Origins

Introduction
Welcome to the first episode of Full Cow, a podcast about leather and kink where your host, Edge (he/him), shares his 30+ years of experience in the community. Each episode focuses on a theme and our theme this time is, fittingly, origins.

In the first segment, Edge discusses the origins of his own leather journey, drawing insights from that narrative to offer larger lessons about the community and how it operates. Then, in the second segment, we discuss the classic origin story for the gay male American leather community, the Old Guard, thinking about not just what it was but also what it does in the community still today. Finally, for our third segment we will be talking about Matt as he shares the origins of his journey into submission.

Related Links
If you want to know more about the Old Guard, here are some resources I would recommend:

• "The Old Guard: Classical Leather Culture Revisited," by Guy Baldwin. Baldwin is an important community leader and actually lived Old Guard so I tend to go to him as an authoritative source.
• "The Leather Restoration: Sacred Cows Make The Best Hamburger," by Guy Baldwin. This speech is not without controversy but I think it opens important conversations even though it's now twenty years old. 
• "The Old Guard," by Guy Baldwin. One final piece from Baldwin. Super hard to read with that background, I know.
• Leatherfolk, by Mark Thompson. This is an incredible anthology in general but "One Among Many" by Thom Magister, which is an insightful and incredibly moving personal history.

Transcript

Edge : 0:05

So yeah, let's talk about origins. This podcast contains material intended for a mature audience before proceeding, please check your local laws and confirm that you are an adult. Welcome to full cow or podcast about leather kink BDSM. My name is edge and I will be your host. And I'm so very grateful that you have joined me for this first episode, I want to start by giving you an overview of what we'll be doing, each episode will have a theme, and we'll explore that theme through three segments. In the first segment, I'll offer some sort of story from my own leather journey as a way of providing a point of entry or identification, or perhaps even a counterpoint to your own experience. But we'll also be using that to think about some larger lessons about the community and how it operates. In the second segment, I'll offer some more practical kink knowledge or leather history to build or expand your base of knowledge and experience. And then the third segment, we'll do an interview. And I feel that's critically important, because the only thing I will ever be offering here is my experience. Now I have a lot of it. I've been in the leather community for over 30 years, but my experience is limited to a particular socio cultural context, and is filtered through a particular set of privileged lenses. So I'd like to bring in some more voices to sort of expand the context for your understanding of the community, and where you might find yourself in relation to it. Now, I might occasionally also add in some extra segments, perhaps some erotic storytimes, or some meditations or some affirmations. But the basic structure will be a themed episode with three segments. And a note about sound. I'm gonna do my very best to produce a high quality podcast but I am not in a studio I am in my office slash play room. You may occasionally hear my air conditioner pump running because Florida's always hot, you may hear my cat meowing and if you listen very carefully, you may hear the creak of my leather as I will be recording this in Langlands. So thank you for your understanding. Our theme for this first episode, fittingly enough, is origins. So we're gonna start by sharing my origin story, how my leather journey started looking at three key moments that really shaped the trajectory of my journey. And the second segment, we'll be talking about the old guard, which is the classic origin story of the gay male American Leather community. Finally, in the third segment, we'll be doing interview with Matt, who will be sharing with us his origin story in his journey of submission. I think we have a really great episode for you, and I really hope you enjoy it. And let's get started. So, this is my origin story, the beginning of my leather journey. And what I want to share with you are three important moments three way points, which really shaped the trajectory of my leather path. And the first one is the first time I ever had sex. I was 17. And growing up in a little city outside of New Orleans called Harahan. Tiny little suburb, literally nestled into a bend of the Mississippi River. I was a heavy child. I wasn't fat, but I was definitely chubby. ashamed of my body. I struggled with my body all the time and around 17 I decided I was going to do something about it. So I started walking along the levees. New Orleans, of course has an extensive levee system to protect from flooding from the river. And I lived about a mile from the river. On Sundays, I would just start walking on top of the levee. I was definitely trying to change my body. But looking back on it, I was also looking for something, something