by Carol Kleinmaier
A Coming Out Tale
It was a Radical Faery gathering in the summer of 1988. In the depths of Gaia’s forest at Wolf Creek, OR, a dozen or so Faeries gathered at sunset, apart from their fellows. Amidst the huge old redwoods stood a circle of trees that had formed around the grandfather tree. Here in their temple, Alain, Daddy Bear Rings, Daffodil, Ganymede, Harry, and Mark formed another circle and joined hands. They were dressed, if at all, in colorful sarongs, flouncy bits of Faery drag, and leather jock straps, harnesses, or chaps. Most had adorned themselves with tattoos and multiple body piercings. Each man took the talisman and spoke his intention or his prayer for the revels about to begin. They made music with drums, rattles, and bells. They danced; they chanted and found themselves, spirit and flesh, in that timeless space “between the worlds.” What might unfold here was unknown to the celebrants. But they stepped off the edge into uncharted parts of themselves. (See my endnote)
In the late 1980s, a few Faeries had begun bringing leather clothing, harnesses, floggers and other accoutrements to gatherings. For the most part, these items never left the tents. In coming out as leather Faeries, they risked the opprobrium of their fellows, including Harry Hay, for whom leather and leather sex perpetuated an image of hard, even violent masculinity, antithetical to gentle-hearted Faery folk (Mark Thompson, personal communication, March 19, 2009), and, well . . . radical. At that time leather sex was often viewed through a set of distorted stereotypes and, consequently, condemned by many in the gay and lesbian community. Radical Faeries had been all about embracing “androgyny and the aesthetics of men ‘who are not men’ (thus the name of the sponsoring group, No-men-us) . . . .” (Thompson, 2008, p. 126).
So, the leather was rarely exposed in public and leather Faeries grew increasingly frustrated by perceived limits to authentic expressions of self. Even at a Faery gathering, this safest of safe places, some “felt like outcasts among the outcasts” (Ganymede, personal communication, December 19, 2008). But as Radical Faeries true to form, these leather folk determined to follow their deepest inclinations, even if that took them into a new, controversial realm of Faerydom . When they wandered out of their forest temple in the early morning hours, they couldn’t articulate, even to themselves, the mind- and body-altering experiences of the shadowy night. But they sensed that the night had been a transformative moment; that this was a turning point, a coming out for the leather Faeries.
A Blessing from Harry
What happened at breakfast the next morning wasn’t wholly unexpected. Many in the camp were furious; some were very casual about the whole thing; others seemed shy when the topic came up. Much later, the joke went like this: A third of the camp was fuming, enraged that they had been forced to listen to shouts and shrieks and the heavy thuds of floggers on backs. And a third was peeping through the trees, straining to watch. And another third were in their tents jacking off all night, turned on but not knowing quite what to do (Mark Thompson, personal communication, March 19, 2009). Between the anger and the joke, however, there was the wisdom of Harry Hay.
Harry took Mark aside at breakfast, saying “Mark, we have to talk.” The men had been friends for almost a decade during which Mark had tried from time to time to tell Harry about his experiences south of Market in San Francisco. That day Mark tried to explain that someone could be into leather and be a Faery. They talked on and on there in the Great Meadow at Wolf Creek. Finally, Harry conceded. “Well, Mark . . . (in his deep voice), well, I suppose you’re right that there are Faeries with black leather wings . . . .” (Mark Thompson, personal communication, March 19, 2009) Harry suggested that maybe the leather Faeries should find a time and place for their own gathering, so they could focus entirely on being leather Faeries together. Harry was beginning to see a more integrated picture of Radical Faeries who are also leather Faeries. He had given the group his blessing and inadvertently, a name: Black Leather Wings (BLW). The first gathering of BLW was held the following summer, 1989, at Rancho Cicada in California.
