magazines inthe back had personal ads.
Now this was a very complicatedprocess.

(03:17):
The way it would work is firstyou would take photos of
yourself with a film camera,bring those to the film
developing place and actuallyget actual photos, which is
tricky.
If you were doing nudes ordoing something a little risque,
you would have to go pick upthe photos and hope they got
developed and hope no one wassmirking at you.

(03:39):
You would then write a letterby hand about who you are and
what your interests are and allthat.
You would take the letter, youwould take the photo and you
would mail it to the magazine.
The magazine would forward itto the person who placed the ad
and then they may or may notrespond to you.
So there would be weeks,literally weeks, when you would

(04:02):
be running home to check themail in the hopes that you had
gotten a reply.
And I had some success with thatman.
I met this super hot flightattendant, I think he went by
the name Digger.
He was really into breathcontrol and, wow, so sexy.
I met him through ads.
I met Archie, my sort ofbondage amazing mentor, through

(04:26):
ads, and that's primarily whatwe had bars and ads.
Now there were leather clubsthat had runs, there were some
events, so those were options aswell.
But in many ways, even thoughthere was a kind of vibrancy to
meeting, particularly at a bar,our options were a little

(04:46):
limited.
Now, I've always been a techie,nerdy, geeky person and I mean I
had computers.
I had, like, a Timex computer.
It was just really I hadcomputers from the start, let's
just say that.
And my first memory of kinkydigital online spaces were

(05:08):
something called BBSs BoltonBoard Systems.
Now we're back in the time whenthere was a modem, which means
you would actually connect yourcomputer to the phone line.
It was very slow.
It tied up your phone line sono one could call you.
It was less than ideal.
And you would dial into the PBS, and a PBS was a little bit.

(05:30):
I think you might think of itlike a forum today.
There were message boards wherethere were threaded
conversations and then therewere private messages as well,
and that's what you had.
I will say I got into cigarsbecause I developed a super
crush on a guy in LA that I meton a BBS and I remember using

(05:52):
BBSs from, oh, the 1980s to the1990s, so we're talking about
the late 1900s and in the 1990sI then also started using IRC,
internet Relay Chat, which issort of wow if you imagine a
chat room that is entirely bycommand line interface.

(06:15):
It was just sort of barbaric.
But there were sort of queerspaces on IRC and I remember
some hypnosis spaces, I remembersome cigar spaces.
So there were places for us toconnect and to chat and again
you'd be essentially in adigital room.

(06:36):
People would be talkingpublicly and then there would be
private messages as well aswell, now, the big thing was AOL
, america Online, which was akind of walled garden of digital
content that included like oh,I'm going to go to the travel
section or oh, let me go look atthe food section and there'd be

(06:56):
articles and there'd be recipesand there'd be whatever.
But the big thing with AOL isthat there were rooms and the
two big ones were M4M Dungeonand M4M Dungeon 2.
Now everything gay was coded,M4M male for male, and there was
a limit to how many peoplecould be in a room.
So once the first dungeonfilled up, people would go into

(07:20):
the second dungeon.
I don't know why we never madean M4M Dungeon 3.
In my memory there was only twoand you would kind of
constantly be trying to get intothe room and AOL had instant
messaging.
So again, there's a publicspace for conversation and then
there are private spaces forconversation.
Aol charged by the hour.

(07:43):
By the hour.
I can't tell you how much Ispent as a horny, young, gay
leather person on America Online.
Let me tell you I spent a lotof money and that's actually
where Leather Edge comes from.

(08:05):
On AOL you could have multiplescreen names and I evolved
through many different screennames and one of the last ones I
had was Leather Edge, and Ithink I probably tell the story
of all that in the Originsepisode.
Aol was also kind of my entryinto the web because at some

(08:25):
point they realized the web washappening and so the walled
garden became a little lesswalled.
Now, in 1995, to the best of mymemory, that's when I first
really ventured onto the WorldWide Web, world Wide Web.

(08:49):
That's when I started myhomepage, leatheredgecom, and
there's a remnant of it therestill, if you're curious.
The web was small and hard tonavigate because we didn't
really have search engines.
What we had was Yahoo, whichwas a sort of curated collection
of sites, and I think somewhereprobably under society and
culture then gay and lesbian youcould go find a couple of gay

(09:10):
things, and that was sort of it.
Now, some of the reallyimportant early leather websites
I remember.
The first is Leather Navigator.
Leather Navigator was one ofthe first leather sites I found
on the web and it was just acollection of links.
There was also a reallybeautifully designed, moody,

(09:31):
atmospheric site called BootjackBoot J-A-Q, bootjack, and those
were the two sites I mostremember.
Now, around this time I also hadstarted my own site.
I don't even remember how Ifigured out how to both get a
server, get files onto theserver, get a domain name, get

(09:52):
the DNS pointing all the rightplaces.
I can't even tell you how I didthat.
I can tell you that when Istarted my website, html was
super easy to learn becausethere were only like six tags.
You had heading one, headingtwo, heading three, heading four
.
You had TT, which was liketypewriter text, and you could

(10:16):
get courier font and that wassort of it.
You know, you didn't, youcouldn't, there were no tables,
there was no real tools fordesign, there were no tables,
there was no real tools fordesign, and so, as HTML was
being developed, I was codingthis all by hand, and so it was

(10:37):
really easy to master HTML,because I learned it as it
happened and my site grew overthe course of 10 years.
I had it up for 10 years.

Speaker 2 (10:43):
I learned a lot about design.

Speaker 1 (10:45):
I had a lot of content including links to other
leather people's homepages,some essays, some stories, links
to vendors of gear.
All that existed on my site.
It sort of interesting resourcefor people.
The roots of the digital fameof Leather Edge go back to

(11:09):
leatheredgecom.
Now this is at a time whenpeople had something called a
homepage, where they had thissort of singular presence.
That was their home on the web.
The other really important siteI shouldn't say other really
important site, as though minewas I mean, mine was, but I
don't want to claim that but thesite that was important to me

(11:30):
in the early aughts.
So we're in the new millennium,now we're in the early aughts.
Leather Navigator at some pointevolved from just a list of
links into a chat site where youhad a profile, you had pictures
and you could chat with othermembers.
It was inelegant, right,because the messages came

(11:51):
through on pop-up windows.
So you would log in andsuddenly, like 20 pop-up windows
would be coming at you.
It was a little crazy but itwas, to my memory, the first
chat site available for leatherfolks on the web and I met many
people through Leather Navigator.
There are people I'veencountered, even recently, who

(12:15):
we had known each other onlineas far back as Leather Navigator
in the early aughts odds.
Now at some point this rogueupstart started and it was a
series of sites including WorldLeatherman, world Rubberman, and
then they had a bunch of otherslike I don't know, world Sports

(12:36):
, kit Men and World I don't knowwhat, world Skins.
That was one Basically it wasworld plus fetish area and at
first it was free and peoplewere kind of flocking to it
because it was free.
And this was a really cleverstrategy because you start off
by offering it for free, you geta lot of users and then you

(13:00):
charge.
Eventually.
All of these world, this andthat sites got consolidated and
that became Recon.
Recon continues.
I think when people ask me interms of digital leather spaces,
particularly kind of meetingpeople, I point them to Recon.
For me, that's the place to gowhen you want to meet leather

(13:21):
folk online and be able to chatand cruise and see profiles and
look at photos.
That's just sort of the thing,right.
And obviously Recon's had areally long history.
Probably I guess it's beenaround I would think maybe 20
years at this point and it iswhat it is.
I think it's very useful in someways I still have a lot of

(13:44):
friends that I've met throughRecon.
I find it.
I've met one, two oh two orthree partners through Recon, so
you can find love on Recon,although no promise that it's
going to last.
That's true of any relationship, of course.
What I like about Recon fornewcomers is you can just sort
of make a throwaway profile nameand what you can do is look at

(14:08):
all the people near you in avery low stakes way, because you
can also create the settingwhere people can't see that
you've seen their profile, soyou can just lurk and look, and
lurking and looking is a greatway to start because you see
who's around, you see how peopledescribe themselves, how they
craft profiles, you see whatphotos look like, you get a

(14:28):
sense of the tenor of thedigital community in your area
and worldwide, and that providesyou a kind of space to think
about how you want to craft yourown digital presence on a space
like Recon.
In addition to Recon, there area lot of smaller specialized

(14:48):
digital sites.
There's certainly Rubber Zone.
Fetish Men had a moment in thesun because it had video chat.
Fetlife is a large I like tothink of it as a kinky Facebook
is a large I like to think of itas a kinky Facebook, and it's
really useful because itincludes everyone of you know

(15:08):
heterosexual, queer of allflavors, and so it really
provides much more of a kind ofcommunity kind of thing than
hookups Although certainly youcan hook up anywhere there are
kinky people and so all ofthat's happening Now.
In my own journey, I kept up myhomepage for 10 years.

