Tony DeBlase
Leather History Timeline

BC:

Ca. 50's 00 BC
Creation of rock drawings at Ti-n-Lalan, near Fezzan in Libya, showing an animal headed creature with a gigantic penis, and an animal/man hybrid, having sex.
Ca. 2500 BC
Gilgamesh, King of Uruk, in the Sumerian poem cycles that constitute one of the oldest known pieces of literature, meets Enkidu, the only man who rivals him for strength and bravery. They become lovers and particularly enjoy wrestling with each other.
2355 - 2261 BC
The reign of Egyptian King Pepy II Neferkare who, in what may be history's first homosexual short story, makes nocturnal visits to have sex with his general, Sisinne.
Ca. 1900 BC
Destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Too bad the bible is not more explicit about the reason. The interpretation hinges on the Hebrew word meaning "to know." The term is used 943 times in the Old Testament; only 15 of these times is it a euphemism for sexual activity. In the New Testament, the only reference to Sodom (Luke 10:10) identifies the sin as inhospitality. The story of Sodom and Gomorrah probably had nothing to do with sexuality. [AA]
1503-1354 BC
The reign of Egyptian Queen Hatshepsut who adopted male dress and even wore a false beard.
Ca. 1250 BC
The Ani Papyrus shows the rite of the "animation of the phallus." It appears to be one of the earliest recorded examples of a blow job.
Ca. 1000 BC
The Israelite king Saul demands of David, as a bride-price for his daughter Michal, 100 Philistine foreskins.
Ca. 730 BC
"Krimon warms the heart of Simias" is one of several lines of homosexual graffiti that constitute one of the earliest know uses of the Greek alphabet. [AA]
7th Century BC
Ashurbanipal, the last Assyrian king, dresses in women?s clothing most of the time. The cross-dressing is used to justify his eventual overthrow.[TOL]
600 BC
After this date it becomes customary for Greek hoplites, the upper class warriors who fight in the phalanx, each to take a boy of 12 as a lover to train until he is 18 and can hunt and fight. In Crete a ritual kidnapping consecrates the pairing.
580's BC
Sappho?s famed girls? school flourishes on the isle of Lesbos. Her ezusite love poems to students are the earliest known lesbian writings. [AA]
Ca. 540 BC
The Etruscan Tomb of the Bulls at Tarquinia, with its fresco depicting one man anally penetrating another.
418 BC, Dec. 25
Birth of Epaminondas, one of the great military geniuses of the ancient world. Like other Greek warriors he loved boys, but for him delight in boys was complete, he never married or produced an heir. His two favorite boys fell in battle and, by his order, were buried with him in his tomb. [Greif 82]
382 BC, April 18
Birth of Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great. In 350 BC he leaves on a military expedition, taking with him 800 boys to be used for the pleasure of himself and his officers.
378 BC
The Sacred Band of Thebes is formed. This military unit consists entirely of 150 male couples and is based upon the belief that men fighting alongside their lovers would die rather than shame one another. [TOL]
356 BC, July 20
The birth of Alexander of Macedonia—known to history as Alexander the Great—king, general, world conqueror, and lover of men, particularly Hephaiston, whose death in 324 he mourns extravagantly, and the eunuch slave boy Bagoas, who had been a favorite of Persian king Darius.
338 BC
The Sacred Band of Thebes is annihilated by Philip of Macedon and his son Alexander at the Battle of Chaeronea. The 300 stood their ground and perished.
333 BC
Alexander of Macedonia begins his campaign to conquer the Persian Empire, and takes Egypt and much of Asia before turning back in central India.
324 BC
The death of Hephaiston, lover of Alexander the Great.[G30]
323 BC, June 10
Death of Alexander the Great.
300 BC
Addeaus of Macedon is quoted as saying, "When you meet a boy who pleases take action at once. Don't be polite, just grab him by the balls and strike while the iron is hot."
186 BC
The Roman Senate attempts to suppress the Bacchanalian rites in which, according to the historian Livy, there is more debauchery among the men with each other than with the women.
100 BC, July 13
Birth of Gaius Julius Caesar in Rome. "Wife to every man and husband to every woman." [Greif 82]
71 BC
Revolt of Roman slaves, led by Spartacus. The revolution is crushed by consuls Pompey and Crassus and the slaves are crucified along the Appian Way.
10 BC, Aug. 1
Birth of Claudius, Emperor of Rome. Robert Graves? novels, and Masterpiece Theatre?s production of I Claudius enlightened us, but not about Emperor Claudius? contributions to the gladiatorial games or of his male lovers.
1 BC
Publication of Ovid?s Ars Amatoria, the first self-help sex manual.

1 - 999AD

12 AD, Aug. 31: birth of the future Roman emperor, Caligula
26 AD: The Roman Emperor Tiberius (born Nov 16, 42 BC) retires to Capri, where he indulges in all forms of sexual exploration.
39 AD, Sept. 4: birth of the future Roman Emperor, Titus. He was not a Tiberius or Caligula or Nero, or even a Claudius. But he did complete the coliseum, the site of some of the bloodiest activities yet to come in Roman history.
41 AD, Jan 21: Roman Emperor Caligula killed by a guard who had been frequently forced to kiss the royal middle finger in public, and other things in private. (Birth Aug 31, 12 AD) [Greif 82]
45-68 AD: Reign of Nero (born Dec. 15, 37 BC), who as Emperor of Rome, would elevate torture to new heights as a spectator sport.
53 AD, Sept. 15: Birth of Marcus Ulpius Trajanus, who became the Roman Emperor Trajan, the first non-Italian emperor. His accomplishments were many, not only in battle, but in the construction of public works. All of the ancient sources discuss Trajan's homosexuality candidly, differing only in the stories used to illustrate his sexual preferences. [Greif 82]
69 AD, April 15: The Roman Emperor Otho (Marcus Salvius Otho), who literally rose to power on his knees before Nero, stabs himself in the heart.
76 AD, Jan. 24: Birth of Hadrian, who would become Emperor of Rome and lover of the beautiful Antinous (July 16 c.110) who drowned himself in the Nile at age 21, perhaps in as a self sacrifice to save the life of his lover and master.
79 AD, Aug 24: Vesuvius erupts, thereby preserving the homoerotic, and other sexually explicit, wall murals that would surely have been destroyed by later Christian "civilizations".
188 AD, April 4: Birth of the Roman Emperor Caracalla. Gay -- but not leather, he certainly set the standard for a bath house! [Greif 82]
3rd century AD: Sebastian, a handsome young Roman Centurion is beloved by the emperor Diocletian, who turned against him when he embraces Christianity. He was stripped and tied to a tree and shot full of arrows by his fellow centurions. But he survives only to die many years later in a second martyrdom when he is stoned to death. St. Sebastian has been called the patron saint of gays, and the patron saint of SM.
205, March 8: Birth of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, who would become Heliogabalus, the boy Emperor of Rome. Blatantly homosexual he was married twice in one night choosing a well hung charioteer as his husband and a boy named Hierocles as his wife. He sent out his agents to round up the men with the largest penises in the Roman empire. Eventually his own guards shoved a sword up his ass and dumped him in a sewer. He was 17. [Greif 82]
342 AD: The emperors Constantius and Constans, having inherited much of the empire of their father Constantine, call for Aexquisite punishment" for homosexuality. [AA]
390 AD: The Roman Emperor Theodosius sets the punishment for homosexuality as death by burning.
533 AD: Byzantine Emperor Justinian I, decrees that homosexuality and blasphemy are equally to blame for famines, earthquakes, and pestilence. He orders castration for offenders. [AA]
693 AD: The Council of Toledo declares that "sodomists" have infiltrated the Church and order that clerics who lay with men should be degraded, exiled, and damned.
809-813: Reign of Abbasid Caliph Al-Amin of Baghdad, whose mother becomes dismayed by his preference for male eunuchs and packs his court with girls disguised as boys. These "ghulamiyyat" then become a fashion in many Moslem courts.
955-964: Reign of Pope John XII who loves both boys and muscular young men, he dies at the age of 26 from a stroke while having sex with one of his beautiful young men.

1000 - 1499

1032 - 1044: Reign of Pope Benedict IX, who has been called the Christian incarnation of Elagabalus.
1106, Sept. 28: Robert II, gay son of William the Conqueror is captured in battle and imprisoned for the rest of his life.
1073: All known copies of Sappho's lesbian love poems are burned by ecclesiastical authorities in Constantinople and Rome. [AA]
1076: Archbishop Lanfranc in England orders a priest?s benediction on a marriage, but for another 100 years poor people continue to marry without benefit of clergy.
1157, Sept. 8: Birth of Richard Plantagenet, Richard Lion Heart, Richard I, King of England and Duke of Aquitaine. His lover for many years was Philip, King of France. He was one of the era's most widely respected generals. But he produced no heirs and eventually his loathsome brother John ascended to the British throne. The result was the Magna Carta.
1210 - 1215: The Council of Paris declares sodomy to be a capital offense. This marked the start of a militant anti-sodomy campaign by the Catholic Church. [AA]
1252: St. Thomas Aquinas begins his theological teaching. He declares that God created sex organs exclusively for reproduction; homosexual acts were thus Aunnatural" and heretical. [AA]
ca. 1260: The Legal school of Orleans orders that women found guilty of lesbian acts have their clitoris removed for the first offense; that they be further mutilated for a second offense; and burned at the stake for a third.
1268, Oct. 29: Frederick of Baden, Duke of Austria, willingly joins his condemned lover, 16 year old Conradin of Sicily, the last legitimate Hohenstaufen (Born March 24, 1252), and they are buried alive together. [Greif 82]
1292: Europe's first known execution for sodomy takes place in Ghent. [AA]
1307, Oct. 13: Philip IV of France orders the arrest of all members of the Knights Templar. In the following years hundreds of Templars are imprisoned, tortured, and/or burned because of their supposed toleration as sinless of "acts against nature."
1310, Oct. 12: The Knights Templar are put on trial for heresy in France. Most recant the confessions made under torture, expecting pardon from and Pope Clement V, which is not granted. The French crown, and the church, thus gain control of the order's great wealth.
1323: In one of the earliest recorded trials for sodomy, Arnold of Verniolle is found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment with a diet of bread and water. Despite stiff church prohibitions against sodomy, the trial record shows that Arnold had little trouble finding sex partners. [AA]
1326: Hugh le Despenser the younger, the second lover of Edward II of England, is hung, after his genitals have been cut off and burned before his eyes, upon the order of Edward's wife, Isabella, and her lover, Roger Mortimer. [Greif 82]
1327: Edward II of England is murdered by the insertion of a red hot poker into his rectum. (birth April 25, 1284) [Greif 82]
1350: Welsh poet Daffyd ap Gwilym produces explicit ballads like AThe Penis" and ADeer Copulating"
1373, Sept, 28: Birth of the painter Caravaggio, whose short, violent life encompassed drinking, brawling, murder & sodomy. [Greif 82]
1431, May 30: Birth of Joan of Arc, at Rouen, France. She led the French armies against the British invaders and won battle after battle. Then she was captured by the British in Normandy and condemned to be burned at the stake because she refused to stop wearing men's clothing. Abandoned by most of the French, her friend Gilles de Rais tried to rescue her but was too late.
1440, Oct. 26: Gilles de Rais, best friend of Joan of Arc, is executed in Nantes, France, for the torture and murder of hundreds of children. (born Jan. 10, 1404)
1450-1453: Pope Nicholas empowers the Spanish Inquisition to investigate and punish homosexuality. [AA]
1464: Pope Paul II elected to office. Like John XII he died while having sex, but the cause of his death was strangulation.
1469, May 3: Birth of Niccolo Machiavelli, Italian political philosopher. The Prince is a masterwork of mind control. [Greif 82]
1471-1484: Reign of Pope Sixtus IV. His reign is purchased by his lover Pietro Riario who runs the church, including the Spanish Inquisition, until his death in 1474. After that time Sixtus entertains himself by having muscular young men strip and fight to the death, the survivor becoming his bed partner. When Sixtus was ill his physicians prescribe mother's milk, the pope suggests that the juice of young men would suit him better.
1474: A Rooster is burned at the stake for Athe heinous and unnatural crime of laying an egg".
1475, March 6: Birth of Michelangelo Buonarroti, (death 1564) Italian sculptor, painter and poet. Not a leatherman himself but certainly gay. And where would we be without his David to become, among other things, FeBe's logo, and his wrestlers in a 69 of testicle torture!
ca. 1480: Pico of Mirandola in AAgainst the Astrologists", describes a male acquaintance who is sexually excited by being whipped before sex. This is the first known case history of a masochist. [wd]
1494: Christopher Columbus's physician on his second voyage to the new world, wrote that the behavior of the natives was, "Detestable! Nauseating! Disgusting!" It was common practice among these Carib tribes to castrate boys captured from enemy villages and keep them as lovers until they were eighteen, then they were killed and eaten.

1500 - 1599

1500=s: Elena de Cespedes, a Spanish woman who lived as a man and married a woman, is discovered and immolated.
1513: Balboa, while exploring what is now Panama described homosexual activities among the natives he witnessed as "Abominable". He threw 40 of the offenders to his dogs. [AA]
1520, June 30: Inca Emperor Montezuma II dies at Tenochtitlan, Mexico. He is know to have cannibalized the boys he sodomized. [Greif 82]
1526: A Spanish historian wrote that Carib men also had lovers that they did not intend to smother in butter and spices. These lovers were distinguished by wearing "naguas" or short skirts and jewelry their lovers had given them.
1530: In an Inca town in northern Peru, shortly after being conquered by the Spanish, there were fifteen women for every man, the men had been burned for suspected homosexual activities. By 1580 the area was still known for its gay activity.
1533: The "buggery" law is passed in England decreeing a penalty of death. This is the first time the offense is covered under civil, rather than church, law. [AA]
1541: The birth of the painter El Greco (death 1614) AHis men are martyrs or conquerors; in their gaunt visages he traces the weariness and the final exhaustion of the body in surrendering to the mystical vision, or the savage meditation of those entrusted with the flagellation of Heretics."
1550 - 1555: Reign of Pope Julius III who, upon election as Pope, made his 17 year old lover a member of the College of Cardinals, and also appointed him Secretary of State. His orgies with teenage Cardinals were common knowledge. Most were horrified but the Archbishop of Benevento wrote a book, In Praise of Sodomy, dedicated to the pope.
1551, Sept. 19, Birth of Henri III, King of France. In the final years of his reign (he died at 37) he surrounded himself with handsome young men and abandoned himself to hedonistic joys. He took particular delight in flogging the backs of penitents marching in holy procession. [Greif 82]
1563: The Roman Catholic council of Trent concludes that sex is bad and denounces Apaintings calculated to excite lust." Pope Paul IV has clothes painted onto the naked figures in Michelangelo?s painting, Last Judgement, in the Sistine Chapel.
1564, Feb 26: Birth of English playwright Christopher Marlowe. "All they that love not tobacco and boys are fools." [Greif 82]
1570=s: Rome: Montaigne reports that at the Church of St. John, Catholic priests perform same sex marriages. A contemporary historian reports that same sex couples married in St. John?s are burned in the city square.
1576: Brazil: Spanish explorers report that some native women Agive up all duties of women and imitate men...Each has a woman to serve her, to whom she says she is married, and they treat each other and speak with each other as man and wife."
1580, April 1: The Netherlands: Civil Marriage is first established.
1583: The Third Provincial Council of Lima, in Peru, tells natives that Asodomy whether with another man, or with a boy , or a beast ...carries the death penalty, ...and the reason God has allowed that you should be so afflicted and vexed by other nations is because of this vice that your ancestors had and many of you still have." [AA]
1585: In one of the earliest recorded cases of masochism, Sister Mary Magdalene de Pazzi begs other nuns to tie her up and hurl hot wax at her. She also made a novice at the convent thrash her. [AA]
1590: In ALectiones antique" Ludovicus Caelius Rhodiginus describes a man who needs to be whipped to have an erection. [wd]

1600-1699

1600, March 18: Fourteen year old Catalan de Erauso escapes from a Basque convent then goes on to serve in the Spanish army dressed as a man. In 1620 the Pope gives permission for her to continue to dress in men?s clothing.
1602, July 6: birth of Jerome Duquesnoy in Brussels Belgium, The eminent sculptor was working on projects at the cathedral of St. Bavon in Ghent when he was arrested for sodomy with two acolytes of the church who had served as his models. He was strangled and then burned at the stake. [Greif 82]
1610: The Virginia Colony passes the New World's first sodomy law, decreeing the penalty of death for offenders. [AA]
1611, July 27: Birth of Murad IV, Sultan of Turkey. His name was synonymous with cruelty, torture and unspeakable horror. His reign was bloody, and the armless, legless, tongueless victims of his tyranny numerous. [Greif 82]
1619: Virginia: The first slaves are brought to North America. Quaker John Woolman later notes that despite their not being allowed legal marriage, ANegroes marry after their own way."
1624: Richard Cornish of the Virginia Colony is tried and hanged for sodomy. He is the first person in America known to be convicted of this offense. [AA]
1624 - 1653: The rule of Nzinga as King of Angola, this female to male cross dresser fought and won many battles against the Portuguese army.
1625, Feb. 7: In Virginia Thomas Hatch is sentenced to a whipping, the loss of one ear, and seven years of servitude, for daring to speak against the execution of a man for the crime of buggery.
1631: Mervyn Touchet, the Earl of Castlehaven, is put on trial for sodomy. He is found guilty and beheaded. [AA]
1631: Rembrandt sells rude etchings, thought to be of his wife pissing.
1638: Massachusetts orders every town to Adispose of all single persons." In Connecticut, bachelors are taxed 20 shillings a week.
1639: The German doctor Johann Heinrich Meibom describes the sexual excitement of some men when whipped in De usu flagrorum. He reasons that this is because the sperm fluid in the kidneys is heated by whipping and then descends to the testicles. Variations on this theory will dominate the thinking on SM until the 19th century. [wd]
1641-42: The Massachusetts Bay Colony incorporates the language of Leviticus 20:13 into it's laws. Other New England colonies soon follow suit. [AA]
1649: Sarah White Norman and Mary Vincent Hammon are charged with "lewd behavior each with other upon a bed" in Plymouth MA. Charges against Hammon are dropped, but Norman is convicted and has to make a public confession. She is the first woman in America know to be convicted of lesbian activity. [AA]
1644, April 10: Birth of John Wilmot, later Earl of Rochester, British writer. His poetry extols the joys of every possible type of human coupling.
1654: Execution of Jerome Duquesnoy (born 1602), court sculptor of Flanders. he is found guilty of sodomy with two church acolytes who had served as his models, strangled and burned at the stake. His brother, Francois, also a sculptor, created Brussels? famous Pissing Boy fountain.
1655: The colony of New Haven expands its definition of sodomy - a capital offense - to include sexual relations between women. [AA]
1659: In France, by Royal decree, secret marriages and abductions are summarily abolished.
1661: In New England, the first Colonial divorce. Massachusetts averages one a year until 1760.
1661 - 1750: All the Southern colonies, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania pass laws prohibiting interracial sex and marriage.
1662-1723: The reign of Emperor Kang Xi, who first took steps to prohibit consensual homosexuality in China.
1677: Using the newly invented microscope, Dutch researchers Leeuwenhoek and Ham observe human sperm for the first time.[wd]
1681: The young Count de Vermandois, the son of Louis XIV of France by Louise de La Valliere, applies for admission to a secret fraternity of homosexuals active, but underground, in the French Court. Because the young count is so indiscreet in his activities, his father discovers his orientation, and the existence of the fraternity. Louis has his son whipped in his presence and then exiles him.
1694: First mention of the Cerne Abbas Giant, a huge chalk drawing on the side of a hill near Dorchester, England. The naked giant with club and erect phallus is supposedly prehistoric. But why was it not noticed until now? Some suspect a 17th Century hoax designed to annoy the Puritans.
1694, Nov 21; Birth of Francois Marie Arouet, better known as the French philosopher/writer Voltaire. He once ended a letter to a male friend, "I kiss your rod." Should we consider Candide a masochist?
1698, Kristian Franz Paullini confirms Meibom?s theory in Flagellum salutis, but claims that blood is warmed by whipping, which then excites the sperms in the testicles. [wd]

