What Is A Leather Club?
Many people are interested in some aspect of the leather lifestyle. Leather clubs provide an opportunity for those with an interest in leather to get together and explore their common interests. Many clubs, like the LI Ravens MC, are brotherhood-like fraternal organizations; others focus more on socializing and play.
Leather clubs are more than a way for people with similar interests to meet one another, however. Most clubs play an active role in their local gay community: raising funds for worthy causes, fighting for gay rights, or educating people about safer sex. For example, we at the LI Ravens MC hold several fund raising activities each year in support of local aid giving and gay support organizations.

Like the larger gay community, the leather community is made up of people from all walks of life. And while people usually associate leather with gaymen, many leather clubs are open to women, heterosexuals, and bisexuals.

What Does Wearing Leather Mean?
"Leather" can be anything from the popular black (or brown) leather jacket to a complete outfit of bike cap, body harness, vest, chaps, and boots. But not everyone in the leather scene is into black leather. Some prefer to wear denim (Levis), police or military uniforms, or Western gear.

Wearing leather does not mean a man (or woman) is into bondage, "S & M", or other seemingly exotic sexual practices. Many people who prefer more conventional sex simply like the look, feel, and smell of leather.

What About S & M?
Other leathermen and women enjoy "vanilla" sex, but sometimes like to be more adventurous as well. That can involve anything from mildly kinky sex play -- bondage and discipline, for example -- to heavy-duty S & M scenes that include domination, piercing or fisting.

S & M is probably the most misunderstood aspect of the leather scene. The term comes from "Sadism and Masochism" or "Slave and Master", and is used to describe sexual encounters where the participants play dominant ("Top") or submissive ("Bottom") roles.

Responsible practitioners of S & M are not into unwanted "pain" or "torture." In fact, most S & M scenes do not involve pain. They are interested instead in the experience of either controlling or being controlled by another person. Each person's limits are respected, and nothing happens that is not safe, sane, and consensual.

While some people always take the same role in all of their sexual encounters, many play both Top and Bottom -- sometimes both in the course of the same scene. The most skillful Tops usually start out as Bottoms.

We thank our friends at the Ottawa Knights for the core of this material.