(15:30):
It became this sort of resourceon the web for people.
But I reached a point where mycareer was changing and I was
getting tired of the site and ithad gotten so big and so sort
of cumbersome and hard to updatethat I just didn't have the
inner resources to keep updatingit.
I took the site down and Ithought you know, I'm the inner
resources to keep updating it.
And I took the site down and Ithought you know, I'm just going
to retire Leather Edge.
And for a while Leather Edgewas retired and eventually came

(15:52):
back on recon.
But part of what happened ispeople were like oh, I saw your
photos on Tumblr and I'm likeTumblr, what's Tumblr?
That's how I discovered Tumblrin, let's say, the late 2000s,
the late aughts maybe?
No, it was the late aughts.

(16:13):
I realized everyone had myphotos on Tumblr and I'm like
well, that's ridiculous.
Mostly because they had myphotos without any credit, no
way of pointing people back tome.
So I'm like well, I'll show you,I'm going to create my own
Tumblr and I'm going to postevery single photo of me so that
at least there's a definitiveresource, so that people can
kind of find out who I am.
My Tumblr is still there.

(16:34):
It's leatheredgetumblrcom, andyou know, I did the Tumblr thing
for a long time and itliterally is and it's not, I
shouldn't say literally, it'snot every single photo of me
ever, but you can go back to thevery first photos of me from, I
think, 1995, where I was a weeyoung leather lad and you can
look and see the development.

(16:55):
And for a long time I kept theTumblr up and it was really my
primary social media presence.
Now we're shifting from simplesort of digital spaces in
general, ones that are morefocused on, if we think, in the
early days, it was really aboutpublic spaces for conversation
and private spaces forconversation.

(17:16):
You would have that on AOL, youwould have that on IRC, you
would have that on BBSs.
And now, with social media,we're really thinking about
individuals as media, as contentproducers.
There's always privatemessaging right, and I think
that's why Threads is such adisaster, by the way, and Blue

(17:36):
Sky hasn't taken off.
It's like, well, if I can'tcontact people, what the hell is
the point?
And Tumblr was a shift for mebecause it didn't have public
conversational spaces, it wasreally just sort of photos and
it was great.
I mean, I have my own list offavorites that I saw on Tumblr.
I will say that Obviously Iwould spend a lot of my solo

(17:58):
erotic time on Tumblr, but itwould be strange because I would
be scrolling and pleasuringmyself and there'd be a photo of
me and that kind of reallyruins the vibe when you're
pleasuring yourself.
I must say, as part of that, Ieventually made a Twitter and I
eventually made an Instagram,but I didn't put a lot of energy
at all into my Twitter.

(18:19):
There was a feature on Tumblrwhere it would post to Twitter.
It wouldn't post the actualphoto, it would post a link.
So I had a little bit going onTwitter.
I had even less going on onInstagram.
I just didn't quite get it atthat point.
Then I think, what was it 2017?
Tumblr's like no, no, no, noadult content?
Well, that was not a greatbusiness decision, but they did

(18:39):
it, and so Tumblr just sort ofdied in many ways.
In many ways it's still there,but I think it just sort of died
.
So I shifted more to Twitterand Instagram and really used
those again, just posting photos, because that was sort of
historically.
What I was doing was sort ofcreating this record of my
leather journey and creatingthis sort of record of a

(19:02):
particular style of leather andhow it looks as someone moves
through the world.
I was also obviously lookingfor validation and attention and
all that fun.
And then, early in the pandemic, something shifted and there
are a couple reasons for that.
I had stepped into the title ofFlorida Leather Sir.

(19:23):
At the start of the pandemic,the producer of the contest
asked me to take on the title,just sort of to kind of keep it
open during the pandemic.
So that really shifted mymindset and I started thinking a
little bit more about okay,well, I've got these followers
and I had like a couple thousandon Instagram and Twitter at the
time.
I've got these followers, maybeI could sort of do something

(19:45):
very title holder-y.
The real moment of awakening forme is I had just gotten off of
a Zoom 12-step meeting and Imade a quick.
It was a leather Zoom 12-stepmeeting, so I was in full gear.
I made a quick, maybe 15-secondvideo about making sure you
don't settle for someone unlessthey love you unconditionally

(20:06):
blah, blah, blah, blah blah.
And I posted it on Twitter andInstagram and it crazy resonated
.
It didn't go viral, viral, butin terms of the content I had
been producing, it was verypopular and I was like that was
this aha moment.
And what I came to realize isthat, looking the way I look,

(20:26):
that when I said things peoplelistened and that I also
realized I had a lot ofexperience to share.
And that was the start of thekind of leather education
presence on Twitter andInstagram.
Now, for a while Twitter wassort of the educational place
and Instagram was the lookpretty photos place, and then I
just started cross-posting mycontent.

(20:48):
At some point someone's like,hey, where else are you keeping
these videos?
I'm like nowhere.
And he's like well, you mightwant to change that.
And so thank God he made thatcomment, because then Twitter
became X, which is veryuncertain territory.
In the meantime, I haddownloaded all of my videos from
Twitter and put them into theweb archive, which is com that's

(21:12):
tchickcom.
So then I had Instagram,twitter, I had the archive and I
have a presence on Recon.
I have a presence on FetLifeMost of the places that are
leather.
If you search for Leather Edge,you're going to find me.

(21:32):
The one place where it'sspelled with all the vowels is
Twitter, and that drives mecrazy.
But some idiot had takenL-T-H-R-E-D-G-E and did
something so horrible that theygot banned on Twitter, and so
now I can never get that name.
It makes me so angry.
So towards the end of 2021, I'dbeen posting these videos and

(21:53):
people were like oh my God, yourvoice, oh my God, your voice.
I could listen to you all thetime.
Oh my God, oh my God.
This was bizarre for me becauseI grew up really hating the
sound of my voice.
I often, on the phone, gotmisgendered.
I never felt like my voice wasdeep enough.

(22:13):
I had a lot of trauma around myvoice, and so to get these
powerful affirmations of myvoice was just kind of
reoriented how I thought about,how I sounded in a very powerful
, powerful, deeply powerful way,and people were like you should
do ASMR, you should do apodcast, you should do a podcast
, you should do a podcast, youshould do a podcast.

(22:33):
And I have plenty on my plate.
But I tucked that in the backof my head and at the beginning
of 2022, yeah, am I getting thisright?
Yes, I had just gotten out of arelationship and I knew I needed
to do something, something toinvest time and energy in while

(22:55):
I was sort of grieving andhealing my heart.
But also, here's my strategyright, when you're dating, you
need something to talk about,because people are like, oh,
what do you like to do and Ican't just say I like to lie on
my sofa and watch TV, which istrue and which I have said.
But if you say something like,oh, I'm working on a podcast,
then it opens up oh, what's yourpodcast about?

