Pillion

WARNING: THIS EPISODE CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE AND SOME BRIEF DISCUSSION OF SEXUAL ASSAULT. 

Pillion looks like a breakthrough for leather and BDSM visibility, then it dares you to ask an uncomfortable question: are we watching dominance and submission, or are we watching abuse filmed like romance? I walk through my reaction in real time, because I went in expecting a love letter to kink community and walked out increasingly horrified by what’s missing on screen: consent, negotiation, aftercare, affection, and anything that signals ethical power exchange. 

We also talk about why the response is so divided. If you already know what healthy DS dynamics look like, you may be able to enjoy the film as fantasy and keep it safely in the realm of fiction. If you’re newer to leather, younger, or searching for a model of how kink “should” work, the same scenes can land as dangerous misinformation. Along the way I put the film next to earlier examples of queer representation that carried both erotic charge and harmful messaging, and I name the political stakes of seeing leather in public while parts of queer culture argue about erasing it from Pride. 

Then we shift to Ask Edge: a listener shares a breakup rooted in a partner rejecting his interest in leather. I talk about the difference between “not my thing” and shame, the red flags that matter, and the real-world paths people take in erotically mismatched relationships, including polyamory, openness, and hard limits. If any of this hits close to home, subscribe, share the episode with someone who cares about consent culture, and leave a review. What did Pillion bring up for you?

Transcript

Mature Warning And Spoilers

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Let's talk about billion. This podcast contains material intended for a mature audience. Before proceeding, please check your little pause and confirm that you are an adult. Welcome to Fool Cow, a podcast about Leather Kink and BDSM. My name is Edge, my pronouns are he him, and I'm your host. And in this episode, we're going to be talking about the movie Pillion. And I'll say right up front, there are spoilers ahead. So if you haven't seen the movie and you plan on seeing it, and you're not fond of spoilers, this may not be the episode for you. But if you've seen it, um I will say from the moment it came out, people were asking me what I thought about it. So I'm here to share my thoughts. I'm very interested in what you're thinking about this movie as well. Perhaps we can create a conversation around that. I also have an Ask Edge segment, and I think together it's going to be a very good episode. So let's get started.

Hype Versus Horror On First Watch

SPEAKER_00 1:31

So we're going to be talking about Pilgon today, and I have to say from the outset that this is going to be a complicated conversation. The Leather community showed up for this film in droves. My boy loved it. He laughed, he cried. But when I watched it, I watched it increasingly horrified. And the conversation we're having today is about how to hold all these reactions at the same time and to think about why they are what they are. So I'll start by saying, as I mentioned in the intro, the very moment this came out, people were asking me what I thought about it. And at first there was no way for me to say that because it was released in Europe, and a lot of Europe people were asking, European people were asking me, and I had no chance to see it. And then when it opened in the US, it took a while to get to Fort Lauderdale. It took a while for me to be able to see it. So what I knew was there's a lot of excitement in the community. I knew there was a screening at MAL. I knew other people were doing leather screenings where they would all get together in leather and show up in public at a movie theater. And the general sense I got is, oh my God, this is a great movie. It really truly represents our community. Not that I think anyone said that to me specifically, but that was the tenor of the vibration I was receiving it. And it was confirmed when my boy saw it. He saw it with friends in DC, and he laughed, he cried, he loved it, he thought it was beautiful. And so I finally saw it because here in Fort Lauderdale, we also had a sort of leather movie screening, which is exciting in itself. Right? The first thing we can say about this movie is it brought the community in gear into the public to be together and to be visible. And that notion of visibility, I think, is generally important as we think about the film. So I was excited to see this. What's this movie about? Everyone loves it, it's representing the community, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then the movie started. From the very first encounter between Ray and Colin, my mouth was agape in shock and horror. And that did not stop for the entire movie. So I came to this with a lot of expectation, granted, a lot of excitement, and I left with very complicated emotions. So if you've not seen the film and you don't mind spoilers, there's a central dynamic between Ray, who is super sexy. I'm not gonna say dominant, I'm gonna put dominant in quotation marks. Let's say dominant in quotation marks, Alexander Skarsgard, gorgeous man, and Colin, who's kinda geeky, kind of, in quotation marks, submissive. And the in quotation marks, dominant submissive relationship they build, as well as a biker community world. And what it does really well, in the background, I don't think Colin and Ray really, if I look at them, I don't think of the leather community I know. Although they do some visual markers, they're in bike leathers, you know, Colin ends up with a chain collar locked on. But they don't resonate for me as community members. But in the background are these sort of bike club bikers wearing leather that I recognize, pierced and inked in ways I recognize, and I feel like these two actors are there in front of this background of community. And so that's what the movie does really well. And it it's a very not happy story. That's what I'm gonna say. I won't give away too much. It's a not happy story. Extremely well made, extremely well acted. And I think the fact that it's so well made and so well acted is what adds to some of the complications