1700 - 1799

1700=s: In the Prussian state of Uuerttemburg, cripples and blind persons are not permitted to marry.
1712, June 28: Birth of Jean Jacques Rousseau (death July 2, 1778). By his own reports, except for one relationship, the artist was a lifelong unfulfilled masochist, dating from a school spanking when he was 11. In one affair, he had a Mistress who dominated him thoroughly, but even she refused to re-enact his much desired spanking. [JWB]
1720: Anne Bonney and Mary Read, partners who dressed as men and sailed the seas are tried for Piracy.
1730, Sept. 17: Birth of Baron Freidrich von Steuben, aid to Frederick the Great, who was in charge of training the Prussian army until there were objections to "indecent liberties" with young men. He then offeres his services to the Continental Army in America and joines Washington at Valley Forge. There he organizes and disciplines the men into a powerful striking force. When he retires he adopts two handsome young men to become his heirs, and he probably continues to train and discipline them. [Greif 82]
1730, Nov. 6: The future Frederick the Great of Prussia, 18, (born Jan. 24, 1712) is forced by his father to watch the torture and beheading of his lover, Lt. Hans Hermann von Katte, after the two of them were caught trying to run away together. Later as king, on learning that a particularly well-endowed soldier had been arrested for "bestiality with his horse," he is reputed to have replied, "Fool -- don't put him in irons; put him in the infantry."
1730-31: Authorities announce the discovery of an extensive homosexual network in Amsterdam. Three hundred prosecutions resulted and 70 people, including boys as young as 14, were executed. [AA]
1740, June 2: the Birth of the Marquis deSade. [Greif 82]
1740: China's first sodomy laws are enacted by Manchu Qing regime, which outlaws male homosexuality. [AA]
1749: Publication of Fanny Hill, by John Cleland. The novel about a London prostitute is immediately suppressed, but it has enjoyed enormous popularity for more than two centuries.
1749, Jan. 29: Birth of King Christian VII of Denmark, whose physician assigned him a sadistic male lover who beat him regularly. [Greif 82]
1753, Sept 20: Birth of Tippu Sahib, the last maharajah of Mysore, who spends his life resisting British designs on India. The ATiger of Mysore@ demonstrates his feelings for the British by personally supervising the gang rape of each captured soldier. [Greif 82]
1753, Oct. 18: Birth of Jean Jaczues Regis de Cambaceres in France. Under Napoleon he became the primary architect of the Napoleonic Code. He was discreet, but not secretive, about his homosexuality and it was through his influence that the Napoleonic Code, and many later laws based upon it, legalized private consenting homosexual acts between adults. (died: Mar. 8, 1824)
1754, Sept 9: Birth of William Bligh, later to become renowned as Captain of H.M.S. Bounty. He survived the mutiny and the long voyage in an open boat, while all of the mutineers perished on Pitcairn Island. And he certainly knew how to have a man flogged!
1755, Sept. 4: Birth of Hans Axel, Count von Fersen, in Stockholm Sweden. General, Statesmen, and lover of three different Swedish kings. The reason for his horrible death has never been satisfactorily explained. A savage mob tore him to pieces in the streets of Stockholm as police looked on and did nothing. He had been beaten with canes and umbrellas and then kicked to death. [Greif 82]
1758, May 6: Birth of Francois de Robespierre, a leader of the French revolution, he led in sending many of the nobility, and their supporters, to the torture chambers, and to the guillotine. He ended up there himself.
1763, Oct. 29: By order of the King of France, the Marquis de Sade is committed to Vincennes fortress for excesses committed in a brothel which he has been frequenting for a month.
1768, Apr. 3: On Easter Sunday, at about nine o=clock in the moring The Marquis de Sade accosts Rose Keller, she accompanies Sade in a cab to Arcueil. There, in his rented cottage, he orders her to undress, threatens her with a knife, and flogs her.
1772, Sept. 3: Verdict: The Marquis de Sade, and his man servant Latour, are found guilty. The former of crimes of poisoning and sodomy, and the latter of the crime of sodomy, and are condemned to expiate their crimes at the cathedral porch before being taken to the Place Saint-Louis Afor the said Sade to be decapitated.. and the said Latour to be hanged by the neck and strangled... then the body of the said Sade and that of the said Latour to be burned and their ashes strewn to the wind.@ On Sept 12 Sade and Latour are executed in effigy on the Place des Precheurs, in Aix.
1775, July 9: Birth of Matthew Gregory "Monk" Lewis in London. A master at writing the silly, overripe 18th Century Gothic romance novels that are still fun to read. In his Ambrosio, or the Monk (1795) Ambrosio is seduced by a woman driven to blind nymphomania by demons, who enters the monastery and Ambrosios's bed disguised as a boy. His sins are found out and he is tortured by the Inquisition, sentenced to death, and bargains with the Devil, who destroys him. [Greif 82]
1776, Jan. 17: M. Trillet comes to La Coste to claim his daughter, who is known in the chateau as Justine. During an argument with the Marquis de Sade, Trillet fires a pistol shot at him almost point blank, but misses. He runs off to the La Coste township where he babbles about what has happened. Later Catherine (aka Justine) sends someone to find her father, who returns to the chateau. Here she tries to calm him but Trillet, who has brought four other men back with him, flies into another rage and fires a second shot into a courthared where he thinks Sade to be. All five men then flee.
1776, Feb. 13: The Marquis de Sade is arrested by inspector Marais at the Hotel de Danemark, on the rue Jacob and taken to Vincennes fortress where, at 9:30 that night, he is formally entered as a prisoner.
1776, April 18: In a letter from the Marquis de Sade to his wife: AI am in a tower closed in by nineteen iron doors, with light reaching me only through two little windows, each with a score of iron bars.@ He complains that in over the two months he has been in prioson he has been allowe only five walks of one hour each, Ain a sort of tomb about fourty feet square surrounded by walls more than fifty feet high.@
1776, Sept. 7: After winning a trial, and escaping from authorities, the Marquis de Sade is again incarceratd at Vincennes prison.
1778, March 10: Lt. F. G. Enslin is drummed out of the Continental Army for "attempting to commit sodomy with J. Monhart, a soldier."
1780's In the United States, colonial laws become state constitutions. Bigamy is prohibited, the marriage of a lunatic is void, and age requirements are set. Marriages can be annulled for impotence and blood relations.
1782, July 12: The Marquis de Sade completes the manuscript of his ADialogue between a Priest and a Dying Man@.
1784, Feb. 29: The Marquis de Sade is transfered from the Vincennes prison to the Bastille.
1785: The Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue includes the phrase Agentlemen of the back door@ as a slang term for gay men.
1785, Oct. 22: The Marquis de Sade begins the final revision of his draft of a major work< The 120 Days of Sodom or The School for Libertines.
1788: The French doctor Francois Amedee Doppet confirmes Meibom and Paullini's theory. He expands it by pointing out that women always have warm vaginas after whipping. At the end of his article Das Beisseln und sein Auswirkunauf den Geschlechtstrieb he gives safety tips for flagellants. This is the first known SM safety text! [wd]
1788, Mar. 1: The Marquis de Sade begins work on his short novel Eugenie de Franval, which he completes in six days.
1789, July 2: The Bastille logbook notes that AThe Count de Sade shouted several times from the window of the Bastille that the prisoners were being slaughtered and that the poeple should come to liberate them.@
1789, July 4: At 1:00 AM, as a result of a report made to Lord de Villedeuil on the Marquis de Sade's coduct on July 2, he is transfered to Charenton Asylum by Inspector Quidor.
1789, July 14: The Bastille is stormed and the Marquis de Sade's cell is sacked. His furniture, his suites, linen, his library and most important, his manuscripts are Aburned, pillaged, torn up and carried off.@
1790, Apr. 2: de Sade is released from Charenton Asylum.
1791: Justine by the Marquis de Sade (1740-1841) is first published in France.
1791, Oct. 22: First performance at the Theatre Moliere of Sade's Le Comte Oxtiern ou les effets du libertinage. A second performance occurs two weeks later which gives rise to a disturbance and causes Sade to suspend further performances.
1792: Civil marrage is established after the revolution in France.
1794: Prussia becomes the first German state to abolish the death penalty for homosexuality (which had been in effect since 1532), and replace it with flogging and imprisonment.

1800 - 1849

1800=s: in Washington DC, We=wha, a two-spirit leader and representative for the Native American Zuni tribe, is married to a man.
1801, March 6: Sade and his publisher, Nicolas Masse, are arrested. Police searches find manuscripts and printed works, including Juliette and La Nouvelle Justine and a tapestry depicting Athe most obscene subjects, most of which were drawn from the infamous novel Justine.@
1801, April 2: The Minister of Police decides that a Atrial would cause too much of a scandal which an exemplary punishment would still not make worthwile@ So de Sade is Aplaced@ in Sainte-Pelagie prison as Aadministrative punishment@ for being the author of Athat infamous novel Justine@ and of that Astill more terrible work Juliette.@
1805: Publication of Ein Jahr in Arkadien (A Year in Arcadia), by Herzog August von Sachsen Gotha, the first homoerotic book in the German Language. [AA]
1809: New York: In Genton vs Reed, the state Supreme Court recognizes common-law marriage, which won=t be declared void until 1901.
1809, Mar. 31: Birth of Edward Fitzgerald, English writer who cruised the Suffolk docks "looking for some fellow to accost me and fill a very vacant place in my heart." [Greif 82]
1809, Dec. 29: Birth of William Gladsone (death May 19, 1898) The four time Prime Minister of England was dedicated to self flagellation both to punish himself for impure thoughts and to achieve a pleasure from the act, which he then repented. [JWB]
1810: The Napoleonic Code is instituted in France. It eliminates all laws forbidding homosexuality. [AA]
1810: The mother of a schoolgirl accuses Marianne Woods and Jane Pirie, mistresses at a boarding school for girls, of Aimporper and criminal conduct@ with each other, The British courts debate whether a sexual relationship between women was even possible. Lillian Hellman used his plot 120 years later as the basis for her play The Children's Hour. [AA]
1813, April 28: Prince Mikhail Kutuzov, who lead the defense of Moscow against Napoleon, dies of a heart attack while having sex with a soldier.
1814, Sept 13: On this day Francis Scott Key wrote "The Star Spangled Banner." This deserves a healthy "so what?" from most readers of this list. But Key set his flag waving poem to music originally titled "Anacreon In Heaven". The Anacreonitics, who delighted in copying the Greek poet's style, seemed to miss the subject, which was largely about boys he diddled. OK, whatever the etymology the anthem is unsingable.
1814, Dec. 2: Death, at Charenton Asylum of Donatien Alphonse Francois de Sade, the Marquis.
1820, May 12: Birth of Florence Nightingale, who is alleged to have said, AI have lived and slept in the same bed with English Countesses and Prussian farm women...No woman has excited passion among women more than I have.@
1821, Nov. 11: Birth of Feodor Dostoeovski (death Feb. 9, 1881). The writer's letters to his beloved Anna are peppered with direct references to his fetish for her feet. His contemporary, Turgenev, called him Athe Russian Marquis de Sade,@ perhaps suggesting more than the Anna letters reveal.
1824, Nov. 6: In France the Marquis Astolphe de Custine is sadistically gang-raped by a group of soldiers with whom he had made an assignation.
1825, Aug. 28: Birth of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, German sexologist and activist [Greif 82]
1826: Karl Ernst von Baer discovers the human ovum. [wd]
1828: The English Parliament closes a loophole in its definition of the capital crime of buggery. It would no longer be necessary to demonstrate "The actual Emission of Seed" to convict someone of buggery or rape. [AA]
1828: First publication, in Leipzig, Germany, of the Memoirs of Casanova.
1830: Publicaton in France of the two volume work La Marquise de Gange, of which de Sade is the anonymous author.
1833, Jan 28: The birth of Charles George "Chinese" Gordon, military hero of Imperial Britain and martyr at Khartoum. He was fond of picking up street urchins, bathing them, feeding them and mending their clothes with his very own needle and thread." [Greif 82]
1834 - 36: Heinrich Hoessli, a Swiss milliner, publishes his two volume set Eros: On the Love of Men, in German. It collected all the examples he could find of homosexual love in ages past -- Greek, Roman, and Persian love poems and manuscripts - and was one of the first books in modern times to give a positve view of homosexuality. [AA]
1835, June 15: Birth of Adah Isaacs Menken (death Aug. 25 1868). This most famed sexpot of the Victorian age was the star of AMazeppa.@ She flashed apparent nudity in the face of Emperor Franz Josef -- he like it. She was also the lover in reality, or publicly held fantasy, of many famous men including numerous crowned heads and chiefs of government. She was once paid by Dante Gabriel Rosetti to spend the night with poet Charles Swinburne, giving him the flogging he wanted, possibly in an attempt on Rosetti's part to convince the poet that women were desirable sex partners. [JWB]
1836: Death of Threse Berkeley who supervised a flagellant brothel at 28 Charlotte St, London. Ms Berkeley is the inventor of the Berkley bench/horse, a specialized piece of furniture for flogging and bondage. [R]
1836: The last execution for homosexuality takes place in Britain, although the death penalty for homosexuals will remain on the books until 1861. [AA]
1836, Jan 27: Birth of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, author of Venus in Furs. The man who put the "M" in SM.
1837, April 5: Birth of British poet Charles Algernon Swinburne who wrote many lines in praise of switches on asses.
1840, Aug. 14: Birth of German psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing in Mannheim, Germany [wd]
1843: Massachussetts repeals its 138 year old antimiscegenation law.
1843: Hungarian physician Heinrich Kaan publishes his report named Psychopathias sexualis, reinterpreting sins of the flesh as psychological disorders. The theological terms Adeviation@, Aaberation@, and Aperversion@ are introduced into medicine. [wd]
1844: In The Queen vs. Millis, common law marriages are declared illegal in England.
1844, March 30: Birth of Paul Verlaine, poet and lover of poet Arthur Rimbaud (born Oct 20, 1854). He was imprisoned for two years after shooting his lover. He wrote Sonnet to an Asshole which begins "Dark and wrinkled like a deep pink, / It breathes, humbly nestled among the moss / Still wet with love..." [Greif 82]
1844, July 25: Birth of Thomas Eakins in Philadelphia. The great American artist specialized in painting muscular, nude male models, nude male athletes and nude male bathers. [Greif 82]
1844, Aug. 29: Birth of Edward Carpenter, the great English "sexual emancipator." Believing the effeminacy of "Uranians" a myth, he affected a form of macho dress, as did his working-class lover George Merrill, that make them both look, almost a century later, awfully contemporary. [Greif 82]
1844, Oct. 15: The birth of Friedrich Nietzche. (death Aug. 25 1900). The philosopher was not an ardent of SM, but listed among the four women in his life one married woman whom he flogged during sex and who, dressed as a man, beat him senseless before another sexual encounter. Also, a photo of Nietzche shows him as one of two gentlemen horses Apulling@ a cart on which Lou Andreas-Salome (not Athe@ married woman) crouches with a knotted whip raised. [JWB]
1846, Feb. 20: New York City policeman Edward McCosker is dismissed for "indecently feeling the privates" of a male passerby while on duty.

