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The evolution of leather

Changes in ownership, location, technology contribute to morphing BDSM scene

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MAL, Mid-Atlantic Leather, gay news, Washington Blade
MAL, Mid-Atlantic Leather, gay news, Washington Blade

(Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)

There’s a lot of change in the air with the D.C. gay leather community. As Mid-Atlantic Leather Weekend is in town for its annual festivities, we decided to ask around and see if the changes are just coincidental, natural evolution of a maturing scene or indicators of a larger cultural shift of some type.

The bottom-line answer, not surprisingly, is that it depends whom you ask.

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But first, the particulars.

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• The Leather Rack, still gay-owned but under new management, has a new name. Now known as Adam & Eve, it’s still at 1723 Connecticut Ave., N.W. (location of the nearly 40-year-old business since 1991) but is a slightly different shop.

“We felt the name attracts a broader audience, not just gay guys into leather” current owner Russwin Francisco, who bought the business from James McGlade (who’d owned it since 1994), wrote in an e-mail. “We do love gay leather guys and we’ll support the leather community in any way we can. We simply want to ensure that other folks with other sexual fetishes feel as comfortable in our store regardless of gender, sexual orientation or identity. Consequently we are offering women’s fetish wear, toys and accessories along side our men’s [items].”

Francisco is gay, married to a man and has been in Washington for more than 30 years.

McGlade didn’t respond to requests for comment but said in a press release issued when the change became official in November that he was “grateful for our time here as the Leather Rack” and “we wish to thank you for your patronage and endorsement over the years.”

“Jim is a good friend,” Francisco says. “It was a natural transition.”

• As has been widely reported, the D.C. Eagle’s days at its current location at 639 New York Ave., N.W. location are numbered. The most recent official comment was that owners would be there through the end of March via an agreement with the developer of a high-rise office complex that will displace the Eagle and other businesses in the area.

Eagle owners and management staff are being tight-lipped on their plans. Repeated phone calls, e-mails and Facebook messages to Ted Clements, Peter Lloyd and Carl Domer went unacknowledged this week.

Eddie Ortiz, president of the D.C. Boys of Leather, says he sees Clements regularly and though he can’t offer anything official, he understands an announcement is imminent. The Boys have a monthly bar night at the Eagle, as do many of the local gay leather groups.

“I understand the owners do have a location identified, but they haven’t given me a location yet,” Ortiz says. “I think they’re going to announce it over MAL weekend. Ted is the one I talk to a lot.”

David Merrill, who’s gay and DJs the monthly fetish/gear party CODE, says it’s never wise to count the Eagle out.

“We’ve heard rumors of the Eagle’s imminent demise multiple times in the past and, of course, those rumors turned out to be greatly exaggerated,” Merrill says. “I’m certain they’ll open in a new location.”

The Baltimore Eagle, however, hasn’t been as lucky. It closed last month at its 2022 N. Charles Street location and its fate remains uncertain. The estate of former owner Richard Richardson, who died suddenly in 2007 (he’d purchased it from Tom Kiple in 1995), had been running it in recent years. New owner Charles Parrish did not immediately respond to calls seeking comment.

In the meantime, many in the Baltimore gay leather community have moved over to Leon’s Leather Lounge, known casually as “the Triple L” at 870 Park Ave.

Rodney Burger, president of the ShipMates Club, which had called the Eagle “home” since the bar opened in 1991, said the last night it was open was memorable.

“It is my understanding that the new owner plans to turn it into office space,” he wrote in an e-mail. “How fitting that the last Saturday the bar was open was our ShipMates’ Daddy Christmas benefit. The bar was packed and we raised $3,000 for Moveable Feast. We closed the bar with a bang.”

He also said Triple L owner Ron Singer made “a nice offer” and they plan to continue meeting there.

“I just hope we can get in there to clear out our trophy case and banners,” Burger said later in a phone interview. “There’s the entire history of the Baltimore leather scene in there including banners from some clubs that haven’t existed for 30 years or more. I’m actually having nightmares about losing this stuff — we need to make sure we can get in there and get all that safely out. I hope it’s OK and doesn’t end up in a dumpster somewhere.”

Those active in the Baltimore leather scene say they’re hearing the Eagle could reopen elsewhere, but nothing definite is known.

