London Pride is in a few days and I'm prepping by reading John's Guide to London's Leather, Bear & SM Scene because seriously, London has an excellent leather scene that might or might not put Up Your Alley and/or Folsom to shame. (Not that I'm into it or anything. The vendor I was talking to in the fitting room totally said the scene was mostly for older men, anyway.)

I took a picture of Expectations' event wall to help illustrate this, because I'm pretty sure they'd have been annoyed if I photographed their merchandise like a total boor.


Then I came across this article that was linked inside the previous one, describing how, particularly, you'd go about hooking a leather.

Now, here I could whine about how much a good thong costs, but I'm not. I'm just going to do the usual thing so I don't look too vain/dumb/trash-tastic.


I don't know how I know what I like, or why, but I appreciate that the leather community provides interesting, pared down guidelines for how exactly you can be what you want, to find what you want, and that the system appears to work because all parties involved seem to understand.

What's interesting about same-sex attraction is that you can, in the most literal sense, become the one you love. The process of homosexual attraction challenges you to hold a mirror before yourself, (and to note, consequently, whether you see the reflected image, or the identical self,) which leads to options, as well as firmly closed doors.

In matters of attraction, do you pick the side the completes you, or do you pick the side you resemble? It is not clear if the two are even different, or if even these distinctions are relevant, I just think it's strange, in that you can be intimately familiar with your mate (lived a part of their life with your eyes, even) before you've met them. Part of the queer experience, I think, is shaped wholly by empathy, tied to, and conflated with, sexual desire. Mostly, though, I think I enjoy the way we're all toying with our procreant urges before we die.