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hausboy -> RE: Before the Internet Arrived... (9/13/2010 10:15:04 PM)
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I was brought into my first leather bar when I was 19.... I met my first Mistress through a mutual friend, and I wore what we called "social cues." If you looked closely, you could see that I had small chain collar on under my shirt. I had a plain black leather wristband (this was before they were fashionable) and that was pretty obvious to those "in the know." Women weren't welcome in the leather bars (this was East Coast, late 80's/early 90's) unless they knew someone--my Mistress was well known in the leather community so she was able to "smuggle" me inside. She made it clear that I was there as her property for the evening, and so hands off to everyone else.
I was in college--art school, no less-- and so you could pretty much look any way you chose....and so I had the freedom to dress in leather most of the time. It's a freedom that I never took for granted, and knew that many of my counterparts never had such luxury. When I moved to S.F. after college, while I couldn't exactly go to work in leather and chains, I always wore my collar under my clothes, keys on the right, and flagged (hankerchief).
Once I made connections with the right folks, I was brought into some of the best play spaces and the best folks I've ever known-- and typically, the only way to score an invite was to know someone in the scene, who brought you in. The newsletters were paper newsletters, and to get on a mailing list, you had to know someone who would vouch for you. Reputation was everything--and if you slammed someone's rep, you had better been able to back it up or you'd never get allowed in the door again.
I'm not that old--but old enough to be around before the world wide web...and saw what the internet did. While the silver lining was that hundreds of thousands of folks no longer felt alone in their fetishes/desires, and found others like them....I saw the internet destroy the underground S/M world as I knew it. I long to have those days back....where eye contact and subtle cues led to conversation and negotiation, in person, over coffee. And the next day, we checked in over the phone. No email. No text. No bullshit.
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