An Irreverent Look at the Secret and Mysterious World of Leather Clubs

by Robert Davolt

As Published in Drummer # 209

In spite of a decline in recent years, leather clubs remain the backbone of the leather community. Many communities which cannot support a leather bar, support one or two fully functioning and vibrant clubs.  In many small communities they ARE the leather community.

Clubs are considered a very old-guard establishment.  They are viewed by most as the gay equivalent of Shriners; dressing alike, traveling in groups and seriously over-accessorized.  Like the Shriner's they tend to be a tireless source of service and fundraising for community causes and the myth that their day is passed is disproved by the new groups forming every day.

It's true that the last 10 or 15 years have taken a lot of the vigor from the club scene.  Leaders are gone that would have passed this proud tradition on to a new generation and the very secret and underground nature of these organizations assured that much of the culture died with them. The rise of the bear movement has tapped many men who otherwise would have found camaraderie in a leather or motorcycle club.  Among young leather boys, however, in their 20's and early 30's, there is a renewed interest in the hallowed rites and rituals of leather clubs.

There are many different sorts of clubs.  Some are primarily social in nature, some are service-oriented, some stress education and some (thank God) are mostly sex clubs.  There are show clubs, spiritual clubs and there are clubs that require you won a motorcycle for membership, although many have relaxed the ancient restrictions against Japanese bikes.

Colors and Vests

Club brothers are the most well-labeled of all gay men.  If you start reading vests at a club function, you usually know name, rank hometown and what travel the guy has been up to lately. This has distinct advantages.

Club colors refer to the emblem, the club logo, usually an embroidered patch.  The colors can be framed and presented to a bar or another club as a gesture of friendship or in return for some service.  Mounted to a stand, colors can be trooped like a flag or banner during official ceremonies.  Mostly you see colors on the backs of club members stitched to an overlay or vest of leather or denim.  This identifies him as a club member and prevents embarrassing incidents of incest among brothers in dark corners.

If one is an associate member of another club, you might see a smaller associate patch.  Some wear all sorts of other badges and pins that have a special memory or distinction.  I wear my Navy Good Conduct Medal on my vest just because I love to see it tarnish before my eyes with every debauch.

Pins and Pinning

Many club member's vests are so heavily covered with pins that what was once a simple leather vest now weighs 30 pounds and is completely bulletproof.

Most pins call into two categories: friendship pins and run pins. Friendship pins usually bear the logo of the club and are given as a sign of affection, friendship, brotherhood or unbridled lust. Run pins are a badge of survival commemorating each run attended.

The act of pinning someone with a friendship pin is a tradition in itself.  The experienced pinner opens the pinee's button fly, usually yaking the opportunity for a quick blow job (decidely expanding the concept of friendship), and attaches the pin on the crotch of the jeans.  On the last day of any leather weekend, this scene is repeated continually on the floor of the wind-down party. Leather bars are fairly used to seeing it, but if this is done in a less than liberal location, club brothers may form a human curtain to shield the action from prudish, prying eyes or local authorities.

One can spot the particularly active and/or popular attendees as they leave an event by the cluster of cloisonne around their crotch and by carefully examining which direction he is pinned. For the traditionalist, the club pin is worn up-side down until you have done a member of that club.

Robert Davolt remains a charter member of the Unicorns of Madison (Wisconsin), a levi/leather club he helped found in 1991.

Leather Club Initiations

Club initiation rituals are likely to be very, very secretive.  The accounts that I have gathered here have only come to me through tongues loosened through many rounds of bourbon or unspeakable torture.

Many initiation rites find their origins in the old bike clubs.  The Hell's Angels were said to initiate a new member by breaking-in his colors.  Each member in good standing would piss on his colors, and under certain circumstances, the pledge would be required to be wearing said colors throughout the ceremony.

Kinky, yes, but it had a practical value as well. On the road, these are the folks that only pulled their bikes over to shit, pissing in their jeans and letting the wind dry them.  might as well get used to it.

Leather club rituals also had a practical side.  Once upon a time, gang-banging a new pledge did more than just liven up a Saturday night.  It bonded him to his club brothers in a unique way.  Today, rituals have to live within the practicalities of the times, but there was a time when club initiations ruined the felt on many a pool table.

The rites of passage in today's leather clubs are as varied as the number of clubs, each member flogs the pledge and he is required to show off the welts to the crowd at the local watering hole as proudly earned trophies.  Another club I know uses a small, subtle brand, applied with great ceremony.  Still another makes the final initiation at a club run or contest where the initiate is to get at least three different men to jack off on his chest and display the evidence to his pledgemaster.

Usually pledges are obliged to fulfill a variety of service, attendance and other requirements for several months, designed to allow the club to get to know the prospective member and vise versa.  The initiation is designed simply to seal the acceptance of a new club brother in a way he does not easily forget.