Original subtitles

- Are we on?

(audience muttering and cheering)

And a classic line,

can everybody hear me in the back?

Good evening ladies, gentlemen, and whoever's in between.

My name is BC Cliver,

and I'm San Francisco Dyke Daddy 1991-92,

(audience cheering)

(punk music)

Tie me up, tie me down �

In a compromising fashion 2

Sisters bound together

By a profane passion �

Nurture and destroy >

All limits as I knew them �

As the whip comes down >

There's a chain reaction >

Let the whip come down >

(whip cracks) I Blood sisters I

And the whip comes down 2

(whip cracks) I Blood sisters I

Imprisoned in your leather sling >

Blood Sisters

Make me beg against my will >

Blood Sisters

Feel seduction of control

Bound together body soul 2

Can you find my clit ring >

I'm in prison in a leather sling >

Leather, ropes, whips, and chains >

Things will never be the same >

I will gladly give in >

Once I am well trained

I won't be topping from the bottom

When the whip comes down

And the whip comes down 2

(whip cracks) I Blood Sisters I

When the whip comes down

(whip cracks) I Blood Sisters I

Imprisoned in your leather sling >

- I was working for

the San Francisco sex information switchboard

as a volunteer, and as part of that volunteer training,

we heard a presentation on SM

that made it sound like something very different

than what I had assumed it was.

And this was back in the mid-seventies.

I'd always had fantasies about SM,

but I had kind of assumed

it was something that you could only do once,

that it was like this terminal activity.

And it had never honestly occurred to me before

that there were real people who did this deliberately

and did it on purpose and talked about it first,

and that they got up and did it again the next day.

(chuckling)

When the whip comes down

(whip cracks) I Blood Sisters I

- There was an ad in the paper in St. Louis

for forming a new chapter

of the National Leather Association

and I got brave for a second and picked up the phone

and talked to somebody I'd never met before,

never seen, and went gee, what exactly is this,

and how do I get involved?

(punk music)

- To be able to answer some questions for people,

to be able to open up a little bit of my personal life

and take away the boogeyman

and really get some people to understand

that they don't need to make decisions

about the political correctness of my sexual behavior,

that this is something that belongs to me

and that they do not have to be threatened by me,

that people into S&M are not ax murders,

that this is not about any of,

you know, peoples' worst nightmares.

(punk music)

(whip cracks)

- [Interviewer] What do you think about

people who are into S&M sexuality?

- Oh, dear, I have nothing to say about that.

- [Interviewer] Have you ever known anybody

who's involved with it?

- No, and I don't want to.

- I think that most of society thinks

that people that practice SM are violent or abusive,

don't care about their partner,

and that what we do is not consensual and agreed upon,

that, I think that they think

that boundaries aren't respected,

and this is all a misconception.

This is all untrue.

- [Interviewer] When you think about people

who are into S&M?

- Oh, whatever whatever turns them on,

it's okay with me.

- [Interviewer] Do you have any--

- As long as they don't try and inflict it on me.

- [Interviewer] do you have any fantasies about it

on your own?

- No.

- [Interviewer] Have you ever had any experience?

- I did it one time, but I've been through therapy,

and I've gotten over that now.

- I can accept that people look at the SM lifestyle

and feel that it's dangerous.

It is dangerous.

That's not a lie, but to feel that

we don't have the right to do it,

I don't accept that.

- Some of the worst relationships I've been in,

have been where you head fuck

and you play mind games with each other

and you don't do SM.

(droning electronic music)

- [Narrator] You know, I'm very convinced most of America,

at some point, has been tied to a bed post somewhere.

And people play with spanking,

and people play with all kinds of things.

And nobody quite wants to say, SM.

You know, are you willing to put yourself out there and say,

okay, this is something that I'm actively involved in.

This is something that I do in my life.

(droning electronic music)

In the beginning,

most of the other women I knew who did SM were not dykes.

They were either bisexual women,

a lot of them were professionals who did SM for money;,

or they were straight women.

It took me a really long time

to meet other dykes who did this.

I think that that was not an accident.

I think that very much

the position of the lesbian community at the time was that

SM was an offshoot of the patriarchy,

and that if you were a masochist,

that was a disease that feminism was gonna cure.

And it was not okay to talk about sex of any kind

real openly in the lesbian community

from the early seventies to the mid-seventies.

And certainly if you were sexually different,

you were driven out of that community

in a really definite and cruel way.

(sensual electronic music)

I always wore leather. My father was a Hell's Angel.

I always wore leather.

I mean, from the time I was very little, I wore leather.

That was just something that I did

cause I rode a bike everywhere I went.

And people kept looking at me funny, you know,

and I thought,

well this is kinda weird.

And then I noticed one day that there were

six other women who were dressed in leather.

And I thought, oh, this is interesting.

Do they ride?

And what do they do?

And then this friend of mine and |

had been reading, "Coming to Power,"

and I thought I was like, you know, a tough SM dyke,

I thought, okay, now I have an identity I can live with.

My friend Pat, who's on the wall behind us,

kept telling me that there was this woman I had to meet,

I just had to meet, I just had to meet.

And so I chased her.

And I just kept like putting myself in her way.

Finally, I got her up to my apartment

where I had all of these toys on the wall.

And so she made a date with me.

And she stuck her fist in my cunt

and I knew that I was home.