The Novella Context The Film Drops

SPEAKER_00 5:43

between the people who adore it and the people who are horrified by it. I think it's important to place this movie in the context of its source material. It comes from a novella by Adam Marsh Jones, and the title of that novella is Box Hill. The subtitle is A Story of Low Self-Esteem. That gets dropped out, obviously, when this becomes a movie, and that is a critical omission. Because in the novella, there's a very clear framing that this is not perhaps the most healthy of relationships that disappears with the movie into a kind of fantasy projection of what DS looks like and what DS romance looks like. In fact, the author himself has said the film is so different that if the characters had been renamed, he might not have recognized it as his own book. In the book, it's taking place, I think, in the 70s. They did not do that in the movie because it would have been too expensive. In the book, Ray explicitly rapes Colin. In the book, Colin is 18. That is another complication. In the book, Ray dies, and that omission of the subtitle, right? Which sort of reframes this. All of these things reframe it. The historical period makes a difference. The age difference makes a difference, the death makes a difference, and the subtitle makes a critical difference. In the novella, the it was continuously uncomfortable and morally unsparing. And we lose a lot of that in the adaptation, explicitly a lot of it. I think it's still there. But the novella made it a lot more complicated when you're calling it a story of self-esteem. When there is a rape, removing those explicit problematics is a problematic.

Consent Missing And Community Distorted

SPEAKER_00 7:46

I'm going to sort of overview the issues I have. Um The first is I don't actually know that Colin is submissive. There's a scene in the movie where he's looking at photos of Ray on his phone, and his coworker looks over and says, Is that your boyfriend? And he says, beating with pride, yes. And that gave me this sense that Colin was doing anything it took to get a hot boyfriend and to keep a hot boyfriend. I don't ever get a sense that his submission resonates in the way that I understand submission. Similarly, Ray's quote unquote dominance comes off to me as simply abuse. From their very first encounter, there is no consent, there is no negation no negotiation, there is no aftercare, there is no affection, and from the very first moment I thought it was abusive, where Ray silently coerces Colin into buying him a bag or bags of Chris. From that moment and from every moment on, there is coercion, there is abuse, there is not a healthy relationship. There is not a healthy relationship. On the one hand, the film clearly wants to celebrate community. There are scenes with the sort of biker club with Ray and Colin all camping, they're at the lake. And the problem is with that. Let me let me back up a little. Yes, we want to represent community, but but when it zooms in to see how that community is functioning, it again becomes extremely extremely dysfunctional. We see these images, we see these scenes of this whole little leather community, but the one real interaction that troubled me was the interaction between Kevin and Colin. Now, the bond between submissives, the mutual support, the peer support, the love between submissives, because it's part of their ability to navigate the world. For me, it is that is pretty sacred. I know groups of boys who have bonded. I know generally I find that there's a strong friendship at the very least between submissives. For me, that's a function of community. In fact, that's what community is about, right? Community is about mutual support. In the movie, the one moment we really see community operating, Kevin, who's another boy, comes up to Colin and says, Wow, I just love that you're with Ray because you make him look even hotter, which is the most bitchy, horrible, underhanded, petty comment possible. And that, that is the image we're giving of submissive, submissive connection. I found that horrifying. In general, I felt like this community was just sort of set-dressing for the two actors who are up in front. So, right, here's my sense. The relationship's abusive, Collins probably not actually submissive, Ray certainly does not match my understanding of dominance, there is no consent, there is no negotiation, there is no aftercare, there is no affection, there is no love, there is a representation of community, but when we see it functioning, it is dysfunctional. In a nutshell, that's why I find this movie problematic. But then on the other hand, I have my boy who loved it.