that I intuitively sensed, I would find along that levee. Now the Mississippi River by the time it reaches New Orleans, it is so wide and so muddy and so turbulent. It is utterly majestic. And there's a little strip of land between the river and the levee called the Bhature. And it's essentially a floodplain the Mississippi river rises. It floods the Batcher hits the levee but does not flood the city and everyone's happy and part of what it does what it does that is it deposits, rich, fertile soil on The Bachelor. So the patch is really quite wooded, and has all these little paths. And on one Sunday in particular, I was walking on this path in the woods of the Batcher. And noticed this man, shirtless, walking two dogs, beautiful hairy chest, very heavy five o'clock shadow. I followed him, I can't even tell you why. But I followed him. And he stood right on the bank of the Mississippi River. And he winked at me. And I went over. And we kissed and I remember very distinctly, thinking at the moment of that kiss this, this is what I've been waiting for. This is right, this is what I was looking for. It was my first kiss with the man. He took me back to his place. And before we did anything else, I insisted he tied me up, because I had had fantasies of bondage for as far back as I can remember, I mean, technically, fantasies of being kidnapped and tied up. But I've had fantasies of bondage, every memory I have, as far back as I go, it was there. And he was able to go down the street to a friend's house and borrow a pair of handcuffs. And He handcuffed me. And then he put his dick in his in my mouth, I think, Whoa, wow, this this is, oh, this is oral sex. Oh, this is a blow job. So my very first sexual experience was a kinky sexual experience. And that was the beginning for me. And there are a couple of important lessons, I think, embedded here. Number one, this sense that I intuitively knew where to go to look for men. You know, public cruising is a long tradition for gay men in particular. And part because we were not allowed public spaces to openly meet each other. So we had to create our own spaces and lurk through them. And I think it's fascinating that somehow we sense we have some internal compass that orients us to those spaces. And that's really something beautiful. And the other thing I want to take away from this is the fact that I always knew I was kinky. I always knew I wanted bondage. This was not a discovery, this was inherent within me. Now, I certainly don't recommend anyone get tied up by someone they've just met on a levee in New Orleans, not the wisest thing, but I was 17 and horny, and therefore also a little stupid. He ended up being a really sweet guy, we played quite a bit, we played quite a bit. And that was my first sexual experience. And it was a kinky one. The last lessons to take from that is that it was fairly unique, you know, this was 1987 17, it was 1997. And I came out and came out into leather simultaneously. That's pretty common these days, because there's so much information available on the internet that you can very learn very easily learn your identities all at once and express them all at once, at least in virtual spaces. But in 1987, we didn't have internet we didn't have, we didn't have cell phones, we had lower technology with ancient. So the fact that I was able to kind of have my first sexual experience as a kinky sexual experience is fairly unique, although far more common now, that was the first moment which really began my leather journey. The second I was probably 19. At this point, I'd kind of accepted I was gay still fairly in the closet, particularly with my family. But I had discovered where the bars were in the French Quarter. And I had met a DJ at the bourbon pub, which is still there on Bourbon Street. And he took me on a date and he was buying me a lot of drinks. He was getting me drunk. And at some point during the night, we wandered past or into jewels, which was one of the leather bars in New Orleans, tiny little bar. I mean, you could spit to the end of it. Very beautifully dirty, sleazy, Classic Leather bar with really great music. And I insisted he leave me there and I think he was kind of done with me and he was more than happy to do so. That night at that bar. I met Mark and Wally two leather men a couple who instantly became not just my leather parents, but my gay parents as well. They took me home while he put me in a pair of chaps it was my first time ever wearing leather the rest of the nights kind of fuzzy because you know, I was pretty drunk. But it was the beginning of an incredible sort of mentorship. Not only did mark and Wally teach me about leather, they had a dungeon and they would frequently host little play parties. So I got exposed to quite a bit of stuff fisting. slings, poppers some Drugs, yes, bondage, leather piercing all of these things I had exposure to more than that. They also taught me a lot about gay life. They taught me about fine dining and which fork to use, they were involved with the gay Mardi Gras cruise in New Orleans, I got my first tuxedo and went to my first ball and really learned some of the finer aspects of life. And they remained very