- So lesbian sadomasochists kind of threw a monkey wrench

into that whole very simplistic theory of

what sexism was, what human sexuality ought to be,

what a world where women could be free would look like.

And we just upset people

on so many different theoretical levels,

that our presence in the women's movement

was really intolerable to most feminists at that time.

(droning electronic music)

- I'd like you to go back

and find the time at which you experienced

the greatest lust in your life, okay.

If you see what you saw, and hear what you heard,

and feel, what you felt,

you've got a glimmer of an idea of what it's like

to be involved with somebody at that kind of a level

of exchange of emotion, of feeling, of scent.

It's kind of interesting, because,

when people talk about consent,

they have this lofty idea of something that happens

in the left hemisphere and basically in the cortex.

Well, actually, we're people that,

we're animals that are much more involved in our emotions

than in the reasoning mind,

and consent has a derivative in terms of come-scent.

- | went to a very conservative college,

University of Chicago,

and every other year then,

they had a thing called the lascivious costume ball.

And pretty much as a joke,

I went with a male gay friend of mine, and

we went as a leather couple. (whip cracks)

I went down the Pleasure Chest in Chicago

and bought a 12 foot bull whip,

not having any clue whatsoever how dangerous one was,

and little leather underwear,

and I already had boots and a leather jacket

and gloves and all, because I raced a motorcycle.

(pulsing electronic music) And we showed up at this party

as this very hot looking leather couple.

And I had all these men on their knees to me.

And it was a really good thing. (chuckling)

It was silly and it was a lot of fun,

and I think I sort of found a part of me

that I never knew was there.

- I've been doing SM ever since I started having sex,

which was about 16 years old.

The first person I ever slept with,

unfortunately male, I tied up.

And I had no idea what I was doing.

I did it all wrong, I found out way later.

I did some things that weren't very smart,

but weren't dangerous.

And I've been doing it ever since I can remember.

SM has always been a part of what I've done in bed.

And when it hasn't been there, I've missed it.

- Well, first of all, I've been involved

with the leather community for eight or nine years.

And the most SM I had ever done,

until I met my current girlfriend,

was to myself on stage. (chuckling)

- People into leather are not necessarily players.

They're not necessarily SM people.

There's this huge range of leather community.

There are the leather bike clubs,

which are fraternal organizations.

Some people in there are players,

or SM people, some aren't.

There are people who just like the look,

the feel, the whole idea of a leather community.

Or they like the people within the leather community,

they like what the community does,

all the fundraising, the activism, things like that.

And then there's a whole group of SM people

who are not leather identified.

- I started sleeping with women at a really young age,

and I'd never slept with men.

And often when I would be having sex with women,

and it was a little bit rough, I was told I was male in bed.

And I didn't really understand that,

'cause I never really slept with guys.

(whip cracks) So I just,

what I used to get off on was it being rough,

like rough sex. (whip cracks)

And the more and more I got to a point where I realized

that that wasn't how everybody did it,

(sensual electronic music)

I realized that there was something else.

But I didn't meet anybody into SM.

I didn't even know the words SM,

I didn't know that there was a whole concept,

the whole toys to play with, things to do.

So it wasn't really 'til | started meeting women,

probably six years after

I first started sleeping with women,

that actually did our SM and talked about it.

- I experimented with, in the sexual experience,

having some,

you know, having my butt smacked really hard.

I thought that was just the thing, you know,

it was just, well, gee, I need this.

I don't just want a light touch here, you know?

And so you find that, eventually,

as you experience things in life,

and I'm 38 years old, I've had a few experiences.

I've been very precocious.

I started having sexual experiences at 14 years old.

Against my will, some of them,

but anyway, basically, I got an opportunity

to experience a lot of different people

(whip cracking)

With regard to being

(whip cracking) personally, intimately

involved with them.

And I found that the people that,

the ones, the interactions that made me feel the best

and the most excited and the most charged

and the most a part of,

were the ones where there was this degree of intensity,

this energy, which was not abusive,

but it was tough.

(throbbing drum music)

- There's a lot that is really scary about SM.

I mean, it's not like these are,

this is something really simple to go into.

We're talking about passion.

We're talking about our libidos.

We're talking about things that are really, you know,

where it's hard to find hard and fast rules.

It's hard to find your own bound a tries sometimes.

(throbbing drum music)

- What I know about SM is,

it comes, not from a perverted state of being,

but from the most simple, wonderful,

primal nature of who we are as family.

That it challenges us in our intimate relationships

with not only each other, but with ourselves.

It's when you can look in yourself in the mirror

and say, how far will I go?

How far will I take this?

Could I actually leave a permanent mark,

or if you will, injury, on someone

who wishes to prove to me

their undying forever eternal commitment.

And as a signature, as a bond, as a demonstration,

be willing to do that.

It's a consensual, sentient state of relationship.

- There's a whole language you have to learn

when you get involved with a leather community.

(bouncing electronic music)

You know, there's codes, there's hanky codes.

There's words that you use at play parties.

There's safe words.

There's, like I said, a decorum.

There's not just a language to learn,

but a way of behaving that you have to learn.

You know, if you see somewhere in a collar,

how you approach them,

if you are collared, how you approach other people,

if you're flagging left, if you're flagging right.

I mean, all these things, to outsiders are like,

it's a, it's a mystery.

It's like, what the hell are you talking about?

