The Great Wave

For almost as long as I can remember, people have talked about “Old Guard” and “New Guard” in leather; and for quite some time now, I’ve felt that, frankly, things are a lot more complicated than that.

If there’s a single thing you can call “Leather,” it's got around eighty years of history and lineage.

Much has changed in that time, and it seems to me that a simple split into ”Old” and “New,” often posited as pre or post-AIDS, is something of an injustice to the broadness and diversity of the community.

I’ve been thinking about this more in the wake of reading the new book by Vince Andrews, “Old Guard: A Leather History.”

There’ll be a full review of the book in the next issue of Manumission; for now I’ll just say that anyone interested in the history and development of Leather will find it worth a read.

What instead?

I expect most people will be familiar with the talk of ”first wave” and “second wave” feminism. And it seems to me that we might usefully apply that to the community.

But when, and how?

This is where I’d love to hear from other people. But broadly speaking, I think we might usefully divide the history into (so far) four waves. That’s still fewer than the number of French Republics, so I don’t think it’s excessive. I’ve outlined my ideas here, in the hope that with more input, it can become a clearer framework.

First wave

From inception to, roughly, the early 70s. If you want to put down a marker, let’s place it at The Leatherman’s Handbook, in 1972.

That’s the point at which a fairly underground community had found it’s first shape, enough to be documented.

Second wave

From the early 70s until the AIDS crisis. A period that saw the growth of leather media, greater visibility, and perhaps the heyday of some of the clubs that are still mythologised today. A more liberal social outlook in many countries made it easier than before for people to start coming out.

This period saw the launch of magazines like Drummer, the creation of many clubs and organising groups, and a growth in the number of venues like the Mineshaft, too.

Third wave

The reaction to the crisis, more formal systems of education, including around safer sex, and the foundation of many organisations that are still with us today. This period also includes a concerted effort, in part spurred by AIDS, to document and record history. It also covers the start of queer presences on the internet.

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly where Second Wave and Third Wave begin and end; when we talk about “post-AIDS,” what do we mean? Do we mean the introduction of combination therapy? Or do we mean the widespread availability of PrEP? Or something in-between?

Fourth wave

This too is perhaps a difficult transition to pinpoint, but I would tentatively put ‘Fourth Wave Leather’ as around the time of the explosion in social media. Much as the explosion in kink media of the 1970s brought the Leather world to a broader section of society, so too did the proliferation of dedicated websites, and more general social media. The last decade and a half have seen a growth in online communities, many of them arranging real-life meetings, socials and so on. It’s also seen a massive surge in the visibility of things like pup play and ABDL.

To me, I think this era is also characterised by a huge number of new clubs that don’t have the same rigid rules as older ones; more informal, often without a membership scheme at all. Or, where there is one, it may be as simple as signing up on a website - quite far removed from some of the ways people joined first and second wave Motor Sports Clubs.

What does all this mean?

You’ll notice I’ve not mentioned Old Guard and New Guard here; for various reasons, as I said, I don’t necessarily find them useful. Reading ”Old Guard: A Leather History” it‘s apparent that there is little evidence to support a universal rigidly structured Leather society; much of what is termed “Old Guard” seems to me to have been a codification, during Third Wave Leather, of aspects of previous waves, perhaps spurred on by the drive to ensure information was not lost.

That doesn't mean it's not real - by now, as Vince notes in his book, it has some thirty years, and so can rightfully be said to have established its own ideas, and become a tradition. But traditions are strange things, and often feel older than they really are. Much of the pomp and ceremony of the British state, for example, is Victorian affectation. But, no less real for that.

So, I would characterise what is referred to often as “Old Guard” - a system of protocols, rules, and so on - as a movement, codified during Third Wave Leather.

But, these are initial thoughts of my own; I’d love to hear other views - and I’ve added a comments system to the blog for those who want to join in.

Is this a better way of looking at Leather than just “Old” and “New” ? Can the boundaries be more tightly drawn between the different waves I’ve suggested? Are there other movements of note that can be placed within these categories?

You can buy “Old Guard: A Leather History” from Amazon UK