Needled loves our leather daddies. Boasting the largest contingent of 90s neo-tribal body suits, our boys wear their tattoos and cow hides proud. As I told Edge Magazine in April: “The roots of tattooing in the US were really pushed by the gay community. There was this early perception that tattoos were really ‘macho,’ but a lot of the great tattoo artists in the underground were gay.”
So when Scott of Father Panik said he was gonna sell his wares at the New York Leather Weekend, I told him to bring back a story and some pix of the tattooed daddies. And he did.
By Scott of Father Panik
This week I’ve brought my traveling empire in duffel bags to a street fair sponsored by the New York Leather Weekend. It’s a mostly gay fetish wop-dee-do. There is a smattering of straights, but mostly it’s gay. Straights just aren’t as eager to put on their best patient leather cop uniform and parade around at a street fair. A tight black t-shirt and a leather M.C. jacket are about it.
Unless of course you are at a pre-64 car show or at tattoo conventions, then you can dress like an extra from Grease or walk around half naked to show your tattoos.
The dividing line is sex. If you are doing it because primarily it gives you a hard on well, then no. The straights don’t play dress up in public. Well, at least the guys. It’s ok for girls. Encouraged.
On a street legendary for it’s hustlers I am hustling.
The fair is in the heart of NYC’s meat packing district, formally the epicenter for East Coast fetish, BDSM, trannie crack whores and their legions of fans. Clubs like The Spike, The Manhole, The Eagle, and The Hellfire club set the tone for after dark exploration.
Dommes and leather daddies stepped over rivulets of blood that ran from the 100s of storefront butchers that operated during the day. Dumpsters filled with discarded meat lined the streets, choice cuts where in the fetish clubs.
Certain small dark streets were open air sex parks, others open air toilets, others, both.
In the summer the smell of rotting meat shit and piss blanketed lower Manhattan.
Then we had Giuliani Time. It was all over. A cop raping a prisoner in a precinct bathroom with a toilet plunger marked the end of that whole era. Horribly ironic is that those who came to clean it all up made the most hardcore fetish fantasy a reality.
Law and Order reigned. Anybody could be busted for “quality of life violations”. Playtime was over. All the clubs were shut down, blood cleaned from the cobblestone streets, meat packers of all types were driven out.
The weekend leather fest and street fair is an attempt to recapture that glory hole.
Well, they tried. But now the Sunday afternoon streets are run by well heeled urbanites pushing strollers. Young fashionistas weaned on Sex and the City fantasies brunch with Wall Streeters eating $30 omelets. The new gay fetish scene is Abercrombie and Finch. Tom Of Finland is nowhere to be found.
Trannie crack whores long ago gave up, got N.A., and now work at needled exchanges (excuse me, Harm Reduction Centers).
All of which means nobody showed up.
Those that did, well, they really really tried. They broke out the leashes and riding crops. Rob Halford types, mostly older guys who could tell you stories of back in the day.
But still, it just wasn’t the debauched freak fest we had hoped. Money is tight, ain’t nobody spending nothin.
We vendors standing in the cold October shadows debated whether the cost of a cup of hot coffee was worth the additions to our expenses.
Some sales are made. But gays are a hard sell. They want to know about the cut, the fabric, the stitching and the thread count, then gasp at a $30 price tag.
But I am not just a carnie haberdashery, I am covering the event for Needled. Reporter at large. Documentarian tracking the fetish scene looking for tattoos in lesser traveled roads.
So I’m cold. I’m not making any money. Once again an outsider amongst outsiders and now I have to talk to strangers and ask to take their picture.
This is my life. I’m not really sure how I got it. Still, it beats working.
How many times does one get to watch a grown man lick another man’s boots and take a picture for art’s sake?
Well, not ever in my case. I missed it. But I’m not a very good journalist.
addthis_url = ‘http%3A%2F%2Fwww.needled.com%2Fblog%2F%3Fp%3D2805′;
addthis_title = ‘Guest+Blog%3A+NYC+Leather+Weekend’;
addthis_pub = ”;
Mail this postPopularity: 26% [?]
Technorati Tags: arm, back, ink, inked, leg, needles, tattoo, tattoo gun, tattoos, tribal