And yet, for so many of us,

it becomes part of a language that we pick up

and that we just use now that we don't even think about.

- I consider myself a femme.

- I am definitely a butch.

- I'm a switch, so I like to do both.

- I primarily identify as a faggot.

I'm really into other butches.

-And I'm,

I'm awfully effete.

I smile, I can read, I wear glasses.

I don't drive a motorcycle, I've got really bad balance.

- You're like a prep school butch.

I'm a prep school,

Noel Coward.

- Yeah.

- And once I can get that across to people,

that I'm an effeminate butch bi woman,

by the time we get that done,

we've been dating for six months

and are probably moving in together. (chuckling)

(bouncing electronic music)

- There's as much need to conform

in the gay lesbian SM leather world

as there is in the straight world.

It's like, we,

I don't know why we do it to each other,

but it's like, okay,

if you're going to be into SM leather, then you have to,

what are your top or a bottom?

You butch or femme?

You know, how long have you been into leather?

Well, do you know how to play safely?

I mean, it's,

the need to label is still there,

because we need to know about each other.

We can't just meet each other and say,

well, you know, let's get to know each other

and see if we can find,

if we like each other.

It's like, well, okay,

are you top or bottom, because I need to know

so I can relate to you on that level.

And we do it probably more than other people do.

Cause it's like, this need to belong

and this need to feel okay with yourself

and with people.

- A friend of mine gave me a term.

She calls me a macho femme.

- I don't want to be called a lesbian.

I'm not a lesbian.

(chuckling)

You know, I'm not even close to a lesbian.

I am related to lesbians, you know, but I am not.

I'm a dyke, and for me, that's a real power word.

And it's a source of pride and strength,

and it has history for me.

- There should be an S&M school, because it's confusing.

I don't think I've sorted it out.

And in some ways it doesn't matter.

You know, I think you get to a point

where you're just like, whatever.

And you know,

just do it in your own way.

It doesn't really matter.

- [Interviewer] A dyke femme who's an anti-separatist?

- Yeah, a dyke SM femme who's anti-separatists.

Boy, I just don't fit any mold, do I?

- [Interviewer] Okay.

- I'm Skeeter, for those who don't know.

She's Kelly, this is Jamie.

Jamie's my girlfriend, Kelly's our slave.

So we have a whole shit load of stuff.

A lot of it we've made.

A lot of it you can buy

at any hardware store, cookery store.

(bouncing electronic music)

You know those painter sticks?

(laughing) - Those are great.

You know, they give them away for free?

You just pick some up 'cause you're home decorating.

Wrap some rubber or leather around the handle.

(sticks slapping)

Meat tenderizer, any cookery store.

- 99 cents. - 99 cents, bargain.

A plastic fork.

I mean, I'm serious, a plastic fork.

They don't even know what it is. You have 'em blindfolded,

they think you have some sort of a fancy toy.

It's a little plastic fork.

(bouncing electronic music)

I'm gonna get you now >

I'm gonna get you now >

(paddle smacking)

- The community does a lot of things.

In the beginning, it was absolutely essential for me.

It was a social system.

It was a learning system.

It was a place to go and

talk about things that you could do, couldn't do,

wanted to try, weren't sure how to do.

- You can use these anywhere on the body.

You can use them as nipple clamps

if you don't have a pair of nipple clamps,

or can't afford them,

you get two clothes pins, you attach the chain.

- [Audience Member] You can buy a bag of 50.

- You can buy a bag of 50.

Attach some chain and you've got tit clamps.

Plastic tubing, you can never have enough plastic tubing.

Enemas, you know, whippings,

you can do so much with plastic tubing.

- [ Think that the SM community is amazingly brave

in whole, just because

it's very hard to be

as out about your sexuality as they are.

- Pliers, turn around.

(pounding electronic music)

If you put tape over the end of pliers,

it just takes the edge off of that sharp metal.

They make great tit clamps.

- (voice in crowd) I bet she doesn't think they're great.

(crowd chattering)

- Top and bottom officially, you know, top is dominant,

bottom is submissive,

but there are people who bottom from the top

and people who top from the bottom.

There are pushy bottoms and there are passive tops.

And it's,

to me top and bottom is,

do you do it to somebody, or do they do it to you?

- To top them?

You have to reach inside their head

and find out what scares them

and push those buttons.

And that's an incredible thing to have somebody let you do,

and to be able to take those things that scare them

and let them see that

they're not going to die if they get scared,

and that they can be scared

and people will still love them

and take care of them and it'll be okay.

And that just kind of bleeds into the rest of your life.

- [Interviewer] They don't know what they want.

- Being a sex goddess is a 24 hour a day job.

Yes, you can never take off your spike heels.

You know, |think that actually most tops

are big fat co-dependents,

and that really what being a top is about

is it's about wanting to please, service, gratify,

and get other people off

and have them turn around and tell you

that you're big and strong and wonderful and scary.

- Oh my, you did that exactly the way I want you to.

Thank you, sir.

- Right, exactly. (laughing)

And that, actually I think that,

the hard part for most tops is being selfish enough

to make sure that they get

some of their own needs met in a scene,

so they don't walk away kind of feeling used

and burned out.

And I think for women in general, that's really hard to do.

It's real difficult for women to be greedy in bed,

and to say, I'm not going to fuck around with you

if you can't do this three things that I need to get off

and have a good time.