(23:16):
Then you have something to talkabout.
So Full Cow got started, thanksto all of my followers on
Instagram and Twitter, who weremoved by the sound of my voice,
combined with a breakup whichrequired me to invest time and
energy in something to both fillthe space and have something to
talk about while dating, andthat is now sort of the entirety

(23:40):
of my digital kink presence,personally speaking, and that's
easy to extrapolate, right?
If there are other digitalkinksters on Tumblr, god knows.
There are other digitalkinksters on Twitter I refuse to
call it X there are otherdigital kinksters on Instagram
we have claimed all of thosespaces and there are lots of

(24:03):
other kinky podcasts.
Now I drew the line at TikTok.
I tried it and I made a littlebit of content.
And what I suspect is TikTokuntil the algorithm really
figures you out, it doesn't knowwho's for you page, and on
TikTok, if someone doesn't likethe content, they don't just

(24:32):
flip to the next TikTok theymake some really mean, mean,
mean, biting comments and I waslike no, no, no, no, I'm drawing
the line at TikTok.
I can't do TikTok, I can't.
My fragile self-esteem cannottake these attacks.
I don't want to train thealgorithm, so I have a TikTok

(24:54):
and I don't use it.
But I know there are kinkypeople on TikTok as well.
The takeaways from this is thatkinky people have always
colonized available spaces forconnection and communication,
going all the way back, not justphysical spaces like bars, but
also from the beginning ofdigital content.

(25:18):
We were there.
We were there staking our claimand making spaces for others
like us.
That includes in bulletin boardsystems, aol, IRC.
But people's personal homepageswere really creating kind of
visibility for leather and kink,and I'm sure there were people
who discovered at a very youngage leather and kink because of

(25:41):
people's personal homepages.
We were also creating spaces toconnect, like Leather Navigator
, recon, fetishmen, and then,beyond that, we have now evolved
to be creating these socialmedia content channels that
provide lots of different,certainly some inspirationally
erotic content, but also someeducational content, and so

(26:04):
Digital Kink has a place in thedigital world and we've made
that transition.
Now it's up to all of you, andwhen I say all of you, I'm very
aware that, according to thedata analytics that are
available to me on my socialmedia, I know a lot of people
who follow me are 19 to 34.

(26:25):
This is your world.
This is your world to shape andto continue to shape and to
continue to show up in.
We were the pioneers literally,literally, we were pioneering
things, and now it's up to youto keep pioneering as digital
spaces continue to evolve.

(26:46):
And now you know a little bitmore of history, of where we
came from in terms of makingthat leap into digital spaces,
and I hope you found that auseful and valuable lesson.
Regular listeners know that Igenerally start each episode

(27:08):
with my history, with a giventopic, and then move into some
sort of how-to segment.
But, really, as I noted in theintroduction, given the
demographic of my listeners,probably all of you know digital
kink better than I do, or atleast as well as I do, because
many of you are native to thisenvironment.

(27:31):
But I thought I would justshare a couple of insights from
my experience.
First of all, when people arelooking to explore leather and
kink, I always recommend joiningRecon.
It might have some drawbacks,but it remains a really good
place to meet other leatherkinky people.

(27:53):
If you're a gay man Noted Ifyou're not a gay man, then I
recommend FetLife, which I'vealways thought of as kind of
like kinky Facebook.
For either of these digitalspaces, my recommendation is to
create a throwaway profile,something without any photos,
something with a random name,something without any text,

(28:16):
because the first thing to do islurk, Look at people's profiles
, look at people who are in yourarea to get a sense, first of
all, of the local digital kinkcommunity, but also to look at
how they present themselves inthese spaces, paying attention
to the profiles that resonatewith you the most.

(28:38):
What is it about the photos?
What is it about the text?
This is the way of orientingyourself to this particular
digital kinky space.
Really pay attention to thekind of profile, the kind of
photos you might want to presentin order to resonate with
others in the space.

(28:58):
Then, at some point, you'regoing to want to make your real
profile.
I'm obviously very big onbranding Everywhere you go in
digital spaces.
There is a Leather Edge account.
I don't use them all.
I have a TikTok account.
I don't use it.
I have a lot of minor accountsthat I just like to claim my

(29:21):
brand.
This is a way of saying it'sprobably wise to be thoughtful
about your screen name orwhatever name you're going to
use in any particular digitalspace, because it might be
something you want to carry overinto other spaces and it might
be something you want to keepfor your life.

(29:41):
That certainly has been thecase for me.
So, after you've made somedecisions about your profile
name, I think it's then moreimportant to focus on the text
than the photos.
Now trust me, everyone's goingto look at the photos.
No one actually reads theprofile.
That's been my experience inplaces like Recon.
But I think the textualinformation is a lot easier in

(30:06):
some ways, to control thangetting really good photos, and
there are a lot of people whocan't put up photos because of
personal reasons, because ofcareer reasons.
But you can have text and youcan be thoughtful and
intentional in the text.
Be honest about what you'vedone and what you were looking
for, as honest as you can betoday.

(30:27):
I obviously am a big believer inreally good photos as well.
Now, I have had the greatfortune of working with a number
of photographers and if youhave the opportunity to work
with a professional photographer, take it, because I cannot tell
you how much it is worth it.
There may be some photographers, particularly ones who are just

(30:47):
starting out, who will tradephotos for your time and so you
can get some free photos.
But I have paid for a number ofphoto shoots and I've never
been disappointed.
So that is an option toconsider, because I think really
good professional photos putyou in the best light without a
question, and when you combinethat with really thoughtful,

(31:09):
intentional text, then you're ina really good place.
It is useful to be cautious inthese digital spaces.
There are a lot of bad actorsand some of them are acting
poorly on purpose and some ofthem just don't know any better
and you're going to have todevelop some useful filters.

(31:31):
Now I can't really tell you howto do this because it's quite
individualized, but I wouldsuggest that if something sounds
too good to be true, maybe itis, and to whatever extent you
have a network in the communityin real life or in alternate
digital spaces, maybe onInstagram, and now you're on

(31:52):
recon try to check people out,try to vet them to get some
sense of whether or not they arewho they say they are.
Certainly, before playing withanyone, I would recommend
meeting them in a neutrallocation.
I'm big on meeting for coffeebecause it's very safe.
It's like one hour, that's allyou get.

(32:13):
And then I can go on my way.
The nice thing about Recon asopposed to something like Grindr
or Scruff is that it's?
Not about the instant hookup.
It just isn't designed forinstant hookups because the
whole system is a little slowwith the messaging.
It is designed, I think, forcommunication and for connection

(32:34):
which are the things that areat the center of kink of life.
Beyond that, I say explore andcheck out other spaces.
I've actually had a lot of luckon Instagram.
A lot of people contact methrough my Instagram.
I've actually had a lot of luckon Instagram.
A lot of people contact methrough my Instagram.
People who contact me throughTwitter I refuse to call it X.

Speaker 2 (33:00):
And these other spaces create new connections
with different kinds ofaudiences.

Speaker 1 (33:02):
Right, Not everyone is on recon, so start by lurking
, then build a really thoughtful, intentional profile with the
best photos you can attain andthen be really mindful of some
of the risks, develop somefilters, really invest in
communication, meet in a neutralspace and then continue to
explore.
Again, not the best tutorial.

(33:24):
However, perhaps it offers someguidance for people who are
completely new to a space and Ihope you find it at least a
little bit useful.
And I am absolutely thrilled tobe here today with Master J
Tobias.
Master Tobias, welcome to FullCow.

