Guy Baldwin, Leather’s Enfant Terrible at 65

by Leland Carina

As one would expect, with Guy Baldwin presenting, the space above Mr. S Leather in San Francisco was filled with eager Leatherfolk. We were treated to an informal presentation, with Patrick Mulcahey acting as a mediator/interviewer for the majority of the time and some questions near the end from audience members.

Darren Bondy Mr SF Leather 2011 welcomed us. This session is part of a larger series entitled Making the Connection, which is his title project. He joked that he wanted to contribute something besides parties at bars and putting out.

Patrick started by asking Guy to talk about Leather people and places that used to be in San Francisco and still cast a long shadow.

Back in the day, Guy reminisced, SOMA didn’t have any street lights; it was dark. It had warehouses and dives that eventually become Leather bars. The sun would go down and Leathermen would creep out from wherever they had been hiding. There were no parking issues then, he pointed out to the audience’s amusement. First, he said, was the Toolbox on Harrison and then later the Ramrod, which was the flagship Leather bar. Later it became Chaps II and is now known as KOK.

The day he graduated from his undergrad studies in Denver, Colorado Guy was on a jet plane to San Francisco. It was Spring of 1972 and he stayed at the Golden State Hotel on Powell. He remembers looking down to notice the mica in the sidewalks and being impressed that there were diamonds in the street. He thought he must be in the right place if the sidewalks sparkled. He had been part of the Rocky Mountaineers Motorcycle Club and had therefore heard of the Ramrod. He made his way there in levis, cowboy boots, and leather bike cap. He didn’t yet own a leather jacket. As he approached the bar from Market Street, rounding the corner at 9th, he saw around 50 motorcycles lined up with Leathermen entering and exiting the establishment. He took a moment to witness from across the street, thinking to himself, “the minute I walk through that door, my life will change forever.” He instinctively knew he was at a tipping point and felt that it had been worth the wait.

When Guy entered the Ramrod for the first time he was overcome by the heady sexual energy. About half the men he saw there were in full Leather. The back six feet of the bar was where the big sharks swam. He waited six months before treading in those waters. It was dangerous, he said, you could just feel it. The shit that went on back there, he slowed his speech here and looked around at the room, was magic.

Guy said he became a big shark, most likely, before he realized it. He didn’t play often, but he chose his partners carefully. He was a natural and gained a reputation quickly. It was pretty soon that he started getting handed around between different tops. He found his way into the “top crust” of San Francisco Leather society.

At this point Patrick asked him to tell us about his room at the Slot.

The Slot, at 666 Folsom Street, was run as a sex hotel. Doors opened at 4pm every day. Somehow, Guy said, it was always spotless when it opened. His room was number 222 on the second floor. It had big timbers (about twelve inch square) so, naturally, Guy brought in a drill to install i-hooks. He also installed squares of mirror on the walls, making the room meet his specifications. He said men would sit on folding chairs and wait for someone to come by and say the right thing to get an invitation from Guy to play. (He was a top by this time.)

Guy related a particular story about this space. The Slot kept big bouquets in their entryway. Once, when there were white chrysanthemums, he took the flowers into a scene and used them to whip someone. They were destroyed in the process, petals littering the room. At the end of the scene the bottom was on his knees at his feet. Guy ordered him to pick up one of the flowers. Then, slowly and gently, Guy offered the single blossom back, closing the bottom’s fist around it. “People forget,” he said, “that it was a romantic thing.” He paused, then added, “… and not at all formulaic.” To this, the audience laughed heartily, and Patrick surmised that we had read Guy’s recent review of Master John Weal’s book.

Patrick then asked about Cynthia Slater and the founding of the Society of Janus. Did Guy think that Cynthia had identified as a Leather person?

