How Leather Bars Helped Me Fall Back In Love With Myself

“Want to butch it up and come to The Eagle with me?” my best friend asked. 

It was 3 am and we were on the phone, talking about how much we both missed the Leather community, and how trapped and invisible I felt in my (femme) gender presentation. A month before, my partner of 19 years walked out on our family, and the Daddy/boi 24/7 BDSM power exchange dynamic that had defined our relationship and daily life. To say I was feeling unmoored was an understatement.  

“I miss the Leather bar, but don’t you think I’m all washed up?” I nervously asked. 

“The fuck you are!” 

Despite my insecurities, I couldn’t help but laugh thinking about the years I’ve spent in service to community, the comments and messages I regularly get from readers of my Leather books. And so I agreed to go to a bar filled with cisgender men the next weekend.  I’m straight edge. I don’t (and never have) drank or done drugs, so bars are not my go-to place to hang out, but it’s impossible even for me not to recognize the cultural significance that bars have played in LGBTQ+ culture. 

I discovered BDSM and Leather culture in the early 2000s right after I came out as queer. I was newly eighteen, newly queer, and couch surfing after my family kicked me out. I vividly remember walking into my local queer youth center and watching a little butch fall to their knees in submission next to the stompy boots of another butch who was shooting pool. My whole body shivered. I had never really understood romance, but I understood this.  I was instantly drawn to the ritual and history of Leather culture. It didn’t take me long to start playing/scene-ing myself.  For me, queerness and Leather have always been intertwined. I regard BDSM/Kink as the kind of sex or sexual play someone might engage in, but Leather, which historically comes out of gay men bar culture, is rooted in community, culture, history, and ritual. It’s a way of life, not just about having kinky sex. 

That weekend, as my friend and I were getting ready to go out to The Portland Eagle (a historically significant and globally used name for many leather bars), he braided my nearly waist-length hair tight into a French braid.  I bought a chest binder for the first time in years. It felt like a hug from myself, reminding me I could still shape-shift. I picked a black Leather conference shirt from the bottom of my closet and put it on. I looked in the mirror and felt like myself, for one of the first times in a long time. My heart was bruised up, but my sense of self was shockingly solid. 

As we stood in line to get into the bar, I wondered how I would be perceived. All my serious relationships have been rooted in BDSM and Leather power exchange. I’ve written books about queer Leather and taught leather storytelling workshops at conferences and dungeons from San Francisco to New York. Yet, I knew the (cis) men in that bar were unlikely to know that. I didn’t know if they would take me seriously. The last thing I wanted was for them to feel like I was appropriating their space. At the same time, it was my space too. That is, if I could bravely walk back through that door.  

 “I like your shirt,” the man working the door winked at me, and I felt myself blush and smile. 

I was the only gender weirdo dyke-shaped creature there, but I felt seen, for who and what I was. 

In the bar, the smell of cigar smoke, sweat, and leather blended together in an intoxicating mix that smelled like home. I watched gay men parading past in leather chest harnesses, pup hoods, and jockstraps.  I flagged a black handkerchief in my right back pocket and my old boots’ scuffs shone in the rotating light of the disco ball.  I’ve been trained to boot black (a service-based skill in Leather culture about polishing boots). I know how to care for leather and how to make boots shine, but I’m also, at my roots, a leather punk. I like the scuffs in my boots; they show where I’ve been. The gouges that came from kneeling on dungeon floors, tripping up NYC subway steps late for work, stumbling off hayrides at pumpkin patches. My boots show my scars. Like me, they are imperfect but still strong. Standing in the dark bar, cis-gay porn on the TV behind me, laughing with my friend and sipping my juice, I started standing a little taller. 

“You know you just got cruised right?” my friend whisper-yelled over the pulsing music.  

It had been a long time since I’d realized people might see me for who I am, and find me attractive. After all, it was just a month after my ex-partner/Daddy had left me. I was reeling, fragile, trying to figure out who I was – and more importantly – who I wanted to be.

I have always had a complicated relationship to lesbian as an identity. I’m not a girl – I identify as nonbinary / leather boi –  and the people I date/fuck/am attracted to are AFAB, but are not “girls” either. In my late teens and early 20s, I went on testosterone and lived masculine, then I pivoted and went super femme. Reconnecting with Leather spaces helped me feel ready to cut my hair in June, and leave my long braid severed on the floor. I was ready to return to my “gender trash” androgynous presentation.  

For the first few months after my ex-Daddy/partner left, I didn’t need anyone to flirt with me, beyond a double-take, cruising glance. I felt safe in the background. I just needed to exist amongst my people, so I could remember who I was. As the months went on, I started feeling stronger. Watching Leather men cruise, flirt, and touch around me, I started to think about if I was ready to physically put myself out there. One Saturday night after leaving The Eagle, over a late-night diner dinner with my best friend, I blurted out a worried confession.

“I don’t know who I could trust to (consensually) take me down after everything that has happened. Who could hold that? Who would want to?” I trailed off as a waitress brought us greasy mozzarella sticks. 

“When you’re ready, you’ll know,” my friend wisely advised, popping a fry into his mouth.  

Months later, I was ready to keel and submit to a trusted Top, a friend who shared my Leather history and ethics. I knew my submission was being honored and desired – not pitied or taken for granted. Leather gave me my body back, and I cherished the realization that I was not broken, that I was still good. The Leather community held me starting when I was eighteen, and now, over two decades later, at forty, when my life fell apart.

In the afterglow of the scene, I knew I had to thank the self-confidence I gained (back) on all those Saturday nights spent boot-to-boot with community. Being the only dyke in the bar helped me rebuild my sense of self. I now have the confidence to pursue the kind of interactions I crave with other Leather dykes of all genders, and the strength to be present in my body. From those early days in queer youth centers, regardless of what gender presentation I’ve held, Leather culture, men, and dykes, and gender weirdos and the edges of spaces we share have always been my home. I feel solid in who I am standing in a leather bar, boots planted to the concrete floor. There is a place for a gender-weird boi like me.

I still go to The Eagle, and the nights end with spinning disco lights across everyone’s mirror-shined boots. I smile down at my boots, perfectly scuffed and scarred. They show where they have been, just the way I like them. Just the way I like myself.