Full Cow: Edge Talks Leather and Kink
Join Edge as he shares his 30+ years of experience in leather, kink, and BDSM. Each episode centers around a theme, explored through several segments. In the first, Edge shares his leather journey in relation to that theme in order to draw some larger lessons about the leather community. In the second segment, the focus is on practical knowledge and history. Then, we speak with another member of the community who shares their knowledge and experience in relation to the theme. Occasionally, there will also be bonus segments, like erotic story time or kink centered meditation. Come learn more about leather, kink, and BDSM with Edge.
Full Cow: Edge Talks Leather and Kink
Interlude: Summer Leather
Interludes are short segments between regular episodes with no editing but WITH leather creaking. It's a chance to hear a little more about what's going on in my life. This time we talk about dealing with summer heat while being into leather.
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 kink and BDSM. My name is Edge, my pronouns are he, him, and I'm your host. And this is another interlude the episode between episodes offered raw and unedited, but with Langlitz, leather creaking. It is summer here in Florida and I also just returned from Kink Down South, a relatively new event in Atlanta Only their second year, but it's really growing, quite incredibly, by leaps and bounds. It's also summer in Atlanta, let me tell you.
Speaker 1:So I've been thinking about the transition to gear during the summer and in part I'm a little blessed in that I have more than enough gear, that I have winter weight leather and I have summer weight leather. So I have some leather jeans that are a little thinner than I can wear for a while during the summer, and obviously the heavier stuff is for winter. So I thought it might be useful to reflect a little bit on how to do gear in the summer, particularly as climate change continues to be an issue for us all. We're facing hotter and hotter summers. Some of the essentials, I think, for summer gear First of all, short lace-up boots, because those look best with shorts, and at some point you're going to be wearing shorts in the summer in a leather space. I'm a big fan of the Carolina Lager. They are fairly affordable under $200, available widely, including Amazon, and that's really your base, because if you've got boots on, you're there right. Add a hanky and a pocket, a pair of jean shorts and a tank top and a hanky and boots and a pair of gloves and you're good to go. So if you don't have a pair of short, lace-up boots, I would recommend getting some.
Speaker 1:And then think about leather shorts. I have two pairs of leather cargo shorts one from pre-op in Montreal from decades ago and one that I had made for me locally. I also have a pair of really booty kind of leather gym shorts that are fun to wear sometimes. Um, you know, mr Regalio actually has a great selection of shorts at their usual affordable prices Most of their shorts are under $200, a variety of colors. They have five pocket jean shorts and they have cargo shorts. So if you're thinking about, well, I don't have any, well, that's great for you, edge, but I don't have any leather shorts, it's a good investment to make. They do really quality, decent gear. I will occasionally go out in jeans with taller boots, but obviously then I'm creating double layer around my calves and ankles and they just get a little sweaty. So I am a little more inclined to wear shorts when I go out during the summer, but jeans particularly if it's the evening, I can wear jeans and I can wear boots and I'm good to go.
Speaker 1:I am extra challenged because I'm a cigar smoker and that means that I am always driven to the outdoor spaces and so I have to be really mindful that I'm not going to be someplace that's air conditioned. If you are not a cigar smoker, god bless you. Hopefully, whatever leather spaces you're entering have really good air conditioning. Not a guarantee, I will say that. Not a guarantee. We have two leather bars here in Fort Lauderdale. We are quite blessed, and I find the air conditioning really uneven in both of them. So you kind of have to know where the air conditioning vents are and where to stand to get that beautiful blast of cold air. So it's not simply the fact that, oh well, if you're a cigar smoker, you're going to be outside in the heat. Sometimes you're not a cigar smoker You're going to be indoor in a hotter part of the bar.