- And bottoms get to do the same thing.

They can get involved in service.

A lot of people were told that it's this horrible thing

to want to serve somebody to an extreme.

And yet some people find incredible freedom in serving

and being slaves and being a bottom

and in putting all their focus on somebody else

for that period of time.

- I'm also a masochist,

and I enjoy the heavy pain stimulation.

Physically, I get a lot of rushes.

It's a real greedy good thing that way.

But also as a submissive, I get an extreme amount of joy

in serving my master.

- I identify primarily as a switch,

because it all depends,

what I do depends on the person I'm with.

Some people that I meet,

when I think about playing with them,

I think about bottoming for them.

And sometimes when I meet somebody,

all I can think about

is beating the ever living snot out of them.

So it really depends on the person that I meet,

because I don' identify either way,

only because I have so many different sides

and only choosing one,

I feel it's really limiting to me.

And I'm so good at both.

- And I have definitely seen that,

there are some tops that I've played with

that can dish out major amounts of intense body pain,

but you can't do that to them,

cause they can't handle it physically,

if at all mentally.

- I wrap people in full body wraps

and what we call mummification.

I play games with knives

where I don't actually cut people or draw blood,

but I like to play intimidation scenes.

I play with power tools and I like to scare people.

I think I like to watch the look

of real fear in people's eyes.

Just because it gives me a rush.

(punk music)

Black leather struts about my face, about her face >

- Get over here now.

And the boot came crashing down �

What are you looking at?

You don't look at me in the face, you look down.

And when you talk to me, you call me sir.

What do you want?

What do you want?

Why are you here?

You don't even know what you want, do you?

You want to be on your knees right now, huh?

Don't fuck with me.

If you fuck with me,

I'll take a knife and I'll press it to your throat.

And I'll keep pressing until | cut your throat right open.

Don't even look at me.

Her hands in strips of cowhide bounds >

Blood drips out between them 2

Onto the ground >

Where are you going?

You want to leave now?

You don't wanna play anymore?

But you haven't got what you came for.

Have you?

Yeah, you better back up.

You better move right away from me.

Cause I'll fuck you up, you hear me.

Crashing down >

They came crashing down 2

They came crashing down on her �

- Some people live an entire SM relationship.

Their whole relationship is based on SM.

You know, just living out that dynamic

of one person being the top and one person being the bottom.

And then there are people like myself who

don't live that lifestyle all the time.

I'm a mom, I'm very independent.

I'm a performance artist and a producer.

And I can't, and don't want to,

live my entire life within an SM relationship.

- In fact, the few people I've met who try to be tops

24 hours a day, I think are psychotic.

And I would not let anybody I cared about play with them.

I think that's an insane position to take in your life.

You wind up walking around

like you've got a crow bar up your ass, you know?

And you're you wind up being so brittle

that if anything goes wrong, you fall into a million pieces.

We have to keep a sense of humor about ourselves.

I mean, come on, you know,

we dress up in all these funny clothes

and haul 80 pounds of equipment into the bedroom

before we can try to get off.

There's something inherently really silly about that.

- You carry role playing,

and you carry the way you deal with things

in the leather community and the SM community

and deal with each other sexually, out into the world,

I think SM gives you a clearer sense of self,

a clearer sense of how to communicate with people,

especially very directly.

And a clearer sense of your boundaries,

and what is going to be, you know,

that's absolutely no, I don't stand for that.

And that's not just sexual things of,

well, no, you can't tie me up that way,

That's things in everyday life, you know,

how can people treat me?

What kind of treatment do I think is okay?

- [Robin] Something we do when we teach

classes about SM technique

is to make it really clear that any act

can be done from any role orientation.

You can be a butch bottom who is fucking your butch top

and still have that be in role space if that's important.

- You can go down on somebody from a dominant perspective.

That really is your choice.

- You can be in the dominant role and get hurt, you know.

- And that's some of what I think

people outside of the SM community don't get.

They very much have the stereotype

that certain roles go with certain behaviors

and that's all very codified and rigid and fixed.

What they don't realize

is just what big perverts we really are. (laughing)

- Twisted, twisted, twisted, twisted.

- Yeah.

- Part of what happens is that,

(droning electronic music)

In that educational process,

having done SM 101 for people for years,

I have noticed that

the things that I have helped to put into that process,

people now think is gospel,

which was explanatory, and which was an entry point.

The ability of people

to take something and make a belief system of it

is one of the things that I think that is intensely human.

And I watch people do this with SM all the time,

or with gender issues.

And they stop thinking,

well, wait a minute, is it safe,

Is it sane, is it consensual?

When?

(driving rock music)

Safe sex >

Safe sex >

Gonna find out where I'm going 2

Gonna find out where you've been >

Gonna find out where you're coming from I

If you want to be my friend >

Give me safe sex

Safe sex >

Safe sex >

You can buy 'em in a Safeway

You can buy 'em in a club I

But don't you know it, honey, yeah >

It's gotta fit like a leather glove �

Give me safe sex

Safe sex >

Safe sex >

(clapping)

- It's great to see it so crowded here.

I hope you all like clothes pins and any buy ons.

We're gonna explain the system as we go along,

because once we get the slaves up here

and we get them price-tagged,

you'll have a better understanding

of how much the pegs are gonna cost

and where you can put them.