“I’ve heard everything from three to five months, I’ve heard longer, the rumor mill is full of stuff,” Rik Newton-Treadway, known as “Hooker” in the leather community there, says.

MAL appears to continue thriving and local gay leather enthusiasts say it’s a major highlight of their year and remains popular with both locals and those who come from out of town.

“There’s always a huge percentage of local people at MAL,” Merrill says. He’ll be spinning his “deep house” and “progressive tribal” music at two special CODE parties at the Crucible this weekend. “I think most local guys into some part of the leather scene make it to at least one of the MAL events. There are so many things to do over the weekend — dance events, play events, times to socialize, the cocktails the Centaurs do — there’s a little something for everybody. That’s one of the great things about the leather community — it’s so diverse.”

Ortiz, whose Boys group is having its own free party/dance tonight at 10 in the Congressional Room at the Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill (the sold-out host hotel), says he “can’t wait to get going and start dancing.” Though married to his partner of 14 years who’s not into the leather scene, Ortiz is in a slave/master relationship with a leather lover in Michigan whom he sees about once a month and who will be here this weekend for MAL.

“It’s such a fun time,” he says. “It’s great to see people you haven’t seen since last year and it gives us a chance to really hang out in our leather, do play scenes in a safe environment, be who we are, make new friends and also see some of the local people who don’t come out as much unless it’s for MAL.”

Ortiz, by the way, says the Boys club, which even has a couple female members, is about having a boy mindset.

“It’s how you identify in your heart,” he says. “It’s who you are on the inside. There’s no certain way it has to be, but it does tend to be more service oriented. You don’t have to be a complete bottom. Boys can top, but it’s about taking care of a dom or having someone be in charge of you and dominating the play scene.”

With trust and communication in his marriage, he says his other relationship is “working out great for us.”

As for the D.C. scene overall, some say it’s just natural evolution.

Woody says it runs much deeper than simply who owns a leather bar at any given time or where it might be located.

“The smartphone has brought with it a lot of degrading factors,” he says. “There are all these mobile apps now — Scruff, Growlr, Grindr — all these things we didn’t have before. Now I can find a trick a half a mile from me with my GPS-embedded tracker and there are people coming up with different websites all the time. … You can order up anything you want, so there are not as many people interested in romance anymore. Yes, there are still softies with good hearts who want relationships and certainly gay men have always had their hook-up side, but I think there’s a higher turnover ratio when everything’s online.”

Newton-Treadway, who says lots of guys from Baltimore come to D.C. for Leather Weekend (“Are you kidding? It’s practically in our backyard — it’s like a giant cheesecake for everybody who’s supposed to be on a diet.”), says the changing leather scene is much deeper and more complex than it may initially seem.

“I think there are aspects of the lifestyle that in a way are becoming more underground, less in your face,” he says. “I think the economy hasn’t helped. The Internet hasn’t helped. It’s many, many, many different things. I would say long gone are the days when a leather bar could count on the gay leather community to keep it open. With everything out there online, you don’t need to go out. Not long ago, there wasn’t any AOL, hell, we didn’t even have cell phones. You had to go out for dick. It didn’t come to you unless you were in the middle of the gay ghetto and sitting on your front porch. So there’s a lot of change occurring and a lot of contributing factors. And even when you do go out to the bars, everybody’s got their nose in their phone. They might even be texting to someone who’s right there in the bar, but they won’t go over and talk to them.”

But the bar scene in the leather world is far from dead. Jacob Pring, who organizes CODE and the XXX parties at Green Lantern and the Crucible, says he sees lots of younger guys coming to his events and gets anywhere from 100 to 150 guys to an average event.

“There’s always new people coming in,” Pring says. “People bring their friends. It’s fun. No attitude, no drama.”

Ortiz says he’s not so sure it’s changing as much as everybody says.

“I still go out,” he says. “I don’t just sit at home online all the time. I know lots of people who go out and support the clubs.”

Merrill says it is changing but it’s futile to pine for the past.

“Every community changes over time,” he says. “It’s not gonna be 1975 forever. I don’t know what things will look like in another 10 years, but I’m looking forward to finding out.”

 

 

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Nightlife

D.C.’s gay DJ collective CTRL returns

Electropop group resurfaces at Trade on March 30

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CTRL is back after a six-year absence.