1850 - 1899

1854, Feb. 16: birth of English writer Horatio Forbes Brown. When he died in 1926 his executors burned most of his unpublished works, attempting to hide his taste for sailors, footmen and other strapping members of the lower orders. One of his surviving poems depicts a boring society musicale in which every stanza ends with the line, "But I liked their footman John the best." [Greif 82]
1856, May 6: Birth of Sigmund Freud in Freiberg, Austria. [wd]
1857: French physician B. A. Borel champions the concept of physical and mental Adegeneration@ that is also used to explain Aincorrect sexual behavior@. The concept will dominate psychiatric thinking until Freud. [wd]
1857, Feb. 22: The birth, in London, of Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts, army officer, and homosexual.
1858, June 12: Birth of Henry Scott Tuke, British painter and grand master of romantic boy painting. He was an athlete who took great pride in his splendid body and was obsessed with painting nude boys and experimented, and succeeded , in developing a special technique for capturing on canvas the effect of sunlight on naked skin. [Greif 82]
1861: England eliminates the death penalty for male homosexual acts; offenders are now subject to imprisonment for ten years to life. [AA]
1862, Aug. 6: Birth of Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson, professor of classics at Cambridge where the students were only too happy to satisfy his tastes as a boot-fetishist. He wrote of one young man, "I liked him to stand upon me when we met." [Greif 82]
1864, Sept. 1: Birth of Roger Casement in Ireland. In the course of British consular service, he exposed the atrocious conditions imposed on gatherers of wild rubber in the Congo and similar conditions in South America. He was knighted for his services. But, though an Ulster protestant, he became an ardent Irish nationalist. He was arrested and tried for treason. What sealed his doom was the admission as evidence of his diaries which recorded all of his sexual encounters, itemizing both the amount of the transaction (if the stud was for hire) and the size of his equipment. It made for sensational evidence in 1916: "Stanley Weeks, 20, stripped, huge one, circumcised; swelled and hung quite." "Enormous 19 about 7" and 4 thick; into me." Casement was hanged on Aug. 6, 1916, a martyr for more than Ireland.
1865, July 15: Death of James Miranda Barry (1795-1865) a Major General and Surgeon in the British Army with a highly distinguished career and a reputation as a rake who was known to flirt openly with the best looking women in the room. When a charwoman was preparing the body for burial it was discovered that the Major General was female. [Greif 82]
1866: Superstition & Force by Henry Charles Lea published in Britain. Edited and republished as The Ordeal by Edward Peters in 1973.
1867, Aug. 29: While speaking to a conference of jurists in Munich, Karl Ulrichs becomes the first known person in modern times to publicly declare himself a homosexual (though not using that word) and to speak out in favor of gay rights (obviously, not using those words). [AA]
1869: Karl Maria Kertbeny, writing anonymously, uses the term AHomosexual@ in a pamphlet calling for repeal of Prussia's sodomy laws. This is the earliest know use of this term. It began appearing in US medical journals in the 1890's and in general usage during the 1920's.
1869, Dec. 8: In Austria Leopold von Sacher-Masoch begins correspondence with Fanny Pistor, aka Baroness Bogdonoff, aka Mistress Wanda, his Venus in Furs.
1870: The first American novel to touch on gay themes, Joseph and His Friend, by Bayard Taylor, is published. But the homosexual emements are so subtle that a nongay reader could easily miss them. [AA]
1872, Aug. 21: Birth of artist Aubrey Beardsley, who drew many men with gigantic phalluses and many asses being caned. Beardsley's professional affiliation with Oscar Wilde ruined him and he died from tuberculosis less than three years after Wilde's famous trial. It is believed that Beardsley was not himself gay and that his ruin was largely a case of "guilt by association". [Greif 82]
1872: The newly formed German empire adopts a penal code that includes the infamous Paragraph 175, outlawing male homosexuality. The new law becomes a catalyst for the nascent German homophile movement. [AA]
1873, Jan. 28: In France the birth of writer Sidomie-Gabrielle Colette (d. 1954), who wore a bracelet engraved "I belong to Missy."
1874: For the Term of His Natural Life by Marcus Clarke published in Australia. US edition in 1973.
1875, March 7: Birth of Maurice Ravel, French composer. Gay but no record of his being into leather. However, his Bolero is among the best dungeon music possible, talk about slow build up to an exciting crescendo!
1875, April 15: Baloonists Sivel and Croche-Spinelli die in a fall over India. Burried together in Pere-Lachaise Cemetary in Paris, their monument depicts them lying together, naked, hand in hand, partially covered by a sheet. [TOL]
1877, April 30: birth of Alice B. Toklas. "Throughout most of her life, this selfless woman's major occupation was the care and maintenance of Gertrude Stein." [Greif 82]
1879, Jan. 1: The birth of E. M. Forester, British novelist, who had as his lover for half a century a virile, handsome, married, London policeman who granted his most elemental wish: "to love a strong young man of the lower classes and be loved by him and even hurt by him." [Greif 82]
1879, July: The first erotic magazine, AThe Pearl, a Journal of Facetiae and Voluptuous Reading@, consisting of stories with flagellation themes and attributed to Algernon Charles Swinburne, is distributed among high society. It last for 18 issues until Dec. 1880. [wd]
1882: In Pace vs Alabama, the USA Supreme Court upholds a law that makes interracial adultery more serious than intraracial adultery, arguing that interracial couples would produce genetically inferior offspring.
1882, Feb. 2: Birth of James Joyce, avant -garde novelist who made his lover, Nora Barnacle, into a dominant of whom he begged beatings and floggings Ain earnest.@ We don=t know if she said yes or no. [JWB]
1885: The British Parliment at first tables the Criminal Law Amendment Act which made all acts of Agross indecency@ between males, whether in public or private, an offence punishable by up to two years inprisonment. However a rally that the Purity Campaign orgaizes in Hyde Park attracts a crowd of thousands and on this wave of hysteria the law is rushed through parlament. It became known as AThe Blackmailer's Charter@ and was the law under which Oscar Wilde was later tried and convicted.
1885, Sept. 11: The Birth of D. H. Lawrence, a man who has come to be seen as the high-priest of heterosexual love. But it is know that at one time Lawrence had become so friendly with a handsome farm boy named William Henry that his wife Feieda adamantly refused ever to allow the young man to enter the Lawrence's house. Whatever his sexual proclivities were, his writing was the major concern of censorship in the US, and when the likes of Lady Chatterley's Lover were finally cleared by customs, the DAMn had really broken.
1886, Feb. 22: The Birth of William Seaabrook (death Sept 20, 1945). This top-rated writer about exotic places (from personal experience) was equally famous among the literat for his elaborate, long-term bondage of beautiful, young women. [JWB]
1886: The Austrian police physician Richard von Krafft-Ebing publishes the first edition of his Psychopathia sexualis with 110 pages and 45 case histories. He creates the diagnosis of Apaedophilia@ and adopts Asadism@ from earlier French usage. AMasochism@ is not introduced until the sixth edition. [wd]
1887: The state of Pennsylvania raises its age of consent from 10 to 16, after a campagn by the Women's Christian Temperance Union and the White Cross Society.
1888, Aug 15: The birth of Thomas Edward Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, who was captured, caned and raped by Turkish soldiers, and who loved it so madly he hired Robert Bruce to flog him regularly after he returned to England. [Greif 82]
1888, Aug 16: The birth of Edgar Montillion Wolley, better known as the American actor Monty Woolley. His taste was for black men, generally supplied by an assortment of New York pimps. He fell in love with one and they lived together for years as lovers. [Greif 82]
1889: A male brothel is discoverd at 19 Cleveland St. in London's West End. The Scandal becomes the talk of society and many important figures, including Prince Albert Victor, second in line to the throne, are rumored to be implicated. [AA]
1889, July 5: Birth of Jean Cocteau, French artist, writer and filmmaker. One of the many customs regarding polite Parisian pissour manners was known as the "privilege du cape." This allowed a Frenchman who could not find a convenient pissoir to approach a gendarme and ask him to extend his cape so that he could take a leak behind it. One of Cocteau's favorite amusements was to choose a handsome young cop and pretend that he was drunk. With luck he could get his trouser buttons undone by the helpful gendarme -- and possibly more. Uncooperative victims wound up with wet shoes. [Greif 82]
1890's: The "gay '90's" were the time Florenz Ziegfeld started the modern commercial exploitation of muscular males in vaudeville exhibitions of strength. He made the German strongman Eugen Sandow a household name as Sandow the Magnificent. Sandow often appeared wearing only a large fig leaf. [Hooven 95]
1891: Publication of A Problem in Modern Ethics by John Addington Symonds, it provides a systematic review of scholarly literature on homosexuality. [AA]
1892 The New York Times becomes the first US newspaper to use the word Alesbian@ in a news story: ALesbian Love and Murder@ about a suicide pact made by two young women after their parents forbid them to see each other. [TOL]
1892, June 5; Birth of Ivy Compton-Burnett, british novelist whose work has been called "morality plays for the tough-minded," and who lived most of her life in total subservience to Margaret Jourdain, a scholar and expert in 18th Century furniture. [Greif 82]
1893: Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing first uses the term "homosexual" and attributes it to an indelible personality trait, rather than to a sexual activity. [Hooven 95]
1893, Feb. 20: Birth of Bill Tilden, first American to win at Wimbledon (d. 1953). He was considered one of the greatest athletes of the 20th Century, but was snubbed by the tennis world when his homosexuality became known.
1893, Oct. 30, Birth of bodybuilder Charles Atlas, who, though not gay, made a major contribution to the beauty of men.
1894: One of the earliest known gay organizations is formed by George Cecil Ives. The Order of Chaeronea took its name from the Greek battle of 338 BC at which the Sacred Band of Thebes was annihilated. [AA]
1894, Feb. 18: John Sholto Douglas, the 18th Marquis of Queensberry leaves a card at the Albermarle Club in London addressed "to Oscar Wilde posing as a somdomite" (sic) triggering the incident that was to bring about Wilde's downfall. The Marquis is better know among other circles as the compiler of the governing rules of the sport of boxing.
1894, June 7: The Blackmailers, a play by John Gray and his lover Andre Raffalovich, receiveds its one and only performance at the Prince of Whales Theatre.
1895: Bom-Crioulo, The Black Man and The Cabin Boy by Adolfo Caninha published in Brazil.
1895, Jan. 1: birth of J. Edgar Hoover, for many years head of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. He maintained secret survelence files on individuals and organizations, including gay and other sexually identified ones. He was a homosexual and homophobe. (died: May 2, 1972)
1895: Oscar Wilde is convicted of committing Aindecent acts@ with young lower-class men and is condemed to two years of hard labor. [AA]
1895, Mar. 9: Official date of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's death from heart failure as given by his family. This incorrect date is still found in a large number of texts. Actual date of death:1905, see below. [wd]
1895, May 6: Birth of Rudolfo Alfonzo Raffaelo Pierre Filbert Guglielmi di Balentina d'Antonguolla in Castellaneta, Italy. Better known as Rudolph Valentino, there is little argument that he enjoyed male to male sex, was dominated by his lesbian wife, and died because his macho image demanded that he fight in a boxing arena. But we love him best for the image of the captured Sheik hanging from upstretched arms to that barred window, his chest bared, his body ready for whatever we desire.
1896: The English researcher Havelock Ellis starts work on his monumental book, Studies in the Psychology of Sex. [wd]
1897: Archaeologists working in Egypt find some of the lost poetry of Sappho on papyrus scrolls used to line ancient coffins and to stuff the carcasses of mummified animals.[TOL]
1897, May 15: Magnus Hirschfeld and five friends found the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee in Charlottenburg, then a suburb of Berlin. Their goal was to abolish the antihomosexual Paragraph 175 in German law. The committee dissolved on June 8, 1933 to avoid being banned by the Nazis. Paragraph 175 was still in force.
1897, May 19: Oscar Wilde is released from Prison in England.
1897, Nov.: Publication of the first English edition of Sexual Inversion by Havelock Ellis (1859-1939), the first book in English to treat homosexuality as neither a disease nor a crime. (Born Feb 2, 1859)
1898, June 5: The birth of Federico Garcia Lorca, gay Spanish playwright who has the vicious Bernarda Alba, in the play with her name, shout out to the mob dragging away the adulteress, "Hot coals in the place where she sinned!"
1898, Sept 21: The birth in Moscow of artist Pavel Tchelitchew. His cubistic painting, Figures, depicts a rape with three male nudes. [Greif 82]
1898: Der Eigene (The Exceptional) becomes the first gay publication destined to a long existence, until 1931! Edited by Berlin writer Adolf Brand who in 1903 founded the Community of the Exceptional, after Hirschfeld's, the second gay organization in Berlin.
1899: The Torture Garden, a novel by Octave Mirbeau published in France. First English edition in 1931. ReSearch edition 1989.
1899: Magnus Hirschfeld publishes the first issue of the Jahrbuch der sexuelle Zwischenstufen (Journal of Sexual Intermediates). [AA]
1899: Publication of A Marriage Below Zero, by Alfred J. Cohen, considered the first American novel in which homosexuality is a central theme. Naturally the homosexual character commits suicide. [TOL]

1900 - 1909

1901: The death in New York of Mary Anderson, who had lived as Murray Hall and had married two women.
1902: Richard von Krafft-Ebing dies in Graz, Austria at age 62 of multiple strokes. [wd]
1903, Sept 10: Birth of Ciril Connolly, English writer who was considered one of the "bright young men" of the 1920's. Chubby chasers should note that he wrote: "Imprisoned in every fat man a thin man is wildly signaling to be let out." OH YES!! [Greif 82]
1903: The British physician Havelock Ellis publishes AStudies in the Psychology of Sex.@ [wd]
1904, Dec. 17: The birth, in New York City, of artist Paul Cadmus, who wonderfully portrayed lusty sailors, and had a painting destroyed by the Navy as being "inappropriate".
1905: The Memoirs of a Voluptuary, the Secret Life of an English Boarding School by Anonymous published in Britain. US edition in 1971.
1905: Leopold von Sacher-Masoch dies in an insane assylum in Mannheim, Germany. [wd]
1906: Maximilian Harden, publisher of Berlin's Die Zukunft, prints an editorial warning of the danger presented by the homosexual comspiricy. [AA]
1906: In Austria the first publication of Young Torless by Robert Musil (Eng. ed 1955) a novel depicting a sexually explosive hazing in an Austrian military school.
1905: The Austrian physician Sigmund Freud publishes his ADrei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie@. Sadism and masochism are described as illnesses resulting from incomplete or faulty development of a child's personality. Psychoanalysis, a form of speculative philosophy with no empirical basis, becomes the dominating theory in psychiatry for the next 60 years. [wd]
1905, Mar. 2: Birth of Marc Blitzstein, American composer. He was murdered by a hustler in Fort-de-France, Martinique in 1968.
1907: A crowd of 2000 shows up for a debate about Germany's sodomy law, the nororious Paragraph 175, sponaored by the Scientific Humanitarian Committee. [AA]
1907: Release of film Love Microbe, the first in which sex is central to the plot. A scientist isolates the Agerm@ that causes people to get the hots for each other.
1907, Feb. 21: birth of W. H. Auden, English poet. His poem "The Platonic Blow" was published in Fuck You: A Magazine of the Arts in 1965 without his permission. The poem was then issued in a Trade edition of 300 copies and a "Rough Trade" edition of 5 numbered copies each with "beautiful slurp drawings." The first two lines of the poem are, "It was a Spring day, a day for a lay, when the air / Smelled like a locker-room, a day to blow or get blown." [Greif 82]
1907, Sept. 23: Birth of Anne Declos, aka Dominique Aury, aka Pauline Reage, the author of Historie d=O. (death: April 26 1998) [wd]
1908: Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev (born March 19, 1872; died 1929) meets Vaslav Nijinsky (born March 12, 1890). In their five years together Diaghilev totally dominates Nijinsky's life as he shapes him into one of the finest dancers the world has ever seen and creates a relationship (slave and Master?) that eventually results in Nijinsky's madness.
1908: Publication of The Intermediate Sex by Edward Carpenter in England. [AA]
1908: First publication of Physical Culture magazine, the first magazine to focus on the male physique with lots of articles about sex and photos of scantily clad men. (Hooven 1995)
1908, Aug. 18: Birth of Sir Frances Rose, the last of Gertrude Stein's many artist proteges. In 1952 Alice B. Toklas reported that Rose was in trouble because of a Spanish gypsy boy he had found and hired as both valet and bed mate. After an incident involving a stolen bicycle Rose examined the boy's papers and discovered that he was his illegitimate son. [Greif 82]
1909: Two black men are accused of oral sex with one another in Kentucky. They are not convicted because the judge couldn=t find any law on the books under which to find them guilty. He urged that lawmakers remedy this problem, and soon many states had outlawed oral sex. [AA]
1909, April 23: In Woodside, OH, the birth of writer Samuel M. Steward, aka Phil Andros. As sex researcher Dr. Alfred C. Kinsey's major contact with the world of homosexual male SM he arranged and participated in scenes staged for Kinsey's cameras.

1910 - 1919

1910: Among the Klementi tribe in Albania, if a virgin swore to twelve witnesses that she refused to ever marry, she would be allowed to live as a man carrying weapons and herding livestock. [TOL]
1910: Magnus Hirschfeld creates the term Atransvestite@ and is the first to separate them from homosexuals. [wd]
1910: The Chicago Vice Commission reports the presence of whole "colonies" of sexual perversion, including a homosexual street gang, known as the Bluebirds, that frequented Grant Park.
1910, May 14: Alice B. Toklas and Gertrude Stein begin living together in Paris. [TOL]
1910, Dec. 19: birth in Paris of Jean Genet, his gay and SM themed works include The Balcony, Querelle du Brest, and Our Lady of the Flowers. (Death in 1986)
1911: A law is passed in the Netherlands prohibiting sexual contact between members of the same sex under the age of 21. The law sparked Dutch nobleman Jacob Schorer to form Nederlandsch Wetenschappelijk Humanitair Komitee, modeled after Hirschfeld's Scientific Humanitarian Committee in Germany. The NWHK provided support to homosexuals until 1940 when Schorer destroyed its records to prevent them from falling into the hands of the Nazis. [AA]
1912: The Scientific Humanitarian Committee polls candidates for the forthcoming Reichstag election to learn their view on gay issues. Ninety one out of the 96 who respond say that they favor gay rights! [AA]
1913: Alfred Redl, head of Austrian Intelligence, is exposed as a double agent working for the Russians. He committs suicide the next morning. Authorities who search his rooms find abundant indications that Redl had been a homosexual. The widely publicized case gives prominence to the idea that homosexuals are security risks, and 37 years later, US Senator Joseph McCarthy used the Redl case to raise similar fears. [AA]
1914: Publication of Dictionary of Criminal Slang which includes the first known printed definition of the word Afaggot@ as a term for Aa male homosexual=. [TOL]
1914: Magnus Hirschfeld publishes his 1067 page study on homosexuality. [wd]
1915, May 25: Foreseeing a wartime shortage, Amy Lowell hoards 10,000 of her favorite Havana cigars in her home in Brookline, MA. (born Feb 9, 1874)
1916, Nov. 29: Birth of artist Neel Bate, as "Blade" one of the pioneers of gay erotica. His most famous work, an underground classic in pre-Stonewall days is The Barn, which he wrote and illustrated.
1916, Dec. 30: On this date Grigori Rasputin is murdered. The Russian monk, who was a famous sexual adventurer, spent some years initiating women into the reportedly Christian cult of flagellants before he settled into the court o Nicholas and Alexandria. There is no evidence that his position in the Russian court stopped or impeded his involvement with the female flagellants cult. [JWB]
1917: The new revolutionary government of the Soviet Union abolishes the sodomy laws of the tsarist regime. [AA]
1917: The Bolshevik govenment in Russia says it will recognize only civil marriages.
1917, Nov. 20: T. E. Lawrence "of Arabia" (1888-1935) being held captive by the Turks at Deraa is caned and (probablly) raped by Turkish army officers, an incident described in his 1926 book The Seven Pillars of Wisdom. His taste for the cane continued through life.
1918: Publication of Life is Movement, the autobiography and manual of Hungarian born Eugen Sandow, who thrilled audiences in New York and London throughout the 1890=s. Billed as AThe world's strongest man= he often appeared wearing only a metal figleaf, held in place by a spring metal strap that was hidden in the cleft of his ass.
1919: Magnus Hirschfeld founds the Institute for Sexology in Berlin. The Institute combines the world's first sex conseling center, a museum, a library and an ongoing series of educational events. [AA]
1919, Jan. 7: Birth of Robert Duncan, a leading poet of the San Francisco renaissance. The first poet to use the word Acocksucker@ in print and the first to strip to the buff during poetry readings. [Greif 82]
1919, May 24: release of Anders als die Andern (Different from the Others), one of the earliest films to offer viewers a gay-positive perspective. It costarred Konrad Veidt and Magnus Hirschfeld. [AA]

1920 - 1929

1920, May 8: The birth in Finland of Touko Laaksonen, the erotic artist who would become known to leather men of the world as Tom of Finland. (Died 1992).
1921: The Theatre des Eros, the first theater devoted exclusively to gay plays, is founded in Berlin. [AA]
1921: Publication in France, of Sodome et Gomorrhe by Marcel Proust. [AA]
1921, March 29: The birth in London of actor Dirk Bogarde whose autobiography reveals an adolescent seduction by a man who first mummy wrapped him in bandages.
1921, Sept. 16: The First Congress for Sexual Reform opens at Berlin's Institute for Sexology. [AA]
1922: The Soviet Union re-introduces the concept of Acrimes against nature@ and begins the process (finalized by Stalin in 1933) of recriminalizing homosexual acts. [AA]
1922: AMiss Furr and Miss Skeene@ by Gertrude Stein is published in Vanity Fair. This is regarded as the first published fiction using the word Agay@ to refer to homosexuality. [TOL]
1922: The God of Vengance, a play by Sholom Asch featuring a lesbian relationship, is produced in Provincetown, MA. It is the first play on an American stage to depict gay or lesbian characters, and created an outcry the next year when it reached Broadway. [AA]
1922: A petition to abolish Paragraph 175, Germany's sodomy law, is presented to the Reichstag, but without success. The petition was largely the work of Magnus Hirschfeld and his Scientific Humanitarian Committee, and was signed by such prominent intellectuals as Albert Einstein, Herman Hesse, Thomas Mann, and Leo Tolstoy. [AA]
1922: Birth, in Hailey, Idaho, of Bob Mizer, creator of the Athletic Model Guild and Physique Pictorial. Died: May 19, 1992. [WES]
1924: The 17th edition of Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia sexualis is published. It will be translated into seven languages. [wd]
1924: In Virginaia, AA bill to preserve the integrity of the white race@ prohibits white marriage with any non-white. Richmond uses the law to segregate housing, prohibiting residence by any person who could not marry into a majority of families already on the block.
1924: Andre Gide, in If It Die, makes his homosexuality public. He is the first prominent individual in modern times to do so. [AA]
1924, Apr. 3: Birth in Omaha NB, of Marlon Brando, who's levis, tight t-shirt, and leather jacket created a look so many copied.
1924, Apr. 15: Birth of Dr. Howard Brown, American public health administrator.
1924: Oct. 24: The New York Times reviews Dr. Joseph Collins= book The Doctor Looks at Love and Life in which Collins concluded that Athe majority of homosexuals... are not dengerates@. The review is the first time the word Ahomosexual@ has appeared in this newspaper. [AA]
1924, Dec. 10: The Society for Human Rights, founded in Chicago by Henry Gerber (1892-1972), probably the first "gay lib" organization in the US, is granted a charter by the Illinois legislature. It lasted only a few months but during that time Gerber brought out two issues of the country's first gay liberation magazine, Friendship and Freedom. [AA] No copies of these are known to still exist.
1925, Jan. 14: The birth of Yukio Mishima. His erotic drive was always advanced by his fantasies of SM-drawn blood. His suicide (Nov. 25, 1970) blended his erotic fantasies, his political theories and his flair for public drama. [JWB]
1925, May 21: The birth of Dr. Franklin Kameny, founder of the Mattachine Society and spiritual godfather of all contemporary activists for sexual freedoms.
1925, Aug. 2: Birth of Roy Dean, photographer of the American Male in the all together, and often in nature as well. He is also the power behind Colt Studios and, as an artist, is known as both Colt, and in the pre frontal nudity days, as Lugar.
1926: The German physician Albert Moll organizes the A1. International Conference on Sex Research@ in Berlin. [wd]
1926, Feb. 15: Birth of British film director John Schlessinger, whose Midnight Cowboy (1969) was kicked to pieces by the critics for being too gay, and by militant gays for not being gay enough. [Greif 82]
1926, May 30: Birth of George Jorgensen, who went to Denmark for surgery and became Christine Jorgensen, the world's best known transsexual.
1926, June 3: Birth of Beat poet Allen Gunsberg who horrified W. H. Auden by kneeling and kissing the older poet's trouser cuff. [Greif 82]
1926, Oct. 15: Birth, in Poitiers, France, of philosopher and gay sadomasochist Paul-Michael Foucault. (d. 1984) [wd]
1928: D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chattrley's Lover is published in France. Banned in Britain, it is only in 1960 that a British court declares the book to be art not porn.
1928: Publication of Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness. Calling for the Amercifal toleration of inverts,@ it became the best known book in English with a lesbian theme. [AA]
1928, March 18: Birth of American playwright Edward Albee. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? may or may not really be about a male couple, but is it an SM scene?
1929: The French judge Rene Guyon starts work in Thailand on his Studies in Sexual Ethics, claiming that an individual has a right to free sexual expression as long as the rights of others are not harmed. [wd]
1929, Jan 12: The publishers of Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness are served with a summons in an effort to censor the lesbian novel.
1929, Aug. 26: Birth in Chicago of Chuck Renslow, who with his partner Dom "Etienne" Orejudos, was to father Kris Studios, The Gold Coast, Man's Country, International Mr. Leather, and other enterprises. More Recently Chuck has been instrumental in founding The Leather Archives & Museum and the Chicago Eagle.
1929, Aug. 29: Birth of English born American poet Thom Gunn. [Greif 82]