I just want to say one thing.

What these two people are gonna do up here

is quite hard.

They're gonna have pegs put on them

by people they don't know.

So anyone who's had a clothespin on them knows

that it can be really painful.

So what I ask is,

if you buy a clothespin

and you put it on a body part,

that you treat them with respect.

You don't just slam it on or tear the skin,

you put it on slowly and gently.

Make it erotic, let's not make it dangerous.

- [Person With Microphone] In the shoulders,

two dollar clothespins.

- I used to be monogamous by default.

I mean, what it was is that I was obsessive.

And it wasn't that I was monogamous by nature,

it was that I couldn't focus on anybody else.

I didn't want anybody else

if I was in a relationship with somebody.

Thankfully that's passed. (laughing)

(crowd chattering)

(driving music)

- [Person Wearing Boots] Thanks.

(whip cracking)

(crowd cheering)

- Because you're gay, and then because you're SM or leather,

you lose biological families,

you lose blood families, because you're cast out.

People don't all have the support of their family.

And that's a very sad thing.

And I think what happens is you, because we're,

human beings and tend to want to group

and make families that

you then learn to be with people in a different way.

And you make a family of a different sort.

'Cause you can be out out there

as much as you want on your own, but it's a hard world.

And when you're, you know,

getting shit for being a lesbian,

and shit for being a butch dyke

and shit for having tattoos, and being SM,

and to just come home to family who go, you know,

you're great and you're beautiful.

And everything you do is okay.

This is just a very good thing.

- | lost all my friends.

You know, I lost everybody

who was my friend before I came out into SM.

And it was really painful.

And I felt like I was gradually getting shoved

into the smaller and smaller and smaller social universe.

But that's not the only part of what happens

when you come out.

It's not just a process of loss.

It also means you don't need to hide anymore.

It means you don't need to lie.

It means that you can check out things

that you would have been afraid to check out before

'cause you're so busy keeping a big secret.

It's like a big weight comes off of your back, you know?

And I think that makes it easier

to deal with the negative stuff,

'cause you're no longer divided against yourself.

(punk music)

Seems to me life is a sacrifice �

When things are going good

You will pay the price >

Life is a sacrifice >

When things are going good

You will pay the price, oh �

(siren blaring)

(whip cracking) (crowd cheering and clapping)

It's happening again

Here it comes again

When you you thought it would never end �

Oh no, it's coming �

- One of the things that the queer community has

over straight people in general,

is that our lives have been made political

by our sexual identity.

So there's no part of our life that we don't look at.

Because we look at ourselves as sexual beings,

we deal with that in everything we do.

(punk music)

Oh no, it's happening again >

Oh no, here it comes again �

- Every time you come out as a leather person to somebody,

that's a political statement.

And every time that you challenge somebody else's prejudices

and challenge your own prejudices,

or somebody makes some crack or somebody says something,

and you say, no, I don't agree with that,

that's a political action.

(punk music)

- Well, it's hard to define activism,

especially when you're a member of a sexual minority

that is as stigmatized and as threatened as SM people are.

On a certain level, yes,

just coming out and saying to yourself

and a few other people, I'm an SM person,

is a political act.

But from the very beginning,

we've needed to do a lot more than that

to extend the boundaries of our territory

and have space to really give meaning to our lives

as leather people.

(punk music)

Oh no, it's happening again >

Oh no, here it comes again �

When you thought it would never end >

Oh no, it's coming �

- I do a lot of organizing around the religious right,

I've done that in the recent past.

I've done a lot of actions around queer visibility,

around Queer Nation, and around Act Up,

and around AIDS phobia, and sexism,

and the isms and all the stuff.

- I was a Vietnam war demonstrator.

And I remember my husband telling me

that if I went to a demonstration that he would leave me.

- In the beginning, we found it really necessary

to go into women's bookstores

that weren't carrying our publications

and mill around and say,

where's this book, I want to read it, why isn't it here?

This is a woman's bookstore, I'm a woman.

This is a publication that was produced by women.

I want to read it.

Where is it, why don't you sell it?

And a lot of activism like that still needs to be done.

I think that one of the reasons why

I've concentrated more on writing

and less on physical confrontation

is because my experience is that writing goes places

where a picket line never can.

But to simply get my work out there,

it's necessary to have an accompanying element

of political activism.

All my books have been seized and banned in Canada.

- It was some time in the early to mid-eighties

that NOW came out with a statement

to support lesbian and gay rights,

but they found it necessary to say

that, but supporting lesbian and gay rights

doesn't mean that we're supporting

sadomasochism, pedophilia and a bunch of other stuff.

It seems like we sort of dropped the ball for a long time,

that a lot of people burn themselves out

in trying to fight

the mainstream feminist community,

who does not necessarily see a women's right, need,

to explore their own desires,

to take responsibility for their own desires

and their own sexual pleasure

as on their agenda, as being feminist.

And they're more interested in convoluted theories

of how you've internalized the patriarchal system.

And I'm sorry, when I look at my life

and what is going to make me happy

and what's going to work for me as a woman

and as a human being,

I've got to look to my pleasure.

Pleasure is a priority.

- Most of the time when people have gone to jail

for SM activity, it has been because the court ruled

there was a lack of consent.

- Homosexuality in Texas is illegal.

SM is illegal.