Black Leather Wings Unfolding
By the 1990 BLW gathering at Wolf Creek, the first woman, Carla, who was interviewed for this article, was invited to join the group. By 1991, I and several other women (Stacey, Sharon, and Neon) had gratefully followed in Carla’s footsteps and were there, as well. A Radical Faery gathering had ended just before the BLW gathering was scheduled to begin. A number of Faeries expressed interest in experiencing a BLW gathering. They were invited; they attended and were a bit astonished to see women and at meal time to find nothing for hungry vegans to eat. Daffodil remembers it this way: “At that second gathering, the one where Stacy cooked for us, some of the vegan Faeries were astonished to find: ‘Nothing to eat and women on the land!’ Something very interesting happened. BLW had become kind of known to Radical Faeries as this offshoot that was so powerful and inclusive that even the regular Faeries were drawn to it and we had almost 30 people stay over from the Radical Faery gathering that originally weren’t going to be there. They joined in with the leather Faeries and had their first experience of BLW” (Michael Dryer, personal communication, December 19, 2009. Ganymede commented on the event, “That was amazing to see. Young men who wanted to experience what it was from us people who didn’t know what it was but were busily doing it anyway” (Ganymede, personal communication, December 19, 2006).
A Very Harmonious Convergence
The leather Faeries who walked into that ring of trees would probably agree that they were Radical Faeries to the bone, then and now. Just as early Radical Faeries rejected stereotypical gay male masculinity (think, say, the Marlboro Man or the mustachioed “clone” look), BLW rejected the humorless hard edges and machismo of “old leather” (“take it like a man!”). Instead, both groups adapted consciousness-altering technologies from various cultural traditions?powerful ritual, drumming, chanting, dancing, making music, and the occasional judicious use of organic hallucinogens ? and embarked on paths of self-discovery and healing. A uniquely Radical Faery sort of spirituality was sourced in a reverence for Mother Earth, a celebration of sacred sexuality, Wicca, paganism, shamanic traditions (Mark Thompson personal communication, April 19, 2009) and, most importantly, a denial of spirit-body and male-female dualism. Theirs was the land of both-and where a multifarious ambiguity held sway and magic was afoot. The leather Faeries did not leave behind this rich spiritual tradition.
In addition to these practices, BLW also incorporated the heart circle, the living, breathing center of a gathering. The land on which gatherings are held seems especially blessed, a sacred space, where connection with Gaia deepens and we walk with assurance that we have come to the right place. As Mark Thompson explains it, Faeries must find a private place, apart from others and free of reminders of mainstream culture lying in wait somewhere beyond the gate (personal communication, March 19, 2009). “A safe place,” says Ganymede. “A safe place to do unsafe things,” such as the work of self-discovery (Ganymede, personal communication, December 19, 2006) Wolf Creek, a mesa top in New Mexico, an abandoned mining camp in the Sierra Nevada foothills, Short Mountain, the desert just outside Benson, AZ, Julie Andrews Point in Northern California, and many more. These spots, too, invite processions, always a part of Faery realms. BLW processions, absent the wild creativity of Faery wizards who sew and weave, are often central to a Ball Dance or a Kavadi ritual. It seems, too, that one must usually drive a very long distance to get to a Radical Faery or BLW gathering. I often think of this journey as a ritual pilgrimage consisting of three phases: the departure (time for meditation on intentions, the gathering of sacred objects, packing the drag, and other spiritual preparations), the homecoming (reaching the destination; finally, the great relief of “Welcome Home”), and the return with its demands for reintegration. We all know the feeling . . . .
The Faery Body
The emergence of the Radical Faeries in 1979 marked an evolution in gay male culture (Thompson, 2008). Radical Faeries cleared the brush for the emergence of BLW, which brought together various strands of queer sexuality and shined a new light on leather sex. Both the Radical Faeries and BLW are deeply countercultural and take the body as a site of personal and cultural transformation and transgression. The Radical Faeries played with kaleidoscopic expressions of gender, and, it could be said, passed on many of their idiomatic sartorial characteristics to the leather Faeries: fanciful drag and gender fuck looks, sarongs, jewels, feathers, the naked body itself, and more atavistic adornments such as little goat horns peeking through curls.
