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. This time we're talking about peers.
We start with my personal experience connecting with my peers. Then we dive into the intriguing world of dominant peer groups. We challenge you to rethink the ecological metaphors of predation and scarcity, question the conventional understanding of dominance, and confront the specter of toxic masculinity lurking within these circles. The episode is peppered with practical advice on forming a dominant peer network, providing actionable tips on establishing connections within the community.
We cap off this episode with a stimulating discussion with my boy, Ben (@bootpupper on Twitter). He shares his experiences navigating the leather boys community, underlining the critical role of peer networks in fostering deep connections and nurturing a positive community spirit. Plus, we explore the fascinating subject of leather families and households. Join us for this candid exploration of an often misunderstood community, as we unveil the power of peer connections in the kink world.
Some useful links:
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.
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. This time we're talking about peers.
We start with my personal experience connecting with my peers. Then we dive into the intriguing world of dominant peer groups. We challenge you to rethink the ecological metaphors of predation and scarcity, question the conventional understanding of dominance, and confront the specter of toxic masculinity lurking within these circles. The episode is peppered with practical advice on forming a dominant peer network, providing actionable tips on establishing connections within the community.
We cap off this episode with a stimulating discussion with my boy, Ben (@bootpupper on Twitter). He shares his experiences navigating the leather boys community, underlining the critical role of peer networks in fostering deep connections and nurturing a positive community spirit. Plus, we explore the fascinating subject of leather families and households. Join us for this candid exploration of an often misunderstood community, as we unveil the power of peer connections in the kink world.
Some useful links:
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.
Let's talk about peers. 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, a podcast about leather kink and BDSM. My name is Edge, my pronouns are he, him, and I am your host. You know, I feel like we spend a lot of time in our kink journeys searching for our counterparts, the daddy to our boy or the pet to our mistress. And yes, of course we do that and I don't want to discourage that in any way, but I do want to talk about the value of also searching for our peers.
Speaker 1:So in this episode we're going to be considering all the advantages that come with peer connections, what they can offer us, some of the challenges to forming them and some of the ways you might overcome those challenges to create peer networks of your own. As always, I'll be sharing a little bit of my experience and doing not so much a how-to but a really sort of thoughtful reflection on how these sorts of connections might get started. Then we have an interview with my boy, Ben, before doing some Ask Edge questions. All in all, I think it's a pretty good episode, so let's get started.
Speaker 1:If you've followed my podcast for any considerable length of time, you may already know that I spent a significant chunk of my kink journey on the bottom boy identified, but in that period I do not recall having any peer networks or peer connections. I had a number of mentors through my journey and I should probably pause here because those terms really often can collapse into one another and I want to be a little bit clearer on what I mean when I use them. For me, when I talk about mentors, I mean men who were older and dominant and who I learned from, often in service to them, and my concept of a peer is someone who at least has the same kink identity role as you, probably maybe also closer to your own age, and that's not a given. And it's not true that peers can't mentor and it's not true that mentors can't be peers. But I do want to distinguish these sort of close nurturing connections across lines of the dominant submissive spectrum versus within one side of that spectrum.
Speaker 1:So I never had a lot of peers.
Speaker 2:And part of that is just my introversion.
Speaker 1:I never have a lot of friends of any sort period, and if I only have a couple of friendship receptor sites on my inner energy matrix, I'm going to save those for older dominant men, because that's what I was looking for. They were really hot. So I think it's not that those networks weren't available to me, it's that my inclination was not to pursue them.
Speaker 2:And it's not just my introversion.
Speaker 1:I mean historically, when I was growing up, I would be like friends with the teacher. I was that kind of teacher's pet nerd geek and so I was always used to having some sort of friendship with people who were adults and much older than me. So as I moved into the start of my kink journey, it would not have occurred to me to make these supportive peer networks. That shifted slightly when I moved into that space of dominance, and not significantly. But what I discovered over the last 20 years is that I tend to have in my life you know, you only have so many friendship receptor sites, and one of those is always kind of occupied by my leather best friend. And my leather best friend is someone I will have cigars with or we'll get together in gear or we'll go to the bar together, and right now it is Mentor Dadsir, off of Instagram. In fact I'm recording this. On a Saturday and tomorrow we're having our monthly cigars and ketchup, and before that it was this wonderful guy, tim, who's still very special to me, and then before that it was a guy named Mike. So there's always just been one leather friend. But that's sort of been my peer connection, and that's especially true for me now with Mentor Dadsir, because we're about the same age, we have about the same interests and we're both sort of very dominant identified, and so that's the space where we talk about what's going on in our King Climes, where we talk about what's going on with our boys, what's going on in our different relationships, items of gear, events. He has really become for me my dominant peer network that I have no shame in talking about challenges I'm facing. In my dominant relationships I can seek counsel and advice without feeling shamed or less than, and it's a really beautiful, mutually supportive kind of friendship and I see that going forward, I see myself always having that one leather friend, but increasingly I think it will be my dominant peer of one. It's also worth noting that, in addition to mentors and peers, there's this whole other group of peers I'm acutely aware of, and that is my leather generational peers.