Within the last few months,

there was an instance where an issue of "Venus In Furs"

was sent to someone in the prison system,

and it was taken away

because it portrayed SM, or quote, violence.

It had no consideration for whether it was consensual,

erotic or otherwise.

It was, in their terms, violent, it is not approved.

- When they did the civil rights riots in the sixties

and the blacks fought for so many things,

and they passed so many laws,

they passed 20 laws, federal laws,

protecting black people from discrimination.

And then in the next 17 years,

they repealed every one of those laws except for three.

Three, three, that's all that's left.

I mean, you can't trust them

and you can't take your eyes off of 'em.

And you can't ever think that you're winning,

because you're not.

- So we really cant exist without activism.

The opinion of the majority is that SM is a sick thing,

that we're queer kind of queers.

And even a lot of the queer community

doesn't want us to be here.

So if we're not vigilant, if we're not warriors,

and if we don't defend our territory, we will be lost.

They will win.

It's really hard to stand firm, and it's really scary,

but we have to do that.

It's really urgent.

And so, I think that that's one of the bonds that I have

with other leather women, we're brave.

Because if you're not brave, you can't do this.

It takes a lot of courage.

(punk music)

Life is a sacrifice >

Life is a sacrifice >

Life is a sacrifice >

- Actually, 1992 is a pretty good year.

We got a Democrat in the White House.

(audience cheering)

That was cool, that was cool.

And I'm tellin' ya,

I know that President Bush shit his pants

when he saw LL Cool J doing a rap for Bill Clinton.

- Just three hours from now,

the nation's capital will become the focal point

for the fight for gay rights.

Our extensive coverage begins this morning

with James Adams, who's live on the mall.

I take it you already have some gatherers.

(pounding electronic music)

(crowd cheering)

- [Pat] I think we had an opportunity

to make a really strong statement.

And instead, we marched to an empty White House,

and passed an empty Congress.

And it's not even like,

well, they weren't there for that day.

I mean, they all took off for the weekend.

Let's face facts.

The president wasn't in town.

Do they have to confront the fact that

a million people were there saying,

we're not putting up with this shit anymore?

No, you know, does the president

fully have to acknowledge you if he's not in town?

No.

(pounding electronic music)

And I think that's what we were in Washington for.

Say, we have the right to live our lives as we see fit,

however we see fit.

Because we contribute to this economy.

We contribute to the workforce.

And just because you don't see us,

because, there's no reason for us all to get on Oprah

and say, you know,

I do this and I do that, and watch how I do it.

But that there are legitimate individuals out here

living their lives, doing leather SM lifestyles,

who are not raving maniacs,

who are not sick people,

who function just as all other Americans

are expected to function,

and we have the right to make that presence known.

And I think that was the goal.

And I think it was accomplished.

- I think a lot of it's just a matter of respect.

It's self respect, it's community respect,

and it's a willingness to stand up

and quite possibly take verbal and physical abuse

from people that you don't even know,

because they don't understand what you represent.

So you have to be an educator, you have to be a politician.

You have to learn to get along with people

that you can't stand.

- [Angry Man] Get 'em out of here.

Get 'em out of here.

Get 'em out of here.

(crowd yelling)

Go ahead, start a riot.

Get 'em out of here.

Send 'em home.

(pounding electronic music)

- I'm not surprised that Bill Clinton

didn't attend the march on Washington.

I am not surprised because he's a politician.

And to me, people that run for office,

even if it's dog catcher,

they sell people out and they make promises they won't keep.

- The one platform plank that deals with

what we would consider an SM issue is

is dealing with consentuality.

- If you hit somebody,

just in terms of some of the physicalities of S&M,

I can't consent to being assaulted.

And you know, a court of law is going to see

somebody flogging me,

somebody spanking me, somebody slapping my face,

somebody kicking me,

as being, as being violence, as being an assault,

and you can't consent to assault.

And there is no legal definition of S&M.

- They're not trying to make you happy,

they'll say whatever comes to their mind.

I think he's a major step up

from George, the genocidal maniac Bush and Reagan.

I can't say, you know, Ronald, I can't say Reagan, AIDS.

I can't say AIDS Reagan.

Did I screw that up?

Aw please don't put that in there.

- I think that for sure,

we really would have benefited from Clinton's presence

in the city.

Whether he had even chosen

to come out of the White House or not,

just having been there and acknowledged the leaders

of the march and the organizers and you know,

it's a stamp of approval when the political leader is there,

whether they ride in your parade or not, you know?

And so I think there was, in the wind,

there was a hint of trouble ahead

from him not being there.

I mean, that was a clear sign that

something's not gonna,

something's rotten here

and it's not going to play in our favor down the road.

- So the march on Washington will also serve as

kind of a,

it'll set an example of what can be accomplished

if we all work together.

This would be the largest civil rights demonstration

in US history, flat out.

(whip cracking) (crowd cheering)

(pounding electronic music)

- I've never been hit with a bull whip before.

That is intense.

- [Interviewer] It looks really intense.

- So it's now possible, actually,

to skip a whole bunch of preliminary stages

in the slow and painful struggle I had

to accept my own sadomasochism,

and you can just come out into leather

without bothering to come out queer first,

or lose your virginity.

I mean, I meet little young dykes

who have never done anything else, except SM,

and it's like, (laughing) it's different.

It's really different.

On one level I,

yeah, no, I'd say I feel like they're lucky, you know?