Guy answered that he didn’t think she identified as Leather. He was reading the Berkeley BAR, which was a counter-culture publication, when he came across a classified ad that said something like, “fans of B&D and S&M meeting, call: [phone number].” When he called, the phone was answered by a woman with a deep, husky voice who quizzed him on his interest to see if he was a wanker. Apparently she decided he was okay, because she gave him an address in the Avenues and he went with his roommate. What they found was a living room cleared of furniture with a variety of nervous straight people that really didn’t know very much about BDSM. They were scared, he said, that the police would come arrest them just for meeting. During the introductions Guy was the only person to offer both his first and last name, shocking many of the people in attendance. He ended up doing Q and A because he had the most knowledge.

The Society of Janus eventually grew into something of what it is now by offering classes in BDSM. Patrick noted that this likely wasn’t how Guy had learned. Guy agreed and related that back in the day if you knew how to do something, that was considered proprietary information. People protected their knowledge, which created a mystery around the various techniques. Sharing this knowledge gained him validation from straight people that he hadn’t before experienced. He didn’t realize it at the time but he basically sold what he knew because of deep-seated shame. At the time it seemed the right thing to do, but now he questions it. He still believes that knowledge should be shared, but that if you are part of an erotic underground you must be prepared that this will dilute it. Gayle Rubin, he said, has pointed out that classes can sometimes lead to “paint by numbers BDSM.”

Patrick changed the subject by mentioning that one of the amazing things about Guy’s book, “Ties that Bind,” is that despite its age, it is not dated. Guy laughed and said he wrote that book in self-defense. Patrick noted that at that time the scene had gone through a displacement of weight that centered on the bottom’s safety. Guy agreed, saying that in the 70’s there were many bottoms getting injured. One story he related was of a scene with six tops that went very wrong. The bottom was whipped to bleeding and someone poured alcohol on him to disinfect, which was appropriate. However, then a top from Texas took out a violet wand and the bottom burst into flames. Guy said he also, personally, had to visit the ER on Christmas Eve one year for an embarrassing situation, which he did not wish to relate to us. After a few such incidences the scene became very cautious. Education became overly focused on safety. This, Guy said, is natural because it’s easy to teach. The things that are hard to teach are related to connection.

Patrick asked Guy to speak about the word “Leather.”

Guy said Leather is a euphemism. It’s a socially acceptable way to refer to radical sexuality. It is clear to insiders, while simultaneously being vague to outsiders. Back in the day, Leather included three communities: motorcyclists, Leather fetishists, and those with radical sexualities. To illustrate, he told of a fancy cocktail party after he won IML in 1989. Terry Thompson, who owned the Eagle Bar, approached Guy to tell him that he was happy a motorcycle-rider had won International Mr. Leather because those SM people give Leather a bad name. Then, Guy also had an ex-lover who was a serious Leather fetishist who thought it was hilarious that Guy was named IML. He knew that Guy only saw Leather as a ticket to get access to the people he wanted to play with.

Patrick asked about Guy’s history with Drummer Magazine.

Guy ended up with his column in Drummer after a dinner party. He was at one end of the table, while Tony DeBlase and Andrew Charles (who owned Drummer at the time) were at the other. Someone asked Guy to elaborate on a point he had made in a class he taught for the Avatar Club in Los Angeles. As he spoke, the entire table listened enraptured. After, Tony and Andrew asked him if he would write a column. Guy was not published at the time, so he thought it was a mistake. He was already a psychotherapist and living in LA with Race Bannon. He agreed, but had a very hard time with his first article. He had slips of paper, felt pens, tape, and such covering the floor of his room. The deadline was eminent and he was going crazy with it.
Race came home and asked him, “do you trust me?” He took the entire pile and inputted it into his computer. He moved paragraphs around and Guy was very impressed with this new concept of “word processing.”

Patrick noted that Guy has written some very influential keynote speeches. Prime examples are from last year at Leather Leadership Conference and National Leather Association. He asked if Guy ever feels like the Greek woman Cassandra — given the gift of prophecy by th God Apollo, but also the curse that no one would ever believe her after she refused his amorous attention. Guy joked, “I never should have turned Apollo down!” to the audience’s enjoyment.