1930 - 1939

1930=s: Anthropologists report among the Nuer tribe in the Sudan there exist unions in which a woman marries another woman and counts as the father of her children.
1930: Denmark repeals its sodomy laws. It is the first Europen nation to respond to the early homophile movement. Poland, Switzerland, and Sweden all follow suit within fifteen years. [AA]
1930: Marlene Dietrich, in the film Morocco, makes the first of her many male impersonations.
1930: Publication of The Story of Punishment, Man's Inhumanity to Man by Harry Elmer Barnes. Revised edition 1972.
1931: The Chinese Nationalsit Party forbids arranged marriages.
1931, Feb. 8: The birth, in Marion, Indiana, of James Dean. The mysterious masochist and cultural icon did nothing in his life to dispell the rumors of his masochism (preferring, it is said, to be burned with cigarettes and to be kicked and stepped on) and the rumors became legands after his death in a car crash on Sept. 30, 1955. [JWB]
1932: The Zenith of gay activity in Berlin which then had over 300 homosexual bars and cafes, of which a tenth were lesbian. Between 1933 and 1945 virtually all homosexual activity was driven underground by the Nazis.
1932: First publication in Zurich of Der Kreis one of the longest running European gay magazines, it ceased publication in 1967. Articles were in German, English and French. It frequently published material by American writers, artists, and photographers, including the first fiction from Phil Andros, and nude male studies by George Platt Lynes under the pseudonym Robert Rolf.
1932, Dec 28: Birth of Manuel Puig, Argentinian novelist whose work includes AThe Kiss of the Spider Woman@.
1933: Birth, in New South Wales, Australia, of artist Nigel Kent. When he started drwing and painting male SM imagry he signed his work AJames D.@ but later began using his real name. He has lived in the Netherlands since 1973.
1933, Jan. 30: Hitler bans all gay publishing in Germany.
1933, May 6: In Berlin Nazis ransack Magnus Hierschfeld's Institute for Sexual Research and, on May 11, burn his library and museum collection which, Christopher Isherwood reported, included many SM implements.
1933: Noel Ersine's Dictionary of Underworld Slang lists "gay cat" as meaning "a homosexual boy", this is the earliest know PRINTED equation of the words "gay" and "homosexual".
1933: In Germany Hitler rises to power. Within two years a liscense of Agenetic cleanliness@ is necessary for marriage and a German cannot marry a Jew.
1933: Department II of the German Gestapo is created for the express purpose of hunting down and imprisoning homosexuals.
1933, July 1: Birth of Domingo "Dom" Orejudos, better known as the erotic artists Etienne and Stephen, and as partner with Chuck Renslow in operation of Kris Studio, the Publication of Mars and Rawhide magazines, the Gold Coast leather bar and Man's Country baths in Chicago, and the founding of the International Mr. Leather contest.
1934, March 7: Stalin restores criminal sanctions against homosexuality to the Soviet Union.
1934, March 10: The birth in El Paso, Texas, of author John Rechy, whose writing skirted the edges of leather sexuality, and about which he had strong opinions.
1934, June 30: Gay SS Chief Ernst Rohm, and many of his "Brown Shirts" were assassinated by rival Nazis with the approval of Hitler in the "Night of the Long Knives."
1934: Publication in England of The History of Torture in England by L. A. Parry.
1935, April 9: In a letter of this date Sigmund Freud wrote, "homosexuals must not be treated as sick people..."
1935, May 13: T. E. Lawrence "of Arabia" fataly injured in a mysterious motorcycle "accident" in England. Dies May 19, 1935. [JWB]
1936: The American houseife Dorothy Spencer publisizes a scheme to imporve marriage by mutual domestic spanking. [wd]
1936: Leftist German director Gustav von Wangenheim (1895-1975) produces the film Bortsy (The Fighters) which depicts the Nazis as homosexuals. In reaction the Hitler regime enacts a new and more stringent version of the notorious Paragraph 175, and increase convictions for homosexual activity in Germany.
1936: The suicide of Robert Ervin Howard, creator of Connan the Barbarian. Exceptionally close to his mother as a boy, and bullied by older boys he turned to exercise and developed the body he admired in other men. When his mother lapsed into a coma he blew out his own brains with a borrowed pistol and Cross Plains, Texas, had a double funeral. He was 30 years old and had written 21 Connan stories in which images of muscular men suffering under the domination of others was prominent.
1938: The American zoologist Alfred C. Kinsey begins his studies on human sexual behaviour, using empirical data from over 12,000 interviews. [wd]
1938: Fourteen US states introduce bills to impose restrictions on marriage to persons with syphilis and other venereal diseases in a Asocial hygene@ panic.
1938, March 17: Birth of Rudolf Nureyev, Russian, then American, Ballet dancer. Renowned for his love of rough trade a friend advised: "I once told Rudi, he can be as naughty as he likes, but if he isn't more careful, they're going to find him...some morning in an alley in Soho, his head laid open with a lorry driver's spanner." He died of AIDS in 1993.
1939: Albert Moll dies of natural causes in Berlin before the Nazis can transport him to a Death Camp. [wd]
1939: In the film Bringing up Baby, Cary Grant, appearing in a dress, exclaims that he has Agone gay@. Historian John Boswell credits this as the first public use of the term in the US, outside of pornograph and the homosexual community. But it isn=t until the 1970's that Agay@ is widely accepted as the standard, nonslang synonym for homosexual, and not until 1987 that it is accepted by the New York Times.
1939, Jan. 10: Birth of actor Sal Mineo. He wore the leather jacket in Rebel Without a Cause even though he was the obvious and willing bottom to James Dean's reluctant Top. His gristly 1976 murder has never been solved.
1939, Feb 24: Birth of American playwright Doric Wilson.
1939, Sept. 22: Sigmund Freud, suffering from cancer in an advanced stage, dies in London by morphium overdose through physician assisted suicide. [wd]

1940 - 1949

1940: July 27: Birth of the Reverend Troy Perry, Minister, activist, leatherman, and. founder of the Metropolitan Community Church. He devised a wonderful way to use the Gideon bible found in every hotel room as a ball weight.
1941: The first appearance of the cartoon character, Wonder Woman, an Amazon with special powers, living on an all-woman island. Her magical lasso rendered powerless anyone she placed in bondage.
1942, March 14: MP's raid a gay brothel near Brooklyn Navy Yard, among the clientele they find the US Senator who chairs the Naval Affairs Committee.
1942, April 3: Birthdate of Anthony F. DeBlase, aka Fledermaus, leather/SM writer, editor, publisher, teacher, and creator of the Leather Pride Flag.
1943, July 22: Birth of Robert Wiley Kirk, the erotic artist "Cirby" (died Dec 21, 1991)
1943: Jim Kepner is hoodwinked by a pen pal into joining the Sons of Hamidy, a wholly imaginary group of political and military leaders fighting for gay rights. Kepner quickly discovers the ruse, but is so involved with the idea he begins a campaign to collect books, papers, and other artifacts that grow into the International Gay and Lesbian Archives, now housed at the University of Southern California.
1944, June 10: Christa Winsloe, author of Madchen in Uniform and vocal anti-Nazi is murdered in Vichi France.
1945: Justice Weekly begins publication in Toronto. This little magazine excerpts news items related to punishment but it's highly coded personal ads are to real attraction to SM people all over North America.
1945: Bob Mizer founds the Athletic Model Guild in Los Angeles. His original intent is to serve as a middle man between hunky young males and the artists and others seeking their modeling (legitimate!) services. This aspect fails dismally so he begins marketing the photos directly to the public. [WES]
1945: Formation of the Veterans' Benevolent Association, the first gay membership organization in the US, formed to try to get homosexual soldiers some of the respect they deserved for the hardships they had endured.
1945, May 31: Birth of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, German film maker, author, director, & actor. His films often deal with same-sex relationships in which erotic desire becomes a function of the struggle for dominance of one partner over another. (died 1982)
1945: Aug. 7: Birth of Cynthia Ann-Slater, San Francisco Bay area SM activist and founder of The Society of Janus. [wd]
1945, Dec. 11: Birth of John Preston, author of Mr. Benson and many other notable volumes of leather fiction.
1946: A gay social club AThe Shakespear Club@ is founded in Amsterdam. (Name change to Centre for Culture & Leisure, in 1949) Dance nights become extremely well attended and to accommodate the crowds, a large commercial dance hall, Der Oden Kring (DOK) is opened in 1955. From this basis Amsterdam has become the gay mecca of Europe.
1946: Bob Mizer takes his first photos for the Athletic Model Guild. The subject is 22 year old Howard Olson who had just been discharged from the US Marine Corps. Olson wears only a posing strap and is caught spread-eagled in the air in the middle of a jump. [Hooven 95]
1946, Sept. 26: Birth of Andrea Dworkin, American writer and feminist. And ardent crusader against pornography, SM and other sexual Aevils@.
1946, Dec. 29: Birth of William Carney, author of one of the earliest explicitly gay male SM novels, The Real Thing.
1947: Alfred C. Kinsey founds the AInstitute for Sex Research@ at Indiana University. [wd]
1947: California strikes down its antimiscegenation law.
1947, Mid: Bob Mizer is arrested and charged with disseminating obscene material. He refuses consul's advice and pleads Anot guilty@. He is convicted and serves six months in a California Prison. Upon release he resumes business exactly as before. In 1953 his appeal reaches the US Supreme Court, where his conviction is overturned because the judge errored in instructing the jury on the legal definition of Aobscene.@ [WES]
1947, July 4 - 6: More than 4000 motorcycles converge on Hollister California and their riders unleash 40 hours of drunken terror on the town. 40 CHiPs threten to use tear gass. Nearly 100 bikers are jailed.
1948: Axel and Eigil Axgil, a male couple, found the National Homosexual Association, the first gay rights Organization in Denmark. On Oct. 1, 1989 they are the first to marry under Denmark's same sex marriage registry.
1948: Alfred C. Kinsey publishes the first part of his study on human sexual behaviour, Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male. [wd]
1948, March 3: Birth of Albert Andrew Kraus Jr. Later to be a founder of the Windy City Bondage Club, and a co-chair of NLA:I during a critical period of it's redevelopment,
1948, March 9: The Veteran's Benevolent Association, the first postwar American homosexual organization, is incorporated in New York state.
1948, March 20: Inspector Craig Ellis, head of the vice squad of Philadelphia Police Dept gives his men a list of books he consideres obscene and orderes that the city's bookstores be raided immediately and all titles on the list be confiscated. No search warrants or court orders of any kind are issued. 54 booksellers are raided and nearly 1200 books seized, including works by James Farrell, William Faulkner, Erskine Caldwell, and Harold Robbins. The district attourney brings suit against five of the booksellers. But Judge Curtis Bok rules in favor of the booksellers and freedom of the press.
1949: Sam Steward and Steve Masters meet in Alfred Kinsey's garden. The two, who would each later be leather icons in their own right, perform SM scenes for Kinsey's research. [R]
1949: The Thief's Journal by Jean Genet is first published in France. English edition 1964.
1949: South Africa passes a law prohibiting inerracial marriage.

1950 - 1959

1950=s: Mississippi makes publication of Ageneral information, arguments, or suggestions in favor of social equality or intermarriage between whites and Negros@ a crime.
1950: After a year of revolution in China a marraige law sets age limits and allows widows to remarry. Prospective marriage partners must be checked for Acorrect@ thinking with the party.
1950: Publication of The Invisible Glass by Loren Wahl
1950: Publication of Quatrefoil by James Barr
1950, June 15: Chuck Renslow and Dom Orejudos start Kris Studios to publish male physique photography. Orejudos begins sketching some of the models.
1950, Nov.: The first issue of AMG's Physique Pictorial is issued. Cover "Havasu Creek" by Quaintance. No copies of this issue are known to exist. [Hooven 95]
1950, Dec.: Mattachine Society founded in Los Angeles. [JR]

1951: (or by 53) Shaw's, New York City's first Leather Bar opens. [R]
1951: Rene Guyon critizises the United Nations for not including sexual rights as a basic human right. [wd]
1951: Clellan S. Ford and Frank A. Beach publish their study APatterns of Sexual Behaviour@, a comparison of the sexual preferences of 200 cultures. The study shows how relative Western sexual traditions are. [wd]
1951, April: Harry Hay (born Apr. 7, 1912), Rudi Gernreich, Chuck Rowland, Bob Hull and Dale Jennings start The Mattachine Society in Los Angeles.
1951, May 26: British Foreign Office officials Donald Mclean and his cruel "master" Guy Burgess defect to the USSR. [Greif 82]
1951, Nov.: The cover date of the oldest known extant copy of Physique Pictorial Vol.1, No. 2. Cover painting of a nude man riding a white horse through the surf: "Dashing" by Quaintance. [Hooven 95]

1952: (or by 54) The Lodge, New York City's second leather bar opens. [R]
1952: Jack's on the Waterfront opens at 111 Embarcadero in San Francisco. The bar particularly attracts longshoremen, motorcycle men other butch types. Gradually evolves from a straight bar with "homo space" to a gay bar with a maritime flavor. Closed in 1962 as part of the "gayola" scandals. [R]
1952: Joe Wieder, a championship competitive bodybuilder who had started a series of body building magazines converts his American Manhood to compete with the "informal" poses and slimmer "natural" physiques of magazines like Physique Pictorial and Vim. [Hooven 95]
1952: First publication of Tomorrow's Man. A tiny physique magazine Published by Irv Johnson in Chicago, which combined the look of Physique Pictorial with articles on body building and staying in shape. It quickly became the #1 physique publication. [Hooven 95]
1952: Alan Turing, mathematical genius, breaker of Nazi codes, acclaimed as "the man who saved England" reports the theft of his property by a hustler, when the police realize why the thief was there Turing himself is arrested and prosecuted. He is chemically castrated by the authorities and hounded by the press. He committes suicide in 1954. [Hooven 95]
1952, April: Dale Jennings, a member of the Mattachine Society in Los Angeles is arrested by the police. Mattachine organizes The Committee to Outlaw Entrapment.
1952, May 27: Birth of Sasha Alyson, founder of Alyson Publications, a gay press that gave presence to a broad range of gay and lesbian works, including Coming to Power, the writings of John Preston, and many other leather/SM works considered "marginal" at the time, by other publishers.
1952, August: Cover date of Physique Pictorial issue bearing a cover painting by Quaintance, "Sacrifice," depicting a nearly naked man chained in spreadeagle suspension to a vertical sun disk. In the foreground two virtually naked warriors lie bleeding (dying) from arrows penetrating their backs. This cover resulted in censorship in Los Angeles county. No one objected to the bondage, blood, or violent theme. They wanted the lushly rounded asses of the dying warriors covered! [Hooven 95]
1952: College English professor Sam Steward begins a sideline business as Phil Sparrow, tattoo artist. [JR]

1953: Alfred C. Kinsey publishes the second part of his study on human sexual Behaviour, Sexual Behaviour in the Human Female. [wd]
1953 The German physician Harry Benjamin coins the term Atranssexuals@ and is the first to distinguish them from transvestites. [wd]
1953, Apr. 23: US President Eisenhower issues orders prohibiting employment of gays in government agencies. [JR]
1953: Forbidden Colors, Yukio Mishima's novel with SM overtones is first published in Japan. First English edition in 1968.
1953, Aug.: Tomorrow's Man #8 contains the first published art by Dom Orejudos and the pseudonym Etienne is created.

1954: Satyrs MC founded in Los Angeles, the first gay motorcycle club.
1954: Historie d'O by Pauline Reage (real name, Anne Declos) first published in France. In 1955 it won the Deux-Magots prize, an important French literary award. In 1965 Grove Press publishes the first English language edition as The Story of O.
1954: Birth of Bob Flannigan, SM performance artist and ASupermasochist@ [wd]
1954: The San Francisco police stage a crackdown on "Sex Deviates" hitting particularly the area of Market and Embarcadero streets.
1954: Joe Wiedner begins publication of Body Beautiful and Adonis, big budget, color cover, physique magazines which alternate publication in succeeding months. The rise of physique magazines threw the body building publishing world into a homophobic panic, except for Wiedner who jumped in and competed. [Hooven 95]
1954: On the urging of Jim Kepner and Ann Carrl Reid, Chuck Rowland starts the Church of ONE Brotherhood to minister to the religious needs of gays and lesbians. It prospers for about a year, then folds.
1954: The movie AThe Wild One@ Starring Marlon Brando as a leather jacketed motorcycle gang member is released, creating a sensation and giving seed to an image.
1954, Feb.: One magazine includes its first article about a women's issue. Lesbians continued to be included in the content, and on the staff, until 1959.
1954: June: Suicide of Alan Turing in England, after being outed as a homosexual when he reported the theft of some items by a young man he had invited into his home. Turning had been instrumental in breaking Nazi codes during the war, and is considered the father of the computer.

1955: Two by Eric Jourdan first published in France. This novel of male love with definite SM elements was published in English in 1963.
1955: Publication of Cool Hand Luke by Donn Pearce, the novel which inspired Paul Neuman's superb movie performance as a member of a southern prison camp chain gang.
1955, Sept. 21: The Daughters of Bilitis, the first Lesbian organization in America, is formed in San Francisco.
1955, Sept. 30: James Dean is killed in a car crash in California. The actor's smoldering sexuality and young death (at 24) elevated him to legendary status. The persistant rumors that he enjoyed being burned with cigarettes and kicked and trampled under men's feet provided hours of pleasant fantasy for many Tops.
1955, Nov. 1: An anti-homosexual witch hunt begins in Boise, ID, later documented by John Gerassi in The Boys of Boise.

1956: The last of the US laws making epilepsy a disqualification for marriage are removed.
1956: Publication of The Street of the Sun by Lance Horner, the most homoerotic and SM, of the Mandango family of novels.
1956: Publication of Sex Magick by Ian Young. Poetry from one of Canada's best known leathermen. (born Jan 5, 1945).
1956, Sept. Jim Kepner and Dorr started America's first gay studies classes. In Jan 1957 they started the first 36 week course in World History from the gay perspective. Kepner conceived and edited Americas first gay scholarly-style journal: ONE Institute Quarterly of Homophile Studies for three years.