It's exciting to see

that you can really make social change happen.

(upbeat sensual music)

See the sun and

See the rain 2

See the window

See the pain >

See the sun and

See the rain 2

See the bird's eye �

See the brain

Ancient cities rise again 2

See microscopic see world view >

See the future

Leaking through 2

See the person >

Who once was you J

See the seashore and >

Seethe sand >

See your windows >

In your hand �

See the lie �

Gold is the sky >

In concentrate >

Powering in it's purest state >

Power surge

Power will rise 2

Through the windows

And through the skies �

Through the sky and >

Feels good �

See the eye and �

See the sky and �

In your hand in the sky 2

See your eye and �

See the hand and �

See the sky and �

- Our new International Ms. Leather 1993 is,

I always wanted to wait for this moment,

(laughing)

Amy Marie Meek.

(upbeat rock music) (cheering)

- It's like a beauty pageant.

You get to dress up,

you get to do fantasies.

You get to compete for a sash.

And it's a lot of fun.

(upbeat electronic music)

It's also a great way to meet people.

But on the more serious side,

you, as a title holder in the city,

you usually are supposed to do fundraisers

and raise money for, you know, do benefits.

And so often contests fit in by,

being a forum for raising money.

- [Announcer] Contestant number four,

Ms. Sacramento Valley Leather, Jennifer.

(cheering)

Contestant number five,

Ms. Watering Hole Leather, Kelly Burlingham.

(cheering)

(upbeat electronic music) - What it means

to be a title holder is,

you make a commitment to the community.

It's a level of social service.

You are, typically when you get a title,

you sign a contract, and they will tell you,

you will do this many fundraisers.

And they'll try to explain the scope of those fundraisers,

you know, two small, one major.

You are expected to travel

to support other leather functions,

to support other leather communities,

to be available to people

who are interested in getting into the community,

to make yourself accessible.

- She works for the health department in Santa Clara.

(cheering)

Her current or previous titles are,

well, she says she's just plain old Trashy Tina.

Her age,

when asked her age she says, a lady never tells,

but I'm no fucking lady.

I'm 32 and sexually peaking.

(audience cheering)

She has 10 piercings, you find them, and two tattoos.

- You see, it's very funny as well,

because within a certain community, you get famous.

I mean, you're a title holder, that means something.

You go to events and you have a sash on,

or you've got a little studded pad die

on your back of your vest

and you are something and you are somebody.

But outside of the leather community,

or outside of San Francisco,

you're nobody more than you were.

I mean, outside people don't recognize a title.

But for that moment,

it's again why I think a lot of us do it is,

for that moment, you have a little bit of fame and glory.

You have a little bit of spotlight.

You know, it's a nice feeling.

You get recognized and it's really affirming.

And people really come up and, in a way it's fucked up too,

because people want to come up and meet you

and shake your hand.

And last week when you were at the bar,

they weren't talking to you,

and this week, cause you're wearing a sash,

they're like, hi, my name is, and here's my card,

and can I help you.

- To have fun, stay wicked,

but most of all, to stay wet.

(audience cheering)

(laughing)

- Oh, it is a big ego trip for me though.

I mean, not that big, but it is.

And it was especially initially,

because you do feel special, you do feel wanted.

And you walk into a party,

and everybody cheers for you

and you get on stage and every cheers for you.

And what I've come to realize is that,

probably they're just cheering for lesbian visibility,

because it's a strong statement to say,

to be a female leather titleholder,

to be International Ms. Leather.

Yeah, I mean, I would cheer just that,

regardless of what I might think of the contest

or of that woman, or of anything,

not knowing her at all, it makes no difference,

just the concept I would cheer.

- I'm here to talk to you today about limitations.

The limitations that are placed on each of us by society.

A society that decides who and what we should be

based on our race, our gender, our ethnicity,

our sexual orientation.

The stereotypes get turned into laws.

The laws that put the Spanner men into jail

for attempting to assault themselves.

The laws that don't allow Native Americans

to practice tribal ritual in 20 states of the union,

while white men can practice those rituals in those states.

- If you look at the leather community as a tribe,

and you have the people that are older,

who have been previous title holders,

or who founded bars or clubs,

and you say that those are the elders,

then a title holder,

because that's where your panel of judges comes from,

is the elders,

the title holder is accepting initiation

to learn the traditions of the tribe.

- Excuse me, it's 10 o'clock,

do I know where my children are?

Where are they?

There's one, there's some over there.

There's a few over there.

(audience shouting)

Well, I had a speech written,

but all that I have to say is,

because I'm the mommy, that's why.

(audience cheering and clapping)

- There is a vital difference

between non-consensual abuse

and a consensual decision to play with power.

And I'm not going to say that there aren't people

who jump that line,

but if you have defined with somebody,

what you want and what you find erotic,

what you find sensual,

and you choose to do this together, that's not abuse.

- Which is like psychological abuse play,

I think is the most difficult,

because it involves interacting with thinking.

And it's hard to second guess in a way, like,

someone's, you know,

four quarts of blood drained out of someone,

you know that there are eight, so you've got four to go.

- [Interviewer] Really?

- But how do you know

the limits of psychological devastation?

It's an inside out job that's very different.

How do you monitor,

how do you monitor fear.

How do you monitor?

