Leather Archives & Museum: 25 Years (1991-2016) [digital]

THE FUTURE
The future of the LA&M is exhilarating. The commemoration of our 25th
anniversary shows the perseverance and power within the Leather / BDSM /
kink / fetish communities to formalize the professional collection and
documentation of this incredible and unique history.
The social impact of archives is just starting to be felt on an individual and
institutional level: in the development of personal and community identities,
preservation of culture, historical context and significance, and representations
of communities by communities. You are here, you belong here.
The more direct engagement with archival materials, the more history becomes
active, participatory, pertinent. To see oneself within a historical context
promotes inclusion, empowerment. This is crucial to remember when we think
about the history of alternative sex communities. As Gayle Rubin discusses in
the essay in the previous section, it wasn’t very long ago that most, if not all of
these materials were being stored in private attics and basements. The absence
of physical materials created by leather communities made it very difficult to
build knowledge about these subcultures and communities.
The more access and research using these collections, the less
misrepresentation about alternative sexuality there will be within the historic
record. The more diversity within collections, the more represented and holistic
leather history will be.
The future of the LA&M holds more professional staff, inclusion and dynamism
within collections, and more representational belonging of all alternative sex
communities. In turn, these collections will demand the attention and use of
scholars worldwide as we assert our historical presence and impact.
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