Speaker 1:So these are really broad questions of what can I wear? What can I wear? Jeans, boots, shorts, boots on the top, t-shirts it's a great time for T-shirts. It is a great time for vests. It's a great time for sleeveless shirts Great time to just wear a pair of suspenders. I carry a lot of body privilege right, so I will go shirtless to the bar quite a bit, and that was a journey that is actually a lifelong journey for me, and it's probably only been in the past eight well, maybe past seven years where I've felt comfortable taking my shirt off in a bar. So I get it.
Speaker 1:If that's not a place you are, or who you are, or if you're not at that level of comfort within your skin, it's hard. It's so hard, and so you may not have the privilege of being able to take your shirt off and just walk around with whatever pants you're wearing. That's where vests come in handy. A vest is fairly light and I'd actually have winter weight vests and summer weight vests. But a vest is fairly light and it also is really good at dressing the body. It sort of hides a lot of what we want hidden and it shows a lot of what we want shown. So a good vest is a good friend of yours because it is kind to you and to your body and perhaps to some of your body insecurities.
Speaker 1:Suspenders are great. Suspenders are great with a t-shirt, without a shirt, maybe with a tank top, depending on the tank top, and those are your options up top right. You want comfort? Oh, I have a leather tank top, depending on the tank top, and those are your options up top right. You want comfort? Oh, I have a leather tank top too, and you can get perforated leather. My experience is it's like just as hot as regular leathers. I don't know why people bother and I'm not a big fan of the kind of textural residue from all the tiny little holes. So I'm not a big fan of perforated leather.
Speaker 1:I do have a really fl leather tank top that I had made and that's something to keep in mind. You know there are very few great custom makers for leather right now. I think we're all keeping an eye out for who's able to do that work and who's coming up. But if you have a tank top that really fits you and if you have a good local seamstress or tailor, they might be able to reproduce it in leather probably not cheaply. The good news is that for summer weight stuff we want the thinnest, thinnest leather possible, probably going to be lambskin right Something really soft, something really light. That means it can be worked on a regular sewing machine with someone with just sufficient experience in working with thinner weights of leather. And so what you could do is find a tank top that you think looks great on you, do some local research and see if there's someone locally who would be willing to reproduce it in leather. That's actually how I got my leather tank top. It was just this sort of super slutty tank top from International Mail which is dating myself and also telling you how slutty it is, and I brought it in. I said make this in leather please. And they did, and so that's one of my summer weight items.
Speaker 1:I'll also say I disappear a lot in the summer. It's just too hot to go out at all and so I don't. I don't. I will not go out to the bar, as often I may not go out to the bar for weeks. We have a lot of different social events connected in our community. Not many of those will run during the summer and if they do, I will show up in the minimum amount of gear.
Speaker 1:In some ways, summer is a kind of reverse hibernation for me. I hunker down in the chilly, chilly cold of my condo and I wait. It's not great, it is not great. It is not great to be less connected to the people in my community but also less connected to the spaces that feed me, those leather spaces where I feel so at home, and I got to say maybe it's just aging, but like the older I get, the longer, the more I'm just like no, we are not going out tonight, it's not happening, and I'm becoming pretty okay with that.
Speaker 1:I gotta say I do still have some regular connections. Right, I have my monthly cigars with my best leather friend, steve. I have weekly cigars with my best friend, tj, and those aren't gear, fortunately, those are just regular clothes and they are hot enough because we are both outside on both those occasions and so it's not like I don't have any connection and I'm certainly open to people coming over to my beautifully air-conditioned cigar-friendly condo and us having some fun. I don't really have any regular play buddies at the moment and of course I remain single. I don't have anyone special moment, and of course I remain single. I don't have anyone special, although I do have special people in my life that I will go spend time with, but none of them are here. So this and goodness, I'm recording this June 16th. Oh, happy Father's Day. Everyone, happy Father's Day.