Finger lasers, confetti cannons, drag shows, photo booths, throwback tunes, and a touch nerdy: after a long break, D.C.’s gay DJ collective CTRL is throwing its first party in six years.

Born in an Eritrean restaurant more than a decade ago, this longstanding gay nightlife electropop group is resurfacing with a comeback event at Trade on March 30.

Gay DJs Adam Koussari-Amin, Jeff Prior, Devon Trotter, and Brett Andreisen hosted the first CTRL party at now-closed restaurant Dahlak, on the corner of 18th and U Streets. After a year of hosting pop-ups in that restaurant’s dining room, they upgraded down 18th Street to now-closed gay club Cobalt. There, the parties grew: drag shows, a pop-up photo booth from David Claypool, and quirky activations like throwing hot dogs into print-outs of Putin’s mouth. Their productions grew as well, like producing the now-defunct Brightest Young Gays (BYG) Pride events at Wonderbread Factory and Union Market and the ‘Get Wet’ pool party with David Brown’s Otter Crossing at the Capitol Skyline Hotel.

CTRL wasn’t done. The group received its biggest stage yet after a call from Ed Bailey, the owner of now-closed gay club Town, as well as current gay bars Number 9 and Trade. At Town, the opportunity “allowed our creativity to flourish with even bigger performances, bigger photo experiences, crazier hand-outs, and the same electropop dance vibes our fans had come to know us for,” says Koussari-Amin.

CTRL pressed pause when Town shut down, which “was a huge loss to the LGBTQIA+ community and D.C. nightlife in general,” says Koussari-Amin. After that, it hosted an occasional spinoff called QWERTY. Post-pandemic, Koussari-Amin has spent a few nights solo as DJ at Trade and other venues.

After connecting with Jesse Jackson, the Trade general manager, as well as with Bailey, who agreed to host the inaugural event, Koussari-Amin was determined to shift CTRL back to life.

However, getting the old band back together proved to be a challenge. While the rest of the group have either left Washington, D.C., or are pursuing other projects, Koussari-Amin received their blessing to stay on and find new members. 

“When it came to finding new partners, both DJ Dez [Desmond Jordan] and DJ Lemz [Steve Lemmerman] were obvious choices,” he says, noting that “they also have distinct styles and interests.” Dez has a residency at Pitchers and Kiki as well as pop-ups, and Lemz throws events like Sleaze and BENT.

 “It seemed important to come back to the nightlife table with an experience that could complement all the amazing experiences that have even built up since CTRL threw its last event at Town. Bringing back both the DJ collective and the CTRL event with Dez and Lemz means new voices, perspectives, sounds, and excitement.”

“CTRL is an opportunity for the community to come together, enjoy music, drinks, and good vibes,” adds Jordan, noting that for him, it’s an event that celebrates queer identity.

And after months of planning, CTRL will kick off its monthly party series at Trade on March 30 for the first gig after its glow-up.

The trio says that its core inspiration “is driven by the indie and electropop favorites of new and old, like Goldfrapp, Ava Max, Charli XCX, … We’re also all huge fans of slut and trash pop music like Kim Petras, Slayyyter, Cupcakke,” as well as pop diva remixes, new bops, and songs that reside inside and far beyond the expanse of Top 40.

CTRL is also bringing back its activations that complement the tunes. Summer Camp is set for drag performances, David Claypool is back with his photo booth, and Koussari-Amin promises “to have all sorts of weird and wacky handouts like we used to.”

After the March premiere, April’s party is “CTRLella”, a Coachella send-up. Future events will feature various different themes, and they plan to throw a party during Capital Pride; they’re also looking to be a central part of Trade’s expansion into the adjacent space.

 Koussari-Amin says that “the event’s signature experience [is] a lynchpin in connecting D.C.’s expanding generations of queer folks, giving everyone a safe space to let loose and feel a rush no matter who they are.” 

For his part, Bailey continues to support CTRL and its collective intention, expressing its essential nature as a party for partiers by partiers. “CTRL is the kind of party that represents what people want. It’s just a real party by real people that just want to hear good music and dance with their friends.”