important. In my early leather life, they were my gay leather parents. And what's remarkable about that is, you know, you hear a lot about the gatekeepers in the community, the ones who want to determine who is or is not allowed in or what you have to wear to count as leather. And I'm not doubting that there are those people out there. But let's not forget, there are also greeters to the leather community, people who, who facilitate the entry of newcomers into the community through parenting, through mentorship, through sex, and play, yes, but maybe through just sharing their knowledge and experience, I was so incredibly fortunate to have them in my life to find not horrible first leather experience, but a really wonderful beginning of a very rich relationship. So the takeaway there is that if you are beginning your journey, look for the greeters because there are people who specifically, I think are in tuned to those just on the edge of the community just ready to walk in, they welcome you. And they bring you in, and they teach you and it is beautiful and wonderful. And not in any way formalized in our community. It's not like we have an official greeter society, or even really a term for this, I am making up the term greeter, of course, but I know these people exist, I can't tell you how to find them except to follow your intuitive sense the same way I did while walking along the levee. And so my leather journey really began. But I will say I felt still very out of place. You know, as I mentioned, I had fantasies of getting tied up, going all the way back to whatever and the men that I was meeting at the leather bar. Well, they were kind of into leather, you know, they were into fucking and playing with my tits and all sorts of things. But I really couldn't find anyone who just wanted to tie me up. And that's all I wanted. All I wanted was just to be tied up. And then one day, I'm not even sure how but I would suspect. I went to Second Skin in New Orleans, the leather sore there. One day, I found the magazine bound and gagged. And my life changed again. This was before the internet. This was before easy free porn on the internet. This was before apps and sites. What we had were magazines and the magazines were filled with photos and stories and personal ads. And I remember coming back to my tiny little efficiency apartment with bound and gagged magazine and thinking. For the first time I was home. It wasn't the first time I had gay sex. It wasn't when my leather parents mark and while he found me. It was the moment I realized there were other men in the world who were just into bondage, who just wanted to tie or get tied up. And for once I realized I wasn't alone. There were others like me, and all I had to do was go find them. That became my mission. And I will say the personal ads at the back of diamond gag really helped. I ended up you know, talk about serendipity. One of the photographers for the magazine who went by Mr. Yang, his name was Archie and he lived also just outside New Orleans. And so at a very young age, when all I wanted was bondage I found someone while the universe presented me someone who was an extraordinary expert. I mean Archie loved rope, he would throw rope and then more rope and then more rope on top of that. And it's still probably the most intense heavy bondage I've ever experienced. And it was it was so satisfying. soul satisfying, something deep inside me finally knew who I was that I wasn't alone, that I wasn't weird, and that I had a place to belong. And that really set me into the rest of my leather journey. And that's what my three waypoints. Those are my origins, and I hope part of what you take from it. Besides the beautiful little details of my one singular life are some of the larger lessons that we are from a very early age imbued with these desires that we intuitively know where to go to sink out to seek out others who have their own sorts of desires, that when we are alone Lucky we will find the greeters of the community and not the gatekeepers, the ones who welcomed us in and who teach us. And that even then we may feel alone until we discover that no matter your fetish, and I promise you this, no matter your fetish, there are others just like you. And you can find them more easily than ever with the Internet. You can find them and you can be home to. And I sincerely wish that for you. To speak of the origin of the leather community, at least the gay male American Leather community, which is an important qualification as other configurations of genders and sexualities and nationalities likely have their own origin stories. But the origin story, I know, the origin story for the community, I'm in his old guard leather. And I will say I think there's something about old guard, which reverberates and tends to echo in some of the contiguous and allied leather kink communities outside the gay male American context. And so that's a good reason to know more about it. Now, when it comes to the old guard, there are only two things you need to know. First, you need to know what it is. And then second, you need to know what it does, because these are not the same. So what is? Well, you know, I thought about doing a lot of research and reading a lot to sort of present all the facts I know. But I thought it better since this podcast is all about me sharing my experience, to share with you the things I do know, and some of that includes a little bit of lore. It's not all historical knowledge. Some of it is stuff that has been passed down to me, but I think that's just as important as anything else. However, to help give you better context, I will include links to some really good pieces about old guard leather in the show notes for this episode. So here's what we know, Americans returning from World War Two veterans, disaffected by the horrors of the war, purchased motorcycles and started riding around the country and then formed bike clubs. And out of the homeless, social context of the military during the war emerged strong homosexual connections among these men, some of these men, some of these bike clubs, that included elements of leather and kink, and eventually became what we call Old Guard, Old Guard existed from late 40s into the early 70s. Some of its characteristics included a strong authoritarian structure, a lot of rules and protocol. And most particularly a closed NIS, they were a tight knit group, as they were in the military, they were a structured group as they were in the military, they were a group with clear lines of authority as they were in the military. And a lot of the things we believe in, when it comes to leather today come out of that old guard context. Some of it is very basic initial coding systems have keys on the left or right. Some of it is a particular reverence for leather and gear and how it should be treated. There were specific rules about for example, not touching the brim of another man's cover. And there was some sense that leather had to be earned. Now, each city sort of had its own clusters of these groups, these men who were formed in very tight knit bonds that did not automatically open themselves to outsiders, it was not just a group, you could show up and join, you had to be introduced and you had to be vetted. There was a sense that the old guard is a little bit like the Eleusinian mysteries, that it was a sort of secret rite of initiation into a particularly powerful kind of erotic knowledge. That's what we do know about old guard. We also know that hey, there are actually some old guard Leatherman actually alive today, actually writing about the old guard today. But late in the 70s, and into the 80s, as leather bars became common as the sexual revolution, and Stonewall and groups like GMs Ma, which we're doing education as those things emerge. The knowledge and the skills of leather and kinky practice, were sort of democratized and available to everyone. And I'm not sure that destroy the old guard, there's certainly a sense that the old guard can still exist today, because it operated in a kind of secrecy, and it may still be there. I've not encountered it, and I've been in the scene for over 30 years. But I do believe there are some people who have an unbroken lineage of Old Guard training, which is very challenging if you think about the pandemic of AIDS and HIV in the 80s as well as the pandemic we're going through. Now, the fact that there could have been an unbroken chain of initiation that kept specific Old Guard knowledge and traditions alive is possible. by more and more or less likely, that's what the old guard is. So, what does it do? Well, today part of what it does is, many people use it to express a particular style of doing leather. That includes an emphasis on full leather, heavy gear, impeccable gear, but also a lot of protocol, a lot of rules of behavior for both tops and bottoms. That's what people generally mean these days when they are say they are old guard, it's unlikely. They are part of an unbroken lineage not impossible, but unlikely. But still, some people express old Cardenas through an affinity through their sets of principles and behaviors and actions. But the second thing the old guard does for the community as a whole is it acts as a kind of mythology. I like to say that if the Old Guard had not existed, we would have been forced to invent them. Because as a community transforms into a culture, it develops a mythology, particularly a mythology of its origin. Now the downside of this when it comes to old guard in the leather community, instead, it often acts today as a prelapsarian mythology. And in Christian theology. prelapsarian is everything before the fall of man, back in the Garden of Eden back when everything was perfect, until the fall. So you might think of the mice have the old guard as the fall of leather. And now we live in this sinful, imperfect, non utopian leather world. I often think that old guard acts as our shadow, we can't get away from it. No matter where we go. The Old Guard is still there. It is a distorted shape of the community. It is darkly mysterious, and it is insubstantial. And like any shadow, it is formed from lack. So often, when people deploy Old Guard, they do it with a kind of damaging nostalgia, of a longing for the way things used to be. And there's nothing wrong with nostalgia and there's nothing wrong with looking back at the past and remembering it fondly and wanting to return to it. But this nostalgia is the same kind of nostalgia that operates in a maga America, make America great again, is not that far off from make leather, great again, it is a longing to return to an earlier better time, that probably wasn't that much better, not in the way we imagined it. And I think that's true for old guard too. We want to mythologize it. And we want to see it as this sort of utopian leather age. But I was having a conversation with a local elder here in the community and talking about old guard. And he pointed out, you know, a lot of what they did all the secrecy and you had to be initiated and brought in by someone who could vet you, that wasn't just about the special esprit de corps or protecting the sacred erotic knowledge that they contain. It was also simply the fact that homosexuals at the time, were oppressed and persecuted. And if someone found out you're okay, let alone kinky, you would lose your family, you would lose your job, you would lose your home. So as much as we want to valorize, the old guard as this perfect time of leather. And if only we could get back to it. Wow, wouldn't things be great. Let's also keep in mind that they were operating at extraordinarily challenging time for queer peoples. And it wasn't all fun and games, there had to be elements of fear there as well. And I think that's what makes the nostalgia damaging, because it rejects where we are today, in favor of going backwards. And I don't think going backwards is ever a really good idea. A third thing that the old guard does for the community today is it really reflects people's hunger, for structure for certainty for knowing the rules for knowing how things are supposed to be done. And part of that I think, is probably inherent in power exchange dynamics, you know, you're a boy, you're a submissive, your slave, you want to be told what to do. But I also think it's about how just disorienting the journey into kink can be. When we have so few guides and we have so few mentors, and making your way can be extremely challenging. And wow, wouldn't it be great if there were a set of rules, you could read and follow and know what the hell you were doing? And that's part of what the Old Guard provides the sense that there's the hidden tome of knowledge, and I'm so hungry to know how I'm supposed to do this, because I just don't know I know I want on it, but no one's telling me how to do it. And I think that's something as a community, we may at some point want to address, we may want to think about people's longing for structure. And I think we do that somewhat through leather families and through tribes. But there is a longing for structure, that also then points back to the old guard. So there are two takeaways, I hope you bring from this segment on the old guard. The first is the actual historical knowledge that they existed. That's where we started, we owe our existence to things they did, and relationships they formed and patterns of movement and styling, an activity and culture that they made, were the embryonic seeds, which made us today. And for that we want to take the past and we want to honor it. And we want to see ourselves as part of that past part of that tradition. That's the first takeaway. But the second is, let's honor the past without trying to return to it. Let's try not to dismiss the community we have today, in favor of some community earlier that we thought was perfect, which probably wasn't. Instead, I would like to invite you to start moving towards a new future. And that future is the leather community as you want it to be. I don't know how old you are, I don't know how experienced you are, I know that I am 51, going on 52. And that my time of shaping this community is certainly coming to a close. One of the reasons I did this podcast and the education I do on social media is because I feel it's important to me, for me to pass on what I know, because I don't know how much time I have left. But I don't have as much time as I used to that. Sure that's for sure. So I want to encourage you where you are in this point in time to start shaping the community you want. And part of that might mean drawn from Old Guard values and principles, things like integrity, which was pretty critical, and then operating that in your own leather life. But it might also mean shifting into new domains outside of the old guard, which would have been based on exclusivity. Instead of inclusivity. Based on closed newness instead of openness, based on denial instead of access. And you may want a community that people can get into. I certainly wish that for you. So when it comes to our origins, let's remember the old guard and honor them, and keep them in our hearts and our minds. But let's not try to be them. Because I think it's always a little damaging. If we allow ourselves to be trapped in a past that wasn't as perfect as it seems. And doesn't have near the possibility of any future, particularly the future, we intentionally consciously shake. And I'm here with Matt, who is someone I absolutely adore. And the truth is I don't adore a lot of people, Matt, welcome to full cow.

Matt: 28:20

Well, thank you. It's really great to be adored. And it's great to be on your podcast. Thanks for having me.

Edge : 28:26

Great. Can you tell us how you identify in the community and what your pronouns are? Yeah,

Matt: 28:32

so my pronouns are he. And I identify as both a boy and a slave depending on context.

Edge : 28:46

Oh, well, that's something we're gonna have to unpack. But let's start at the beginning. This is a show about origins. So how did your journey into submission start?

Matt: 28:56

Yeah, let's start there. So my journey started about eight years ago. And it started fairly randomly, actually. You know, it's interesting, since I've been out in the community for several years now, I've gotten to hear other people's origin stories. And I know that a lot of people in the community kind of had more inklings of their leanings earlier in life. And I really didn't. I mean, there's some things I can kind of put together in retrospect, but I was not really inclined towards leather or BDSM for most of my adult life,

Edge : 29:39

what age were you when you got your start?

Matt: 29:41

I was 39 years old. When I got my surfboard. I know. Right? So pretty pretty late on

Edge : 29:50

and you said it had happened randomly what exactly happened?

Matt: 29:53

Well, so I have a very good friend of Mind who's also a regular play buddy, who we had gotten together a few times and had some, you know, really good hot vanilla sex. And, you know, he was someone that I knew and I trusted. And one night, as we were getting together, he asked me if I'd be open to trying something new. And specifically, he asked me if I would, you know, put on a hood, and put on risk restraints, and let him kind of take control for the evening. And this was something like I have a fairly adventurous guy. I like saying yes to things. It wasn't something that I had spent a lot of time fantasizing about. But like I said, it was a guy I trusted. And I decided to say yes. And even in that first encounter, it was the first time I'd like submitted to someone and given up that kind of control in the scene before and it was like getting hit by a bolt of lightning, it was just a kind of a random chance event.

Edge : 31:10

I love that you mentioned the word trust a couple of times. And I was wonder if you could speak a little bit about what role you feel trust plays for your journey as a submissive in particular.

Matt: 31:23

It's a good question. To me. Trust is everything and, and BDSM. I like to go really deep into BDSM scenes, I like to go really deep into submission and giving up control. And to be able to do that, I have to have trust and the dominant that I'm when I have to have trust in the person I'm relinquishing that control to by nature, I am actually quite a control freak. And I desire to be in control as much as possible in my day to day and so to, to be comfortable with giving that up requires a lot of trust.

Edge : 32:09

And I mean, how do you trust is so critical? And but I feel like a lot of people are horny. And right, so

Matt: 32:18

I would count myself. I am.

Edge : 32:22

How do you figure out who to trust or how you establish that trust to know it's safe to let go? Because a lot of people, maybe you're starting their journey, and they're like just warning and they don't know who to trust? Or how to trust? How did that how did that operate for you?

Matt: 32:38

I think part of it is instinctual. I feel like one of my strengths is I've always had really good instincts for people. When I was really first exploring this, I would certainly count myself as a person that was horny, and trusted, trusted people and really one person in particular, probably before I had enough information to truly trust that person. And the person I'm thinking about is the person that was my first sir. When I met him, we fell into a fairly serious sir boy relationship pretty quickly. And he was someone I, like I knew enough about him to know he wasn't a serial killer. And you know, like, no great harm was going to come to me, I didn't know him well, but he was on the edges of my social circle. And, you know, I knew enough about him. To trust him a little bit, I probably trusted him more than I should have. Like, if I was advising a younger me today, I would probably advise a lot more caution than that I took at the time. But I was horny and more than horny. I was discovering something about myself that was really powerful. And that I felt really, really deeply drawn to. And I let that you know, kind of override my normal sense of caution, because I tend to be a cautious person. Now, that worked out very well for me, he turned out to be someone that was very trustworthy. But you know, I certainly know other submissives that have not had that same kind of luck.

Edge : 34:29

Yeah, and I mean, a couple things you mentioned that really struck me besides that gut instinct, and I do think we do have to follow our gut and we get a kind of feeling when situations aren't what they're supposed to be. But you also mentioned this was someone who was already kind of within at least the periphery of your social circle. And I think using networks of people, that's a way to establish some base reliability and get a sense of who a person is so so I thought that was a really useful point you made as well.

Matt: 34:57

Yeah, I would absolutely agree with And certainly the longer I've been involved in the community, and the more I've learned, that is something that I now rely on quite a bit.

Edge : 35:09

I do want to get back to this, to the sense of what age this will happen for you, because you it is, I think, a little unusual for, for it to happen so late in someone's life. But also, I think, historically, there used to be two coming outs, like you would come out as gay, and then you would come out a little bit later into leather. And so your pattern was a little more true to the history, but certainly not true now in the internet age. So I'm wondering, do you feel like coming to your submission later in life? Did that make it easier? Did it make it harder? Did you have more life experience? Do you feel like Jesus Christ? Why didn't I experienced this 20 years ago? How did that moment? How do you reflect on that?

Matt: 35:52

Yes, to a lot of those things. I think, I think in some ways, it made it easier, you know, I was, you know, I think, just in general, you get to know yourself more as you get older, at the end of your 30s going into your 40s you know a lot more about yourself than you did in your 20s. In a way it made it harder, because I think people thought they already knew who I was, like, I thought that I knew who I was. And then here I was at, you know, 40 years old and a, you know, an established marriage and an established relationship and kind of had a place already carved out for myself and my friend circle and the wider community. And coming out as a submissive and a leather boy, you know, took some getting used to for some people.

Edge : 36:45

Yeah. And he said a couple things I want to get back to you. But I love your emphasis on kind of the maturity you had at that stage in your life. And so much of stereotypical gay culture is youth obsessed. And I do think there's this notion that, oh, your boy, you must be in your 20s. But I so value boys who are in their 30s 40s 50s, because they're simply so much more aware of who they are, they're more grounded in their life, right. And that stability, just makes it easier for me to use them. So I love that you brought that up. You also did just mention that you're you've been married. Before this, you're still married? Yes. Yeah, I think it's common for a lot of people who were in a relationship, and then they want to explore kink. And can you talk about how you negotiated that with your husband? And what that process was like?

Matt: 37:41

Yeah, absolutely. So I am married, I was married. When I found this out about myself, I still married I've been with my husband now for 18 years. Which is an amazing amount of time. And we're very happily married. And quite honestly, I think that in many ways, the year since I came out as a leather boy, which was really disruptive at the time, and I'll get to that in a second, I think had been some of the best years of our marriage. And I guess it talked about that I should kind of talk about the process we went through. So my husband and I have been a very long time, we've had an open relationship pretty much since we've been together. And that's never been a problem for us. We both trust each other a lot. And we're very communicative. I know that some, you know, guys operating kind of don't ask, don't tell situation. And whatever works for people is what works for people. For us. The openness about, you know, our extracurricular activities was really important. We wanted to always feel like we were never keeping secrets from each other. And we had been in a poly relationship situation at the very beginning. When he and I got together, I had another boyfriend. long, complicated story that's not super relevant. I'll just mention that to say that, you know, we've had some experience with that kind of situation before the fast forward many years into our marriage. And I started discovering the stuff about my kink inclinations, and my submission inclinations. And I met my first sir. And I fell very deeply in love with him with a very intense relationship. Part of it was intense. It was partially intense, because I was discovering really intense, very deep seated means within myself. And my sir was feeding those and helping me discover these things about myself and he was mentoring me and training me and that is a very, incredibly intimate process, learning all these things about myself with him. And honestly, he knew all these things about myself before I did. The very first night he and I got together He told me this whole list of things that was going to happen in the future, that I was going to be his boy, that I was going to give up control to him that I was going to let him hurt me, all of these things, keep in mind, I was still incredibly new.

Edge : 40:16

I have to remember that because that was obviously a very effective pickup line. So I'm just going to have to start telling men, these are the things I'm going to do to you. And you just have to accept it. Well done. Yes,

Matt: 40:26

it worked. It very much worked. Let me tell you. And but you know, here's the thing in the moment when he was telling me this, because it was happening, like, kind of the first time we got together in the scene. And I thought, everything he was saying was incredibly hot. I also thought to myself, none of this is actually going to happen like this is, this is fun sex talk, every single thing he told me that night, absolutely came true. And so we fell in love. And that was obviously very disruptive to my marriage. And yet, here we were, and the thing that I realize as this was happening, was that it was it something that I could walk away from, it wasn't something I could give up. Because this there was no putting the genie back in the bottle at that point. And so, you know, we there was a process there, and it took about a year. And I won't lie, it wasn't easy at all, it was not easy. We had a wit a very turbulent year. There were times when neither of us were really sure if we were going to be able to figure it out, if we were going to be able to make it if if there was room for me to fully explore this part of myself with this other person and this power dynamic relationship. And, and him still feel secure in our marriage, that it was still important to me that he was still getting the things he needed out of it. And that we felt secure with each other because this was, this was a big change. It was a big change for our relationship. And it was a big change for me. You know, I think that's one of the things about being in a long term relationship with someone is that you don't really understand until you've been in one is that you know, over a long period of time, who you are as individuals and that Rayleigh that relationship changes. You, you know, 15 years into relationship, you're not the same people you were when you met. You each have independent lives and you grow together, but you also grow separately as individuals. And part of navigating that is figuring out how do we relate to each other, with the people we are now. You know, we went to therapy. For a long time, we were a couples counselor, we were very lucky to find a really great couples counselor who was very poly and leather friendly. And we just did the work. Both of us were reluctant to close the door and making it work because we still loved each other at the at the base of it all. I will fully admit that I didn't handle that process in the best possible way. Right? I wasn't. At first, I was not completely honest about what was going on with me. I wasn't honest about my, the depth of my feelings for my sir. And you know, when he was really he was really scared himself of just all the change that this was bringing into our lives. We did the work. And we kept talking, we kept showing up for each other. And eventually, we figured it out.

Edge : 43:57

Yeah, I just want to I want to mark some of the themes I'm hearing in your answer. I mean, that you even had a kind of because you had a sex positive relationship. Even before this happened. There was already this basis of honesty around these issues. And I think that was important. And I love that you're really showing us a process like this just doesn't happen overnight. It was a hard, difficult process. And it was about commitment, which is what relationships are about and certainly making use of therapy, which is a good tool for all of us on our journeys. I know my therapist would say so. I did want to ask you so I know you had that first sir. This has not been your only sir. So you've had you've had some beautiful starts and some ends to those relationships and what do you what would you say has been the roughest parts of this journey into submission for you what has been the stuff that really was just hard to move through?

Matt: 44:53

When me and my first serve broke up, I think it was you The most brokenhearted I've ever felt about a breakup in my entire life. It was that pain was deep. I felt like not only had I lost this person that I loved, and that had been such an incredibly influential figure in my life, but also that I was losing a part of myself, you know, submission and domination is not something you can do alone. And at that point, he was the only person I had experienced that with. And so, to me, then he was my he was my only connection, he was my only pathway that I knew to those parts of myself and to be able to express those parts of myself. And so that relationship ending felt like I had, I had lost all this stuff that was incredibly important to me that I just discovered about myself, right. And I didn't know how to access it afterwards.

Edge : 46:10

Where would you say you're in your journey right now.

Matt: 46:16

I'm in a kind of an interesting place in my journey. So I last year, I ended a another DS relationship that I was on. I was with a master for several years. And so that was hard. I'm in a place now where I'm kind of enjoying being a, quote unquote, single sub. For a little while I say, you're single, because obviously, I'm still married. I'm not really. Sure, yeah, it is. But that's what you want me to clarify that. You know, I think I spent several years when I first discovered this part of myself and this lifestyle, really kind of searching for my dog searching for my service searching for my master searching for the person whose color I would wear and have that kind of really deep, intimate, ongoing 24/7 kind of BS relationship with, which is, you know, what I'm ultimately looking for. The thing that I've kind of realized in the last year is that you find the best people when you stop looking. And for me, that's where I am right now, with kind of trying to find my next serious Dom, that is something I very much want to get in my life. But instead of putting my energy into, like, actively seeking that person, I've been putting that energy into discovering new parts of myself into kind of exploring into, you know, exploring different kinds of connections with different kinds of Dom's and trying to figure out what it is, I really want next. And enjoying, and enjoy the journey more than focusing on the destination, I think,

Edge : 48:29

wonderful. And if you had one piece of advice for someone starting their own leather journey into submission, or into dominance, or however you want to pitch it, but what's your one piece of advice for our listeners today?

Matt: 48:44

What is my one piece of advice? I would say? I think it's important to follow your own instincts and desires. I think we live in in a wonderful age of internet connectivity, which exposes us to all kinds of information, you know, we wouldn't have had any other way. I think that the internet can sometimes especially for someone new paint a picture of how it has to be. And I think everybody's desired everybody's needs, what really drives them is different. And I think it's important not to get caught up in other people's desires and expectations, but to give yourself the freedom to really find your own path and find out what works for you uniquely because you don't have to do everything on the menu to really, you know, be a leather minority leather boy.

Edge : 49:56

Wonderful thing. Thank you so much for joining us. on full cow,

Matt: 50:01

thank you very much. I really enjoyed this. And, you know, I hope to be able to do it again someday

Edge : 50:08

I would love and that's our episode. Thank you so much for joining me. I hope you will join us again please consider subscribing. extraordinarily blessed