1957: The German physician Hans Lehfeldt founds the ASociety for the Scientific Study of Sexuality@ (SSSS) in New York. [wd]
1957: Amsterdam's first leather bar and hotel, The Argos, opens. It is still in business!
1957: The Spring issue of Physique Pictorial magazine includes the first published erotic art of Tom of Finland, and marks the first time that name is used.
1957: Erotic artist George Quaintance dies.
1957: Publication of Color of Darkness, a novel by James Purdy (born July 14, 1923).
1957: Publication of The Last Exit to Brooklyn, a novel by Hubert Selby Jr. (born July 23, 1928)
1957: In the Crittenden Report, the US Navy concludes that homosexuals serving in the military do not create a security risk. The Pentigon denies the existance of this report for twenty years.
1957, Sept. 4: In London the Wolfenden Report recommends decriminalization of "private homosexual acts between consenting adults".

1958: Both Federal and Chicago authorities charge Kris studios with censorship violations. Renslow fights back, surprising the prosecution. His defense uses the simple stand that nudity is not obscene. In support his attorney shows photos of nude male sculpture in the courthouse where the case is being held. Kris was found not guilty, prosecution appealed and eventually the same decision came from the US Supreme court. [Hooven 95]
1958: Confessions of a Mask, an autobiographical novel by Yukio Mishima first published in English.
1958: The Balcony, Jean Genet's play which accommodates every sexual desire, is published in French and English.
1958: The gay SM novel, Muscle Boy, by Bud Clifton is published [wd]
1958: Publication of The Question by Henri Alleg, an account of the French Algerian newspaper man's torture at the hands of French paratroopers.
1958: Publication of Those about to Die , a history of the Roman games and arena shows by Daniel P. Manix.
1958: Oedipus MC founded in Los Angeles, the second gay motorcycle club.
1958: May 12: The Homosexual Law Reform Society is founded in London.
1958, June: Chuck Renslow becomes manager of The Gold Coast in Chicago and creates the first Leather Bar. [JR]

1959: The Big Dollar at 34th & 3rd in New York City opens, A VERY leather bar. [R]
1959: The Spur Club a leather friendly bar at 126 Turk in San Francisco's tenderloin is raided and closed. [R]
1959: In the San Francisco mayoral election homosexuality becomes a political issue. The incumbent clamps down on "queers". [R]
1959: Publication of Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs. (born Feb. 5, 1914)
1959: US Supreme Court rules in favor of allowing distribution of D. H. Lawrence's novel, Lady Chatterley's Lover. [Hooven 95]
1959: Kellers (bar) opens in New York City and becomes a gathering place for gay motorcycle riders.

1960 - 1969

1960, March 16: The Gold Coast, Chicago's first leather bar, (opened June 1958) is purchased by Chuck Renslow and Associates.
1960: The Why Not (518 Ellis St.) in the Tenderloin is San Francisco's first leather bar. The owners hire Tony Taverossi to create an atmosphere that will attract the leather crowd. The bar closes shortly after opening when Tony propositions a vice squad cop. [R]
1960: Spring: Owners of San Francisco gay bars revolt against police pay-offs and the "Gayola Scandals" result. Police retaliate with a vengeance and close most Gay bars in the city. [R]
1960: Publication of Christ and The Homosexual by Robert Wood, which includes a rather accurate description of one of the many SM parties hosted by Bob Milne at his home in NYC in the early 1950's.[R]
1960: A British court rules that D. H. Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover, is art not porn.
1960: Warlocks MC, and California Motor Club formed in southern California and San Francisco respectively.
1960: DL Sterling, AThe Leathermaker@, makes his first pair of motorcycle chaps.

1961: Michael Foucault publishes Folie et deraison (Madness and Civilization). claiming that the role of psychiatry in modern society is to remove people who refuse to conform to it's norms. A shortened English version is published in 1965. [wd]
1961: The Hideaway, a leather friendly bar at 438 Eddy in San Francisco's tenderloin raided and closed. [R]
1961: The Tool Box at 339 4th St. at Harrison in San Francisco opened. It took what Tony Taverosi had created at the Why Not and developed it into what became the classic SF leather bar design. The bar featured the Chuck Arnette mural of masculine men, which was made famous by the June 1964 Life magazine. Closed in 1971.
1961: Moved by the Gayola scandals, Jose Sarria becomes the first openly gay man to run for San Francisco city supervisor. He does not get elected.
1961: Victim is the first film by a major British commercial studio to feature homosexuality as its theme. Dirk Bogarde plays a closeted barrister in a plot about gay blackmail and suicide.

1962: The German sex researcher Hans Giese publishes his book Psychopathologie der Sexualitat, with the intent of continuing Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia sexualis. In the medical text book, which dedicates the first 30 pages to the importance of Christianity in sex therapy, he quotes the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sarte's theories on SM as research, and links sadomasochism to the rise in abortions. Giese's school of thought continues to dominate sex research in Germany until today. In 1992, three of the four professors for sex research in Germany will be former students of Giese. [wd]
1962: Again, in response to the Gayola scandals and their aftermath San Francisco bar owners and employees form the Tavern Guild, to wield political influence.
1962: Fisting is "invented" in a San Francisco basement. [R]
1962: Satyr MC holds it's first Badger Flats Run. The annual event continues uninteruupted for 33 years, until 1994. Then resumes in 1998!
1962: Publication of King Rat by James Clavell. The novel explores dominance in men's relationships in a Japanese prison camp during WWII.
1962: Otto Preminger's film of Alan Drury's novel Advise and Consent, is the first movie explicitly showing a gay bar.
1962, Jan. 1: Effective this date Illinois repeale its sodomy laws and behavior between "consenting adults in private" is no longer subject to criminal prosecution.
1962, Nov.: ABirth@ of Phil Andros as Sam Steward writing for eos and amigos magazines of Denmark, uses this pseudonym for the first time.

1963: Denmark becomes the first modern state to drop virtually all censorship. [Hooven 95]
1963: Publication of A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, a novel that gives a look at sex, violence, and mind control in a future age.
1963: Publication of the first English edition of Jean Genet's Our Lady of the Flowers.
1963: Publication of City of Night by John Rechy, a novel that takes a close look at the underbelly of gay life: hustling as it was.
1963: Publication of Pleasures of the Torture Chamber by Johnathon Swain.
1963: Publication of Flagellation - The Rod & The Whip by George Bishop.
1963: Publication of The Velvet Underground by Michael Leigh.
1963: Physique Pictorial begins to print a scribbled code of astrological symbols along with its photographs. The symbols give Bob Mizer's ideas about the personalities, and sexual proclivities, of the models. A code sheet to decipher them is sent to favored customers. In 1967 the symbols are used as part of the sexual pandering case against Mizer. He destroys all copies of the code's meanings. [Hooven 95] NOTE: LA&M would consider a copy of this code sheet a very valuable addition to the collection.
1963: Scott Studio, one of the best physique photography studios closes when Tom Nichol, the owner and photographer, moves from London to California. Nichol is noted for early (before 1950) photos of men in boots, leather, biker caps, etc. and for the infamous "Scott Shorts," thin white gym style shorts always at least two sizes too small for his models, who somehow squeezed into them. [Hooven 95]
1963, Feb.: Publication of the first (and only) issue of Young Adonis magazine, the first to have substantial full color. The cover trumpets "24 photos in color" and "More Color than any other magazine!" [Hooven 95]
1963, May: Mars magazine, a male physique publication with leather leanings, begins publication. It is designed and edited by Chuck Renslow and Dom Orejudos of Kris studios
1963, Sept. 15: Second City Motorcycle Club founded in Chicago.[ JOSEPH, SEE ALSO APR. 1965: CAN YOU CLEAR THIS UP?]

1964: The opening of the NYC World's Fair is preceded by a"cleanup of gay bars, shutting down every one in city except Julius' in the village. [R]
1964: Publication of Rough Trade by Lou Rand.
1964: Publication of Stockade a novel by Jack Pearl which focuses on abuse in a military prison.
1964: Publication of A History of Torture by Daniel P. Manix.
1964: Publication of With Rod and Whip, A History of Flagellation Among Different Nations by Valhalla Books.
1964: Publication of the American edition of Flagellation Curiosa Pt. 1: Sublime of Flagellation, by H. T. Buckle, Pt. 2: Experiences in Flagellation, Compiled by an Ameteur [sic] Flagellant.
1964: US courts allow importation of Danish magazines showing full frontal male nudity if they are official publications of nudist organizations. International Nudist Sun is the most popular all male title, many others feature only women or both men and women. [Hooven 95]
1964, June 26: Life magazine features "Homosexuality in America," an article by Paul Welch that includes a two page spread on the Tool Box, San Francisco's premier leather bar, and sparks a migration of eager leathermen to "Baghdad by the Bay."
1964: The first appearance of Al "A. Jay" Shapiro's cartoon creation, AHarry Chess@, in the Philadelphia based gay monthly Drum.
1964: Empire City MC founded in NYC and holds first Empire City Christmas Party and Toys for Tots.
1964: Recon MC founded in San Francisco.
1964: Society for Individual Rights (SIR) founded in San Francisco.

1965, Apr.: Second City MC founded in Chicago. The first such club in the Midwest. (RR) [JOSEPH SEE ALSO SEPT 1963 CAN YOU CLEAR THIS UP?]
1965: Grove Press issues the first English edition of Pauline Reage's The Story of O.
1965: In New York City, Steve Masters (real name Mike Miksche, a highly respected fashion artist) one of the most talented homoerotic, and leather oriented, artists, and publisher of the Physique Magazine, BIG, commits suicide. His wife finds the studio where he worked on his erotica, and had sm scenes with other men, and burns most of his art. Fortunately he had already donated much work to Kinsey, for whom he had perfomed SM scenes with Sam Steward.
1965: Publication of Quatrefoil by James Barr, a novel of sex among men in the US Navy.
1965: Publication in Japan of Madame deSade a play by Yukio Mishima. First English publication in 1967.
1965: Publication of The Lonely Sex - Mail Order Vice by Carlson Wade.
1965: Formation of Saddlemasters MC and Saddlebacks of Orange County both in California and of SixtyNine Club in London, England.
1965: On the Levee a bar at 987 Embarcadero in San Francisco becomes popular with the leather crowd. Closed in 1972. [R]
1965, Late: A new physique magazine, Butch, produces its first issue, filled with unidentified frontally nude male photos from Arts Unlimited. Virtually simultaneously Drum an activist gay magazine published in Philadelphia prints, in the copies of its January 1966 issue that goes to subscribers, but not to those sent to newsstands, the first full frontal male nudes that are not presented in the guise of anthropological study or nudist culture. [Hooven 95]

1966: CMC (California Motorcycle Club) rents Sefarer's International Union hall for their annual CMC Carnival, thanks primarily to Don Rotan who was a member of both CMC and the Sefarer's union. [R]
1966: Barbary Coasters MC formed in San Francisco.
1966: Jose Sarria, "The Widow Norton," becomes the first AEmpress of San Francisco,@ and the gay Court System has begun. [R]
1966: Publication of Song of the Loon by Richard Amory, the first of a trilogy of erotic novels that took the American fascination with cowboys and Indians to a whole new level.
1966: Publication of Sadism by Andre Tarade.
1966: The American gynacologists William H. Masters and Virginia Johnson publish their study on the Human Sexual Response. [wd]
1966: The first complete male to female genital confirmation surgery in the US takes place at Johns Hopkins University Hospital. [TOL]
1966, Feb.: North American Conference of Homophile Organizations (NACHO) meets in Kansas City. It quickly deteriorates into a vicious fight among organizations with differing objectives and strategies. All of the elements of today's PC wars were there, and doing battle.
1966, July 25: FeBe's opens on Folsom in San Francisco and quickly becomes one of the leading leather bars, particularly for members of motorcycle clubs. The bar's "leather David" logo (the original a plaster sculpture by Mike Caffee) becomes a leather icon. A Taste of Leather, upstairs at FeBe's, opens in 1967 as one of the first in-bar leather shops. FeBe's closes in 1986. [R]

1967, Jan. 1: Los Angeles Police raid the Black Cat, the incident "boosted the modest Pride Newsletter into The Advocate." [Kepner 95]
1967: The "Summer of Love" in San Francisco
1967: Publication of Eustace Chisholm and the Works a novel by James Purdy.
1967: Publication of Numbers by John Rechy, a novel exploring the gay male obsession with accumulating tricks.
1967: Publication of Brutality Through the Ages by John Swain.
1967: Publication of Sexual Sadism - The Pleasure of Inflicting Pain by Edward Podolsky MD and Carlson Wade.
1967: Publication of Erotic Variations by John Barry.
1967: Publication of Sex and Sadism by Val Vane.
1967: A survey that questions 643 Germans on their attitudes towards sexual deviant groups shows that sadists are seen as egotistical, aggressive, revolting, unsympathetic, wild, unbalanced, strict, dominating, hard, active, cold, sick, introverted, pedantic, and close-mouthed. They are associated with the stereotypes of murderers and pimps. Homosexuals, themselves still considered deviant, and students have slightly less negative attitudes. Attitudes towards masochists are not examined. [wd]
1967: Bob Mizer of Athletic Model Guild is arrested and charged with running a male prostitution ring because of his first concept of AMG as a referral service for models. He is convicted and for most of 1968 Physique Pictorial fails to appear and Mizer, who hated to travel, is not at home. [Hooven 95]
1967: Formation of Cheaters MC and Constantines of the Bay Area, both in San Francisco.
1967: Barbary Coasters present their first annual San Francisco Motorcycle Awards.
1967: Nick O'Demus opens his A Taste Of Leather shop upstairs at FeBe's. One of the first in bar leather shops.
1967, Jul. 26: The United States Federal Court for the District of Minnesota upholds a landmark decision affirming the right of all persons to receive materials dealing with the nude male figure. [JR]
1967, July 27: The Sexual Offenses Act, removing criminality from sexual relations between consenting adults, an action which had been recommended by the Wolfenden Report in 1958, finally becomes law in England and Wales.
1967, Aug.: The newletter of PRIDE (Personal Rights in Defense and Education) becaomes The Los Angles Advocate.
1967, Aug.: The third national North American Conference of Homophile Organizations (NACHO) meets in Washington, D.C. , with friction between East Coast and West Coast representatives.
1967, Oct. 9: The film I am Curious - Yellow premiers in Stockholm. It will become a major example of sexual liberation in the US.
1967, Nov. 17: The Oscar Wilde Book Shop, the first gay and lesbian store of it's kind, opens in New York City. For years all SM publications are banned from the store.

1968: Off the Levee is opened at 527 Bryant in San Francisco by the owner of the leather bar "On The Levee". This location later becomes the leather friendly bar and restaurant Chez Mollet. [R]
1968: The Ramrod at 1225 Folsom in San Francisco, opened and quickly succeeded FeBe's as THE leather bar, at least for the SM crowd, while FeBe's remained the prime bar for MC club socializing. [R]
1968: Formation of Buddy MC and Warriors MC in California, Nine Plus and Cycle MC in New York City; Serpents in San Francisco; Spartan MC in Baltimore and Washington DC; SMCLA, later changed to Lost Angels, in DC; V Senses Rubber Club in NYC; Rocky Mountaineers MC in Denver; and Texas Riders MC, originally the Warlocks and later the Cobras, in Houston.
1968: Cycle MC holds first annual Bass River Run.
1968: Metropolitan Community Church founded in Los Angeles by Rev. Troy Perry, a leatherman.
1968: In New York City several leather friendly bars, restaurants and private clubs open. These include: The Hayloft private club; The International Stud bar, JB's Restaurant, OK Corral dining room; the Skull after hours bar; the Tool Box bar; and the Nine Plus clubhouse on 21st St. Louie's Bar is renamed Louie's Spartan Lounge.
1968: Cycle MC begins publication of it's newsletter Wheels and Nine Plus begins publication of its Scimitar. New York Motor Bike Club publishes last issue of its Black and Blue.
1968: Alan Selby begins Mr. S Leathers in London, England.
1968: One of the earliest explicitly gay male SM novels, The Real Thing by William Carney (birth Dec 29 1946), is published by Putnam=s, a major publishing house.
1968: Publication of The Agency, and its sequal, The Agent, two novels of explicit SM by David Meltzer.
1968: Publication of "The Figa" by Paul Mariah, a poem paean to fisting.[R]
1968, Jan.: Under pressure to abandon its militant roots, PRIDE was dissolved by its founders, who sold The Advocate to Dick Michaels, Sam Winston and Bill Rand for one dollar. [LRF]
1968, Jan.: Der Kreis, the world's oldest known homophile publication, headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, ceases publication after thirty five years. [LRF]
1968, March: An Orange County man looses his home and auto insurance after a neighbor sees him kiss a man in his backyard. The neighbor reportes the incident to the police, who contact the man's insurance company. [LRF]
1968, April 14: Mort Crowley's play, The Boys in the Band openes in New York City. (Birth Aug. 21, 1935)
1968, Aug.: A dedication to militant law reform and a formalization in structure sweeps throough the North American Conference of Homophile Organizations (NACHO) which meets in Chicago. [LRF]
1968, Aug.: LA police raid the Patch II, a gay bar in Wilmington, leading "flower laden gays to raid the Harbor Police Station and help start MCC and two other major organzations." [Kepner 95]
1968, Sept.: Demanding equal access to the Yellow Pages, San Francisco homophile groups lodge a complaint with the California Public Utilities Commission asking for a separate listing of AHomophile Groups@, the phone company accedes in August 1971, after several years of court struggles.
1968, Dec.: The New Jersey Supreme Court rules that homosexuals have the right to assemble in public, overturning the revocation of three New Jersey bars= licenses for Apermitting apparent homosexual to contregate.@ [LRF]

1969: Time magazine declares 1969 "The Year of the Newly Militant Homosexual"
1969: Fred Halsted meets Joey Yale at the Black Pipe, a Los Angeles leather bar. They make the film LA Plays Itself, with explicit SM scenes, and begin a lifelong relationship.
1969: Publication in France of Return to the Chateau by Pauline Reage, a sequel to The Story of O. US edition published in 1971.
1969: Publication of Leather, The Leather Queens, and several similar erotic novels by Dirk Vaden.
1969: Publication of the American edition of Flagellation & The Flagellants - A History of the Rod by Rev. Wm. A. Cooper, BA.
1969: Publication of $tud, the first Phil Andros novel written by Samuel Steward and published by Guild Press.
1969: Publication of The Homosexual Handbook by Josef Bush, which includes the names of people the author suspects of being gay. The publisher quickly recalls and destroys 7000 copies, then reprints the book omitting only one name: J. Edgar Hoover. [TOL]
1969: American anthropologist Paul Gebhard publishes his article on Fetishism and Sadomasochism, placing SM in a cultural context. SM is seen as a result of cultural forces and as a form of scripted behaviour. Gebhard's break with the view of SM founded by Krafft-Ebbing and Freud paves the way for sociological studies on SM. [wd]
1969: Formation of Apollos, Commanders MC, UYA MC and Wheels MC in NYC; Border Riders MC in Seattle & Vancouver BC; Vanguards MC in Philadelphia; Vikings MC in Boston and the AAMC, the Atlantic Midwest Coordinating Council, lather the Atlantic Motorcycle Coordinating Council. In London England V Senses Rubber club becomes Rubber Man's Club of London.
1969: Newsletters are first published by several clubs: The Longship from Vikings MC (ceases publication 1970); Innertube from V Senses Rubber; and Tread from Wheels MC.
1969: The Den bar opens in New York City.
1969: The Shed becomes Boston's leather-levi bar.
1969: The Leather Cell (a leather and toy shop) opens in the basement, AThe Pit@, of the Gold Coast in Chicago.
1969, Jan.: Bob Mizer brings out Physique Pictorial Natural introducing both color and frontal nudity to his publication. [Hooven 95]
1969, Jan.: Members of the Danish parliament considered a bill to legalize marriages between homosexuals; the bill will be defeated and reintroduced annually until it is finally passed in 1989. {LRF +]
1969, Feb.: The Correctional Association of New York called for an end to the state's criminal statutes against abortion, prostitution, and homosexuality. [LRF]
1969, April: Chain Male #1, one of the BEST gay male SM/bondage photobooks is published.
1969, May: Pat Rocco's nude ballet film, A Breath of Love, is accepted for screening at the San Francisco Film Festival. [LRF]
1969, May: West Germany decriminalizes male homosexual acts between men over 21. East Germany had repealed its antigay law a year earlier. [LRF]
1969, June: After 32 years, the statue of David at Forest Lawn Cemetary in Cypress, California, has its fig leaf removed. [LRF]
1969, June 27: Judy Garland is burried. Memorial services are held in New York City.
1969, June 28: New York City Police raid the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar on Christopher St. near 7th Ave. triggering riots that last several nights, and becoming the seminal event in public awareness of the fight for gay rights.
1969, June 29: AFour Policemen Hurt in Village Raid@ reported the New York Times, on page 33. [LRF]
1969, July: Reporting on the Stonewall riots, Time magazine says, AThe love that once dared not speak its name now can=t seem to keep its mouth shut.@ [TOL]
1969, July 1: US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia holds that homosexuality does not automatically disqualify a government employee for continuing in his job.[JR]
1969, July: The Gay Liberation Front is formed in New York City. [LRF]
1969, Aug.: North American Conference of Homophile Organizations (NACHO) meets, again in Kansas City. [LRF]
1969, Aug.: Alaska's Supreme Court rules the term Acrime against nature@ unconstitutional. [LRF]
1969, Oct.: A National Institues of Health Task Force on Homosexuality, headed by Dr. Evelyn Hooker, submits its report favoring the decriminalization of homosexuality.
1969, Oct.: The University of Minnesota recognizes a club for gays and sympathizers called FREE (Fight Repression of Erotic Expression). [LRF]
1996, Oct. 30: Film star Ramon Novarro is murdered in his Los Angeles mansion by Paul and Tom Ferguson, brothers and hustlers. Paul had previously modeled for Kris Studios. Roumor has it that the murder weapon was a metal dildoe (gold in some stories, lead in others) given to Novaro by Rudolph Valentino.
1969, Dec.: In a landmark decision the California Supreme Court rules that the state cannot revoke a teacher's credentals over charges of homosexual conduct. [LRF]
1969, Dec.: Hawaii's state Penal Revison Project recommends that private homosexual activity be legalized. [LRF]
1969, Dec.: 21: Gay Activist Alliance founded in New York City.