Why Some Viewers Still Love It

SPEAKER_00 11:54

So I'm trying to think about why people might have loved it. And I think one thing is if you're already in the community, and again, we're seeing a lot of people showing up, community members showing up in leather to see this representation. If you are in the community and you know what actual DS relationships look like, if you know the actual connection between a master and a slave or a daddy and a boy, then you can release yourself into this kind of fantasy of this stone-cold, sexy, greedy man who uses you and abuses you. That's not an uncommon fantasy, underscore, underscore fantasy. And I can see that if you already understand how things work, then moving into it and watching it really as a piece of fiction, which it is a film, you can kind of give yourself into the fantasy underscore, underscore, of that kind of man, of Ray as this kind of man. Um and I will say it is uh not uncommon fantasy. That's all I'm gonna say. And I can understand from that point, I can understand them loving it. I can understand why my boy loved it. Because he knows, he knows me, he knows our relationship, and he doesn't have to look to the film for accurate representation. He can look to the film for fantasy, pleasure, enjoyment. That's one camp, I think. I think one camp is if you're in the community, might have seemed like a good film. I think there's another camp where, in general, people adjacent to the community, people in the community, queer people perhaps in general, appreciated it as political visibility. We are in an era where people are questioning whether or not leather has a place at pride. So we're not only talking about the erasure of the leather community from the wider culture, from legal structures, from um normalized sexuality, that already happened. Now, in the queerest of queer spaces at Pride, we are seeing a movement to erase leather as well. So, from that perspective, having up on the big screen this film that foregrounds leather and kink represents perhaps an important political visibility. And I'm willing, again, to grant that, while noting it's sort of the abstract, like, oh look, leather people exist, not oh look, leather people are super fantastic. Not as represented in that film. Now, if you're just sort of mainstream audience, you can probably identify with the coming of age story, with Colin's quote-unquote transformation, I'm not really sure it's a transformation. I can see that too. Um however, my biggest concern, if you're not already in the community, if you are young or haven't yet moved into leather, if you're looking at this and if you're thinking that is how leather operates, that's dangerous because you could end up with someone who is abusive and you think that's the way it's supposed to be. Or if you want to become a dominant, you're called somewhere in your soul to being a master, you think it is about abusing others, and that is not the way it's supposed to be. So I can hold, I can hold both people who are loving it and my own horrified reaction. And a lot of that has to do with the positionality of who's watching it and our concern about where it's landing. So I don't think there was anything crazy or wrong that the community was excited. Representation matters. And the film takes leather seriously as a culture in ways that films almost never had. I'm thinking about the police academy films and the blue oyster bar and the absolute campification of leather there. That was not a good representation. And even though this isn't the most healthy representation, right, it is more realistic. And representation matters. And I will say, in general, art, we shouldn't be looking at films as how-to guides. We shouldn't be looking at films as documentaries. So I would hope that anyone watching this might understand that this is not uh a how-to guide into dominance and submission. I remain concerned that it is depicting a bad relationship. The film doesn't really acknowledge it's depicting a bad relationship, whereas the book knew, because the subtitle told you. At the end of that day, then, at the end of the day, my final position is complicated. But I'm not going to condemn this film. I'm going to say, watch it with your eyes wide open and find a way to hold both the beauty of visibility, the power of representation of seeing leather people of some form on screen, and the complications of the way the actual relationship is portrayed.

Visibility Pride Politics And Real Risk

SPEAKER_00 17:45

You know, I mentioned Blue Oyster Bar in Police Academy films, but I think for me, the closer analog is the movie Cruising with uh, I think it's Al Pacino, right? I think it's Al Pacino. I get some of those actors confused. Um it came out in 1980, and it was really about a serial killer in the leather bars. I will here's what I will say. I watched it um, I think really before I came, I think it was before I came out. And uh there's a scene, I think, when the killer ties someone up before killing them, and I got deeply, deeply aroused by that. There are scenes in leather bars with actual leather people. I got deeply, deeply aroused by that. So the message of the movie is kind of leather people or serial killers, and uh also also like homosexuality is a little contagious. It's it came out to a lot of protests from the queer community. And so, in many ways, it operated a lot like pillion. Oh, look, there's the representation. Oh, look, there's visibility, oh look, there are actual leather people, uh-oh, but they're murderers, right? It has that same complication. But what's curious is that for me, as a young person who had not yet really discovered the leather community, what I discovered was extraordinary erotic energy around leather and bondage, which eventually led me to the actual community. So cruising also has this complicated relationship where I had a deeply erotic reaction to it, despite its problematic message. And so I think there's a possibility with Pillion as well, that people will hold those both things, both those things, that even though it's problematic, you can still find that erotic reaction. So that's my take on Pillion. And the other thing, the thing I will end with, because the thing I want to invite you to, I think movies like this create conversation because there is a kind of controversy around them. So if you would like to join this conversation, please send your thoughts to me at edge at fullcal.show or at

Cruising As A Complicated Mirror

SPEAKER_00 19:59

ask at fullcal.show or any of the social media you happen to know me on. I am more than happy to engage in deeper conversation about this. The other thing I will say is, you know, I was talking to this leather man in lives kind of near me, lives in the same state, and I really respect him. And he hadn't seen the movie yet. And I was telling him about my problematic stuff, and then and this is what I also told him. I even if, even if you don't like it, even if you're not really interested in it, I think it's something everyone in the community needs to see because I think it has become part of our cultural fabric, part of our conversation. And I would say watching it allows you to participate in the community in another way. That isn't just going to an event or picking up people or being on an app. It allows you to create conversations about what leather means to you, what desire means to you, what submission means to you. And so I recommend everyone watch it. I was horrified by it, but I'm glad I watched it. Uh, I'm glad my boy loved it. And I hope, however you end up reacting to it, that you still engage this as a way of engaging community.

Ask Edge Relationship Mismatch After Breakup

SPEAKER_00 21:22

Welcome to Ask Edge, the segment where I answer questions from all of you. This segment really depends on you, and for me, it is a vital part of this podcast because it connects me with all of you and it creates space for other voices, which I think is pretty critical to the larger project of this podcast. So if you have a question, you can email it to me at ask at fullcow.show. That's ask at fullcow.show. Or even better, leave me a voicemail at speakpipe.comslash leatheredge. That's speakpipe. I will add, it doesn't have to be a profound question, it doesn't have to be deep, it doesn't have to be complicated, it can be something about me that you'd like to get to know me a little bit better. I also will add an important caveat. One of my followers on social media suggested I do this, and I'm chewing this and letting it resonate out backwards and resonate forward. I am not a therapist, I am not a psychologist, I am not a relationship consultant, I am not a trained life coach. I am not speaking from any place of authority beyond my own experience. And that is true for every ask-edge question I've answered. It's also true for every episode of this podcast. And I think that's something I tried to make clearer early on. I am one voice, I am one set of experiences. What I'm sharing is my experience. It is not the end-all, be-all, or is it capital T truth? And I want to thank, I want to thank that fellow who gave me that recommendation because I don't want to mislead people, particularly when there's some complicated questions. Speaking of complicated questions, this question comes from Simon. Hey Edge, Simon here, a leather boy from Belgium. I recently went through a breakup, and one of the biggest reasons was that my boyfriend didn't really understand or accept my interest in leather. He thought I was weird and wasn't willing to explore or engage with that part of me. It honestly left me heartbroken and made me start daunting myself and my fetish for a while. I was wondering if you've ever had similar experiences and if you'd be willing to share any thoughts or personal experiences around that. I also wanted to ask whether you've ever dated or been romantically involved with people who weren't into leather or kink at all. Do you think two people who are on opposite ends of that spectrum can genuinely make something work? Thanks for everything you do. Your podcast has really helped me feel less alone. Oh, thanks, Simon.

Red Flags Respect And Support

SPEAKER_00 24:09

Here's the first thing I will say, and again, just my opinion, not a professional opinion. If your partner, it's one thing for your partner to not be into leather or not to be into any one of your many interests. But if they are calling it weird or if they're calling it stupid, or if they're making you feel less than because you're into it, that is a giant red flag in the relationship. I feel the healthy relationships I've been, a partner would be, wow, okay, thank you for sharing that for me. I don't really understand it, and I have to say it doesn't resonate for me. But how can I support you in that in a way that honors our relationship, right? Not, oh God, that's weird. Oh God, what's wrong with you? Oh, God, that's silly. Red flags, red flags. That's a way of saying that, Simon, I know you've just been through something very painful, but if you look back, that might have been an indication that perhaps this wasn't the best person for you. So the larger question here is what happens in a partnership when one partner is into leather and one partner isn't?

Paths Forward DADT Breakups Polyamory

SPEAKER_00 25:23

And we can sort of, right? We can scale this out. One partner is polyamorous, one partner isn't. One partner is um bisexual, one partner isn't, right? There are a lot of mismatched relationships, but I think I'm most cognizant of this particular one you're talking about. One person is into leather, one person isn't. And and particularly when that happens after the relationship begins, someone discovers they're into leather and the other person isn't. This there's no there's no simple answer here because it depends on the relationship, it depends on the people, often it depends on the cultural context, what kind of community you're situated in, also what kind of country you're sitting in situated in, like where the acceptance is for leather where you're at, and where the acceptance is for non-standard, differently looking relationships. So I don't know that there's a general answer. I do know the pain you went through, you are not alone. I've encountered many, many, many people who are in this dis mismatched relationships. This um eroto-discordant relationships. I'm kind of playing off zero-discordant where one person's HIV positive and one person isn't. And so I'm gonna use eroto-discordant relationships where the erotics are not matching. I've run it, I've I just I've known so many people who through been through this, and it plays out a few different ways, and I think the way yours played out, that is one outcome. I think there's a kind of don't ask, don't tell form that comes up where one person is exploring with implicit permission of the other, but it's not uh it's not polyamory. Maybe the relationship is kind of open, but there's a sense in which um we're gonna make this work somehow. And then a variation of that, I think like the primary relationship becomes a little bit more like a friendship, and one or more of them are pursuing more erotic connections outside the relationship. And then there, let's let's not forget polyamory exists. And the beauty of polyamory is that its base assumption is first of all, love is abundant, so I can love my primary partner who's not into leather, I can love my boy who is, and these relationships don't have to compete in terms of love, and they may compete in terms of time or attention, and that's why we're gonna have conversations about them. Polyamory is an acknowledgement that it's unlikely that one person will always fulfill every single one of your needs. And so I think if both of those people, even if they are erotically discordant, if they can both move into a comfortable, secure polyamory, that is a way to actually revitalize the core relationship while allowing leather to flourish. I don't see that version a lot. Primarily because people who aren't into leather or think it's silly tend to buy into some level of monogamy. Polyamory is just as weird, right, as leather, I think, to some people. And and these are the let me also say, these are only the paths I've sort of seen most commonly. Every relationship is unique and your pathway may be unique. But I think if you're in that situation, you need to start considering. And I'm I'm talking about not Simon, Simon's been through it and is healing from it. But if you're in that situation, if you're listening, you're like, oh God, I'm listening to this podcast, I'm really into leather. Um, my partner, I don't know. First of all, have to have an open, honest conversation. And if they say they're not into leather, then you have to start figuring out what comes next. And there are a lot of outcomes. Therapy. Uh, I also know people who stifle their leather side for the sake of the relationship, and they're very unhappy. Um, so there's therapy, there's stifling, there's breaking up, there's um a really not entirely healthy, don't ask, don't tell. There's a kind of death of the primary relationship, and then you're just roommates, and then there's true polyamory, and those are just the ones I'm familiar with. In no case is this an easy situation. I've never known it to be an easy situation. Well, maybe a couple people and ended up being easy, but it is always tough. It is always tough. And so, guess what? Relationships are tough too, and all of the work of a good relationship in terms of love, communication, understanding, support, that all applies in this situation too.

