#1 April 14th, 2005 03:10 AM

liandra_dahl

Member

Yous asked for it...

Leather Dyke Boys and Theirs Daddies

I must first point out that from an external  to the leather dyke culture point of view leather dyke boys and theirs daddies are adult lesbian females.

The contributors of the article that I am summarising are a former leather dyke boy and daddy, but after a female to male or (FTM) sex transition have become a gay leatherboy (a homosexual FTM transsexual man/boy) and a heterosexual leather daddy (heterosexual FTM transsexual with one significant other and nine leather boys (who would still be adult lesbian females).

This essay is not based on extensive research but on the personal experience of the interviewees. One leather dyke boy and one leather dyke daddy. both now FTM transsexuals.

The fundamental thesis to be explored (but not proven) is that when transgender subjects participate in minority communities, organised around radical sexual practices; new and theoretically interesting configurations of sex, gender and sexuality arise.

Leather dyke boy and leather dyke daddies gender play functions as a means for gender interrogation, solidification, resistance, destabilisation and RECONFIGURATION.

There are three main ways that leather dyke play can consolidate (for a lesbian female) a male identification.
1) Submission to pain in the most masculine SM position, especially when the other person is associated with the masculine.
2) iT can enable participants to explore masculine forms of dominance more thoroughly than in any other area of your life (as entirely  differentiated from feminine forms of dominance and not built on the belief that the masculine dominates the feminine)
3) Through exploration of masculine boyhood or a masculine period of adolescence that was missing or deprived from their lives as the developed pubescent female bodies.

Interviewee 1)
"The way that I was expressing dominance and my personality was inappropriate for the gender role that people perceived me to be in"

In leather dyke gender play "I could really live" masculinity. "Leather dyke communities reinforced with an acceptance that enabled [interviewee 1] to make the transition female to male".

Interviewee 2)
“ SM as a gender technology allowed me to experiment with masculinity as part of a process of self construction”

The common theme of both interviewees was that “who you really are” contains social and cultural facts about categorical location but while there is facticity it is not necessarily natural or essential and is under constant influence and flux.

As a brief aside; Leather dyke boys can be older than there daddies and vice versa and it also does not signify age play though this is most common. The title of boy or daddy or boy frequently relies upon the SM status of topman or bottom-man i.e. dominant or submissive, sadistic or masochistic.

In inter-community discourse it is believe that the range of masculinities available to be performed with in this sub-culture is at least as wide as that available to an adolescent male.  In fact it is a commonly held belief that free from societal relations with family, friends, work-mates and associates they are actually less restricted by cultural constructions of masculinity.

   
However it is acknowledged that in order for ‘gender performativity’ to be efficacious it must occur with in the social constraints that make it intelligible.
Additionally, interesting bias and constraint appear with in the sub-culture itself.  Gayle Rubin notes that “obnoxious behaviour that would be tolerated in a butch will often be considered intolerable in an FTM”. It is discussed that FTM’s or MTF’s performing in leather dyke communities are more likely to have aggressive behaviour attributed to their association (that goes beyond most leather dyke’s) with the masculine gender, and the sex gender history associated with the masculine gender. However, despite this masculine performativity, in conjunction with female embodiment, is given a wider range of expression with in leather dyke context than in any other lesbian and gay settings.

AN INTERESTIN PHENOMENOLOGY!!!!!

Leather dyke participants believe it possible to re-map the genitalia of gender.  Along with the use of the toilets and medicine, sexuality plays the strongest role in making us associate our genitalia with out constructed gender. Interestingly, because of the heavily psychological erotic play used in leather dyke play it is believed that an entirely new understanding and perception of the genitalia can exist. It is apparently possible for some leather dykes to perceive sensation through the inanimate strapped on penis/ dildo.  Also the vagina is renegotiated so that conceivably you could have your leather dyke daddy inserting his fist into your vagina while identifying both the act and your genitalia as masculine. The renaming of the vagina as a fuckhole or even a buthole is common in this renegotiation.

Unitary Gender
It is believe that in light of the existence of this subculture, and that it is entirely possible to be a transsexual with a birth certificate that states your sex as female and a driver’s license that states you male, the idea of categorising people with one unitary gender is misguided and over simplified.

Unitary gender is a culturally constructed fiction, produced by state, medicine, psychotherapy and other institutions and can actually change for jurisdiction and purpose. To claim leather dyke boys and daddies are women at all times, and for all purposes, is to ignore cultural situatedness (even if that culture is a minority sub-culture). Not only to ignore it but to  “ignore it in favour of upholding a patently oppressive and hegemonic sex/gender/sexuality system”.  “Multiple context-specific and purpose-specific gender status” should be recognised.

The views and opinions of this thread do not represent those of Liandra Dahl. However Liandra was entirely fascinated and enthralled by it enough to present her interpretation of the community discourse to her Contemporary Feminist Theory Tutorial and subsequently to ISM.

wantingscott

Member

Re: Yous asked for it...

oh-hoh yes!!! believe it- i just printed it out on my workgroup's laser printer. now, let me go run-and-get-it before bossman does. (he's a little homophobic)

---

_________________________________________________
that's the way it goes. but don't forget, it goes the other way too.

wantingscott

Member

Re: Yous asked for it...

very well written. btw- HBO (or was it Lifetime?) did an excellent documentary on this subject. Included was a bit on a macho dancer in one of the clubs, how her role was to look very butch but to dance and be fondled in a very passsive way. she was almost in a trance and somewhat oblivious to the touching, in fact.

---

_________________________________________________
that's the way it goes. but don't forget, it goes the other way too.

Prazak

Member

Re: Yous asked for it...

The leather dyke daddy and boy: Are there actually very many of them? The phenomenon plays on the tension between biology and psyche. Psyche is by far the stronger in this community. Oh my!

wantingscott

Member

Re: Yous asked for it...

there are ALOT of specialty clubs here where i live, anyway. so i would say "yes".

---

_________________________________________________
that's the way it goes. but don't forget, it goes the other way too.

Torture_Garden

Member

Re: Yous asked for it...

Very interesting reading, Liandra. Not wanting to sound dumb (I will in wiriting this) but I think that I'll have to read it a couple more times through to get a better grasp on what is being said... Thank you for posting this in the forum for us all to read.

---

James
--
...and when the day arrives I'll become the sky and I'll become the sea and the sea will come to kiss me for I am going home...

zille

Member

Re: Yous asked for it...

The leather dyke daddy and boy: Are there actually very many of them? The phenomenon plays on the tension between biology and psyche. Psyche is by far the stronger in this community. Oh my!

Where I live, near San Francisco, there seem to be a million of them.  However, I think among lesbians they are a rather small percentage -- there are more "just plain old lesbians" out there.

If you read the "Letters to the Editor" in the lesbian sex magazine On Our Backs, you'll find in almost every issue a complaint from the "vanilla" lesbians that all On Our Backs shows is the "freaks" (involving the self-same leather bois and Daddies ("boi" is the generally prefered spelling) -- but finding those nice "lesbians next door" in SF is not easy!

---

~See more of me at http://zilledefeu.com