About the leather community
The leather community is older, broader, and more textured than most outsiders realize. What follows is a small introduction, not an authoritative account. For a deeper history, see the Leather Archives & Museum.
Old guard, new guard, and the lineage between
The phrase "old guard" gets used in a lot of different ways. At its most useful, it points to the postwar gay leather scene that took shape in the United States in the 1950s and 60s - motorcycle clubs, leather bars, contests, and the unwritten codes of conduct that grew up around them. From those roots came the idea of leather as a culture, not just an aesthetic: a set of practices, manners, and relationships passed down between people who knew each other.
"New guard" is a looser term, sometimes used dismissively and sometimes with affection. It refers to the wider, more public leather and BDSM world that opened up from the 1980s onward - women's leather, pansexual leather, kink communities reachable through the internet, the visible educational and contest circuit. Most leatherfolk today are formed by both lineages, whether or not they use the labels.
What the community values
Mentorship. Leather has always passed knowledge person-to-person. A new leatherperson finds an older one. They talk. They go to events together. The mentor doesn't own the protege, but they take responsibility for showing them the ropes - sometimes literally.
Protocol. Not as theater, but as a way of paying attention. Protocols are the small, visible patterns that mark a relationship as serious - how a submissive enters a room, how a Dominant addresses their partner, how leather family members carry themselves with each other in public. Different households have different protocols. The point is that they are agreed upon and practiced.
Service. A central thread in M/s and leather dynamics. Service is not just chores; it is the practice of taking care of someone or something larger than yourself. The best educators at events like Leather Retreat have always taught service as a craft.
Family. Leather families are chosen kinship structures, often built around a head of household and a network of partners, proteges, and extended members. They predate by decades the modern conversation about chosen family in queer life.
Ritual. Collaring ceremonies, leather covers passed down, oaths and vows spoken in front of the community. Ritual marks transitions and binds people to commitments.
Modern leather practice
Today's leather community looks different from its 1970s ancestor in some respects and identical in others. People still meet at bars and at runs. Contests still produce titleholders who travel and teach for a year. Leather families still form, dissolve, reconfigure, and endure.
What has changed is the scaffolding. Newcomers find the community online before they find it in person. Mentorship is sometimes long-distance. Daily rituals between Dominant and submissive get tracked across time zones. Protocols are written down in shared documents.
Some old-timers find that distance from the body and the bar uncomfortable. Others welcome it as accessibility - more people, especially in rural areas and small cities, can now find the community at all. Both views are honest, and the retreat itself sat at the intersection: a camp full of people who had found each other online, getting in a room together to do the work face to face.