Speaker 1:A lot of times when we think about generations, we think in terms of age millennials, zelenials, I'm Gen X boomers these are people who were all born during certain years. But if we think about a leather generation, it's not about your chronological age, it's really about your leather age. When were you born as a leather person and when I think about my leather peers, I think about people who had common sets of leather experiences that sort of cluster us together into a loose affiliation. So I'm talking about people who remember the site Bootjack, who remember Leather Navigator, who remember when Folsom Street East got started, who remember the old Spike and Eagle, who remember when the lure opened, who remember Pork Knight, who remember when the lure closed.
Speaker 1:We remember America Online, irc. All these things and that common set of experiences positions us in a way that's different from the leather generation that may have come before us, that may have experienced the mine shaft my leather generation did not and the leather generation coming after us, which is far more virtual, because my generation, my leather generation, was the transitional generation, so, when I think about my leather peers, we are people who were reading Drummer magazine, international, leatherman Bowden Gagged writing letters, answering ads in the back, and then we were people who moved online.
Speaker 1:We were the generation that really were the first leather generation. We moved leather online through our actions and through expressing our desire in virtual spaces. I deeply respect my leather peers and I feel like I have some connection with all of them. Again, only so many friendship receptor sites. It's not like, oh, my leather peers are my best friends. No, but at any given event, I could probably be in a room and point at the people who are my leather peers. I could say hello to them, I can chat with them because, you know, we've been around for a really long time at this point and we know of each other. To be sure, often we've had some interaction at some point and there's a beautiful sort of comfort that is crafted in part through nostalgia. So these are people that I can talk about. The quote good old days. They weren't great, but they have a shared set of memories that is comforting to participate in. And then these are people who are maybe facing similar challenges in their leather journeys, just based on how long we have been journeying and they're not all dominance right. So there I have boys and slaves and and pups and people of all kink identities who are part of my leather generational peers that I feel deeply connected to as well. So I'm really not a great person to be talking about the super duper value of peer networks, because when I was a boy I did not have one. As I moved into dominance, my peer network is micro as one person, and even if I think about this leather generational peer, there are people that I'm loosely affiliated with but not deeply connected to, nevertheless. Nevertheless, I am going to argue that peer connections are incredibly sustaining and nurturing and valuable, and I will talk about that in the next segment.
Speaker 1:I first became aware of the power of these sorts of peer groups through the boy who changed my life, who you may recall from previous podcast episodes, and this boy has a small, very tight group of boy friends, meaning friends who are boys. They have a group chat, they go to the bar together, they go to events together, they go to movies together and they support each other, and through him I've been able to see the sort of beautiful power that's enabled by this small group of connected peers supporting each other through a long and sometimes very challenging kink journey. Since then, looking back, I've realized that I've known other such peer groups. Back when there was a South Florida boys of leather, there was a smaller group within that group of older boys, and I mean boys in their 60s and up, and these boys would meet every week for coffee, creating that same sort of peer connected network.
Speaker 1:I'm also aware of a similar phenomenon through my boy in Phoenix who is a member of the Phoenix boys of leather but then also has from that group, this subgroup of people that he is learning to be very connected to. Obviously, one of the themes here is that a lot of times these peer connected groups emerge out of leather groups. The ones I'm most aware of all come from boys of leather groups and I don't know that that's necessarily required, but it certainly enables and fosters these sorts of connections because it is a group that is about forming fraternal, sibling-like bonds and within that group you can find people you really connect with that those bonds sustain outside and beyond the group.
Speaker 1:I would think that therefore, these sort of peer connections are also possible in any sort of leather group and I'm not really a leather group sort of person, so I'm speculating a little bit here. But if we think about leather groups or kink groups in general, they bring people together with some common interests and often a very common kink identity. If we think about boys groups, and they are focused on social activities, service activities, they foster friendships and then those friendships can become quite deep, and that is really what we're aiming for in these peer connected groups. You know, this whole idea for this podcast came from an original video series I did for Twitter and Instagram where I talked about this, and part of what I talked about was what I saw as the challenges of similar peer groups for dominant, identified people. And in the comments a couple of people said well, actually I'm dominant and I have my peer group, and I found that extremely heartening. But I do think that there are challenges for a similar type of group among dominant peoples, and a lot of that has to do with a series of cultural misunderstandings we carry to the notion of dominance that are both created within our culture but often inherited from the larger culture. So, for example, one of the things we tend to think is that dominant people need to know things and somehow, if you know less, you are less. And yes, absolutely. There's a set of knowledge and skills needed when you're a dominant person. You need to know how to flog, you need to know how to tie someone, you need to know how to put needles in someone's skin. But just because you don't know everything doesn't mean that admitting to your peers should be at all intimidating, even though it certainly can feel that way If the expectation is that you're dominant, identified somehow. I think there's an expectation that you're supposed to know what you're doing in all these situations, particularly among your peers, and therefore it is intimidating if you want to admit that you don't know. Of course, the truth is no one is born knowing kinky things. We all had to learn at some point. So I think we need to disperse this notion of intimidation and, trust me, we really want to be encouraging a culture of education.