1970

1970: The explicitly homoerotic SM film Born to Raise Hell starring Val Martin, produced by Terry LeGrand and directed by Roger Earl, is released in Los Angeles. It remains a classic of the genre to this date.[Joseph!!! see 1972. Which is correct???]
1970: Publication of Cruising a murder mystery novel by Jay Green set in New York's leather bars. When later made into a movie starring Al Pacino it was the subject of vocal demonstrations by gay activists who objected to the portrayals.
1970: Publication of The Young Master by William Lambert III, one of the best from this prolific author of gay erotica with an SM twist.
1970: Publication of Leather Ad V1: M and V2: S novels by Larry Townsend.
1970: Publication of Sex and the Lash Lovers by R. Rodgers Kingman.
1970: Michael Holm starts Revolt Press in Sweden. He publishes Tom of Finland's books of artwork, and later starts Mr SM and Toy magazines.
1970: Formation of Atons of Minneapolis; Boston Bike Club; Centaur MC of Richmond VA; Druids MC of Washington DC; Entre Nous of Boston; The Lake Riders of Chicago; the Libertines of Kansas City; MS Amsterdam, MSC Rhein-Main Frankfurt; MC Kemo of Montreal; PCMC of Los Angeles; Praetorians of New York City; The San Franciscans; South Pacific MC of Sydney; Southern Cross MC of Melbourne; Spearhead of Toronto; TOR MC of Toronto and Vulcan Rubber Club of Washington DC. New York First, a council of New York motorcycle clubs is formed.
1970: Spearhead holds its first Roundup run and the Vanguards hold their first Oktoberfest. The first Leather Sabbat is held in Washington DC.
1970: Leather bar openings include: the Barn in NYC; Boots in Ft. Lauderdale; The Cellblock in NYC, The Leather Game in Los Angeles; The Leather Stallion in Cleveland, the Eagle's Nest, NYC:, the Triangle in NYC,
1970: Professor Louis Compton of the University of Nebraska teaches the first gay studies course in the US. [TOL]
1970: The Gay Activists Alliance selects the Greek letter lambda (8) as a symbol of the gay movement.
1970, Jan.: More than 250 homosexuals, led by the Rev. Troy Perry, march for police reform on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles. [LRF]
1970, Jan.: Customs officials sieze and seek permission to destroy, ten artworks from an international erotic exhibit scheduled to show in New York City. Permission is denied by a New York court citing the First Ammendment. [LRF]
1970, March: A gay San Francisco postal worker fights an attempt by the Civil Service commission to terminate him for Amoral incompetency,@ recovering his job in November, and paving the road for future Civil Service Commission reforms. [LRF]
1970, June: Celebrating the first anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, the first gay pride parades/marches/rallies are held in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Cycle MC marches in the Christopher Street Liberation Day paradein NYC.
1970, July 6: Troy Perry, founder of Metropolitan Community Church, and a leatherman, sits on the steps of the Federal Building in Los Angeles refusing to eat or leave until someone from the city of Los Angeles comes and talks to him aboout Gay rights. Eleven days later city Countilman Robert Stevenson holds a curbside meeting with Perry, ending his vigil. [TOL]
1970, Aug.: North American Conference of Homophile Organizations (NACHO) holds its final meeting in San Francisco. Morris Knight leads street people in to smash NACHO. AAnarchy faced off with arrogant conservatism, and anarchy won,@ says Jim Kepner. [LRF]
1970, Sept.: The Federal Commission on Obscenity and Pornography urges the repeal of most anti-pornography laws. [JR]
1970, Nov. 25: Yukio Mishima commits ritual suicide after a failed attempt to incite a riot at a Military school in Japan. (Born Jan. 14, 1925).


1971

1971: The In Between openes at 1347 Folsom in San Francisco, in between FeBe's and the Ramrod. It soon metamorphosed into the No Name, a popular leather bar. [R]
1971: The first FFA run is held in Cambria CA.[R]
1971: Formation of Argonauts, Cycle Runners MC, Koalas, and LOBOC in California; Chicago Knights MC; Keystone Riders in Philadelphia; Kingmasters in Los Angeles,Northern Riding Club in the UK; Scorpions MC (originally Centaur MC's DC chapter) in DC; Thunderbolts MC in Connecticut; Tribe MC in Detroit and Unicorns MC in Cleveland. The Boston Bike Club disbands.
1971: Runs initiated include The Centaur's Olympia, Entre Nous' Days of Equinox and Hell-Za-Popper held jointly by Wheels and Nine Plus.
1971: Leather bar openings include: the Bootcamp in San Francisco, DC Eagle, The Ramrod in Phoenix, the Stockade in NYC and the 247 in Philadelphia.
1971: Publication of All or Nothing by Dirk Vaden, one of the most popular leather novels of its time.
1971: Publication of two of Larry Townsend's best early novels: Run Little Leather Boy and The Scorpius Equation.
1971: Publication of the photo illustrated History of Flagellation in two volumes by Jon A. Peterssen.
1971, Jan. 3: First lesbian center in the US openes in New York City, sponsored by the NY Chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis.
1971, Feb.: The Eulenspiegel Society is founded in New York City as North America's first SM organization. It is open to all sexes and orientations.
1971, Apr.: Bob Ross begins publishing the Bay Area Reporter, aka the B.A.R., in San Francisco. Mr. Marcus begins his leather colum in this newspaper in August of 1971. As of this writing in Jan,. 1999, both the paper and the column are still going strong after 28 years!
1971, Apr. 30: Richard Chinn and John Cantrell are arrested in downtown Chicago for kissing each other in public.
1971 Aug. 5: The Bootcamp, a uniform themed bar opens at 1010 Bryant St. in San Francisco. Marcus Hernandez, aka Mr. Marcus, is manager. [R]
1971, Aug. 29: Tribe M.C. (later Tribe Detroit, Inc.) founded.
1971, Aug.: In Chicago: Thirteen men decide to organize a group specifically to hold gay male SM play parties and the Chicago Hellfire Club is created.

1972

1972: The Folsom St. Barracks at 1147 Folsom St in San Francisco is the city's first leather oriented "Bathhouse". [R]
1972: Marcus Hernandez, leather bar manager and leather columnist for The Advocate and later for the B.A.R, is selected as the first gay Emperor of San Francisco. (Not counting the Emperor Norton, of course.)
1972: Formation of Atlantis MC (originally Unicorn/Atlanta) in Atlanta; Atons of Minneapolis; Bucks MC in Pennsylvania; Celtics MC in Mississippi; Hawks MC in Los Angeles; the Interclub Fund in San Francisco; Iron Cross MC in Montreal; Knights of Malta, Black Rose Chapter, Portland OR; Knights of Malta, Emerald Chapter in Seattle; NY Levi Club; Omaha Meatpackers; Rainbow MC in California; The Selectmen of Detroit, The Stallions of Cleveland; and Titan MC of Boston.
1972: Frank Ball founds TAIL, The ATotal Ass Involvement League,@ with members all over the world who communicate through frequently published newsletters, and membership rosters with carefully coded indications of sexual specifics offered and sought.
1972: Marshall Loeb begins publication of SMads, which offeres gay male subscribers a chance to place and respond to explicitly SM personal ads.
1972: Cycle MC sponsors its first tour to New Orleans for Mardi Gras.
1972: Iron Cross publishes first issue of its newsletter Crossroads and Nine Plus publishes last issue of its Scimitar.
1972: Two New York leather bar institutions, the Ramrod and The Spike (formerly the Stockade) open. Nine Plus moves to a new location between The Spike and The Eagle.
1972: Publication of Black In White IN by K. Kevork, Interracial gay sex with strong elements of SM.
1972: Publication of A Persian Boy by Mary Renault, a novel that follows a slaveboy in the service of Alexander the Great.
1972: Publication of Punishment, An Illustrated History by Peter N. Walker
1972: The Leatherman's Handbook by Larry Townsend, the first non-fiction book about gay male leather lifestyles, is published.
1972: Producer Terry LeGrand and Director Roger Earl make a gay male SM film starring Val Martin and a large cast. Born to Raise Hell is still regarded as one of the best gay male SM films ever made.[Joseph, see 1970. Can you resolve this question?]
1972: R. Litman and C. Swearingen, in an article in the Archives of General Psychiatry, describe a Abondage subculture in the USA. This is the first such reference to any leather group recognized as a Asubculture@ in the professional literature. [wd]
1972, April: The (San Francisco) Bay Area Reporter newspaper begins publishing a colum devoted to leather related news, gossip and information written by AMr. Marcus,@ (Marcus Hernandez.) The first, and longest running, colum of its type, in 1999 it is still going strong!
1972, April 4: Atons of Minneapolis founded.
1972, May: Chuck Holmes sens out his first mail order flyer for gay erotic 8mm films, one of which starred the legendary king of porn John Holmes (no relation). The business would eventually become Falcon, one of the biggest gay video companies in the world.
1972, May 2: Death of J. Edgar Hoover, for many years the director of the US Bureau of Investigation. For years his federal police force had kept survelence records on thousands of individuals and organizations including many that were gay or engaged in other sexual activities beyond vanilla. After his death stories surfaced about his 44 year Afriendship@ with Clyde Tolson (1900-1975) who was his right hand man at the FBI and was his housemate outside the office. Photos of Hoover in female drag have also appeared. It seems that our FBI director, who could blackmail mafia dons and presidents with ease, was both homosexual and homophobe!
1972, June 27: Gay News, England's first gay newspaper, founded.
1972, July: Queen's Quarterly a New York based gay male magazine includes a very well illustrated article on the life and work of leather/SM publisher and artist, Steve Masters in Vol 4, #4.
1972, Aug.: Los Angeles police raid a HELP (Homophile Effort for Legal Protection) monthly fundraiser at the Black Pipe, a major leather bar. Among those arrested: HELP president Larry Townsend. The police are surprised when the organization fights back. Some consider this the West Coast Stonewall.
1972, Oct.:In a contest held at the Chicago Leather bar, the Gold Coast, John Lunning becomes Mr. Gold Coast. The FIRST leather titleholder.

1973

1973: The American sex researchers John Gagnon and William Simon publish Sexual Conduct: The Social Sources of Human Sexuality, introducing the concept of Ascripted behaviour@ into research. [wd]
1973: The US Supreme Court, ruling in Miller v. California, defines obscenity as a violation of the community standards in the location where it is viewed.
1973: The National Gay Task Force is founded.
1973: The Leather Fraternity, a contact club newsletter for leathermen is started in Los Angeles by "Robert Payne".
1973: Tom of Finland's first exhibition of original art, the illustrations for the book, The Loggers, is held in the back room of a sex shop in Hamburg. It is a disaster, poorly hung, poorly lit, no sales, and most of the art disappears.
1973: Formation of the Argonauts of Wisconsin in Green Bay; Cin City CC in Cincinnati; Colorado Riders in Denver; Cycle men South in San Diego; Denim Guy Club in Australia; Gateway MC in St. Louis; Kansas City Falcons MC; Loge 70 in Switzerland; Long Island Spuds, Monterey Dons in California, MSC London in the UK; Northern Lights in Montreal; Olympian Cycle Corps in Dallas; The Pride Chicago; Rochester Rams, NY; Roo Bike Club, Sydney; Saddlemasters, Illinois, SF GDI; Silver Star MC, Milwaukee; Thebans MC (Originally FLLA), Miami; Tridents MC International and Wrangler MC Dallas. The Mid-America (Originally MidWest) Conference of Clubs formed.
1973: Inaugural issues of newsletters: Atlantian from Atlantis MC; The Bolt from Thunderbolt and Scene and Machine from D. B. I. Corp, Washington DC. The latter newsletter publishes a list of leather bars in the US, Canada and Puerto Rico. And holds the first Mr. Scene & Machine contest at the NY Eagle--won by Mr DC Eagle, Johnny Albert.
1973: Inaugural runs: Atlantis MC's Dogwood; and Omaha Meatpacker's Rough Out.
1973: The Thunderbolt's clubhouse burns.
1973: The Red Star Saloon opens, it is connected to the Barracks bathhouse, and is noted for it's sleaze, as exemplified by its Chuck Arnette watersports ads and posters. [R]
1973: Folsom Prison, a leather bar at Folsom & 14th St. opens in San Francisco. It closes in 1977. [R]
1973: Ron Johnson becomes manager of the No Name in San Francisco and converts it into a kind of Performance Art Leather Bar which becomes wildly popular. [R]
1973: The End Up opens in San Francisco and The Interchange Saloon opens in Detroit.
1973, March 3: Two policemen shoot it out in a Sacramento, California, public toilet after one tries to arrest the other for "oral copulation."
1973, April 28: Mid-America Confirence founded during the 8=th aniversary run of 2=nd City MC in Chicago.[RR]
1973, May 6: 600 protestors link hands across New York's George Washington Bridge in a demonstration for gay rights. [TOL].
1973 Nov.: The Ambush opens at Harrison and Dore in San Francisco, and attracts a unique laid back crowd of leather hippies. It remains a unique leather bar until it closes in 1986. [R]

1974

1974, Early: The German physician Andreas Spengler begins a sociological study on the German homosexual sadomasochistic subculture. [wd]
1974: Rob Meijer opens RoB Amsterdam leather shop in Amsterdam. The shop becomes legendary for it's quality and design, and expands to become one of the leading erotic art galleries in the world and THE leading gallery for leather male art.
1974: Tom's Saloon opens in Hamburg, decorated with numerous huge photo murals of specially commissioned Tom of Finland drawings.
1974: Formation of The Alabama Celtics MC (originally Celtics MC Azalea chapter, later Celts MC, Mobile); BALL MC (Bay Area Leather/Levi MC), Tampa/St. Petersburg; Celtics MC, New Orleans; Corps of Rangers, Los Angeles, Handlebar MC, Seattle; Houston MC; Ili Holo Hawaii; International Roadmasters, Detroit; Iron Cross MC, Los Angeles; Knights d'Orleans; Knights of Malta, Western Chapter, Reno; The Lanyards, Toronto; The Links MC, DC; Midland Link MSC, Worcester, UK; MSC Berlin; MSC Hamburg; MSC Panther Koln; NY Ontario Leather Club, Buffalo, Pennine Chain MSC, Cheshire, UK; The Philadelphians MC; Regiment of the Black and Tans, Los Angeles; Rodeo Riders, Elkhart, IN (later Chicago); The Shipmates, Baltimore; SLM Copenhagen; Society of Janus, San Francisco; Sons of Apollo MC, Phoenix; Swords de Montreal; Trash MC, NYC; and Zodiac Fraternal Society, Vancouver BC.
1974: Formation of the Mid-America Counference of Clubs in Chicago, The Forum in San Francisco, and in Europe, ECMC, European Conference of Motorcycle Clubs.
1974: First "Let Us Entertain You" weekend sponsored by the leather clubs of Houston on the weekend following Mardi Gras.
1974: Bar openings include: The Bike Stop in Philadelphia; Gauntlet, NYC; The Horseshoe Saloon, DC; Munich Eagle; A/J Ranch, Harper's Ferry WV; and the Strap, NYC.
1974: Lambda Rising Bookstore opens in Washington DC.
1974: The Leather Underground opens in Baltimore
1974: Bella Abzug and Edward Koch become the first members of the US House of Representatives to introduce legislation prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation. [TOL]
1974: Robert Opel strips naked in the Los Angeles City Council Chambers during a meeting of the council.
1974: Jim Ward, a jeweler, meets Doug Malloy a wealthy man who had made a lifelong study of body piercings in various cultures. They become lovers, partners, and in 1975, the founders of the body piercing business, Gauntlet.
1974: The Story of Harold a novel by Terry Andrews, which features sm images of burning, is published in New York City.
1974: The Society of Janus is started in the San Francisco Bay area by Cynthia Slater. It is an SM interest group open to all genders and orientations.
1974: The first World Congress of Sexuality is held in Paris. [wd]
1974: Publication of issue #1 of Gay Bondage magazine edited by "Tau" (Jim-Ed Thompson). Produced after Jim Ed had convinced the House of Milan, for which he worked as an editor of heterosexual SM titles, to try a gay title. After three issues they are convinced and Gay Bondage is replaced by Action Male, a magazine of more general gay male leather interests.
1974: Publication of S-M The Last Taboo by Gerald and Caroline Greene.
1974: Publication of the first issue of Bound to Serve, the photo magazine of gay male bondage and SM lasts for 10 issues, through 1980.
1974, Feb 14: Opening night for Doric Wilson and Peter de Valle's Off Off Broadway theatre TOSOS (The Other Side Of Silence) with de Valle's revue Lovers featuring a Leather couple and the song Belt & Leather.
1974, Feb 14: Fan Dancer Sally Rand performs at Man's Country Music Hall in Chicago (she is in her 70's) setting a precedent that years later allows for nude performances in this theatre. [Joseph, JR's timeline says 75 Do you know which is correct?]
1974, Apr. 2: Robert Opel appears naked on television worldwide as he streaks the Oscar award ceremony.
1974, Apr. 8: Members of the American Psychiatric Association agree with its trustees to stop listing homosexuality as a mental disorder.
1974, May: The first demonstration of gay activists in Portugal, seeking repeal of antisodomy laws. [TOL]
1974, May 18: a study conducted by the Sex Research Institute of Indiana University recommends ending laws and harassment against adult consenting homosexuals.
1974, June 21: The last defendants in the LAPD raid of a HELP fundraiser at the Black Pipe are cleared of all charges.
1974, July 19: Los Angeles Temple Beth Chayim Chadashim (founded in 1972) is chartered by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations becoming the first gay religious organization to receive such official recognition. [TOL]
1974: Aug.: The Society of Janus publishes it's first newsletter. It will become the club's well known Growing Pains. [CT]