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Celebrity News

HRC releases ‘Queer Renaissance Syllabus’

Beyoncé’s hit album inspired curriculum

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Beyoncé performs at FedEx Field in Landover, Md., on Aug. 6, 2023. The Human Rights Campaign has released a curriculum that her "Renaissance" album inspired. (Washington Blade photo by Isabelle Kravis)

In a move aimed at celebrating the beauty, brilliance and resilience of the LGBTQ community, the Human Rights Campaign unveiled the “Queer Renaissance Syllabus” that Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” album inspired. 

Curated by Justin Calhoun, Leslie Hall and Chauna Lawson of the HRC’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities Program, the syllabus includes a variety of academic articles, essays, films and other media rooted in Black queer and feminist studies. Each piece is directly inspired by the tracks on Beyoncé’s Billboard 200-topping dance album, “Renaissance.”

Beyoncé’s album “Renaissance” stands as a cultural milestone, celebrating the Black queer roots of dance music while shedding light on overlooked Black queer artists. Inspired by her late-Uncle Johnny, the album not only garnered critical acclaim but also shed light on the often marginalized contributions of Black queer artists. Winning four Grammys and yielding chart-topping hits like “Break My Soul” and “Cuff It,” the album sparked discussions about economic impact and cultural representation.

Amid its success, legislative challenges arose, with Florida and Texas enacting bans on DEI initiatives in public colleges. Recognizing the album’s transformative potential, HRC developed the “Queer Renaissance Syllabus” to leverage its impact for education and activism.

Tailored for educators, youth-serving professionals, DEI practitioners, higher education leaders and admirers of Beyoncé’s artistry, the syllabus aims to encourage meaningful discussions, enrich lesson plans, and explore innovative ways to honor the vibrancy and significance of LGBTQ individuals and their culture.

With six themes anchoring the syllabus, ranging from “intersectionality and inclusivity” to “social justice and activism,” it provides a comprehensive exploration of various facets of LGBTQ experiences and expressions. Fan-favorite tracks from the album are paired with scholarly readings, offering insights into empowerment, self-acceptance and the transformative power of artistic expression. The syllabus also reinforces HRC’s efforts to highlight, amplify and re-center Black and queer voices.

By providing links to articles, books, podcasts and interviews, each associated with a song from the album, it celebrates the rich cultural heritage and contributions of the Black queer community.

The concluding section of the syllabus includes Beyoncé’s tribute to O’Shea Sibley, a young Black queer person who was murdered in Brooklyn, N.Y., last July while voguing to “Renaissance” songs at a gas station. HRC also includes a statement that condemns hate crimes.

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Movies

Neo-noir ‘Femme’ offers sexy, intense revenge fantasy

A work of real and thrilling cinematic vision

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George MacKay and Nathan Stewart-Jarrett star in ‘Femme.’ (Photo courtesy of Utopia)

They say “revenge is sweet,” and it must be true. Why else would so many of our popular stories, dating all the way back to “Medea” and beyond, be focused on the idea of getting “even” with the people who have done us wrong?

It’s a concept with obvious appeal for anyone who has felt unjustly used by the world – or, more accurately, by the people in it – but that has particular resonance, perhaps, for modern queer audiences, long used to being relegated to the status of “victim” in the narratives we see on our screens. In “Femme” — the new UK indie thriller helmed by first-time feature directors Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping, now in limited theatrical release and expanding wider over the next two weeks — it provides the irresistible hook for a gripping tale of calculated vengeance in the face of anti-queer violence. Like the best of such stories, however, it’s as much a cautionary tale as it is a wish-fulfillment fantasy.

Set in London, it centers on Jules (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett), aka Aphrodite Banks, a popular drag performer in the city’s queer club scene who, after a performance one night, steps out in full costume to buy a pack of cigarettes and becomes the victim of a traumatic “gay bashing” incident at the hands of a young man goaded to violence by a thuggish gang of friends. Months later, though he’s recovered from his physical injuries, he is still deeply affected by the inner scars that linger. Robbed of the confidence that allowed him to perform, he’s withdrawn into a reclusive life, until concern from his friends and housemates prompts him to finally venture out into the world for a night of cruising at a gay sauna – where he encounters his bully doing the same thing. 