Speaker 2 (33:46):
Thank you so much.
I didn't get my proper way toaddress you because I've always
just looked at you as Edge, sodo I call you?

Speaker 1 (33:53):
Edge.
That's it.
Do I call you Full Cow?
Edge is cool.
Edge is cool.
It's who I am.

Speaker 2 (33:58):
Hey, thank you.
Thank you so much for having me.
Of course, it's an honorbecause I've followed you for so
long and you're the body ofwork that you've done, but I'm
honored to be here.
My name is Master J TobiasPerry.
I am from Atlanta, georgia.
I spend time as well as inLondon.
I live in London as well, andmy body of work is.

(34:24):
I would say that it's extensive, but not as extensive to some
of my upline and people that Iknow.
But, I've been in and around theleather community for um since
about 2001 2002 and it actuallystarted in south florida with
sir mario who used to own the?
Um was it the, the southernsouth coast resort?

(34:46):
Um, it was right off of Broward, right there, right at the
corner of Broward, and wherever.
Before my time yeah, before yourtime I started in South Florida
and moved to Atlanta and Ireally found my leather tribe
here in Atlanta, more so than inSouth Florida, and I've been

(35:07):
doing the body of work.
As far as education, um, I'm aformer member of onyx.
Um, I've taught at claw.
I've taught at um master classunder recon for london leather
week, I've taught at dark lands,etc.
Etc.

Speaker 1 (35:26):
And yeah, awesome, leather, and your pronouns are
he, him is fine, yeah, wonderful.
Speaking of your body of work,you are the author of the book
Leather Mentorship, which I justsuddenly saw all over my
Facebook, like everyone wasreading it.
So can you start by telling uswhat inspired you to write it?

Speaker 2 (35:47):
Oh man, there are so many different channels.
That inspired that Myself Istill consider myself under
mentorship by Master Bruce andBoy Richard and Sir Yardley
because they were my initialmentors.
But the reason that I wrote itis really for the underdog and
people who are coming into thecommunity not only just the

(36:10):
leather community but the gaycommunity that will teach you
from a blueprint standpoint, umpitfalls, what to watch out for,
who to vet, when to vet, shouldthey be vetted if they are 40
years in the leather communityand the difference between those
two.
But primarily my focus was forit to give the newcomer

(36:33):
structure on what they needed tobe come a more leadership, lead
and leadership consciousleather man or leather woman or
leather person.
So I wanted kind of a blueprintand I've talked to several
quote unquote leaders in thecommunity and it was various

(36:53):
ideas that they had.
So I kind of wanted to summarizeeverything that I learned from
my mentorship and kind of giveblueprint and so people wouldn't
make like missteps when they'recoming into the community
Because I mean, there's so manydifferent traps out there.
You have all types of deviancy.
Did I say deviancy?

(37:14):
Yeah, yeah, you have so muchtype of deviancy and people that
are looking to um prey on theweak or prey on the uneducated
when it comes to to leather andperception and you know your
gear plays a a huge part in thatas well so I basically wanted
to give the newcomer a blueprinton the 101 version of how to

(37:40):
come into mentorship and thecommunity.

Speaker 1 (37:42):
Yeah, and I think your work is so important.
I think you've really hit thenail on the head Like there
isn't.
If you're entering thecommunity, there really isn't a
good resource to tell you whatto look out for, when to vet,
how to vet.
So I think your work is reallycritical because it's so widely
available.
You mentioned a couple of yourmentors already.

(38:02):
Can you tell us a little bitmore about how you found your
first mentor and what thatprocess was like for you?

Speaker 2 (38:08):
Wow, that's really, really good.
Actually, my first contestreally catapulted me to
mentorship.
I ran for the Mr Atlanta EagleContest and I failed miserably.
But the power of what I learnedwas not in me failing, it was

(38:30):
the fact that someone saw myfailure.
Yet they saw my potential andthey solicited me under
mentorship.
They said you know, we've beenfollowing you for a very long
time and at the time, BoyRichard, who was international
deaf leather boy, him and hishusband saw me and they said we

(38:51):
want to take you under our wingsand we want to introduce you to
master Bruce, which is at thetime they're upline.
And my Onyx brother overheardthe conversation, cause he was
my my handler doing the contest,and he said I'm jumping on
board too.
So in 2012, they really took meunderground on and set me on a

(39:12):
path for being an educator,being and you know, the
community chooses us as leaders,we don't choose ourselves to
hey, I want to be a leader andI'm going to and I'm going to go
out in the community and I'mgoing to do all of this body of
work and I'm just going tosubmerge myself in in being
upfront and being seen.
It wasn't about that.

(39:33):
They took me on the ground, um,before I ran for my next title,
Um, and I won, and I won thatnext title, and that set me on a
path for um, not only justleadership, because leadership
comes over time.
It's something that that comesover time.
But it started with Boy Richard.

(39:55):
Boy Richard introduced me toMaster Bruce.
Master Bruce was more specificon the structure of what I
needed and what he saw that Ineeded as far as competing, my
visibility, the body of workthat I want to concentrate on.
And then sir yardy was moreless the competition.

(40:15):
Hey, as a leather man, this iswhat you do.
You measure your cover when youearn a cover at the time.
You know from the bridge of yournose, with your thumb, and
that's how you measure itmeasure your brim.
You never touch your brimunless you're cleaning it.
So, sir, you already taught medifferent aspects, but one thing
is that people need tounderstand, even if they're

(40:35):
looking for daddies, mentors,etc.
There's not just one fuckingperson that can give you
everything you need.
We should have the range andthe capacity to want to gain
energy, not only just anexchange of energy, but
knowledge also from variouspeople in the community that you

(40:56):
look up to as a possible mentor.

Speaker 1 (41:00):
It takes a village.
Really, it does take a village,always, always, and I love that
.
You've identified two ways thatpeople can begin to find
mentors Throwing yourself in thedeep end with a contest, even
if you don't know what you'redoing.
You learn a lot just fromtrying to compete in a contest.
You learn a lot of what not todo right, and you get feedback

(41:23):
from the judges so you can beginyour learning journey there.
You've also mentioned that youwere a former member of Onyx,
which I always look up to as agroup.
That is really, really goodwith mentorship.
Can you talk a little bit aboutyour experience with Onyx?

Speaker 2 (41:39):
My experience with Onyx was a span of 23 years, and
that's as someone just who wasaround the organization not in
South Florida but in Atlantasince 2002, and then became an
associate of the organizationand then full brother of the

(42:01):
organization.
Onyx is for people of color,especially, more specifically,
black leather men and women.
It is the best thing that I'veseen or that I've come across.
Um my experience with onyx was.
It started out as a verypositive one.

(42:22):
It ended as a positive one.
The only reason that I feltthat it was time for me to
separate is that onyx's valuesthen changed.
My values changed and what Iwanted out of my journey
collectively and unfortunately,my values changed.
The Onyx values stayed the same.
So I just I knew that it wastime for me to leave in order

(42:47):
for me to further my growthwithout the organization.
But I mean, I'm still friendsand associated with quite a few
of them Even you know, some ofthem are still identified as my
sons in the leather communitybut I just my values changed.

Speaker 1 (43:01):
Yeah, I love so you can run for a title.
That's a great way to stumbleupon a mentor.
There are lots of leathergroups that really sort of focus
on more social aspect andprovide that kind of village
teaching you how to do things.
I also love that you'reidentifying that your needs
change over time, and you'vetalked about this a couple of

(43:22):
times.
You've had many mentors asyou've grown in your journey and
so you don't feel locked into aparticular mentor.
Part of their job is for you tonot need them anymore and for
you to need something else,right?
Can you talk a little bit moreabout where you see your journey
going next?

