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

that they negotiate, play, and live a BDSM,
kink, and/or Leather lifestyle.
There are many ways for anyone to
negotiate, with themselves and others, how to
create a lifestyle and/or scene that works for
them. My source material does not provide
concrete answers to the questions raised in
the previous paragraph, but it does provide a
wide variety of perspectives from people of
colour that I look forward to exploring more
fully in my thesis. [2]
My research at the LA&M has also led me
down another somewhat controversial path –
although since when has anyone been
adverse to a little controversy, right? Almost
by accident I came across a number of
sources relating to the infamous Dallas
Conference of ’88, [3] and instantly my interest
was sparked. Again, I have been confronted
with a number of contradictory voices in the
archive, but what emerges is a number of
conflicts between men and women, gays and
lesbians, urban and rural, the East Coast and
the West Coast, and those who belong to
official leather organisations and those who
do not. Newslink by the GMSMA has some
particularly interesting articles on the topic,
and they show how heightened emotions
were following the conference. Similarly,
correspondence in the Joseph Bean Papers
is highly charged. My goal here is not air dirty
laundry for its own sake, but to analyse how
these clashes reflected and contributed to the
landscape of the leather community in the
late twentieth century. Occurrences such as
the Dallas Conference of ’88 offer me, as an
historian, an opportunity to see what various
stakeholders in the community considered
vital, and how these views influenced further
development in the scene.
I want to thank the LA&M, and especially Rick
Storer and Jakob VanLammeren for their
support. Resources such as the LA&M are
rare, and to be treasured – thank you for
making my cross-hemisphere pilgrimage
possible.
Yours in Leather – Lily.
Notes
[1] Lenius, Steve. “New Book about Black Men in Leather.” Leather Life column for Lavender Magazine,
Issue #108. July 16, 1999. Accessed via the web on 2015-03-25.
[2] For additional information regarding PoC in Leather, visit Dark Connections, the Carter/Johnson
Leather Library, ONYX and their annual anniversary party Blackout.
[3] See Joseph Bean’s article series on the Dallas Conference ’88 in issues 35, 36, 37 and 39 in The
Leather Times.
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