Deirdre Darling

do not even worry brother ive thought of everything

I don't want anyone to be mean to you because you seem young, or at least young in terms of exploring this sort of topic, maybe?

But you have radically misunderstood what kink is about, friend, and how long it's been around. And most of what you are assuming and saying is... really dismissive and inaccurate. You're projecting.

We don't want to rub it in, we want to express pride and joy. I don't mean shallow, individualist pride, I mean the deepest sense. True community, true LOVE for our community. Pride is an affirmation by us, for us. (Including the kink community.) Not a way to show off for other people.

The haters will never respect us no matter what we do. We aren't aiming for that with Pride or with our personal behavior. If that worked, it would have worked by now. We do not and should not and cannot build a future on the goodwill of those who do not want us to see the future.

Kink isn't just about how you dress. Mostly you can't even tell (though a lot of kinky folks do ham it up at Pride, and I support that). It isn't about hiding from or avoiding anything or sending a message to people outside the wider kink and queer community. It isn't about distancing yourself from the world or especially your partner. It isn't for everyone, but it is a deep and deeply misunderstood thing.

And it has been here for a very very long time. It isn't new or a "these days" faddish thing, it is an integral part of our community and always has been from the first. If you're as young as you sound, MANY leather daddies have leather passed down to them from people doing this stuff before your parents were born. If you don't know the significance of AT LEAST that, please don't speak about what kink is or isn't really about.

I'm really sorry you have such deep-rooted misconceptions. I hope you understand better someday.

One of my most reliable, dedicated volunteers was an older man, and when he was taking a break from the phone bank, we talked about what this moment in history meant to him. He told me about obtaining a marriage license in one of the brief windows where Washington recognized gay marriage, and waiting for it to be permanent. He told me how you could tell who had been to electroshock therapy to try to "cure" themselves, because the hair on their arms was melted.

And he told me about how in the Pride marches—back when they were marches, not parades, he said—the bears and the leather daddies would walk on the outside, to make a wall between the softer queer folks, and what was being thrown at them.

The underground homes, often a century old, are topped with gardens exploding with lush dune grass, diamondleaf willows, and yellow wildflowers—a flash of color in an otherwise gray landscape.