1975

1975: Publication in France of Confessions of O, Conversations with Pauline Reage by Regine Deforges, US edition in 1979.
1975: Publication of The Boy Keeper by Carl Strater.
1975: Publication of Volume 1 of the autobiography My Life as a Masochist by RFM (Roger Mays). Volume 2 follows in 1977.
1975: Publication of Tailpipe Trucker by Clay Caldwell.
1975: Publication of A Collection of SM edited, and partially written, by RFM This is the first, aside from his autobiography, in a series of magazine sized anthologies of gay male SM erotica to be published by RFM.
1975: Publication of A Book of Terms, Symbols, Abbreviations by R.F.M. A Glossary to help in reading the SM personal ads.
1975: Publication in France of Discipline & Punishment, The Birth of the Prison by Michael Foucault. English edition in 1979.
1975: Robert Payne publishes a book of still photos from the SM film, Night of Submission.
1975: Robert Payne publishes Care and Training of the Male Slave, the first of a series of this title.
1975: The Story of O is made into a Movie.
1975: The Advocate, the only nationally circulated Gay newspaper, is purchased by David Goodstein and moved from Los Angeles to San Mateo, California.
1975: Pier Paolo Pasolini, poet, film maker, and political activist, is murdered in Italy by a hustler. (Born March 5, 1922)
1975: French philosopher Michel Foucault spends much of the year teaching at Berkeley, and being thrilled by the liberated gay sexuality he found in San Francisco, especially in the bathhouses. He becomes particularly fascinated by Alimit-experiences@ such as SM. He continued to visit San Francisco through 1983.
1975: A new edition of Terry Andrews' novel The Story of Harold is published. This one includes illustrations by Edward Gory.
1975: Formation of ASMC, American Social Mens Club, Boston; Association Sportive Motorcycliste de France; Battalion Motorcycle Corps, Dallas; The Blackhawk MC, Richmond VA; Black Sabbath San Franciscans MC; Blue Max Cycle Club, St. Louis; Brothers MC, Jacksonville; Centurion MC, SF; Chicago Cossacks Brotherhood; Colts MC, Ft. Lauderdale, Conquistadors MC, Orlando; Elagabulus MC, Norwood, South Australia; Excelsior MC, NYC; Five Star MC, New Zealand; Hawaii Club, LA; Heart of Texas MC, Austin; Iron Guard BC, NYC; Kansas City Pioneers; Knights of Malta, 49ers Chapter, SF; Knights of Malta Stockmen's Chapter, Denver; Militia MC, Norfolk, VA; Mini Bikers MC, New Orleans; MSC North West, New Brighton, UK; Munchner Leder Club; Nova NYC' Ottawa Knights; Rodeo Riders, Chicago; Rurals MC, Roermund, Netherlands; Sierra Mountaineers, South Lake Tahoe; Sierra Pacific Rangers; Signs of Zodiac, Detroit; SLM Stockholm (originally SLM Sweden); Sternwheelers, Louisville, KY; Space City MC, Houston; Sunrays MC, Miami; Sunrays MC, Miami; Tejas MC, Houston; Trade-Winds of Chicago; Voyagers, New Bedford, MA; Vulcan Rubber Club, Boston Chapter; and Yorktown Levi Denim Club, Toronto. Inter Club Fund incorporated in San Francisco and Southern Conference of Motorcycle Clubs formed.
1975: Bar openings include: The Cell Block, Philadelphia; The Chamber, Kansas City; Hombre, SF; and Knolle, Berlin. The Exchange, a leather shop in the Columbus OH Eagle, opens as does the Emporium in San Francisco.
1975: The Catacombs, a private club for SM and, primarily, fisting openes in San Francisco. [R]
1975: Gauntlet, a business devoted to body piercing, is started by Jim Ward and Doug Malloy. [R]
1975: Larry Townsend founds, and becomes president of the Hollywood Hills Democratic Club, the first openly gay political club in Los Angeles, and possibly anywhere.
1975, Apr. 15: Gay Students Union of UCLA presents a panel discussion on SM as a part of Gay Awareness Week II, Fred Halsted, Joey Yale and 2 others are invited to present.
1975, June: John Embry, Alternate Publishing, begins publication of Drummer magazine.
1975, June 4: Fred Halsted's film Sextool opens at the Lincoln Art Theater in New York City at the O'Farrel Theater in San Francisco. It will also be screened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and at the San Francisco Art Institute and Joey Yale, it's star, will be featured on the cover of People magazine.
1975, July 4, The Federal Civil Service Commission bans the arbitrary dismissal of, or refusal to hire, known homosexuals.
1975, July: The first Prairie Fire run jointly sponsored by 2nd City MC, Chicago Knights MC and The Pride Chicago.[JR]
1975, Aug.: Robert Payne announces the film, and accompanying photo still book, The Pledge in Drummer #2.
1975, Aug.: Robert Opel's "Requiem for a toolbox" in Drummer #2 is the artist's ode to the famed San Francisco leather bar.
1975, Aug.: Scott Masters' story "Five in the Trainer's Room" begins serialization in Drummer #2. It runs for nine issues.
1975, Aug.: Robert Payne announces publication of a collection of still photos from the film Sextool.
1975, Sept. 8: Leonard Matlovich appears on the cover of Time Magazine with the bold print: AI Am a Homosexual.@ Len's story broke on the front page of the New York Times and nationwide by wire service on Mermorial Day Monday of the same year.
1975, Sept. 19: Leonard Matlovich is discharged from the army for homosexuality. They gave him a medal for killing a man and kicked him out for loving one!
1975, Oct.: Drummer #3 includes the publication's first masthead listing Robert Payne as Publisher, Jeannie Barney as Editor in Chief, and V. C. Kuemmel as Art Director. And it includes the Magazine's first centerfold, a collage of Target photos from "The Pit" series shot in the so-named lower floor of Chicago's leather bar, the Gold Coast.
1975, Oct. 1: The Story of Q by Robert Payne is first published.
1975, Oct. 31: Val Martin is selected "Mr. Leather" in Los Angeles at the Hawk's annual Leather Sabat.
1975, Oct. 31: The Cycle Sluts are born in Los Angeles at a "Gay Girls Riding Club" Halloween Costume ball, a significant step in leather gender bending.

1976

1976: Publication of The History of Sexuality, Volume I: An Introduction, by Michel Foucault.
1976: Publication of RFM's second Collection of SM short fiction by himself and other authors.
1976: RFM publishes Two Bulls in a Male Harem by Robert Fraum. This is the first in a trilogy of very heavy SM erotic novels.
1976: The Gage Brother's film Kansas City Trucking Co. starring Fred Halsted and Richard Locke, is released.
1976: Michael Zen's film Falconhead is released.
1976: Publication of Mannespielen, a portfolio of art by Rex, followed by Icons in 1977 and the Rex calendars, published by The Trading Post, then the Mineshaft, in later years.
1976: Publication of Gay American History, Lesbians and Gay Men in the USA by Jonathan Ned Katz, Revised edition 1992.
1976: Nick O'Demus, owner of A Taste Of Leather shop upstairs at FeBe's, opens The Trading Post at 960 Folsom in San Francisco [R]
1976: Formation of Adventurers/Suncoast Florida; American Leathermen MC of Houston; Companion MC, Philadelphia; The Connecticut Copperheads; The Corn Haulers, Des Moines; Dallas MC; East Anglia Bikers, UK; Falcons MC, Rhode Island; FFA-CAC, DC; Glass City Champions (originally International Roadmasters of Toledo); Griffin Motor Club, Canberra, Australia; Jackaroos, Victoria, Australia; Knights of Omaha; MSC Finland; MSC Groningen, Netherlands; New York Coordinating Committee, Peregrine MC, Atlanta; 76ers, San Bernadino, CA; South Pacific Rangers, SF; Silver Barons MC, Reno; The Spirits of St. Louis; SLC Stuttgart; SLM Norway; The Tarnsmen, Baltimore; Trojans MSC, Toronto; and Valley Knights MC, Sacramento.
1976: Bar openings include: Badlands, NYC; and The Boston Eagle.
1976: The NY Eagle begins Sunday brunch and Tea Dance.
1976: The Slot, a very leather "hotel" sex club, opens on Folsom near 6th in San Francisco. And a sex club called "The Hotel" opens in San Francisco, in 1979 it changes it's name to the Handball Express.[R]
1976, Jan 1: At a New Year's Eve party at the Second City MC clubhouse in Chicago, Andrew Charles and Tony DeBlase, who had sighted each other in the last few seconds of 1975, and who had been lip locked through the transition, meet and begin what is, as of this writing, a 23+ year partnership.
1976, Jan.: Full Moon Night at Larry's, Los Angeles' popular leather bar, becomes so crowded it is changed to admission by invitation (and reservation) only.
1976, Feb.: In Detroit, a jury awards $200,000 to a man who claimed that an auto accident, in which his car was rear ended, turned him into a homosexual. [TOL]
1976, March: Drummer #5 includes the first cartoon strip by British artist Bill Ward. The strip is titled "King".
1976, March: Drummer #5 includes the first installment of "Babysitter" by Phil Andros, with art by Chuck Arnette.
1976, March: "Latrec in Leather", a collection of drawings by Chuck Arnette, is advertised in Drummer #5.
1976, March: Eons Gallery, Los Angeles' erotic art gallery has its first show: photographs by Robert Opel.
1976, March 4: Man Friday, a Broadway musical in which Friday offers his body to Robinson Caruso, flops.
1976, March 8: After long court battles in Seattle the Washington State Police drop bars against hiring homosexuals.
1976, April 10: Los Angeles Police Department raids a Slave Auction being held at the Mark IV baths as a fundraiser sponsored by Drummer magazine. A major case of police overkill as the resulting legal actions show.
1976, April 13: San Francisco Police Chief Charles Gain urges homosexuals on his force to come out of the closet and show that gays can be good cops.
1976, June: SM Dungeon Devices, an illustrated catalog of SM toys is published by The Trading Post in San Francisco.
1976, July: Robert Opel covers a Leather Wedding at Griff's, a popular Los Angeles leather bar, in Drummer #7.
1976, July: "Famous Sadists in History" series starts in Drummer #7.
1976, July: Publication of the first issue of Package, Fred Halsted's "Journal of Men Fact & Opinion. Lasts 6 issues, through Jan 1977.
1976, July: Three gay men in Des Moines resturant are chaged with disturbing the peace after they winked at two hetersexual men who claimed the wink made them nauseated. [TOL]
1976, Sept. A Californa court of Appeals orders two men who had been arrested on lewd conduct charges for kissing in public to register with the state as sex offenders.[TOL]
1976, Sept.: Chicago Hellfire Club celebrates its 5th anniversary by holding a weekend long event featuring a Saturday night SM party at a remote campground. Called Inferno 5, this is first of what are to become the most infamous and exclusive male SM play events.
1976, Sept.: The Gold Coast, Chicago's premier leather bar, celebrates it's 15th anniversary with a week long party detailed in Drummer #9.
1976, Sept.: Drummer #8 features a photo spread of the gay leather world's best known tattoo artist, Cliff Raven, painting tattoos on Val Martin.
1976, Sept.: Alan Eagles takes over the AMovie Mayhem@ series in Drummer #8 and the series takes flight.
1976, Sept.: "Many Happy Returns" by Phil Andros, illustrated by Chuck Arnette, is published in Drummer #8.
1976, Sept.: Blueboy magazine, a Miami based gay nude glossy, publishes an SM issue -- it is a fiasco.
1976, Oct.: The Cycle Sluts are featured in Drummer #9, including a cover photo of one of the leather gender benders. Publisher John Embry, many years later, blames this photo being responsible for one of the worst selling issues in the magazine's history.
1976, Oct.: Drummer #9 includes the first "Erotic Dots", in which the reader connects the numbered dots to reveal an, often otherwise unprintable, drawing. This, as most but not all of the "Erotic Dots", is by the artist Sean.
1976, Oct.: Drummer #9 includes the first part of the serial "The Great SM Murder Mystery" by John Rowberry & Rue Dyllon. The series stops, uncompleted, in Drummer #11. This is the first time Rowberry's name appears in Drummer, the magazine he will serve and influence over many coming years.
1976, Oct. 26: The Mineshaft in New York City opens. This after-hours club allowed and encouraged virtually all forms of sexual activity among its hot male patrons. It was a mecca for leather/SM types in the Eastern US and Canada. Closed in Nov. 1985.
1976, Nov.? The cover of Drummer #10 spotlights a new artist, REX, using a drawing he did for the Trading Post poster. But the masthead does not yet include his name.
1976: Nov.? Drummer #10 features the artist Etienne, with a centerfold and several additional pages of his artwork.
1976, Dec.? Drummer #11 spotlights the first Bill Ward cartoon strip under the title "DRUM".
1976, Dec. 1: Willard Eugene Allen is released from a Florida mental hospital after being incarcerated for 26 years for having sex with another man. Althought the statute under which he had been arrested had been repealed almost 20 years earlier, state authorities had ingnored doctor's suggestions that he be released. [TOL]

1977

1977: Formation of Ambassadors of Goodwill MC, Boston; Avengers MC West, Claremont, CA; Black Angels Koln; The Black Guard, Minneapolis; Boomer MC, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia; Force-5, Palo Alto; Friends of Leather and Denim Club of Montreal; Guardians MC, New Haven; II MC Berlin; Lancers MC, New Orleans; Leatheriders Bike Club, Victoria, Australia; The London Blues, UK, MC Faucon, Montreal; Meisters der Manner, Orlando; Missouri Association of Clubs,; Mobile Man Van Club, Detroit; MSC Rotterdam; Nimbus Cycle Club, Grand Rapids; Nutcrackers MC, Indianapolis; Pennsmen, Harrisburg, Phoenix Uniform Club, SF; SLM Goteborg; SMBB International, Northampton, UK; South Orange Bikers, Santa Ana, CA; Texas Cadre, Austin; and Tsarus/Memphis. Colts MC of Ft Lauderdale disbands.
1977: Founding of American Uniform Association (AUA) in New York City. [JWB]
1977: Run premiers include First Links MC Leather Cocktails in NYC; Lone Star in Texas; The Philadelphians Tri Cen; and Prairie Fire, at Chicago.
1977: Bar openings include Dirty Edna's Stampede, NYC; Boots, Los Angeles; and The Brig, SF. Folsom Prison, SF, closes.
1977: Peter Adair creates Word is Out, a feature film doccumentary portraying gay men and lesbians in a positive light.
1977: Doric Wilson's play The West Street Gang is produced in NYC.
1977: The Balcony, a bar at 2166 Market St in San Francisco opens and becomes the prime hang out for the fisting crowd. [R]
1977: Publication of the first issue of Action Male magazine, the successor to Gay Bondage, edited by Tau (Jim-Ed Thompson).
1977: Publication of Midnight Express by Billy Hayes, which documents his experiences in a Turkish prison. The later movie of the same title starring Brad Davis, while most interesting and enjoyable, differs greatly from the book.
1977: Publication of The Sexual Outlaw by John Rechy.
1977: Publication of the first issue of Piercing Friends International Quarterly magazine (PFIQ) by Gauntlet Enterprises, the Los Angeles based manufacturer of piercing jewelry.
1977: Art by Olaf is first published in Drummer #13.
1977: "SM Gym" by G. B. Misa begins serialization in Drummer #14 and continues through issue #28!
1977: A drawing by the artist A. Jay is featured on the cover of Drummer #15, his first appearance in the magazine he will later art direct.
1977: Art work by The Hun is first published in Drummer # 15.
1977: Drummer #15 includes a drawing by Skipper, depicting a hard hat with nails etc. piercing all parts of his body. This is the first, and one of the very few, published works by this prolific southern California artist who focused on very violent SM scenes.
1977: Robert Payne interviews John Rechy, author of The Sexual Outlaw, in Drummer #16.
1977: A. Jay's cartoon strip "Harry Chess" begins its run in Drummer #16.
1977: Kurt Kreisler's "My Brother, My Slave" begins serialization in Drummer # 16.
1977: A folio of bondage drawings by Tom Hinde is included in Drummer #16.
1977: A new edition of Robert Payne's Story of Q, beautifully illustrated by Olaf, is published.
1977: Al Shapiro, a.k.a. A. Jay, becomes Art Director of Drummer starting with issue #17.
1977: Art by Go Mishima is first published in Drummer #17.
1977: "Trapped" by Houston Smith begins serialization in Drummer #18.
1977: Fist Goodbody's Traveling Torture Show, a 33 RPM record is issued. This is a Bolero-like crescendo of male moans and screams that is remarkably well done in spite of the gender-bender album cover and other hype.
1977: Fred Halsted begins writing a column in Drummer #18.
1977: Jack Fritscher becomes Editor in Chief of Drummer beginning with issue #19.
1977: Drawings by the artist Matt first appear in Drummer #20.
1977: Salo, Pasolini's film version of deSade's 120 Days in Sodom, is released in the US. The film includes explicit stories and scenes of humiliation, scat, torture, and more. However even more such scenes have been cut to get past American censors.
1977: Drummer magazine moves from Los Angeles to San Francisco.
1977: Photographs by David Hurles, A.K.A. Old Reliable, are first published in Drummer #21.
1977: The art of Tom of Finland is featured in a show at Robert Opel's Feywey Studios in San Francisco. Opel interviews Tom in Drummer #22.
1977: Hard Corps by Michael Grumley & Ed Gallucci is published.
1977: Publication of the second part of RFM's autobiography, Life of a Masochist.
1977: Angreas Spengler publishes a short English version of his sociological study on gay sadomasochists in AManifest Sadomasochism of Males: Results of an Emperical Study@. This article is the foundation of modern empirical research on SM. Spengler is the first to describe sadomasochists not as sick individuals but as members of a sexual minority that forms complex subcultures, therby contradicting psychiatric theory since Krafft-Ebing. The gay selection bias in the study leads him to conclude that there are no female sadomasochists, a view that will be held by psychoanalysts and sociologists alike until 1985. [wd]
1977, Jan.: Jeannie Barney leaves as Editor of Drummer. John Embry's name first appears as Publisher in issue #12.
1977, Jan.: Ellen Marie Barrell is ordained as an Episcopal Priest - The first out lesbian ordained by a major Christian denomination. [TOL]
1977, Jan.: Eons Gallery in Los Angeles holds Tom of Finland show and publishes the Tom of Finland 1978 calendar. Tom attends the opening and meets Durk Dehner who would become his partner in establishing the Tom of Finland Foundation.
1977, Jan.: 2: Folsom Prison, one of San Francisco's best known leather bars, closes.
1977, Feb. 7: US State Dept. announces it will no longer automatically bar gays and lesbians from employment. [JR]
1977, Feb.: 14: Anita Bryant forms "Save our Children" to fight Miami's gay rights ordinance, and ignites a counter movement that brought together gay men and women in unprecedented numbers to stand up for their rights.
1977, May 25: The Everard Baths, one of New York City's best known Gay bath houses, and one of it's most leather friendly, burns, killing several patrons and staff.
1977, June 7: Newly won gay rights legislation in Miami is rescinded following Anita Bryant's anti-gay campaign.
1977, Sept.: Chicago Hellfire Club holds Inferno 6.
1977, Dec.: 16: The province of Quebec passes a stature banning discrimination against gay individuals in employment, housing and public accommodations.