Speaker 2 (43:41):
You know what.
It's all of our journey andI've said this publicly on the
Miss Regilio stage in Darklandswe should always want to evolve
and we should always want togrow.
Your leather does not have tostay the same.
It's okay to go out from aroundthe crowd, around commonality,

(44:03):
and tread waters that you'venever treaded before.
So my journey, I think, isgoing to branch out more, so
specifically in leatherleadership and teaching those
outside of just mentorship, butbranching.
We have some elders that want tobe the go-to when it comes to

(44:34):
education, unfortunately, andthat information and knowledge
they strategically sometimes donot pass it down because they
want to be the go-to.
And I just feel like, assomeone who's been in the
leather community for a verylong time, the knowledge doesn't
belong to us, the knowledgebelongs to those have come long

(44:57):
before us, it belongs to theuniverse and if we don't pass
that information down, we allfail as as a community.
And I just think that my nextstep is volume two, which would
be leather leadership, and tocontinue working hand in hand
with Recon and with theDarklands organization and CLAW,

(45:22):
because I do sit on the boardfor CLAW as well as the Leather
Archives Museum as well, so mywhole future, um, even when I,
um, even when I'm not teachingor anything like that, I think
indirectly, in a classroom, afacilitating setting will just
being, um, a pillar in thecommunity for those that may

(45:45):
just need me right.

Speaker 1 (45:46):
So that's my future um, so we're both in fairly
urban areas with leathercommunities and a lot of what
you've talked about.
You've received the benefit ofbeing in these sort of urban
areas.
What advice would you have tosomeone who's maybe in a rural
area or a place without an onyxor leather clubs or leather
titles how do you findmentorship when you feel really

(46:07):
isolated?
Or leather titles Like how doyou find mentorship when you
feel really isolated?

Speaker 2 (46:11):
I think that all of us, each of us as individuals,
whether or not you're kinky,fetish or leather or rubber, I
think all of us have thecapacity to be mentors to
someone, because all of uspossess something that someone
doesn't really have in their, intheir body, in their body of

(46:32):
knowledge.
And I think that if they are inrural areas and I'm from a rural
area in Georgia, originally I'mfrom a very small town called
Reynolds, georgia, and the onlythe only way that I think that I
got out was for two reasons Icome from a very educated,
entrepreneurial and well-to-donot well-to-do, but middle-aged

(46:54):
family.
So education was going to be mywhole window of my life, so I
knew I was going to leave thatsmall town.
So, and the other thing, too,is that you have to not fear the
change that we talked aboutearlier.
So if it is and if it's meantfor you to escape to these
larger cities to be who you are,don't be afraid to do that,

(47:19):
because the only thing thatfails is you not trying.
That's the only failure thatyou can have in your life is
only if you don't try.
So for those people that are,you know, individuals that are
in smaller towns, you have tosometimes escape what you know
or what you've been raisedaround in order to see a bigger

(47:41):
picture.
To see the bigger picture.

Speaker 1 (47:44):
Yeah, and it's not necessarily you have to move to
the big city.
You talked about going toDarklands.
You talked about going to Claw.
I know people who go to Inferno, which is a big, intense play
event, and it's their play forthe entire year.
Right, because they livesomeplace really isolated, they
go for that week and they gettheir itch scratched.
So I think what you're alsosaying is don't be afraid to go

(48:05):
explore.
You don't necessarily have topick up your life and move to
Atlanta or Fort Lauderdale.
There are opportunities for allof us, particularly events like
CLAW, which has such anemphasis on education.
You've talked about teaching atCLAW.
Do you teach at other places?

Speaker 2 (48:20):
I've taught at.
Like I said before, I've taughtat the master class and London
Leather Week.
I've taught there two years ina row and I've taught around.
I've taught at SoutheastLeather Week.
I've taught there two years ina row and I've taught around.
I've taught at SoutheastLeather Fest.
I've taught at I think I taughta class at Leather Leadership
one year or two, but other thanthat, just other places here in

(48:41):
Atlanta, I've taught a couple ofclasses.
Oh God, it's just.
I mean, all of this stuff justreally runs together.
Oh God, it's just.
I mean all of this stuff justreally runs together when you're
talking about each individualsection of the country or the
world where you've taught.
But I'm just a fan of educationand claw being the cornerstone

(49:04):
of Of what we do.
It is my go to, is my go to,and I just implore people to go
to Claw to be educated.
But I've also going back andjust popped in my mind also,
during the pandemic, I taught afew classes online as well too,
which my son is going to beteaching one of those classes at
Claw this year.
So even during the pandemic, Iwas still teaching online as

(49:27):
well too.
To answer, your question.

Speaker 1 (49:28):
Yeah, I know they had virtual claw during the
pandemic and they were doingclasses online.
I imagine there's still someplaces doing classes online,
which would be a great resourceif you're in a less populated
area or you're feeling a littleisolated.
So in some ways, the pandemicreally taught us how to keep
teaching each other withoutconflict in-person events, and
that, I think, has been a nicebenefit.
Part of why we're doing thisinterview now is because you are

(49:52):
traveling all over the effingworld.
So literally, literally, whatare some places you're going to
next?

Speaker 2 (50:00):
Next that's coming up and, of course, since the book
launched July 27th in Sydney,australia, I have been boom,
boom, boom, boom, boom, boom,boom, because you know, I judged
IML last year and then I taughtall the way through the year,
through the end of the year, didbook signings, book tours, and

(50:22):
next, for this upcoming year, Ihave three more events and I
don't have anything on mycalendar besides claw austin
kink weekend, which I'mkeynoting, and I'm doing iml
because one of my sons iscompeting now.
This shirt that I'm wearing.
It has bulge on it.
It looks like a football.

(50:43):
So that was the reason why Ihad that.

Speaker 1 (50:46):
But this it also makes his chest look huge.
Audience.

Speaker 2 (50:49):
You can't see it, oh God, I mean, it's just a chest.
It's just a chest.

Speaker 1 (50:53):
It's actually huge.
It's actually huge Sorry youwere saying the bulge t-shirt.

Speaker 2 (51:00):
So the bulge t-shirt is an event that I do every
single year and is typicallycentered around tacos and
tequila, where I raise yourfavorite.

Speaker 1 (51:11):
Well, I love tacos.
I don't drink, but I love tacos.

Speaker 2 (51:14):
So, oh, I forgot, you're under sobriety, that's
right.
So it donates 100% of allproceeds to a um, a registered
501 C three organization.
And this would be our fifthyear Um if.
Fifth year, no, yeah, Fifthyear Um if I was going to do my
bulge event.
But I am so exhausted fromtraveling, so everything that

(51:36):
I'm doing up until IML.
That is exactly where mycalendar ends for right now.
But who knows?
I mean I may be doing self, ormaybe back in London for London
Leather Week, which comes upJune 10th, June 10th.

Speaker 1 (51:53):
Yeah, and you mentioned Austin Kink Weekend
and I think that's another goodpoint.
There are these big nationalevents like CLAW that are really
, really big.
Austin Kink Weekend isrelatively new.
It's kind of regional at thispoint it's growing, is
relatively new.
It's kind of regional at thispoint it's growing.
And I think the other goodstrategy for people is, if you

(52:14):
can't make IML, if you can'tafford to get to London for
Fetish Week, that look forregional events which are a
little more smaller, a littlemore affordable, a little easier
to get to and still providethat in-person connection where
you can begin to find somementorship.
Have you been to Austin KinkWeekend before and can you tell
us about it?

Speaker 2 (52:31):
Oh yes, first of all, I'm saying that for a reason my
brother and my brother fromanother mother, pussycat and I
we have, even since he won MIRand gave up his title him myself
and Pup Savage, which is anOnyx member, which is San

(52:53):
Francisco Eagle 2023.
We have teamed up to go to allof these events to make sure
that visibility of POC and blackand brown bodies are in the
house specifically.
So Austin Kink Weekend hasgrown tremendously and it is the
breeding ground for the nextstep to IML.