Unrecognizable and anonymously masculine out of his drag persona, Jules finds himself beginning a dangerous and duplicitous game in which he plans to “out” his former attacker – whose name, as he learns, is Preston (George MacKay) – in the most humiliating way possible. As his scheme begins to play out, however, he encounters an obstacle: in getting to know the closeted Preston, he is surprised to discover not only empathy for someone living their life in terrified camouflage, but a mutual attraction that develops despite the horrific history between them.

Framed as a self-described “neo-noir” story, a designation that implies a certain flavor of moral ambiguity as much as it does a tense and shadowy tale of intrigue or a psychologically complex tone, it’s a movie that relies heavily on style in order to sell its conceptual premise. Realistically, we might question the boldness that permits our protagonist to enact such a potentially hazardous scheme, but in the context of its genre trappings we are lulled into accepting it. And while most of us are likely “jaded” enough to question the possibility of tenderness between its two leading characters, the accepted conceits of the film noir form are enough to sell it to us – or at least allow us to grapple with it alongside Jules, whose righteously Machiavellian master plan is threatened by the feelings he “catches” in spite of himself.

That, of course, is part of the whole point. “Femme,” though it establishes itself by virtue of its very title as a testament to the struggle to “pass” for straight in a world that places a value judgment on perceived adherence to a strict norm for gender and sexuality, hinges on the idea that such things aren’t quite as clear-cut as we want to make them. Despite the black-and-white certainty we cling to when it comes to the subject of abusive or toxic relationships, there’s an emotional component that can only be ignored or dismissed at our peril, and even our most resolute intentions can be undermined by the shades of gray we discover in our hearts. 

Freeman and Ng – who also wrote the screenplay, adapting their own BAFTA-nominated short film from 2021 (starring Harris Dickinson and Paapa Essiedu) into a feature-length expansion – seem bent on challenging our snap judgments, on forcing us to sympathize with our oppressors by showing us the ways in which they, too, are prevented from living a fully authentic life by the expectations of their cultural environment. Even more challenging for many modern audiences, perhaps, may be the unavoidable observation that, in enacting his plan of revenge, Jules crosses the line between being a victim and being a victimizer – a fine point that may trigger uncomfortable implications in a social environment that has become marked by divisive moral constructs and hardline ethical posturing.

Before we scare you off with discussion of high-concept themes and “culture war” rhetoric, however, it’s crucial to bring up the elements that lift “Femme” above and beyond the level of so many such narrative films and makes it a somewhat unexpectedly potent piece of cinematic storytelling – and all of them have to do with the skill and intention behind it.

As to the former, the movie’s first-time directors manage a remarkable debut, steeping their film in moody, genre-appropriate visuals and murky morality. They pave a path beyond the easy assessments proscribed for us by conventional thinking, and force us to follow our sympathies into a disquieting confrontation between what we “know” as right and what we feel as true; at the same time, they push back against any natural sentimentality we might have about the situation, stressing the toxicity of the relationship in the middle of their film, the ironically-reversed insincerity of its dynamic – and, perhaps most importantly, the reality of the defining circumstances around it. While we might find ourselves longing for a happier resolution than the one we expect, the film makes no pretense that these two men might overcome the deep denial and traumatic associations – not to mention the calculated lack of honesty on the side of its de facto protagonist, to achieve some kind of “happy ending” between themselves. Nevertheless, we hope for it, in spite of ourselves.

That delicate dynamic works largely because of the movie’s lead actors. Both Stewart-Jarrett (“Candyman”) and MacKay (“Pride”, “1917”) deliver fully invested, utterly relatable performances, finding the emotional truth behind their interactions with as much palpable authenticity as they bring to the chemistry between them. They force us to abandon our preconceived ideas about each character by finding the human presence behind them, and it makes the story’s final outcome feel as heartbreaking as it does inevitable.

As for intention, “Femme” – which premiered at last year’s Berlin International Film Festival and went on to gather acclaim across the international film fest circuit – might be a little hard to take for the easily triggered, we won’t deny it. Still, it’s a work of real and thrilling cinematic vision that goes beyond easy morality to highlight the tragedy that comes from being forced to live behind a mask for the sake of societal acceptance. It’s also exciting, smart, and unexpectedly sexy – all of which make it a highly- recommended addition to your watchlist.

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