For Radical Faeries, the gendered body became an experimental playground for the elaboration of new identities, new ways of living as gay men (Mark Thompson personal communication, March 19, 2009). Androgynous, duality-busting adornment of the body became the very image of transgression for the Faeries. However, In BLW, particularly in recent years, the expression of identity through androgynous drag has morphed into expressions of transgender identity. Transfolk have been drawn to BLW gatherings in large numbers. They span the gender continuum from cross-dressers to transgendered persons who have chosen minimal or no medical intervention, to female-to-male (FTM) and a few male-to-female (MTF) transsexual folk. Of course, there’s always gender fuck and extremely festive over-the-top drag looks, for both men and women: for example, butch women in high femme drag. Gender fluidity is an essential source of Faery magic, whether Radical or leather. Identity is not fixed; definitions of “normal” do not apply; boundaries give way to transformation.
For BLW folk the body, itself, was a means for transforming consciousness. “Maybe it was possible to fly as high when tethered to a tree by a rope and flesh hooks as it was flinging about in a dress to the sound of drums and rattles. Both were shamanic practices. So why not employ both, perhaps incorporating one into the other?” (Mark Thompson, personal communication, March 19, 2009). BLW was the resulting hybrid. In a 2006 interview with Fakir, he picked up Rajneesh’s Book of Secrets 1 and declaimed with great emphasis, “So Rajneesh says we ‘pierce our nectar-filled body.’” Then he added almost in a whisper, “You can’t reach spirit without doing something to the body” (personal communication, December 27, 2006).
The standard tools of leather sex—floggers, canes, ropes, blindfolds, clamps, etc.—can provide a level of sensation to the body which, no doubt, alters awareness and facilitates personal discovery. However, BLW folk wanted to move beyond typical implements of leather sex and reach deeper levels of transformative experience. This journey demanded that practitioners reconsider the phenomenon of pain and its consciousness-altering properties. During the 1989 BLW gathering, Fakir Musafar introduced adaptations of several body rituals from Southeast Asian and Native American traditions. The Sun Dance is a Native American ritual occurring in community over several days. Dancers are pierced once or twice on the chest. Two hooks are inserted in the chest and attached by rope to the tops of tall trees. Celebrants pull on the hooks until they break through the flesh. Hindu body rituals, the Ball Dance and Kavadi, also involve piercing. In the Ball Dance celebrants are pierced on chests, backs, arms, or legs. Objects such as fruit, bells, or brightly colored balls are hung from the piercings. Participants dance until the fruit flies free. (Ball Dance pic)
The Kavadi involves celebrants placing across their shoulders a wooden or metal frame, representative of an altar, through which as many as 100 sharp metal rods are inserted into the flesh. Body ritual is practiced by BLW with heartful attention to the sacralization of the environment, spiritual intentions of celebrants, and to awareness of the origins and cultural significance of the ritual. For BLW folk, body ritual and intense sensation, or pain, constitute a chosen path to spiritual awareness, personal transformation, and a reintegration of body and spirit. (Kavadi pic,)
A Darkening Sky
In the early 1980s, only a few years after the first Radical Faery gathering in Benson, AZ, there came the specter of AIDS and with it unrelenting loss of friends and lovers. From the beginning, BLW folk recognized the healing capacities of community and heart circles, where pain could be spoken out loud, screamed out loud, and the burden taken up by the entire community. Extreme body ritual, too, became an act of survival. In my experience of body ritual, I found that for a moment or hours there was no fear, no uncertainty, no loss. Only aliveness in body and spirit. The chosen pain heals the pain over which I had no control. My surrender to the spears and piercing needles gave me a sense of power: If I can make it through such a powerful, consciousness-altering experience, perhaps I can also support my friends through their deaths, and go on living.
Of the Sun Dance, Mark Thompson writes, “The Sun Dance, holiest of all Native American ceremonies, was reenacted as a life-affirming sacrifice during the worst time of the AIDS epidemic. Experiencing these ‘little deaths’ helped make the terror of so many permanent ones more palatable. Baring spirit and the flesh in such audacious ways inexorably strengthened us for the grim days still ahead” (Thompson, 1997). This was Mark’s direct experience of the Sun Dance, as well as responses he observed in others.
How Faeries Dance
Dancer Redflower's story... Thanksgiving weekend, 1984. I found myself in Mendocino at my first gathering of Radical Fairies. One night I went down to the lodge to dance, expecting the sort of dancing I had seen in gay bars. But I got one of the most profound shocks of my life. There was a wooden cabin, candles, drummers, people dressed in everything from full drag to nothing. Wild bacchanalian energy. Scared me to death. I spent a lot of the gathering on sidelines.
I considered the taking of Fairy names. Some are deeply felt and permanent, some are probably changeable like drag. But nothing connected to me . . . . (Fast forward to the 1988 Fairy gathering and the coming out of leather Fairies) By then I had definitely drunk that part of the coolaid (the taking of Fairy names). When we leather Fairies went into the ring of trees that night, I remember Mark sacrificed me. There was no physical violence. I was blindfolded and bound to a massage table. Mark took me on a visualization, murmuring in my ear to bring me down to the underworld. I found myself instead in the forest of God. Mark looked at me and I looked at him. He reached out his hand and I took it and went dancing down his paths. And there came to mind an old comic strip, Pogo . . . ‘we has met the enemy and they is us.’ I stopped being afraid of myself that night. And took the Fairy name Dancer.
One night a few years later, Alexis showed me what sex magic and pain sensation were all about . . . the most sensual whipping I ever had. Killer single tail. At one point Daffodil ( whispered in my ear: ‘Let the red flower of pain blossom in your mind.’ That night I expanded my Fairy name to Dancer Redflower” (Harry Ugol, personal communication, December 19, 2008).
Not the magic of Radical Faeries dancing, not the wilder magic of leather sex . . . neither experience without the other could awaken the whole self to itself.
Endnote: During my preparation for telling this story, I was privileged to speak with a group of folks who lived it, Radical Faeries/leather Faeries who celebrated the first leather Faery rite during the 1988 Radical Faery gathering at Wolf Creek, OR. They are Michael Dryer (Daffodil) who also helped install the first kitchen at Wolf Creek, Harry Ugol (Dancer Redflower) a self-proclaimed organizational Faery, and Ganymede, Faery shaman and cupbearer to gods and goddesses. I’m especially grateful to Mark Thompson, author of Gay Soul, Gay Body; Fellow Travelers: Guides and Tribes, a pictorial memoir of his experiences as a Radical Faery and leather Faery; and editor of Leather Folk: Radical Sex, People, Politics, and Practice. Mark was present at the first Radical Faery gathering in 1979 and at the 1988 gathering in Wolf Creek when he joined fellow leather Faeries in their first rite. I’ve also spoken with Fakir, who coined the term Modern Primitive to describe the ritual body play he and a few others were doing in Northern CA. Fakir was present at the first Radical Faery gathering in 1979, and at the first BLW gathering in 1989. See www.fakir.org for more about his amazing work and publications. Many thanks also to Carla whose magical nature made her the first woman to attend BLW gatherings. Find out more about her work in the leather and body play communities at www.sm-arts.com. Thanks to these folks and many others who have lived Faery history and so generously pass it along. (Others present at the 1988 leather Faery circle at Wolf Creek include Alain (Ebu) and Barry Condiff, Daddy Bear Rings.)
Accuracy of memory can be elusive. Any errors here are due to my insufficient research, not to folks I’ve interviewed. If you notice errors, please post corrections in the online space.
References
Harvey, M. C. & Mark Thompson, (Eds.). (2008). Fellow travelers: Guides and tribes, a
photographic memoir. Fluxion Editions.
Thompson, M., (1997). Gay body: a journey through shadow to self.
New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Carol, born queer in Texas, is thinking and writing a lot these days about transformative body practices (ritual piercing, fancy Faery couture, flesh hooks, and the like). She is delighted to be cavorting here among the Faeries.