(53:15):
So we started this thing myself, ralph Bruno, which I love, and
Bolt and James, this other guy.
So we started this thing.
It's like a mock interview thatwe give for contestants that are
attending Austin Keek Weekendand we do a mock interview for
each contestant that's attendingAustin Keek Weekend.

(53:38):
And not only that, but theclasses at Austin Keek Weekend
are premier classes and they aretaught by some colleague
classes and they are taught bysome colleague will leather
colleagues that I know, like raydalton, ray gave the best um
demo ever, ever it was a impact,it was a fisting, it was a um,

(54:03):
a contact play demo that he gave.
But anyway, long story short,the classes at Austin King
Weekend are awesome.
Jeff, what was his name?
Jeffrey Payne was our keynotespeaker last year.
I love Jeffrey Payne, crushedon him forever and now I'm
keynoting the very next year.
So Louise, randy and Jacob, andall of the staff, they are

(54:27):
amazing.
So if I were to really toot thehorn of Austin King Weekend, I
would say that it is the secondcornerstone of education to
Klopp.
It is very, very educationallycentered.

Speaker 1 (54:42):
Yeah, I tell people for IML, if you're not really in
the contest, the only otherreason to go to IML is to shop,
because it really has, likeevery vendor, but it doesn't
have classes, it doesn't haveeducation.
The two claws or I guesstechnically the one in LA is
Leather Getaway, austin KinkWeekend, some of these other

(55:03):
events that have education.
I think those are the events toreally go to, particularly if
you're looking for mentorship,because you're going to find
people who know things and whoare sharing their knowledge.

Speaker 2 (55:14):
I completely agree.
And then, going into that, wehave to be able to want to,
because mentorship is a service.
Everything that we do asmentors or mentees that are that
are looking for mentors, it isa service and it it should be a

(55:34):
passion, not only just for yourvisibility, but to make sure
that you are expanding leatherculture and that that is
changing and growing.
And no matter if you're you'rehaving trouble like I had
trouble with the non-binary,with pronouns, with he, him,
they and all of this stuff, andI'm still having challenges with

(55:56):
that Yet I still stay on courseto learn and evolve, because
leather is going to be different.
It was different from when Icame in to now, and then it's
going to be different when youand I are no longer here and
they're expanding.
They're expanding leather.
So we have to be more cognizantthat it's going to evolve,

(56:18):
whether or not you're here inthe way, trying to gatekeep or
whatever.
So we just need to be moreaccepting of our brothers and
sisters, no matter where they'recoming from.

Speaker 1 (56:28):
I just want to pause and say how powerful it is for a
leader to say I'm strugglingwith something like pronouns,
but I'm going to do the work,because it's important To really
just admit that it's unusualfor us or that it's something we
have to get used to, but toalso say I'm going to do the
work, I'm not expecting otherpeople to do the work.
So I think that was a reallypowerful moment.

(56:50):
You've talked about mentorshipas a service.
Obviously, it can take a lot oftime and energy.
Do you have any advice forpeople who want to mentor in
terms of managing that, so thatthey don't burn out?

Speaker 2 (57:04):
Yeah, mentorship comes in so many different
levels and even in the book Imentioned, whether or not it's a
time, it's.
What do you want, for instance,if you say, hey, master, do you
mind mentoring me up to IML?
I have like a calendar of thesekids and I call them kids
because they really aregenuinely like my kids A

(57:28):
calendar of people that I mentor.
I have structured mentorshipsand then I have mentorships that
I mentor people up to IML fordifferent contests.
They want to be mentored onSingletail, on Flogging, on
Impact Play, everything thatthey know that I have a
proficiency in.
As far as teaching, I'vementored people specifically.

(57:50):
But then you have contractualmentorships where there are time
limits, and then you also havementorships like the one that I
have with Master Bruce, where itwas for one year but it's
evolved into more of a familymember and a friendship and it's
deep and it's powerful and it'sintentional.

(58:11):
So I mean you have differentlevels of mentorship.
But it goes right back tonegotiating what you need in
mentorship and sometimes, justbecause, for instance, if it's
someone that I look up to in thecommunity and then I vet them
and I have a conversation and Inegotiate a mentorship with them
, they could possibly have anelement of mentorship that

(58:34):
they're offering me that Idisagree and then I move on to
the next person.
That's if I'm solicitingmentorship that strongly.
But we have to keep in mindthat, as we said earlier, no one
person is going to haveeverything that you need in
mentorship, especially if you'retrying to be someone who is

(58:57):
have an overall picture of theleather community and the kink
community but ultimately Edge,it is about you becoming a
better person, or a betterleather man or leather woman or
whatever you choose to be.
That's what mentorship is, andfinding those different people
and mentors to pour into you, tobecome a better person.

Speaker 1 (59:20):
Yeah.
So a couple of things you saidthat really resonated for me is
mentorship isn't only a giving,like you get stuff out of it and
then I'm flashing back, like Itell every boy who comes into my
orbit that self-care is service, and it's true with mentorship
too.
Like you have to make sureyou're taking care of yourself
or you won't be available formentees.

(59:41):
So I love that you talked about.
There's a whole spectrum.
It doesn't mean you're meetingsomeone every week.
It doesn't mean it's lifetimeyou're meeting someone every
week.
It doesn't mean it's lifetimethat you can really structure it
in a way that works with youravailable time and energy and
offer them just that and thenthey can have other mentors to
meet other needs.
I think that's brilliant.
Your book is really hard tofind on Amazon, are you aware of

(01:00:02):
?

Speaker 2 (01:00:02):
that and do you know why.
Listen, if you can help me withthat.
I think specifically, and I'veemailed Amazon can help me with
that.
I think specifically and I'veemailed Amazon and I'm like,
well, why is it so difficult tofind?
And I think because it mentionsfetish and kink and all of that
in there.
I think the search engine justdoes not like the fact that

(01:00:24):
that's the whole hashtags thattrying to find the book is under
, because it is under kink andfetish.

Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
I will have a link directly to it in the show notes
for people who want to buy it.
I will let everyone know Ibought the Kindle edition and
read it quickly.
It's a quick read.
It's very readable.
It's very approachable.
It's not super long.
I read it at an airport, soit's available.
We're going to make sure youfind it and it's definitely
worth the read.

(01:00:50):
Any closing comments you'd liketo make?

Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
I really appreciate that too, and the reason and I'm
just going to give you thislittle nugget the reason that I
wrote the book that is verysubject matter specific is so
that you can read the chapterand it's easily digestible for
you just to process it.
And I hope that everyone lovesthis book as much as I enjoyed

(01:01:14):
writing it because it was.
It was a very painful processfor me to write, but I'm glad
that now I can share not onlyjust my experiences with the
world, but we can grow together,even just with this book or
volume two on leather leadership.
I just hope that everyoneenjoys it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
Wow, what a great ending.
Thank you so much for makingtime in your crazy travel
schedule to talk with us today.
Anything for you, anything Allright, thanks, and now it's time
for Ask Edge, the segment whereI answer questions from all of

(01:01:54):
you.
If you would like to submit aquestion, you can either give me
a voicemail at speakpipecomslash leatheredge
L-T-H-R-E-D-G-E, or you can sendan email at ask at fullc dot
show, that's ask at full cow dotshow, and that information is

(01:02:15):
available in the show notes.
Also, I should apologize.
I should have done this in theintroduction.
I should apologize for theaudio quality you might be
experiencing in this episode.
I am recording this on.
Easter, march 31st, in Floridait is an absolutely stunningly
gorgeous day, so I do have mywindow open, so if you hear some
traffic noises in thebackground, my apologies, but it

(01:02:37):
is a really beautiful day andprobably one of the last
beautiful days we're going tohave here in hot and humid
Florida.
And our first question isn'treally a question but a comment
and a suggestion from Aaron.

Speaker 3 (01:02:51):
Hi, my name is Aaron.
I go by E-R-I-K-1-1 on Recon.
A submissive of mine referredme to your podcast and asked me
to listen to your Dominanceepisode and I really, really
enjoyed it and I wanted to tellyou I really appreciate the work
that you're doing.
I also wanted to tell you thatI've published a book called the

(01:03:13):
Dom's Guide to Tickling.
I published it like maybe sevenyears ago now and I do.
You know education classes,teaching people, you know
general dominance and tickling,and if you would ever want to
get a copy of my book, I wouldgladly send it to you.
And if you ever want to do asegment on tickling and if you
would ever want to get a copy ofmy book, I would gladly send it
to you.
And if you ever want to do asegment on tickling, let me know

(01:03:35):
.
Also, if you're going to be atCLAW, I'm teaching there in
April, so keep doing what you'redoing.
I think it was fantastic and Ireally admire you for being
there for the community.

Speaker 1 (01:03:49):
Aaron, thank you so, so much.
I was just texting yesterdaywith a dear, dear friend of mine
about all the work I had to doon the podcast and he was like I
thought it was supposed to befun and it is a lot of work, and
so when I get messages likethis, it really keeps me going.
The podcast is the only contentI produce on a schedule and

(01:04:13):
that means I'm constantlythinking what's the next episode
?
When am I going to record thissegment?
Who am I going to interview?
When can I schedule thatinterview?
When do I have time to edit?
It's something that is on myto-do list for every single
weekend.
It doesn't mean I do it everyweekend, but it's on the to-do
list every single weekend.
So hearing from people like youit keeps me going, because

(01:04:36):
there are many times where Ithink, good Lord, this isn't a
lot of fun.
It's not a lot of fun, it is alot of work, but it is
worthwhile if I'm able toprovide a resource to the
community.
Also, I would love to do anepisode on tickling at some
point.
I'm saving your info and I willreach out to you, and there are

(01:04:58):
a number of topics I'd like tocover that I just don't know
right Like I only have so manyskills, so many fetishes, so
much expertise, so when thereare people who are really
knowledgeable about somethingthat I can have here on the
podcast and we can sort of do abig long episode, extended
episode, about a topic wherethey're providing a lot of the

(01:05:19):
education.
I love that.
So please expect to hear fromme soon.
And our next question comes fromEmmett, who asks when do you
see the place of transmasculinepeople within the gay leather
scene and where do we go fromhere to further grow together as
a community?
A little context for youEstablished cis leathermen often

(01:05:43):
are apprehensive abouttransmasc people in their spaces
, especially if the trans ornon-binary person hasn't
medically transitioned anddoesn't pass as a cis man.
But gender-affirming care isnot an option for everyone.
While this can be frustrating,I often feel that there are a
lot of fears and apprehensionson both sides that could be

(01:06:04):
eased by coming more in contactwith each other.
My question is based on my ownand my friends' experiences in
Europe, so maybe things aredifferent in the US.
I'm also interested about theevolution of your own views
about gender diversity andinclusion in the leather scene.
You're the only gay kinkypodcast host I know of who
consistently asks their guestsfor pronouns and has guests of

(01:06:26):
different genders on Emmett.
Thank you so much for thisquestion.
I do ask pronouns.
The way we normalize it is byeveryone doing it.
All the time I have my pronounsin my Twitter profile and I
remember once I got a commentlike this guy is giving his
pronouns and my response wasyeah, I'm exactly the kind of

(01:06:48):
guy who should be doing this.
That's how things getnormalized.
I have been through anevolution in relation to my
gender diversity.
You know there was a group herein Fort Lauderdale God a decade
ago, two decades ago.
It was a really long time agoand I was one of the founding

(01:07:09):
members ago two decades ago.
It was a really long time agoand I was one of the founding
members and at some point thetransgender question came up
like will we allow non-AMABpeople into the club?
And at that time I was like nobio males need a space to call

(01:07:34):
their own, and that was myposition.
One of the other members, bearman, who has always, in my
experience, been supportive oftrans people, was really
virulently.
He was really strongly in favorof allowing trans people into
the club and left the clubbecause of that.

(01:07:57):
That was the real beginning ofmy journey towards a better
understanding of all of this.
Now I mean also I will say,since I'm recording this on the
trans day of visibility thevisibility of trans people
around me and in leather spacesalso made me change.

(01:08:20):
So I absolutely agree with youwhere, if we can come into
contact more with each other, alot of the apprehensions tend to
disappear.
I was also really influenced byBuck Angel right.
I really got exposed to abetter understanding of trans
people through relationships Ihad by seeing them in my virtual

(01:08:44):
spaces, in my social media, bymeeting them at events, all of
those things, and I'm stillevolving, but I'm doing the work
.
I am doing the work I need todo.
That harkens back to theinterview in this episode, right
?
So where do we go from here tofurther grow together as a
community?
Well, I will say the generationbehind me, the younger

(01:09:07):
generation of leather folk, arekicking ass when it comes to
stuff like this, and I reallysuspect it's really in part a
question of how do I want to putthis.
It's time for us old-timers toage out.
I think some people of mygeneration struggle with
pronouns, struggle with transpeople and are maybe not as

(01:09:30):
connected to younger generationsor to conversations going on
and therefore a little resistant.
I'm really blessed that I'vehad the exposure I've had.
That really helped me change mymind and helped me really
embrace people of any gender.
I don't care what gender youare.
You're in part of my communityand that's a blessing, that is a
privilege I've been given and Idon't know that all of my peers

(01:09:54):
, broadly speaking, of gayleather men around my age I
don't know if they've all hadthat same exposure, because
obviously we all tend to createfriends, very small friend
circles, and so if you're a gayleather man and all your friends
are gay leather men and you'reliving in a gay leather
community, then you might be setin certain ways.
It's also worth noting that alot of men of my generation have

(01:10:17):
been through layers of traumain becoming leather people and
really had to march onWashington, had to take care of
friends who were dying of HIVand AIDS.
Right, there's a lot of reason.
There's a lot of woundedness,not in a kind of hurt people
hurt people kind of way, butthere's a lot of woundedness, a

(01:10:40):
lot of what we had to fight forthat we want to hang on to.
That's not to excuse them, butit is my attempt to understand
them.
I do not see any of this inyounger generations and I think
the great example of this is MIR, which is no longer Mr
International Rubber but is MIR,and I think there's been a real

(01:11:05):
perception that MIR is a littleforward-thinking as a title and
I really think they're pointingthe way to the future.
So I suspect that as we goforward and as younger leather
folk rise into positions ofleadership, this will become
more and more normalized,hopefully.
Obviously, the political climateright now is really troubling

(01:11:28):
for all of us, but here's thething.
Oh, it's in one of my videos onTwitter, the reason I make
space at the leather bar forpeople of all genders.
I don't care how you identify,I don't care if you're queer.
I want you in my leather barBecause, first of all, queer.

(01:11:52):
I want you in my leather barbecause you never.
Because first of all, they arecoming to kill us all.
They are coming to kill us alland when that active shooter
walks into my leather bar, itmight be the drag queen who
tackles him to the ground, itmight be the trans woman who
kicks away the gun, it might bethe straight guy who's there

(01:12:14):
with a friend right pummelinghim in the face.
This was the shooting inColorado, I think, where a lot
of people of diverse genders andsexualities came together to
stop a shooter.
So I want everyone in my barand that's my position and I'm
hoping that's the future wayahead of two.
In part because the politicalclimate kind of demands us.

(01:12:36):
It demands that we leteverybody in because there's a
little bit of safety in numbers.
It's not great, right, like wecan get killed on moss, but it
is a little bit of safety innumbers and that's part of why I
want to be inclusive.
It's not just because it's theright thing to do, it is also a
way of protecting myself and mycommunity.
So I want you all in, and Ithink the younger generation is

(01:12:58):
going to make sure that happens.
And finally, we have a questionfrom Sal.

Speaker 4 (01:13:05):
Hello, ange.
My name is Sal.
I recently came out as a queerman while being married in a
heterosexual relationship, and Ihave kids.
My wife is aware of mysituation.
We are maintaining constantcommunication.
We are together in thisadventure.

(01:13:26):
Get in this adventure by now.
I'm exploring my interests,attending events and socializing
, mostly meeting people.
I found that the leather sceneoffers a safe space for
newcomers like me, so we canexplore my same-sex attraction

(01:13:47):
and kinks in a more secureenvironment.
Most of people respectboundaries and many people are
well-versed in kink and leatherculture.
My challenge is that I'm toonew and even finding a mentor, I
feel that it's too soon tothink about that.

(01:14:08):
I'm also concerned aboutinclusion.
As you can hear, I'm fromLatino origins and, finally, I'm
a married man.
Could you provide maybe two topthree recommendations for
people curious about the sceneas well potential challenges
that we may encounter?

(01:14:29):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:14:40):
First of all, sal, I just want to applaud everything
you said that you are exploringyour sexuality, you are open and
honest with your wife she is onboard with this that you are
undoubtedly still a good fatherto your children.
That you have found the leathercommunity a place that is safe
for exploration.
Everything you've said soundslike you're doing things
extraordinarily well.
As far as my top threerecommendations for people

(01:15:03):
curious about the scene andpotential challenges you may
encounter, first of all, I thinkbeing honest with those you
encounter is going to be reallyimportant, and some people will
be like I'm not playing withsomeone who has kids.
I'm not playing with someonewho's married, but I know gay

(01:15:24):
leather men with kids.
I know gay leather men who aremarried, and so there are others
like you and you will findpeople this is generally true
Whoever you are.
Whatever your quote unquoteit's complicated type of
situation you will probably findsomeone who understands it and

(01:15:44):
is still willing to connect withyou Now.
Maybe they won't even have sexwith you, but perhaps they'll
connect with you Now.
Maybe they won't even have sexwith you, but perhaps they'll
connect with you and serve asthat support.
That is one of the beautifulthings about the leather
community and it has a lot ofproblems.
I don't want to make it soundutopian, but I think because
we're already outsiders, we'realready rejected by society and,

(01:16:06):
honestly, because there aren'tthat many of us, we're really
positioned and forced to be alittle accepting of others and
in their complexity.
The second recommendation,besides being honest about who
you are, because you will findsomeone to connect with, the
second is to pursue education,and that is important to help

(01:16:28):
identify the things you want toexplore.
You know, I have a lot ofnewcomers who come to me and
they don't even know whatthey're into and that's really
challenging for me.
When I play with them they'rekind of assuming like I'm going
to have an agenda.
My agenda is always based on aperson's interests and where
they want to end up and whattheir buttons are, and if I

(01:16:49):
don't know what those things are, then it makes it harder for me
to make things happen in ascene.
So you're going to want toexplore porn.
You're going to want to exploresocial media.
You're going to want to exploreeducation, to begin to identify
the things that you're into asa newcomer in general, that

(01:17:13):
you're into as a newcomer ingeneral.
Third recommendation is don't bein a rush.
I can remember when I first Imean my first sexual encounter
period, I made the guy go homeand tie me up.
Bad idea, bad idea.
I was 18 at the time, so I willsay that, oh, actually, I was
17.
Good Lord, I was young.
In general, you don't want torush because when you rush, you
can get yourself into situationsthat probably are not the best

(01:17:33):
for you.
So slow down, take your time,talk, get to know people, have
coffee with them, slowly buildenough trust to enter into a
scene with them.
So my top three recommendationsfor people who are curious in
the scene are be honest aboutwho you are, figure out what you
want and take your time.

(01:17:55):
You know.
The other reason to take yourtime like this is an incredible,
incredible, incredible stage ofyour life.
Whoever, whoever you are, ifyou're just entering kink like
everything is exciting andeverything's terrifying.
You're just entering kink.
Everything is exciting andeverything's terrifying, granted
, but everything is exciting,and I remember getting so

(01:18:15):
aroused at the beginning bymeeting actual leather people
and feeling leather, and everyencounter had something magical
about it because it was thefirst time.
For me, it's only the firsttime, one time.
So a reason to go slow is toreally savor the very special
joy you might be experiencingright now.
Things to watch out for thereare a lot of people who are not

(01:18:40):
good matches for others, andsome of it's because of the
wounds they carry.
Some of it's because they'retrying their best but they don't
have education, they don't havementoring, they don't exactly
know what they're doing.
So you really really want to becareful and watch out for
getting hurt, and I mean thatemotionally, spiritually,

(01:19:01):
physically, the leathercommunity can be.
We have a lot of challengesstill around inclusion, as you
marked.
Now I will say I'm in SouthFlorida, where being Latin is
almost like a separate fetish.
There are a lot of people inSouth Florida who really only

(01:19:22):
like Latin guys.
So you know Latins don't have aproblem everywhere.
But certainly people of colorin general do still have
challenges in this community,and that is something to be
considering.
And it's not just people ofcolor.
We're thinking more broadlyabout what are the challenges
people are going to face Ifyou're not able-bodied, if you
are married, if you have kids,right, all of these other

(01:19:45):
dimensions of identity thatdon't fit the kind of Tom of
Finland, body diversity.
If you don't fit the Tom ofFinland ideal, it can be a lot
more challenging for you.
And that in part.
Like you know, like you're, I'mreally.
No, I'm just going to say thatis our failing as a community,

(01:20:06):
that we really at least need tomake space for everyone.
I don't know that we always dothat.
So bad actors who are doing iton purpose or accidentally.
Challenges around inclusion, andthen the third thing.
The third challenge I would sayis, if you're just getting into
kink is that it requires a lotof economic privilege.

(01:20:27):
Leather is not cheap.
Rubber is not cheap.
Floggers are not cheap.
Really good rope is not cheap.
There's a significant economicinvestment required to feel like
you're on the inside of thecommunity.
Now, is that absolutely true?
No, you don't really needleather to be a leather person.

(01:20:49):
You don't really need a flogger.
You can do spanking, you can goto Home Depot or a hardware
store and find any number of sextoys, but I do think that to
really feel like you're in theinside, it does require a set of
economic privileges.
So let me see if I can remembereverything I said.
I'm probably going to forgetsomething.

(01:21:10):
Three recommendations for thosewho are new or curious are be
honest I forget the second oneand slow down.
Be honest, know what turns youon and slow down.
And then the three risks orconsiderations.
As you're getting new is thereare some bad actors, intentional
or unintentional.
There is an inclusion issuewe're going to have to address

(01:21:35):
and hopefully we do that bypeople like Sal showing up in
the community, and then there'sa kind of economic privilege
involved.
Otherwise, sal, I'm just sograteful for your question.
I love that you exist and thatyou're really then become this
power of example for someoneelse who is listening, who has
kids or who is married and doesnot know how to fit into the
community.
You're providing a pathway forothers to know it is possible

(01:21:58):
and that's important.
That's it for Ask Edge andthat's it for this episode.
This time I'm grateful for allof you, I'm grateful for the
questions and I'm grateful forthe feedback and this episode is
done and that's it for thisepisode.

(01:22:18):
Thank you so much for joiningme.
Please consider subscribing oryou can send feedback to edge at
full cow dot show, as always.
May your leather journey beblessed.