Even in gay and queer scenes, fetishes are sometimes viewed with suspicion: Do they have to be? Are you allowed to show your fetish at CSD? Little thought is given to how fetishes actually come about and what meaning they have for fetishists? The team from the blog „My gay sex“ came across a text by Dirk Becker that describes his path into the leather scene.
Growing up in the countryside
I spent my childhood in the countryside, surrounded by cows and lots of woodland and a very lively extended family. Even back then, I was a bookworm and loved to hide away with adventure novels in one of my many hiding places in the forest or, if necessary, in our tree house, because my father always liked to chase me and my two brothers out of the house with the words: „Get out into the fresh air with you, you couch potatoes, and don't come back until dinner time!“ To skilfully avoid the usual ball games with my almost twenty cousins, I also liked to hide in the hayloft of our barn. Here I could be sure of being able to immerse myself undisturbed in strange worlds full of swashbucklers and pirates - even if only between two book covers.
On a very hot summer's day in August, I made a discovery that would shake my understanding of the world forever: While I was lying there reading on bales of straw, I heard my uncle - my father's youngest brother and only eight years older than me - loudly tear open the door to the tack room with two mates and strip off his sweaty T-shirt as soon as he entered the stuffy and dusty room. At that moment, a third friend roared in on his Indian motorbike and jacked up the bike like a young Marlon Brando in front of the barn door.
Manly strength and muscle games
My first reaction was to hide even deeper behind the straw bales, but lured by the jeering of the young men, I ventured forward and peered through the crack in the wooden planks directly at the action below me. My uncle had set up a makeshift weight bench in the tack room, where the friends probably met frequently to lift weights. Over the course of the next hour, one by one, the four of them lay down on the worn upholstery to put their muscle strength to the test, celebrating their sprouting beards as much as their supposed manhood and every visible chest hair and muscle.
Magical familiar brotherhood
Jovial swaggering and appreciative jeering joined the omnipresent grunting as they lifted the weights, completing the magical ritual of the test of strength, and I lay there, mesmerised, watching the four men cheer each other on, all the while a strange familiar fraternity settled over the whole scenario. After training, they would sit around the bike dripping with sweat, bouncing their biceps in front of the appreciative eyes of their friends, resting their arms on the shoulders of the man next to them in a comradely manner, drinking beer and smoking cigars that they had probably stolen from my grandfather. Completely confused and overwhelmed by all the impressions, I secretly made my escape.
Longing: The way into my leather community
Why I didn't immediately make myself known and join them is still a mystery to me today, because I had a very good and close relationship with my youngest uncle, but a voice in my pre-pubescent brain signalled to me unmistakably that no one was allowed to know about the feelings I felt when watching this spectacle of masculinity. My still nameless arousal had to remain my secret, even though at the age of twelve I was already longing to be accepted into this virile circle of strong men. It's no surprise then that this porn-worthy scene was later decisive for my sexual desire and still characterises my desire today. It wasn't until I discovered the leather and fetish scene eight years later that I realised I had finally found the place I had been looking for so long.
Extract from: Dirk Becker: The leather scene - a place of longing. Querverlag 2021
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