Ask around the community about leathermen, and you will hear a number of different responses. We’ve been described as everything from self-hating perverts to hide-covered anachronisms, but regardless of opinion, leather has been an integral part of our collective LGBT history for the past 70 years or more. In this and future articles, I hope to explore a subculture of our community that is often misunderstood; without any kind of introduction, though, there isn’t much to explore. So when I saw that Mayor Bronconnier declared September to be Pride Month in Calgary, I decided that there was no better time to inform our community about this aspect of our shared history.
After returning from service in Europe in the years following World War II, gay men typically had nowhere to go. Unlike the public perception of homosexuals, they were not effeminate and had no trouble fitting into the service long before the introduction of DADT. These men, without wives or families to support, often became involved with the highly masculine motorcycle culture, joining clubs and connecting with other men who had similar experiences as themselves in the war. A fascination with the masculinity of bikers, along with influence from Hollywood with the movie, “The Wild One” (1953), compelled several gay men to embrace motorcycle culture. Eventually, in 1954, The Satyrs were created in Los Angeles as the first gay motorcycle club, and soon afterwards similar clubs were established throughout America.
Some of these motorcycle clubs, as the story goes, were operated in militaristic fashion. Seniority and merit won the respect of others. Junior members of the clubs were charged with the task of being in service to these senior members. These junior members would often be responsible for the care and maintenance of their seniors’ leathers and boots, as well as the sexual desires of the senior members. Over time, the junior members would earn their colors and would earn the right to have subsequent junior members at their disposal. The dynamic of dominance and submission, the meritocracy, the emphasis on experience, and other subtleties of the relationships between senior and junior members of the community are still common in leather culture today.
Shortly after the establishment of gay motorcycle clubs, the first leather bars were opened. By the late 50s, gay leather bars were established in LA, New York, and Chicago. This provided both a place for gay motorcyclists, as well as their admirers who were likely more interested in the dominance/submission dynamics, leather, and boots, than the motorcycles themselves. By 1957, Touko Laaksonen, better known as Tom of Finland, was introduced to gay North America through his drawings in physique magazines whose depictions of hyper-masculine men wearing tall boots and leather became a hit, compelling even more gay men to seek out like-minded individuals. In 1964, Life Magazine ran an article about homosexuality with a page devoted to the Tool Box leather bar in San Francisco; by this time, leather culture had truly been established as a kinky lifestyle, as the article outright stated that its masculine patrons enjoyed S&M and other kinks, commonly referred to within the community as leathersex.
Through the 60s and 70s, the culture grew and evolved, as it always has. Cultural traditions evolved in some groups to embrace more stringent roles and greater militarism in the 1970s in what is often referred to as “Old Guard” leather. The release of “Leatherman’s Handbook” by Larry Townsend along with “Drummer” magazine exposed even more men to leather. Men flocked to gay villages to see and experience this culture, and had become so popular that at one point there were more than a dozen gay leather bars in San Francisco alone.
At the advent of the AIDS crisis, leathermen were hit especially hard because of their promiscuous sex habits; this has left a hole in our ranks which has since gone unfilled, resulting in many leathermen creating their own paths as opposed to falling in line with what an experienced mentor might require of them. The commands of “You shall, you will, you must” have fallen to the wayside in favor of “You could, you can, you might”, making leather bars a much safer place for the curious outsider now than ever before.
Gone are the days when walking into a bar wearing the wrong attire could get your shirt torn off for being too “foofy” (and I won’t go into detail about what could have happened to a guy who dared to wear cologne), and questions are always welcome from interested parties. We’re always looking for somebody new to “corrupt”, after all.

For more information on leather history, you might be interested in reading Urban Aboriginals by Geoff Mains, The Leatherman’s Handbook by Larry Townsend, and checking out http://www.cuirmale.nl online.