Speaker 1:I think the other problem with this notion that quote unquote dominance know how to do things and it's true they have a certain skill set, but part of what that does is obscure the knowledge that submissives need to have. So you need to know how to be flogged, and that means knowing how to stand, knowing how to breathe, knowing how to process pain, knowing how to nudge your ego aside and just be present for someone else as they do things to you. So I don't want to create this dichotomy where dominance know things and submissives have things done to them. They're both actively doing and require sets of knowledges around that. I think it's easier for submissive people to ask for instruction. I think culturally they are expected to somehow ask. First of all, they're the askers and I think also there's an understanding that they need to be trained. That's built into the dynamic as we play it out.
Speaker 1:The second issue I find in creating dominant peer groups is we tend to operate with certain ecological metaphors in our community that are centered around predation. So we talk about hunting for a boy or hunting for my perfect pet and I, the one I'm guilty of is I'll send a sexy photo and I'll say I'm baiting the trap. And hunting in predation ends up framing intimate relationships in an economy of scarcity, meaning your gain is my loss and you know what. That's not the way it works. Now. The truth is we're not in abundance. I'd love to say that we're simply not in an economy of scarcity when it comes to kink that we're in an economy abundance, but we're not. We are a sub community of a sub community and, depending on what your kinks are, you might be a sub, sub sub community, but abundance is not the factor, because you could have a zillion available kink partners or only 10. And I would like to argue that doesn't necessarily impact your ability to connect, because connection isn't based on the number of numbers, it's based on something ineffable, something chemical, something that allows two people to connect and they will connect no matter how many other people are around. So I don't want to buy into this notion of scarcity that comes out of the metaphor of predation, and I also don't want to be sitting in envy or jealousy when I have a dominant friend who gets a boy, because I like my friends to be happy. So I try to resist the ecological metaphor.
Speaker 1:The other thing that I think makes dominant peer groups challenging and this is particularly true of male identified dominant peer groups, and that has to do with toxic masculinity. So, as dominant male identified men, we tap into all kinds of hyper masculinity in the way we dress, in our aesthetic, our attitude, the way we stand, the way we carry ourselves, and that's fantastic, it's super hot. Obviously, if you've seen me in leather, I like tapping into hyper masculinity. But the challenge is sometimes when we tap into hyper masculinity we also get all the baggage that comes with it from the wider culture. And so we think men don't show weakness, men don't show emotions, men don't cry, that's all bullshit, right, and that can inhibit us from being open with our peers, because weakness is not coded as masculine in the larger culture total bullshit. And I think there's actually something beautiful and strong and courageous when we're able to cry in front of our peers because we feel safe with them. That's the goal. We should feel safe with them. And if you're secure enough in your masculinity, however it's manifested, then that should not be a problem. We should be able to opt out of the toxic side of masculinity because we decide it's bullshit and we don't want to play into that, and that actually in itself is extremely powerful to sort of be secure in who you are, freeze you from the judgment of others in a way that is extremely powerful.
Speaker 1:The last issue I see in creating these dominant peer groups has to do for me with a lack of aspirational models, and in fact there's a heavy presence of deaspirational models. So if I'm thinking, hmm, a group of dominant male friends, what could that look like? What could that look like, my mind goes to high school and thinks of jocks, cool kids and bullies. And these are the models, are things I would never be a part of. I wouldn't know how to be a part of them. They were things I could never do and I was the target of these groups. So my personal history with dominant male peer groups is a history of trauma. Not only do I not get them, because I was never a part of them, but I fear how they operate and what they did to me.
Speaker 1:And that means really reimagining what a dominant peer group can be from scratch, which frees us to create the group we want it, the group we as we desire it to be, instead of building off of existing models which may be very flawed. I have started to create a small dominant peer network, and none of these things are at play, and so I'd like to talk a little bit about how that happened for me, as a model for how other people may create their own peer networks, no matter what their kink identity is. So we've already said look if you, if you join any sort of leather group, boys of leather, or just a leather group. You already have a good chance of creating some sort of close network because you're in an organization that is meant to foster connections between its members, and so, yeah, that's a great start.
Speaker 1:I'm not a group person that is not how I would ever do it but I think for me, what I need to do is not think about how do I get my peer group, but to really think about how do I get really good friends and as an introvert with only so many friends, with only so many friendship receptors, that in itself can be a little challenging.
Speaker 1:So I think if you want to form your own kink identity, peer network, start by building a friendship. And when we build friendships, the important thing for me when I'm building friendships is trust. And the way you establish trust in my world is making sure that your words match your actions. So if you say we're going to meet for coffee, you show up for coffee. If you can't make it, you communicate that. You give me new words that represent new actions. Hey, let's do it next week instead. I also make sure that my words match my actions. We are building trust that we can count on people to do what they say, that their words matter and that they value your time and your words as well.