Speaker 1:I record this June 16th in Florida, which is miserably hot and humid, knowing that it's probably going to be four to six months before I'm really out in gear again. Florida only has two seasons we have winter and we have summer, and the winter is beautiful and the summer is miserable, and it usually breaks. Maybe it breaks late October, maybe it breaks in November, maybe it breaks in December. So I have a period of retreat coming, and as part of that too, I've cut back on travel so much I feel like I've been traveling the entire first half of this year. My trip to Kingtown South is the last scheduled leather event that I have on the calendar. There's a good chance I'm going to be going to one in the fall, but that, I don't know, is super duper definite. So I'm not going to announce that yet, and so I'm done with travel for a little bit. I'm going to go see my very special person, my sex buddy boy. I don't know what we are, but we're really good together. It is nice to be home and not have to travel. Travel is just exhausting. But enough about me.
Speaker 1:Let me think about offering you some more takeaways for your summer gear. First of all, no hats, do not wear hats. Hats just make you hot. Hats are miserable, especially covers. I will not wear a cover during the summer. If I do, I make sure I have a hanky with me so I can wipe the sweat off my head and wipe the sweat out of the cover. Now, if you have hair, you've got a little bit of cushion in there, because you've got essentially a giant sponge on your head that's going to soak up all your sweat. I don't have any hair and it's just a pool of sweat. No, no hats. I do not recommend hats during the summer.
Speaker 1:Think about tank tops, t-shirts, no shirts. A vest is your very best friend because it covers everything you want covered and it shows everything you want to show. And I do think leather shorts are a really great addition. I will say you know Mr S sells these chap shorts and they're very summer appropriate and if that's a look that appeals to you, go for it. I don't love them and in part because if we're being street legal, if we're going to the bar in these, then I'm wearing a pair of jean shorts and then leather on top of that, so it ends up just being sweatier.
Speaker 1:Presumably, depending on your local context, you can wear them just with a jockstrap, I suppose, but they don't appeal to me aesthetically. That's all I will say. I know people who have them. I know people who love them. It's a good option because it has a lot of ventilation front and back, but it's not something I would necessarily wear.
Speaker 1:Shorts great, shorts are fantastic. Plus, shorts have pockets and we need pockets when we go out. Speaking of pockets, rubber does not have pockets. When I went to Kingtown South, I saw a number of people in Atlanta daylight bearing, beating brutal sun in full rubber, and I honestly do not know how they did it. I have a very tenuous relationship with rubber because I think it's so hot in a sexy sense, but I also think it is quite demanding of attention and work, whereas my leather is not. So if you wear rubber during the summer, god bless you. You are certainly a fetishist beyond. You're a fetishist beyond. That is not who I am.
Speaker 1:Wherever you are in the world, I hope summer is less than brutal. I think. Increasingly we're getting reports that it's bad everywhere. There are heat domes popping up here in the United States that are literally deadly, but we hear across the world that people are suffering from extraordinary heat. The one thing I will say about Florida is that we are built for extraordinary heat. Every place has really good air conditioning, really good air conditioning, and that was funny because when I went to Atlanta again, you think Atlanta, certainly they would have really good air conditioning. No, there are a couple places I went that didn't seem to have air conditioning or hadn't turned it on, and I was so deeply baffled. I know from my time in the Northeast that cities in Canada may not have air conditioning, cities in Minnesota may not have air conditioning. Cities in the Pacific Northwest you may not have air conditioning. So, as brutal as it is, here in Florida, we are ready for it. So there is that If you're in some place that is moving into the effects of climate change and having more brutal of a summer, I hope you have access to good air conditioning. I hope, if you don't, that you stay hydrated and perhaps, like me, maybe we all just do a little reverse hibernation, maybe connect a little bit more online, maybe turn inward a little and do some inner work to get ready for the return of cooler weather and heavier gear.
Speaker 1:That's all I've got for you this time, guys. Thank you so much. Oh wait, that's all I've got for you this time, people. I don't like to be gendered. Gendering is not cool. That's all I've got for you this time, people. I don't like to be gendered. Gendering is not cool. That's all I've got for you this time, people. So whatever you're doing, be safe.