Yes, he said, he does feel like that and it’s shitty. He said he caused earthquakes this year because he was pissed off. Publishing some books gives you a certain amount of credibility. Someone like Chuck Renslow has the credibility to do so as well, but Chuck has more to lose. Guy gets away with it because he doesn’t belong to clubs; he doesn’t sit on boards; he does not work well with others. As long as he doesn’t put his professional license at risk, he can do what he wants. He can tell the truth, he said, but people don’t like to hear things that are true that they don’t want to be true. Referring to Master John Weal’s book again, Guy said, “I didn’t want that book to be a pack of lies.” The room got noticeably silent. “I also couldn’t use the word ‘lies,’ but now I’m on tape.” The audience laughed at this and there was great applause. Patrick took this moment to call a break.

After the break the audience was invited to participate. I will relate some of the questions and answers, but since it was less structured it doesn’t lend as well to reporting.

One exchange that I found particularly interesting was about Guy’s relationship to spirituality.

He started by making a comparison to the Starship Enterprise. (This is Star Trek, for those not familiar.) He said if you want, you can park your starship in Earth’s orbit and never get bored of the views of the planet. You could rather engage the impulse engines and visit close by star systems. Or, as a third option, you could learn to navigate at light speeds and travel beyond time and space. All options are valid for the individual that chooses them; Some people just want to get the fuck off. However, for Guy, it’s about more than that. He burdens his sexuality with transforming him. He is a transformation junkie or a transformation fetishist. He wants it to change him, to make him into a better person, to liberate him. He believes that five different parts need to be engaged: groin, gut, heart, head, and spirit. This is his religion, he explained, he wants to wring from radical sexuality everything that it has to offer.

When Guy was a child he was part of the Roman Catholic faith. He looked up at the altar and saw the iconography of Christ with his crown of thorns, blood, and nails and thought “that dude has been somewhere.” He looked around at the people in church and didn’t see that reflected in them. Being part of the Roman Catholic church you are taught to be Christ-like; Guy wanted to go where Christ had been. He noted: they don’t call it the Passion for nothing.

He brought up the movie Fantasia. Mickey Mouse is carrying buckets of water and the wizard is casting spells from a spell book. The wizard gets tired; making magic is hard work for an old man. He leaves and Mickey gets in the spell book, nearly drowning himself trying to take a shortcut. To Guy this is a story about needing to respect the power and tools of transformation. Conducting a scene is casting a spell, there is a temporal shift. Things can slow way down.

There was actually one man, he said, in his town when he was a kid that was a transformer. The Priest could change water and bread into the blood and body of Christ. He did the same piece of spell-casting out of his “spell book” over and over. Guy saw that it worked; people were different when they walked out of church. He realized early that ritual had transformative power. He became preoccupied with how ritual worked, linguistics, and even hired a vocal coach to work on his own voice.

A member of the audience asked a very formal question, which included an inquiry as to the particular opportunities of close control of a slave’s mind and also the dangers and road blocks.

Guy said it reminded him of a question from a final exam. In an Anthropology class he was once challenged to, “describe the Universe and give three examples.”

He paused for an incredibly long time. We held our breath. If you’ve ever heard Guy speak, imagine his deep voice hitting you in a silent, attention-rapt room:

“Meditate on the meaning of the word, ‘prayer.’ [pause] Do not underestimate the scale of the concept behind the word. The Leather Gods are listening always.”

Although there were some more questions, this was, for me, the most poignant moment and, I believe, a good thing to leave you with.

The next workshop for Making the Connection will be in the space above Mr. S on February 28th, 7:30pm-9:30pm. The topic is: Graylin Thornton: The Necessity of Titleholding from “contesting” to “producing”

For a full schedule of all Making the Connection workshops, check the Leather Alliance web site.

Please keep in mind that this article contains very few direct quotes. It is paraphrased from my notes and memory.

Leland Carina
LelandCarina.com