Gay Leather Tube ((FULL))

Learning leather bars is different from learning life outside the closet. Read about it below. In the room downstairs, a strobe flashed over mounds of muscle and harnesses. Men slipped in and out of shadow. I couldn't tell if they were dancing or fucking. I later understood that to be the point.

gay leather tube

Upstairs, things were different -- a quiet dive bar, people milling around wooden tables. Someone was choking on a dick in the corner. His gagging noises mixed with the music and talk. A circle of men stood around him and I didn't dare peek through. On the dance floor, I inched close to a guy with salt-and-pepper hair who was wearing a leather kilt. We made eye contact, he came in close. He put his arm around me and shouted in my ear, "Where are you from?"

Lessons came later: dos and don'ts, codes and courtesies, good nights and bad ones. Learning leather bars was different from learning life outside the closet. I never feared coming out -- but kink scared me.

Most of the photos in this gallery are by Matt Baume, a long time Advocate contributor. They were taken mostly at the Seattle Eagle, but some are from leather and kink events, like the yearly IML in Chicago.

My name is Alexander Cheves, and I am known by friends in the kink and leather community as Beastly. I am a sex-positive writer and blogger. The views in this slideshow do not reflect those of The Advocate and are based solely off of my own experiences. Like everything I write, the intent of this piece is to break down the stigmas surrounding the sex lives of gay men.

Last Pride, the outdoor deck of my local leather bar was standing-room-only, a swaying mass of sweat and skin. Furry pecs were buckled down in black leather straps, asses were out, and every few minutes a man stood, coming up for air, before dropping back to his knees.

Most were gay men, but some femdoms (female dominants) were in attendance. They spilled out the front and back entrances onto both porches, into the parking lot, down the sidewalk and around the block -- men in various states of dress and undress. Some were decked out in full-body leather ("full cow"). Others wore jeans and t-shirt. Some, like me, wore almost nothing.

You don't need to fit a mold -- there is none. The lovely thing about my hometown leather bar -- and about leather bars across the world, and about the communities they serve -- is the invite for everyone of every size. Different bars and clubs have different policies -- some require gear, some require you to get through a selective doorman, some are male-only -- but these are few. Most are open to all kinky people, and kinky people come in every shape, size, gender, and color. Come as you are.

I've walked into a leather bar expecting hardcore S&M, only to find a sea of 20-somethings dancing to Donna Summer (hardly a disappointment, but I left without a single red mark on my butt). Most leather bars post their schedule of events -- "Blackout Wednesdays," "Naked Mondays," the monthly bondage club meeting, a specific party, a visiting DJ, or specific nights that require certain fetish gear -- somewhere, but that "somewhere" may be a sign on the front door. Find out what's happening, if you can, before you go.

In many leather bars, you can get by in jeans and a t-shirt. Some are more intense, catered to people actively in the scene who know fetish wear, and require you to meet dress code to get in the door. Find out beforehand if certain gear is required.

If you're a newbie, don't go to a gear party or to a bar that requires gear for entry as your first leather bar. Go to a classic "jeans and jockstrap" dive, one with pool tables -- not fisting tables -- in the middle of the room.

"But I'm a beginner looking to learn!" That's great -- we want you to learn everything you can about kink, and we want you to love your local leather bar -- but since we have the internet, you should bone up (pun intended) on available info about the scene before you arrive. Try not to gawk, if you can help it. We're not zoo animals.

If you find yourself at a leather bar and are, for whatever reason, not kinky, not into leather, not into the people who are part of leather/BDSM, then you're not the intended clientele, and you may want to go elsewhere.

Even if you're in the LGBTQ+ community and you walk into an implicitly queer-dominant space, as most leather bars are, and are not into the sex lifestyles leather bars celebrate, you're the equivalent of a bachelorette at any gay bar in America -- an unwelcome nuisance potentially ruining the space for people who care about it more than you do.

Backrooms/play areas are disappearing from American leather bars, but some still exist. If it's lights-out, this is where you to go to touch (and get touched by) strangers -- to kneel for anonymous cocks, to pull your dick out for anonymous blowjobs, to bend over for anonymous loads, and so on. If you get touched and are simply a voyeur (not there to play), gently push their hand away -- and if you have to do this a lot, leave. Voyeurs aren't what the space is for, and if it's dark enough, you shouldn't be able to see much anyway.