My Dating History Bed Death Lessons

SPEAKER_00 30:08

I've I don't want to put this. I have rarely dated anyone who um has been as leather or kinky as me. My first partner, I'd call him two or three steps away from being leather adjacent. He was a little outside the community, but not unfamiliar with it. My second partner was leather, but not nearly as leather as I'm leather. Um, my next partner really, really, really wasn't, but kind of adjacent. And then I did have one partner who was very, very kink very leather. Most of my dating, though, has been erotically mismatched to some degree. Now, fortunately, right, I'm demisexual, which means sex in general isn't very important to me. I'm um, I'm sorry, I'm gray sexual, which means sex in general isn't important to me. And I'm demisexual, which means I'm really connecting more about the person's insides than their outsides. So I don't I don't know that I need leather to be part of my primary relationship. I do know I need polyamory to be part of my primary relationship. And over the past six or seven years, I've come to understand. I don't know if I was always polyamorous. I think I grew into it actually. I am polyamorous, period. And there are people in my life who I love, and I'm not willing to sacrifice for someone else that they need to come to understand that they have a presence in my life. And if I get a primary partner, that presence may shift a little bit, but they're not going away. So um I forgot how I was kidding here. Right. So a lot of my dating has been with uh people who aren't quite leather kink as me. And part of what's helped is bet is that I have this sort of uh unique sexuality that doesn't require all of kink for sex to happen. The other thing that has helped is that I'm polyamorous. Uh, all of my relationships have been open. That certainly helped as well. But I'll say the majority of my relationships have not had healthy sex lives. And I I can say that because most of those people, a lot of those people aren't alive anymore, which is sad, but it allows me to talk very honestly. Most of my relationships have suffered a kind of bed death. I am a beautiful partner, I am loving, I am supportive, I am your cheerleader, I am intimate, I am romantic, but I've not always been deeply sexual or erotically engaged with my primary partner. And looking back now, I can see all the reasons that true. And it informs how I date now. And honestly, I I've stopped dating for now because I'm unable to find what I am looking for, and so I'm taking a break. But um, but I do think either you must be leather to be my primary partner, or you must be beautifully polyamorous, and not just say that you are, but you must have done some of the work around polyamory that I've done as well. So that's my experience. And then your last question was do I think two people who are on opposite ends of that spectrum can generally make something work? I absolutely do. You know, I believe in love, and I have seen people have beautiful, loving, thriving relationships who are not at all like each other. I think, based on my personal experience, that the key is to have some sort of intimate, erotic life with your primary partner. And that means maybe it's vanilla sex, maybe it's whatever you two love, right? But this notion of bed death, I've experienced it all too often. It's always been the death knell of my relationship. When I'm unable to intimately, erotically, sexually engage my primary partner, that is a problem. So I think you can date someone completely different from you if you have that plus polyamory, healthy polyamory. And actually, even beyond that, I don't know. I I I am just endlessly um amazed and filled with hope when I encounter the kinds of relationships people are able to form. So, Simon, I'm I'm very sorry for the pain you've been through. I know what that's like, not from my personal experience, but I've seen it happen to a lot of people I know. Um, in my experience, it's challenging for me to be engaged with people who aren't

Hopeful Wrap And How To Write

SPEAKER_00 34:47

into leather and kink as a primary partner, but possible because of polyamory. And I do think two people who are on opposite ends of any spectrum can genuinely make something work. And with all of that, I hope you are healing and finding your way to a relationship that genuinely works for you. And thank you so, so much for your question. 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 fullcow.show. As always, may your leather journey be blessed.