Speaker 1:Once I've established trust with someone, then I can begin to risk vulnerability. So I can say things like you know, sometimes in the middle of the scene, I'm not sure I'm enough, I feel like an imposter, and I can see how they respond to that vulnerability. Do they identify with it, do they support me through it? Do they deflect, do they shut down the conversation. I'm looking for people who can hold that conversation open, who are open to my vulnerability because we've built the foundation of trust and open to it in a way that offers me support, that's not heavy-handed, that's not dismissive of my own experiences. From there, that's the start of your peer group right, and then maybe the both of you find another friend. Invest in that friendship, have your words matching actions, risking vulnerability, and from there it can grow. I think the place to look for these sorts of friendships is not the bar, is not the apps, because in those spaces that are fairly sexualized, your peers, your kink peers, are looking for their counterparts and not for you. So if you're at the bar, boys are looking for daddies, boys are not looking for other boys. If you're online, daddies are looking for boys, not for other daddies. So those sexualized spaces can obscure a little bit the possibility for peer-identified connections.
Speaker 1:You might want to think about looking at events instead, or sites like FetLife which is I always call it kinky Facebook, that have sexual components, have sexual identity components but aren't as necessarily only centered on sex. And in fact I would think I love an event like Claw, because there are so many classes and that's an opportunity for me to create these networks of friendships If we're all at the same class. I shake up a conversation afterwards. We say, hey, let's go have a cigar on the cigar deck. Oh yeah, what are you doing for dinner? Right, that can develop into something, because we're in a space that's sexually charged but isn't about sex per se. If you don't have the ability to make it to an event or FetLife can be a little hit or miss because it's virtual you might want to think about going to your local community center, if you have one, and if not, you might want to look for anyone kinky, anyone near you, because that's the start of something Ideally. Ideally, somewhere near you, somewhere you can drive to, there is visible kink community, and by visible I mean it's a bar night, it's a event, it's a bar, it's something where you can see people in leather, you know where to go find them and ideally that is also a place without necessarily a sexual hunt.
Speaker 1:I will also say boy groups, as I've noted, seem particularly good at creating boy networks, because I've known lots of boy networks that came out of a lot of boy groups. Boys of leather groups have a challenge. I know many of them that no longer exist. And groups are hard to start with and maintaining a group is hard and there are internal dynamics and politics, and so every group is challenged. But I know locally here in Fort Lauderdale one of the things I felt happened was that other groups had a tendency to exploit the boys group here. That's my perception. I'm not claiming that as fact, but there would be a lot of hey boys, we're having an event, can you work the door? Hey boys, we're having an event, can you help us set up? Hey boys, we're having an event, can you do this for us? That was my perception. And then so I feel like there was this overload of service expectations on our local boys group that may have contributed to its eventual decline and disappearance.
Speaker 1:So once you do find a friend, once you do build some trust, then you know what, like any friendship, you wanna invest time in that. You wanna make plans, and fun plans. Let's go to a movie, let's go see Barbie, let's go see Oppenheimer, let's go have brunch, let's go have lunch, let's go have dinner. Food is great for these, right? You don't need to say, oh, let's talk about everything, kink, you just need to have fun with your friends and then eventually that I think that peer support emerges and folds in.
Speaker 1:I will say from my introverted experience that this is a very slow, challenging process for me. My current dominant peer Mentor Dads. I mean he was sort of an acquaintance for years and he kind of understood that I was just like not a person who made a lot of friends and I don't know quite at what point our friendship became very close, but I'm grateful that it did Because he's an important, very important person in my life and in my leather life. He's one of the people I can talk to, everything going on in my life, leather, and that's pretty valuable to me. So I don't think, depending on your ability to make friends, I don't think peer network groups are easy. Depending also on the size and variety of the community near you, they could be quite challenging because of that as well.
Speaker 1:I'm not saying any of this is easy. I'm saying that at least put it on your radar, at least when you're in spaces. Don't always be looking for that person you wanna go home with or that person who's gonna be your next wonderful partner. Also, look for people who are like you, who are just cool and fun and you wanna hang out with, because those connections will often last much longer than the next partner you find. Those connections will get you through the end of the next relationship you have. And that's the beautiful thing about these peer network groups they understand you because on some level they are you, they're like you, they have the same desires, the same challenges, the same triumphs. That's why I think we should at least be open to finding and making and treasureing the peer network groups when we can, and I am proud and pleased to welcome my boy, ben, to Full Cow. Hey boy, welcome to Full Cow.
Speaker 4:Hi, sir, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Pleasure to have you here. So could you start by telling us your pronouns and how you identify in the community?
Speaker 4:Hi, yes, well, my name is. I go by boy Ben usually, and my pronouns are he they. And I am a boy, I'm also a black and I'm a switch. Yeah, wonderful.
Speaker 1:This is a show episode about peers and networks of peers, so can you start by telling us about the different sort of peer groups you participated?
Speaker 4:Sure, Primarily I participate in the Phoenix Boys of Leather. We're based out of Phoenix, Arizona, and I am also because of that. We have a nice little community of boot blacks in Phoenix that I'm a part of.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how did you discover these networks? How did that start for you?
Speaker 4:For me it was mostly a I kind of like met one person and then met another person. That kind of kept going until I realized that the leather community was a space that I felt comfortable being in. I really started my journey actually started my journey about two or three years ago. I always knew I was kinky, but I met up with a friend who was really infesting. That was something that I was trying at the time and then, just through mutual friends, I found myself at the boys and the rest has been history.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you talked about the start of your journey. What role has having these sort of peers played in your journey?
Speaker 4:For me, it's taken the form of having a lot of mentors, a lot of people who have been in the space for a long time and really know what they're doing. I've always always been a place to go to if I didn't know somebody was safe to play with or even if I just needed somebody to just talk to. Our community is very broad and made up of many more people than just people who identify as leather boys. People with all gender, shape, sizes, and everybody you can possibly imagine shows up at the boys, especially these days. It's got to be such a huge community and that's a very good thing, and I would say that also because I'm very fascinated by history and leather history that that's something that I've definitely gotten from a lot of my peers. That's a value from them.
Speaker 1:And I think you talked a little bit about having people to talk to, about play or players, and I know of many different circles of boys who have group chats or something like that.
Speaker 2:Do you?
Speaker 1:all have some sort of secret chat of some sort.
Speaker 4:Sure, I think I have a lot of disclos that we do have a chat. We have our members chat, which is good. If you're looking to start your own boys group or any sort of leather group, it's important to have communication. Obviously we also have a group that actually was just built out of. We go get dinner before our boys meetings, which is Thursday nights, and so before it will go get dinner, and we created a big telegram group just so that we could figure out where we're going for dinner that night. And it kind of just turned into the boys and friends and it's chaotic sometimes. It's very lovely. Everybody's kind of showing what their days are like, and we still, of course, use it for finding places for some grub before meetings, but it's a very nice way for us all to check in, but it's also sort of a daily conversation or how.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's more than just on Thursdays, it's every day.
Speaker 1:How do you handle the sheer volume of communication that must be?
Speaker 4:I think some people will have the capacity to handle that more than others. Certainly for me. I tend to keep it muted most of the time, but I will check in and I will. I love to just go in and be like, hey, this is what I'm doing this week, or if I'm going to do something, I'll see a movie or something like that. It's a great place for us to connect with anybody that's in our community. I know everybody wanted to go see Oppenheimer and everyone wanted to go see Barbie, so they made that happen through those chats. Just pretty cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and your peer network is connected to Phoenix Boys of Leather. I know of several successful boy groups that grew out of clubs but were this sort of subset that there was, yes, there was the club atmosphere, but then they had this tight-knit little close friendships. Do you feel like you are forming these close connections, which is a couple members of the group that could persist whether or not the group existed anymore, or anything like that?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I would say that I don't feel like there are cliques. It's not that kind of group, but there certainly are groups of people who get along better than others. I mean, you're not going to get along with everybody, but we all consider ourselves brothers and, in terms of brotherhood, that family connection that we share something really important to us, which is being Leather Boys. But at the end of the day, I've made very close friendships through the group that people that I'm texting every day, all day sometimes, and so yeah.
Speaker 4:I think those sorts of relationships are really a test of time and they're what really keep everything glued together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that you point out it's not about cliques, it's just more some people to connect more with other people, so it's not sort of exclusionary, but there are these clusters that form. I also love that you pointed out a little bit some of the challenges of groups and can you talk broadly, without getting into details, some of the challenges of having a peer group in general?
Speaker 4:Sure, I can't speak for a lot of other boys groups. I know that a lot of other boys groups have struggled with maintaining that sense of community, or at least a positive sense of community. I don't know exactly the specific things, I don't know if that's something we really want to talk about, but I I think for us what we do best is we know who is a good fit and we allow the people who are there to start problems or inevitably have something that's rubbing against the grain in the wrong way. That really does not mesh with what we are. Those people tend to kind of fall by the wayside, and that works for us and those people who unfortunately don't tend to show up very often sometimes they come back and that's good, but we all I think that's how we kept going for so long- how long have you all been going?
Speaker 4:Oh gosh, I'm probably the worst person to ask that. I want to say I should have this all pulled up.
Speaker 1:I mean to be fair. I sprung this on him several hours ago.
Speaker 4:No, bro, I guess I'm blue on me for not knowing how long. I'm fairly certain it's about 13 or 14 years that the Phoenix.
Speaker 1:Boys of.
Speaker 4:Leather have been together.
Speaker 1:That's fairly significant for any sort of group. Well done, phoenix Boys of Leather. You also mentioned your identity as a boot black and that you made some boot black connections through Phoenix Boys of Leather, but I'm assuming that extends beyond just P-Ball. Can you talk about sort of the boot black networks you're plugged into?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think that the boot black network quote-unquote boot black network, as we'll call it, that is it depends on. Obviously it occurs in very different sizes and there's local boot black communities where all of the Phoenix area people, for the most part almost everybody, knows each other. There are a couple of people that I've never met but through, usually through P-Ball events, because, frankly, a lot of Phoenix, our leather events, are structured around the boys. We do have other communities nearby. We just happen to be the biggest, so we have a lot of things going on. So I've met a lot of boot blacks through our Waxabare fundraiser, which is like our biggest thing and it's super fun. Criminal, it's simply criminal.
Speaker 1:They wax bears people, they wax bears.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and we've done some really fun online interaction with Gale, who won IML last year, was part of an online waxing a bunch of other people. But I've met international boot blacks through this competition. If you know who Bam, if I can just name drop people, bam Bam. If you know who Bam Bam is, yeah, comes from Phoenix. Yeah, but I've met a lot of really awesome people that way and just meeting those people, meeting individual people who are just really awesome. You just start to communicate with people. Honestly, facebook for me has been the holy grail of leather communication. I've found that it's really easy to get in contact with people and I've met a lot of boot blacks that way. We have our own and this is the largest amount of boot black communication that we have is through the Facebook group. We do have a boot blacks Facebook group where we can talk to people from all over the world, for example, alistair. We've recently just won International Mr Boot Black our previous, hopefully not last- International hopefully not last IMBB.
Speaker 4:We're all constantly chatting there, sharing tricks of the trade, talking about the things that went on with IML in the last year. Certainly it's been an open discussion there.
Speaker 1:And do you also have secret boot black telegram groups or discords or whatever group chats, if I told you you'd have to kill enough.
Speaker 4:No, we don't. Actually, I think that would be pretty chaotic, because that would be on a much larger scale. I think that the Facebook group suits us very well, though.
Speaker 1:So for anyone who's listening to this and is not yet in the community, it undoubtedly feels a little intimidating. They may not have a Phoenix Boys of Leather. So if you were to offer advice to someone in finding peers that could support them, mentor each other, what sort of advice? Where do you think people could start?
Speaker 4:So I think maybe I should start this with maybe a story about where I started, because, like I had said, I always knew I was kinky. I actually was turned off of Leather the community for a long time just because I was quite young and at 18 I looked much younger than 18, certainly, and so that turned a lot of people off from wanting me to show up to munches, because even these munches were 18 and up. You didn't have to be 21 to show up to munches. I'm from Rochester, new York, and so formerly.
Speaker 1:Oh sorry, can you pause and explain what a munch is, because people who don't know, don't know.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I've actually never been to a munch so I'm not an expert on them, but, as I understand, munches where they could be held at bars sometimes or the back room of a restaurant where you could meet other kinky people, and I believe it came out of the pan leather scene or the pan medium scene, and that's sort of because heterosexuals don't have leather bars, so they would do.
Speaker 1:essentially, it's like the boys of leather having lunch before or having dinner before a meeting. They just would all meet for brunch at a diner, and that's my understanding of a munch.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I think that at some point it grew. I mean, I think that grew out of, like biker culture, motorcycle clubs, because our local group which is no longer together, unfortunately, rochester Rams they expanded over COVID but they, I believe, grew out of a motorcycle club and that was sort of their. They definitely kept that aesthetic through the remaining years, but anyways, we went off on a tangent for munches, but anyways, munches are great.
Speaker 4:They're a great place to meet people. I think that they're. For the most part, they'll let you know on their websites. If you're looking like, just search your local city, the closest one to you see if they have a leather group or any sort of BDSM group. They probably have a munch or some sort of event like that.
Speaker 1:So the general piece of advice is use the internet. Yeah, probably. If there are any kinky people anywhere around you, they're meeting in some sort of public forum that you can enter.
Speaker 4:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:That sounds terrifying.
Speaker 4:It is terrifying and the best way to do it is to just reach out to somebody. I think these days with with texting, messaging, I mean the people that I met through people I messaged on recon recon. I think most people probably know what recon is, but if you don't, it is a. I would say it's more of a leather, leather, cis, male centric I'm not sure if that's the right way to put it male identifying centric dating app or hookup app.
Speaker 2:In most cases people.
Speaker 4:It's used for more serious things than Grindr, at least.
Speaker 4:That's why I'm not like dating slash. You know, hey, I've dated people off of recon but yeah, so send a message to somebody. I think a lot of people are very proud to share their colors on other apps I certainly am. And or even if you know that there's a local leather group nearby, send a message to somebody that you've been talking to hey, have you ever been to so and so like leather groups, socials. And if they say, yes, I go to them every week you should come to, or however often they have them go. You know one person already, even if you don't know anything about them. You sent them maybe five messages. A lot of the time that person's going to be really excited is even happy there.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and you talked about how you didn't go to munchers at first because you looked too young, and then I derailed the story. So what was your entry point? What was the first thing you did to connect to peers?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean I could say back then when I did it was just sorry, we don't want you there and that's something you might run into and just be cautious about that and don't be sad about that, just try again. That's my advice on that. But for me what I did was, like I said, I met up with a friend I was into trying fisting at the time this is not so much sorry. This was when I moved to Phoenix.
Speaker 1:So the real piece of advice is move away to another city.
Speaker 4:Find a city, obviously, if you have, if you're living in a tiny town or like a small, like sister city. It's very difficult to find that. Rochester is a very small city and I would say, in fact, in New York at all like there's. You'd have to go to New York City. Really. I think Buffalo now has a pretty big leather scene that's starting to grow for a smaller city in New York.
Speaker 1:Well, in New York you can also hit Toronto or Montreal. Those are in hitting distance as well.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it depends on where you are, it tends to be kind of far, but also going over the border that often, yeah, but sometimes it's worth it, right, like even if you're just going to something like once a month like meeting somebody. I know people who live in Tucson that come up to Phoenix and for those of you don't live here, it's about, I say, an hour and a half hour, 45 minute drive, maybe more, and they don't come very often, right, but it's they come up for like a gear night or like a really big event like Waxabare. You know, you go, you talk to people enough and you go enough times you start to make friends. We have people who are considered official friends of the boys that don't live anywhere near here. A lot of people who have been members have moved far away. So the best thing for you to do is just try it. Try and meet somebody, because you might make a really good friend and those kinds of relationships last all in time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know the key here is that you're looking for peers. If you're identify a submissive, you want to find other submissives, because usually on recon you're looking for your dream daddy or the perfect master, but when you're getting together with someone else who's identifies the way you do, you're both boys or you're both slaves or whatever sexes off the table, and then you just focus on that friendship. And I think you're really hitting the nail on the head when you talk about that friendship and investing in it and forming it and then growing that friendship network, because that sort of creates the support network.
Speaker 4:And the interesting thing about that, you actually actually have to disagree with one of the things you said, because you said that sex is off the table. I will say that sex with other boys is some of the best sex that you can have, and the reason why is because you're not pressured into having to be the best Dom that somebody wants, or you don't that you you know there's no pressure there, but it's also like I've seen many of my brothers flogged my other brothers and have a lot of fun with it, because it's like we're not usually on that side of the playroom, so it can be. It could be a lot of fun to just try new things with people, and then you might figure out that you're into something else, that maybe you're not just the other boy you know. Maybe you've got other things there that you want to explore, and that's that's why I think spaces like the Phoenix Boys of Leather are really important, because we get to explore those things with each other in a safe space.
Speaker 1:Obviously, it's not my fault for not knowing about boyboy sex. That is my experience you never had daddy, daddy sex. No, actually, daddy, daddy sex can be really good. Yeah, oh god, because you're both like care-centered.
Speaker 4:You just depicted my entire fantasy. Another episode another episode on daddy daddy sex.
Speaker 1:I was gonna do one other thing. Yeah, you talked about if you're a boy and then you're flogging and suddenly you discover like, oh, maybe I'm more than a boy. Does people ever kick people out when? When they're like oh, you're too much of a daddy, now you've got to go?
Speaker 4:No, not at all, actually, because as long as you identify as a boy, you can be a member. And the thing is, though, even if you identified as a boy and maybe you're not as much of a boy anymore, you don't just get kicked out like you're still a brother. At some point you identified as a boy and you have that boy spirit in you, even if you've kind of outgrown it a little. I personally don't believe that that's possible. I think that I think everybody has a little bit of a boy in them. I think even the best daddies have a little bit of boy in them, a little bit of excitement, a little bit of wonder and that maybe was a controversial thing to say. I think even that can go to masters and slaves too Anybody.
Speaker 4:And I think it all depends on what being a boy means to you, and that's a conversation that we have regularly.
Speaker 1:Right. So what I'm hearing is find some local communities or travel to a community, invest in friendships, be open to exploring with others, and that those bonds can then last beyond any particular group. Is that about summing up?
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I would say so Great. Well, boy, I appreciate you coming in at the last minute and talking about your experience with peers, and is there anything else you'd like to say to our audience?
Speaker 4:No. I think that sums up how I feel.
Speaker 1:Alright. Well, thanks for coming. Thank you for having me. Daddy Ask. Edge is the segment where I answer questions from all of you about, well, anything. If you would like to submit a question, you can email it to ask at fullcalshow or, even better, leave me a voicemail at speakpipecom.
Speaker 1:Slash leatheredge, lthredge, and both of those links are in the show notes. The first question for this episode comes from my good Twitter friend, mr Rogers. He writes Do you have any thoughts, slash experiences when it comes to the concept of leather families, slash households? I ask because it's become something with differing layers for me. I think about being a part of a leather household as an intimate polyrelationship in the quote unquote traditional family sense, while also acknowledging that it's this open concept I've built around me already with the folks I tend to lean on when it comes to leather. Slash kink, and I love that he's identifying those two layers that my leather family is. My group of leather friends, actually Mr Rogers, is part of my leather family, but there is this other sort of polycule notion of a leather family, which is a group of leather folk living together in the same house with differently structured relationships, and I don't have any direct experience with that sort of household, leather family. I know there are a couple here in Fort Lauderdale so I've seen them at a distance and they work fairly well. You know there are always issues in any sort of polyamorous situation because the dynamics can get quite complex, but I've seen very stable leather households here in Fort Lauderdale so I certainly know it's possible.
Speaker 1:My familiarity with leather family is that second notion. It is the people I call my brothers, my sisters, my others right, my siblings, the people who I feel are very close to me and inside my orbit, within the leather world, and that is not all, just, you know, boys who serve me. It's also, for example, I have two very dear friends in Atlanta that I think the world of and that I would consider part of my leather family as well. This is not in any way formalized. None of these people probably even know they're part of my leather family. It's not like we use familial terms, but the bond there is there for me and significant for me and I think, there for some of them as well.
Speaker 1:So if you're thinking in terms of family moving towards a household, I would recommend Polysecure. It's a book that is about more complex forms of polyamorous relationships. You should also, of course, read the ethical slut. I think those are good starting points if you want to think about this notion of a household. But if you're thinking more generally in terms of family, as in the bonded family, of choice connections we make, those things will come, and in fact it's a very appropriate question for this episode on peers. Our next question comes from Dylan.
Speaker 3:Hi, dylan, here. I just wanted to reach out and say first of all, thank you for your podcast and all of the lessons and everything that you've been giving to us. It's incredibly insightful and it's such good knowledge that isn't readily available out there or really trustworthy in some cases. So it's great for that. And also you're just sexy as hell. But my question is what is your view about younger guys or, I guess in some cases, guys who can be perceived as twinkish, getting into cigars and smoking cigars themselves? For me it is something that I'm very you know. I've had a few cigars in my life and I love it and I really want to become an avid smoker. But I am I don't know if you can tell by my voice pretty twinkie not entirely, but enough to where. At a first look it is weird and I'm afraid to go out like in a public space and smoke. So I'm just curious about what your opinion about guys like that are.
Speaker 1:First of all, I think it's worth noting that whatever body you have, you are someone's fetish. So if you are large bodied, people are going to want you. But if you're twink bodied, which we conventionally think of as slim, lean, maybe toned, maybe not, maybe slightly hairy, probably more hairless if we think about the twink body, that is someone's fetish. So I don't want us to ever think about other kinds of bodies being less than and that's hard, because there are certain leather archetypes that circulate in the kink community that you think, oh, that is the body. But it's worth noting that every body is a fetish. The second thing is cigars are fantastic because they cross all these lines of class and therefore can pop up in all kinds of situations. And the specific thing I'm thinking about here is let's see. Let's see who, what kind of young, smooth, shaven, lean guy might be smoking a cigar.
Speaker 1:Oh frat boy, jock, groomsman at a wedding, new father. There's already an erotic template for younger quote unquote twink guys to be smoking cigars. That means it is erotically legitimate. Not only is it just legitimate if you're into cigars, guess what? Smoke cigars. It is erotically legitimate because you are stepping into a certain fantasy. The last thing I'll say is that the cigar community tends to be pretty low key and friendly. If I'm out at most any bar and see anyone smoking a cigar, it's very easy to strike up conversation hey, what are you smoking? Oh, that's great. I haven't tried that. Where are you getting your cigars from? Oh, that's a great shop. And therefore, if you're in a context that has cigar smokers, you probably won't be judged.
Speaker 1:Finally it is important to take that leap of faith. If this is your fetish, then go out in public and enjoy it. Be who you are. No one's going to look at you as scant. Now, some people don't like cigars, but guess what they're going to not like cigars, no matter what your body looks like. But there's nothing funny looking about younger quote unquote twink guy smoking cigars. It is hot in a very specific erotic context. That context won't resonate for everyone, but it will resonate and it is both functionally legitimate ie you have the right to live your fetish and it is erotically legitimate, which means there's a fantasy and you're about to step into it. Thanks for the question, and our last question comes from Tobes in the UK.
Speaker 2:Hey, edgy, it's Tobes in the UK. My question is quite simple. I just want to know how was the pie? It sounded delicious. Could we maybe be seeing a new regular section of baking tips from Edge? But in all seriousness, I just love that you've shared again the social side of the community which has really taken off in the UK, as you've highlighted, and given me the kick to get some friends invited around in gear for dinner and dessert sometime. Cheers, bye.
Speaker 1:The lime cracker pie was quite delicious and refreshing for the summer. I'll put a link to the recipe in the show notes. It is so stunningly simple and relies in part on the fact that when you mix acid with a dairy product, the proteins get scrambled and the dairy thickens. So it's four ingredients. It's lime juice, well, and some zest cream, condensed milk and ritz crackers. When you mix together the milk and the cream and the lime juice and that all thickens up almost like a curd and then you just layer that, alternating with the ritz crackers. I wouldn't make it again Next time. I would change the proportion of filling to cracker. The recipe called for about one cup of filling and then a layer of crackers. I just found that in the container I was using didn't create the same volume I was looking for.
Speaker 1:Ask for your other question about baking tips. Probably not For a second. I was like, hey, it'd be fun to have a leather baking show where I bake things and talk about leather history, but the media empire is stretched a little thin as it is. I am finishing up this podcast episode on Wednesday and it is being published on Friday, which means I'm right up to the deadline, and the truth is that I'm not. It's not like I'm baking all the time, nor am I super skilled with a baker as a baker, but what I'm really good at is following instructions, and baking is science. So you just measure everything, you do exactly what you're told and you get something delicious in the end.
Speaker 1:But try the lime cracker pie for your next time you have dinner and dessert with your geared friends at your place. It is actually a really delicious recipe. You know, I might also try it with club crackers next time and it would be quite amazing with graham crackers. You could almost get a kind of key lime pie sort of effect. Anyway, I appreciate all the questions. This segment does not exist without you, so please send me a question about anything, not just about leather, about desserts, about any question you have about me and my life. It's sort of an ask me anything sort of format, and I am so grateful that you took the time to listen to this episode and hopefully you'll join me again soon. Thank you, and that's it for this episode. Thank you so much for joining me. Please consider subscribing or you can send feedback to edge at full cowshow, as always. May your leather journey be blessed.