- It's a spiritual thing for me,

it's a way for me to go someplace else besides here.

And it's a way for me to take everything that happens to me

outside that hurts, make hurt reality,

and then it can heal for me.

That's what happens.

And it's a way to get close to people.

You know, you really have to trust somebody

to do this stuff.

- I don't believe for a minute

that there aren't people who abuse their power

in the SM lifestyle.

I know they do.

There are people who will do that.

They'll abuse their power in a candy store,

wherever they are.

But you have a choice.

- So I like to raise those questions, like,

when is it battery?

I don't know.

'Cause certainly I have used SM

as violence against women, you know, sex is a weapon, truly.

- And for a lot of people,

there's this whole thing of the wall,

of breaking through these walls.

If the bottom, are saying, I can't take this,

the top's saying, I can't keep doing this.

I don't believe I'm doing this.

Every now and then it's like,

God, I am a sick fuck.

What am I doing this for?

I can't believe I'm doing this to somebody.

And then you go through it and you go past it

and you do hit that high.

You do hit that endorphin rush.

And then you know, that's one more thing I can do.

That's one more step I can take.

And that's one more layer of bullshit

that's been pushed on me that I got past.

- You know, it just gives you so much more.

I have the ability to negotiate

what I will and will not have in my experiences.

I didn't have that years ago.

Things just happened.

You know, shit happens, and you're just part of it.

Well, shit seldom happens to me now.

You can do very intense things to a person's body

and they will be fine the next day.

You know, if you take care of somebody, they're, okay.

And that's the primary difference with abuse.

You can abuse somebody even lightly,

totally non-consensual stuff,

they're not fine the next day.

And they're not fine the next week,

and it's gonna take a long time

to get over the fact that they were abused.

You know, that's leaving them psychologically damaged.

Consensual SM is leaving somebody stronger.

(calm piano music) - And I remember one night,

and it'll always stay with me,

where we had been playing for quite a while,

and I had her tied up, and I just had a knife

and I had the point of the knife

trailing across her throat and trailing down her body,

and just was playing with the knife.

And it was like, we were in a dream,

because we were both so high

and so gone on the energy that we were sharing,

and nothing else existed,

nothing else in the world but us two.

And the whole time we kept eye contact.

And you lose yourself in it.

There's no sense of tomorrow.

There's no sense of anything that's been or gone or will be.

It's just that moment with someone.

And she just had this look in her eye,

and I remember trailing the knife up her chest

and to her throat,

and I just held the point at her throat,

and she was just pushing onto it slowly,

and I wasn't moving and I just held it there.

And she just looked at me,

she looked right up into my eyes and she said,

just do it.

And at that moment,

she was offering me her life.

That was what it was,

she was completely serious about offering me her life.

And that was the ultimate of where we were going.

It was, if she could give me her life

and I could take it as a gift,

then we had reached the climax

of where we were going on our journey together.

And it was a strange moment,

because I've always considered myself completely sane.

And I feel if ever I get to a point

where I'm insane or crazy doing SM,

I would stop, because that becomes very dangerous.

And it was,

everything disappeared in that moment.

And it would have been So easy to just do it.

It would have been so easy to take the gift

and take her life.

And I don't know what stopped me.

I think I had to bring in images of the court case,

and the murder, and the getting rid of the body,

and the being in prison for the rest of my life,

and her not being there anymore,

missing her desperately

and not wanting her to go away from me,

not being ready to let her go.

And I let all that in,

in a flash and was like (sharp exhaling)

Pulled the knife away.

But that moment was enough,

the moment that she had just looked at me

and had given me that gift.

It didn't really need to go any further.

But it was really interesting,

because I don't know if I hadn't let all those images in,

if I would have just slipped that knife

right through her throat.

I think that's been the ultimate moment in my SM life.

(upbeat electronic music)

- [Peggy] The good things about the leather community are,

really hot sex,

really hot sex, (laughing)

Really hot sex,

really mean sex, really painful sex.

Butches, femmes.

Upsetting everybody else on the block.

- And I don't castigate anyone

for their inability to understand,

because nobody is ever going to understand

another person's viewpoint on life.

Because you can't ever get inside far enough

to be able to go, oh, so that's what you mean.

It's not like you can look in a telescope

and see the same thing.

(upbeat electronic music)

- As a leather Dyke,

one of the most important things to me,

is to pass on knowledge.

Because if we don't take responsibility

for teaching other people,

not only will they make mistakes and they'll do it wrong,

but they might not come back. - And it would be a real pity

if the progress we've made so far got lost

because we're not willing to delegate, pass things on,

and basically let new people with more energy

come on up and take their turn.

I really like being an older dyke

and letting all the younger dykes lift heavy things,

(laughing)

And take responsibility,

and show me how big and strong and smart they are.

You know, they're like competent and they're talented,

and they do things I never would've thought of doing.

I think it's very cool.

(upbeat electronic music)

- I know that if I were to be born again

the way I was this time,

and I could look up

into pictures of faces of these women,

I know that I would feel better.

I would hope that young women

would look at these photographs

and know that there were women like them,

and they didn't have to be afraid,

because they didn't have to,

nobody could say, hey, people like you don't exist.

Uh-uh, look, look.

People like me do exist.

Cool huh?

And that's sweet, that's sweet.

And it's a simple thing, it's a small thing,

but it's really, really important.

(soulful rock music)