1978

1978: Thomas S. Weinberg publishes an article on the Asociological perspectives@ on sadomasochism. The article is based on the concept of Aframes@. [wd]
1978: Publication of SM Truckers by Clay Caldwell, one of the many gay male erotic publications of its time, but one worthy of special attention for its exploration of the variety of leather relationships. Six of these stories were reprinted in Drummer #138 and 142-146.
1978: Publication on 9 1/2 Weeks by Elizabeth McNeill. Published as fiction but based upon a real encounter. The book is much more interesting that the later, considerably watered down, movie.
1978: Publication of Behavior Modification, The Art of Mind Murdering by Richard Camellion.
1978: Publication of the first issue of Bunkhouse, a magazine for the Western-Levi Scene. It lasts for seven issues through 1981.
1978: "Tough Shit" begins as a regular humor feature in Drummer #23, continuing publisher John Embry's commitment to exposing the humorous side of leather/SM.
1978: Formation of Avengers MC East, Summit, NJ; Centurions, Columbus; Destiny MC, Miami; Eagle MC, West Palm Beach; FFA Philadelphia; Four Star MSC Belgium; Nickel City MSC, Buffalo; Pegasus MC, Wichita; Pennsylvania Association of Clubs; Phoenix Levi\Leather Club; Pocono Warriors, PA; Reading Railmen, PA; Renaissance MC, Detroit; Rough Riders MC, San Antonio; Royal Eagle, Montreal; Samois, SF; San Francisco Wrestling Club; Scorpio Leather Club, Holyoke; South Florida Council of Clubs; Stud MC, New Haven; Swamp Fox MC, Columbia, SC;Toronto Motorcycle Riders; Trenton Bulls MC; Trojans MSC, Montreal and Youngstown Exiles, OH. Signs of Zodiac, Detroit, Disbands.
1978: Bar openings include: The Arena, SF; Clementine's, St. Louis; Half-Breed, NYC; The New Leather Loft, NYC; The Outlaw, Detroit; Stall, Frankfurt Germany; Tiger's Paw, New Orleans; and The Watering Hole (formerly the Roundup) SF.
1978: Nine Plus clubhouse destroyed by fire in NYC.
1978: The first article on "The Quarters" in San Francisco, appears in Drummer #24. This near mythical, though for a short time actual, training center and boarding facility for slaves, depicted a "Drummer" ideal.
1978: Drummer #24's cover photo is by Robert Mapplethorpe, who will later become a world recognized photographer noted for exploring SM images.
1978: Drummer announces a search for Mr. Drummer, the winner to be picked from photo submitted by those wishing to enter.
1978: Drawings by Cavelo are first featured in Drummer # 27.
1978: "Prison Punk" by Frank O'Rourke begins serialization in Drummer #27.
1978: Photos by Zeus studios are first published in Drummer #27.
1978: Publication of Le Masochisme Au Cinema by Jean Streff, in France
1978: Stompers, New York City's unique combination of boot store and leather art gallery, holds a joint exhibit of the work of Tom of Finland and Etienne. A later exhibit focuses on the erotic art of Domino and Stompers publishes a catalog of his work.
1978: Drawings by Domino are first published in Drummer #29.
1978: The photography of Robert Mapplethorpe gets its first solo show at Chrysler Museum.
1978: Gayle Rubin moves to San Francisco to begin studies of the gay Leatherman's culture.
1978: The RoB Gallery opens in Amsterdam.
1978: The Pocono Warriors are founded in eastern Pennsylvania as a combination of the older leather/levi/motor-cycle social club and the more current SM sex club.
1978: The Arena and the Black & Blue, two leatherish bars open in San Francisco. [R]
1978: The Folsom St. Baths opens in San Francisco and by 1979 was renamed the Sutro Baths, which is unique in having regularly scheduled women's nights and bisexual nights. [R]
1978: "Tough Customers" begins its long and popular run in Drummer #25.
1978, June: The Rainbow (Gay Pride) flag, designed by Gilbert Baker, is flown as a decorative element at the annual gay pride parade. It later achieved national prominence when a gay man in West Hollywood sued his landlords because they attempted to prohibit him from flying his flag from his balcony.
1978, June 13: Gayle Rubin, Pat Califia, and 16 other female sadomasochists found the women's SM group, Samois, in San Francisco. This is the first known women's SM group. [wd]
1978, June 14: The US Patent and Trademark Office refuses to register the magazine name Gaysweek, on the grounds that the name is imoral. [TOL]
1978, June: The Windy City Wrestling Club is reorganized with a national membership.
1978: July: MAFIA (Mid-America Fists In Action) founded. Holds first meeting at Inferno in September.
1978, Sept.15 - 17: Chicago Hellfire Club hosts Inferno 7.
1978, Oct.: The American Uniform Association holds its first annual AUA Review. [JWB]
1978, Nov 27: Harvey Milk, openly gay San Francisco Supervisor, assassinated, along with mayor George Moscone, by former Supervisor Dan White.

1979

1979 Andreas Spengler publishes ASadomasochisten und ihre Subkulturen@, the German 129 page version of his study on the sadomasochistic subculture. The detailed German text explains that there is insufficient data to finally conclude there are no female sadomasochists, a point lost in the English version and subsequently on most researchers. [wd]
1979: The bar formerly known as the In Between, the No Name, and by several other names over the years is purchased by Hank Diethelm and becomes The Brig, quickly becoming the most popular heavy leather bar in San Francisco. It closes in 1986 not long after Diethelm is murdered by a trick.
1979: The Stables, The Watering Hole and the Trench open in San Francisco. None has a long life but the two latter bars become very popular with the water sports crowd. [R]
1979: A sexclub called the Hothouse opens at 5th and Clara in San Francisco [R]
1979: Formation of Castaways MC, Milwaukee; Chicago MOB (Men of Brotherhood); Dolphin MC, Sydney; Excalibur of New Jersey; The Inn Men, Akron, OH; Leathermen/Atlanta; Minnesota Marauders, minneapolis; New World Rubbermen, Santee CA, later Port Townsend, WA); and St. Louis Leathernecks. Northern Lights MC, Montreal disbands.
1979: The Pocono Warriors hold their first Whitewater Weekend, which includes opportunities for whitewater rafting, and a very well equipped dungeon space. The first organization after Chicago Hellfire Club to formally include an SM sex party in the activities.
1979: Satyrs MC, the country's oldest, celebrates its 25th anniversary in the Grand Ballroom of the Queen Mary, Long Beach CA.
1979: The Amsterdam Eagle opens
1979: Publication of Rushes by John Rechy, a novel many consider to be strongly anti-SM.
1979: Publication of Project Lambda, a novel by Paul O'M. Welles.
1979: Publication in Germany of MS a novel by Christian Pierrejouan.
1979: Publication of the first of a series of magazine size photo books from Zeus studios featuring muscular men in bondage. The series continues through 1986.
1979: The Robert Samuels gallery in New York City hosts the fifth Tom of Finland show, the largest and most successful to date, until the time came for payment and return of the unsold pieces.
1979: "Mr. Benson" by John Preston, writing as Jack Prescot, begins serialization in Drummer #29.
1979: Hundreds of the 1978 Tom of Finland calendar are left unsold. Durk Dehner comes up with a scheme to cut off the calendar and sell the beautifully printed drawings as a photo set and the Tom of Finland company is born. [Hooven 95]
1979: Sasha Alyson starts Alyson Publications. Alyson is one of the first publishers to welcome gay leather/SM works, including those by John Preston and the lesbian SM book Coming to Power.
1979, Feb.: Brittain's Queen Elizabeth II is named an Ahonorary man@ by hosts during a visit to the Persian Gulf so Ahe@ could visit areas barred to women. [TOL]
1979, May: David Kloff, of San Francisco, is named the first International Mr. Leather at the contest in Chicago. Durk Dehner, of Los Angeles, is First Runner Up.
1979, May 21: Dan White convicted only of voluntary manslaughter in the killing of Milk and Moscone. The conviction results in the White Night riots by gay men in San Francisco.
1979, June: Drummer # 30 features Jack Fritscher's "Meditations on Arthur Tress" including several photos by this very homoerotic, and leather suggestive, photographer.
1979: John Rowberry replaces Jack Fritscher as Editor of Drummer, starting with issue # 31.
1979: Drawings by Dirk Dykstra, A.K.A. ALazy Leo@ & ALeo Ravenswood,@ first published in Drummer #31.
1979: It is a year for leathershop openings in San Francisco. Leather Forever and Leatherworld open in the Castro distirct. And in the Folsom area Taylor of San Francisco opens on Clementina, and Alan Selby opens Mr. S Leather on 7th between Folsom & Howard.
1979: Bette Midler records My Knight in Black Leather. [R]
1979, June: ADykes on Bikes@ make their first appearance in a Pride Day Parade, in San Francisco. [TOL]
1979, July 7: Rod's (bar) opens in Madison WI. Not strictly a leather bar, but leather friendly and for years the best there is in Madison.
1979, July 8: Robert Opel shot and killed by a hold-up man at his Feywey Studios, 1287 Howard St., San Francisco.
1979, Sept. 14-16: Chicago Hellfire Club's Inferno 8 goes to a two night SM party and Tony DeBlase creates a schedule of demonstrations, contests, and a flea market to fill the intervening day. It is covered extensively with text and photos by John Preston and Tony DeBlase in Drummers #34 and 35. This is the first real publicity on Inferno.
1979, Oct. 14: The first Lesbian and Gay March on Washington. Over 100,000 attend.
1979, Oct. 30: A Different Light Bookstore opens in Los Angeles, they will be the first bookstore to have a separate Leather/SM section.
1979, Nov.: DungeonMaster a newsletter of male SM techniques, starts publication. Fledermaus, a.k.a. Tony DeBlase, publisher, editor, etc. He uses the phrase "Safe and Sane S&M" to describe its subject matter.
1979, Dec. 1: Bent a play by Martin Sherman about the prosecution of gays in the Nazi concentration camps opens on Broadway.

1980

1980: Formation of Bacchus, St. Louis; Blackhawks MC, Rock Island IL; Centurions LL MC Roanoke, VA; FFA of Miami; The 15 Association, SF; The Foot Fraternity, Gulf Coast Buccaneers MC, Mississippi; HyBreeds of Rochester, NY; National Association of Black and White Men Together; Northern Lights, Edmonton, Alberta; Renaissance Men, Detroit; SMBB International/Australia, NSW; Stingrays MC, West Palm Beach, and Sundance Cattle Co., Houston.
1980: Bar openings include CCW, Detroit; J's Bar, NYC, and Rawhide, NYC. DC Eagle moves to 7th St. NW.
1980: Silver Anchor Enterprises, Inc. begins piercing jewelry business out of Ft. Lauderdale.
1980: Publication of the first issue of Mach magazine by Alternate publishing.
1980: Val Martin is named the first Mr. Drummer by publisher John Embry. Entered in International Mr. Leather he places as first runner up.
1980: The American Sociologist G. W. Levi Kamel theorizes that gay sadomasochists develop their interests in a six step Acareer@ that begins with a disenchantment with the vanilla gay community. [wd]
1980: The American woman's rights group National Organization for Women (NOW) publishes their ADelineation of Lesbian Rights Issues 1980@ confirming every women's right to the Aactualization of her sexuality@ but excluding sadomasochism. NOW states that including sadomasochism would Aviolate the feminist principles@ on which it was founded, and claim that sadomasochists are trying to Aprovide a premeditated structure for violence@. [wd]
1980: Publication of:
What Color is Your Handkerchief by Samois. This anthology on SM was the precursor to Coming to Power.
Harry Chess Vol. 1 a magazine sized book collection of the wonderful witty cartoon strips by A. Jay.
Waiting for the Barbarians by J. M. Coetzee, an unnerving novel of torture and the "other".
The Lords of Discipline by Pat Conroy. The ritual of hazing gone awry in a Military School.
Mr. Benson by John Preston in book form.
Old Time Punishments by William Andrews. Stocks, pillories, dunking stools, etc.
The Barn 1948 And More Dirty Pictures by Blade, a catalog published jointly by Stompers and Leslie-Lohman gallery.
Top Comedy & Bottom Burlesque a collection of cartoons on SM by Bruce N. Duncan.
Folsom magazine, published by photographer Jim Moss. It lasts for four issues.
1980: Cruising, a movie staring Al Pacino, depicting murder and violence in Leather bars and among leather men, opens in New York City, to loud protests by gay demonstrators.
1980, Feb.: The 15 Association formed in San Francisco by David Lewis and others. It is an all male group dedicated to SM activity.
1980, March 21: Cynthia Slater & Susan Thoraen rent the Catacombs for the first mixed gender, mixed orientation SM play party. It is a success and the parties continue until the Catacombs closes. [R]
1980, Apr. 18: The lesbian community in San Francisco holds a public debate on sadomasochism. This is the first known public debate on lesbian sadomasochism. [wd]
1980, May: Patrick Brooks of Australia is named the second International Mr. Leather at the contest in Chicago.
1980, Aug.: Brian O'Dell publishes a letter in New York City's Gay Community News which leads to the formation of GMSMA.
1980, Aug. 8 - 10: Chicago Hellfire Club's Inferno 9 is held near Chicago. It is the year of the AGang of Four@ but all goes well.
1980, Sept.: DungeonMaster #6 includes the phrase Asafe and sane scenes@ to describe the objectives of the Safety Valve column. ASafe and sane S&M@ is a phrase often used in subsequent issues to describe the objectives of the publication.
1980, Oct.: Jack Fritscher begins publication of his little magazine Man2Man, which lasts for eight issues.
1980, Nov. 10: A homophobic man fires an Uzi into the crowded Ramrod bar on West Street in New York City, killing one and injuring many leathermen.
1980, Dec.: Gay Male S/M Activists officially organized in New York City, and holds it's first public meeting on January 14.

1981

1881: Formation of Colorado Gay Rodeo Association, Confederation of New York Area Clubs, Florida Brotherhood of Clubs, Lesbian Sex Mafia (LSM) in New York City, Orlando; GMSMA, NYC; Satyricons MC, Las Vegas; SMGays, London; Stillettos, Jacksonville, FL; and Stingrays, NJ. Elegabulus NC, Norwood Australia, and South Florida Council disband.
1981: Bar openings include Spike, Munich and Stellwerk, Berlin. Buddy Bar in Berlin and Tiger's Bar in New Orleans close.
1981: The Drummer Key Club, a male leather version of the Playboy clubs, opens at Folsom & 11th in San Francisco. Advertised as the first of a nationwide chain, others never open, and quickly evolves into a series of more typical leather bars: Drummaster, then the Gold Coast, and finally the Compound, a private sex club which closed in 1984. [R]
1981: San Francisco Eagle founded. At the time it was just one of the many leather bars in the city, but it has endured to become the oldest leather bar in San Francisco.
1981: Coming to Power, a collection of articles on SM, is published by the San Francisco based women's SM organization Samois.
1981: Publication of Whitewater Run by Victor Terry, a fictionalized portrayal of the Pocono Warriors Whitewater Weekend Run.
1981: Publication of Anal Pleasure & Health, by Jack Morin Ph.D. a guide for both men and women.
1981: Publication of Aaron Travis' most famous short story, "Blue Light," in Drummer #44.
1981: Death of Tony Taverossi, one of the inventors of the leather bar, from AIDS related pneumonia.
1981: Advocate reporter Randy Shilts becdomes the US's first out gay reporter at a major daily newspaper when he is hired by the San Francisco Chronicle. [TOL]
1981, June: Ray Pereyra is named the second Mr. Drummer in the first Mr. Drummer Contest.
1981, April 4: A performance art space named, and located at, 544 Natoma, openes in San Francisco. The performance pieces, including play parties, are usually leather oriented and feature members of the Rainbow MC. It closes on 6 October 1983. [R]
1981, May: Marty Kiker is named the third International Mr. Leather at the contest at Chicago.
1981, June 5: Morbidity & Mortality Weekly, announces the mysterious presence of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia in five gay men in Los Angeles.
1981, July 3: The New York Times publishes the first article on "the Gay Cancer", the first public news of what was to become known as AIDS.
1981, July 10: A major fire on Folsom St. destroys homes (and art and photos and whips, etc.) of Rex, Mark I. Chester, and many other leathermen.
1981, Aug. 28: Steve McEachern has a heart attack at the Catacombs while engaged in a private scene with his lover. He dies and the Catacombs closes.
1981, Sept.: Chicago Conference of Clubs hods first Wild Onion run near Chicago.
1981, Oct.: German SM-lesbians meet and decide to create address distribution centers in various cities as a form of infrastructure. This is the first known attempt at organization among German SM-lesbians. [wd]
1981, Oct. 9-12: Chicago Hellfire Club holds Inferno 10 under canvas at a new location in Douglas MI on Columbus Day weekend. It is too cold for outdoor nudity! Bill Kerr of New York City receives the first Caligula Award.
1981, Oct. 10: Torch Song Trilogy by Harvey Fierstein opens on Broadway.
1981, Oct 30: The Catacombs #2 opens at 736 Larken in San Francisco. [R]
1981, Dec:. GMSMA holds its first Bizarre Bazaar at the Mineshaft in New York City.
1981. Dec.: The New york City Gay Men's Chorus performs at Carnegie Hall, the first openly gay group to appear there. [TOL]

1982

1982: Formation of Conductors LLC, Nashville; Corpus Christi MC; County Men, Detroit; dreizehn, in Boston; Gaucho MC, Tampa; Harbor Masters, Portland, ME; Leathermasters Inc., LA; Rainbow MC in San Francisco; Somandros, LA; Trident International Detroit; and Tower City Corps, Cleveland, and Vancouver Activists in SM, VASM, in Vancouver, BC.
1982: Rainbow MC founded in San Francisco. Rainbow differs from most other contemporary gay motorcycle clubs in two ways: most of its members were involved in the visual and/or performing arts and it's events were usually art "happenings" But it's members also harkened back to the outlaw biker gangs in appearance, forbidding fancy uniforms or washing of overlays, which were frequently decorated with bodily secretions. [R]
1982: The Danish SM-activist Maria Marcus= book on SM is translated into German as Die furchtbare Wahrheit. Frauen und Masochismus. [wd]
1982: R. E. Linden's Against Sadomasochism: A Radical Feminist Analysis is published in San Francisco.
1982: Release of the film Connan the Barbarian which opens with a shot of a nearly naked Arnold Schwarzenegger, as Connan, nailed, crucifix style, to a huge and gnarled tree. He tears himself free from the nails. The movie is filled with other SM images.
1982: Publication of The Rose Exterminator by William Carney, an essentially unsuccessful sequel to The Real Thing.
1982: Publication by Larry Townsend of The Fledermaus Anthology, a collection of explicitly gay male SM short stories by Tony DeBlase writing as Fledermaus.
1982: Publication by Larry Townsend of The Mack Anthology, featuring the fiction and superb erotic art of Mack.
1982: Publication of The Enema as an Erotic Art and it's History by David Barton-Jay. A coffee table book on enemas!
1982: Publication of A History of Erotic Literature by Patrick J. Kearney.
1982: Feb. 13: The Catacombs #3 opens on Shotwell St in San Francisco. [R]
1982: Feb. 25: Wisconsin becomes the first state in the union to have comprehensive gay rights legislation.
1982, May: Luke Daniel, Mr. Drummer, is selected as the 4th International Mr. Leather at the contestat Park West in Chicago.
1982, June: Luke Daniel of Los Angeles is named as the third Mr. Drummer.
1982, Aug.: Dr. Tom Waddel brings together thousands of gay men and women for the first Gay Games. Originally called the Gay Olympics the US Olympic Committee brings suit to protect their name. Hundreds of events around the world are called AOlympics@ but only the Gay Olympics has been singled out for such prohibitions.
1982, Sept. 10-13: Chicago Hellfire Club returns to September dates and holds Inferno 11 on two sites in Douglas and Saugatuck, MI. Ken Hocking of Sydney Australia receives the Caligula Award.
1982, Oct.: Vancouver Activists in SM, a male SM group, is formed in Vancouver, British Colombia.
1992, Oct. 25: Northern Ireland repeals its laws against sodomy. [TOL]
1982, late: Mixed Gender SM play parties resume at the Shotwell Catacombs in San Francisco. [R]

1983

1983: Formation of Avatar, LA; Cowtown Leathermen, Ft. Worth; Dreizehn, Boston; Gryphons MC, Dayton, OH; Leather and Lace, LA; Lords of Leather, New Orleans; Manchester Super Chain, UK; and Tower City Corps, Cleveland.
1983: Samois, the nation's first women's SM organization, disbands in San Francisco.
1983: The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, an explicitly sexual and SM filled novel, is published by a major publisher, who admits that the author's name, A. N. Roquelaure, is a pseudonym for a very well known female author, much later revealed to be Ann Rice. This is the first volume of what will become the Sleeping Beauty trilogy.
1983: The American sociologists Thomas A. Wienberg and G. W. