DEAR ANDREA: I'm often asked some of the same questions you are, so I read "Power Down" [alt.sex.column, 9/3/03] with interest. Of course, one problem with the whole leather/S-M tradition thing is that it's too young. It claims an authentic legacy, but it's actually been less than a generation, and that history is not yet fossilized. The scene is in transition: Is it accepted? Is it assimilated? Is it perpetual rebellion? Are we really just a subset of a community? If it's just a behavior, explain the many leather clubs and institutions that organize, raise money, and fight intolerance, isolation, and disease as they threaten us. Have we have won a place at the table, and if so, do we have anything to contribute to polite dinner conversation?

On top of that, we are a self-identified tribe/community/family/subculture/criminal class. Considering there's no licensing, inheritance, card, or certification, is it any wonder that some folks are a bit insecure about the details of their own "leatherocity?"

I've been writing for nearly 30 years. I know the frustration, but folks like you and I have to be patient. It isn't easy to explain things in terms understood by the outsider, the novice, the experienced, and our self-appointed (somewhat jaded) correctors.

As far as risk, danger, or excitement, there were a few thrilling moments in the early days. One can grow so wistfully nostalgic for the court injunctions, the death threats, the "special" regulations applied to leatherfolks and businesses. There were police raids, entrapments, malicious prosecutions, threatening notes from everyone from the postal inspector to customs agents. I suppose getting the crap beat out of you for wearing leather in public could be considered "edgy and daring" (lest you think those days are over, remember that a man died in San Francisco just a few years ago in just such an incident).

To some, putting on leather is merely "sharing a taste for certain sensations," but to others it has been a subversive social action with consequences, a political and personal coming out, and an act of defiance. If indeed there's no more risk to S-M today than to a game of golf in the rain, perhaps it's because many of the risks were absorbed before we got here. In case one is looking for more risk, I get many letters from readers across the country whose communities still present them with that level of excitement. And whether folks enjoy playing or arguing about playing (which, I'm sure, is a form of S-M itself), we as writers have an important job to do: to patiently continue educating, to continue the discussion, and to make damned sure we never have to re-win the freedom and progress that's been made.

Love, Longtime Leather Journalist

Dear LL: I agree that our forefloggers had to struggle to make the world safe for kinkocity. I'm pretty sure, though, that most of the change we've seen is a side effect of gay activism and increasing gay visibility, just as the murder you reference was probably a gay bashing, not a specifically anti-leather hate crime. Some is merely due to changing times – lots of things that are now acceptable, or even fashionable, were once taboo. Whichever. Safety may be dull, but I'll take it over being hounded, raided, or hit on the head. At least in the larger cities of the more enlightened Western democracies, "live and let live" is finally more or less the order of the day, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I don't think it's reasonable, however, for S-M people to insist on being recognized in polite society. There will probably never be, nor should there be, slave benefits available through one's employer. I doubt it will ever be acceptable to wear your ball gag and body harness to your cousin's wedding. Nobody wants to see that. It's simply not the same – it's not as important – as being able to bring your same-sex partner to the wedding. Leaving your partner at home and bringing along a beard means you're hiding, lying, allowing yourself to be oppressed. A kink couple eschewing leathers and public role-play for the duration of a family event is just being decent.

The community, such as it is, is indeed in transition, but I think it's going to be stuck there for a good long time. I'll never be convinced that S-M, tribal subculture blah blah or not, should earn its participants a "seat at the table" or protected-class status. Moreover, one can't occupy that seat and still get to be a cool, culture-jamming criminal class. "Just like everybody else" (except for all these eyebolts in my ceiling), or different and dangerous? What's it going to be?

There's no question that S-M people gather, form affinity groups, and perform good works. That doesn't make them a "people," however; it makes them a club. Clubs are good. S-M people, meet the Elks, the historical reenactors, and the Junior League. You're all nice people. That's people, not peoples, mind you.

Love, Andrea