Some leather bars go a step further and have a sling room, or have some sex furniture available, and will likely have low light so you can see well enough to use it. In these spaces, it's more acceptable to play with someone specific and turn others away -- especially if you're engaged in a more intense kink like fisting, hardcore S&M, extreme bondage, and so on. You may attract an audience, which some consider part of the fun.

Many leather bars have demos for various kinky sex acts. The last one I attended was a needle play demo. This was delivered by a professional on an experienced sub. I was filled with questions -- so was everyone else.

You're more likely to see public sex happening at a leather bar than, say, your classic tinsel palace gay bar with boyish go-go dancers and Top 40 hits blaring over a busy dance floor. Leather bars are implicitly more sexual, because they cater to a community that defines itself by the sex its patrons enjoy. Know what you're walking into -- don't freak out.

You should never touch someone without their permission -- this is a rule of life and is true 99.9% of the time. The only circumstance where this rule gets challenged is in a lights-out space made for anonymous play -- spaces which exist in some leather bars, gay sex clubs, gay bathhouses, and so on.

In all other cases, never touch someone without their permission -- even and especially in a leather bar, when you may be tempted to assume a "free pass" for touching because of the heightened sexuality of the space. Sure, on some dance floors, with some substances, people get touchy-feely. You know how to do this, you've navigated this before -- that dance floor feeling when you're crowded together and everyone's hand is on everyone's crotch. While it's difficult to parse through where consent falls in situations like this, it's wise and respectful to maintain the importance of asking first in all situations.

This is for boot-worshipers, daddy-lovers, dominant-seekers, leather submissives, and so on. It seems obvious, but I've accidentally kicked guys in the face before, unaware that their tongues were on my boots. It's not sexy -- it's creepy and you may get a broken nose.

They want it. S&M (sadism and masochism) is the sexual fetishization of pain -- delivering it, receiving it, and enjoying it. S&M can be seen as the crux of much of kink. At any leather event, you will see people enjoying S&M, even if this simply means someone is bent over taking a light paddling. They may be getting hurt, but it's consensual, enjoyable hurt.

In an age when smoking areas are hard to find in any establishment in the United States, you will still find smoking patios or smoking rooms at leather bars -- put there for cigar daddies and their human ashtrays. The cigar fetish is still raging in the world of kink (cigarettes less so).

The hanky code has survived in kink. Some say the hanky code was always part of kink, BDSM, and the leather community -- that it never existed outside of it. Others say it was once a mainstream feature of gay life, regardless if you considered yourself kinky or "vanilla" (non-kinky). Others ask a more obvious question: Were gay men ever vanilla?

This is not a dig at your ability to navigate a leather bar as a newcomer. This is simply how leather bars work, how kink is: we are guided through them by people who've been taught by their own guides, their own mentors.

Many newcomers start as submissives, learn the ropes, then try dominance. Even if you're not naturally dominant (or don't think you are), this is a good way to begin, as it teaches you submission from a sub's perspective, which will make you a better dominant, and it's a direct way to learn the kinks you're into. If you're absolutely unwilling to sexually submit, at least have a mentor to teach you. Part of this teaching -- this introduction to our world-- is navigating a leather bar with someone who's been before.

Park cruising is gone. Backroom cruising is nearly gone too. Depending on where you are, you may not be able to fuck in front of everyone -- on the dance floor, by the bar, or otherwise. Then again, you may -- but wait until you get a vibe of what is allowed (or better yet, ask) before doing something that might get frowned upon by staffers and management concerned with keeping their lease (a reasonable fear all leather bars face with the ever-growing threat of gentrification wiping them out).

Your kinky, leathery family is not just men. Many women, genderfluid, and genderqueer folks are part of this awesome community. If the venue says "male-only" (and you're in the United States), it may not be a leather bar. It's likely a sex club or bathhouse with memberships and a paid entrance fee.

Most leather bars have a clothes check (I admittedly have never been to one that provides lockers -- it'd be a blessing for heavy gear venues). That said, you may venture out to the oddball leather bar with no coat check -- nowhere to stash your things. 041b061a72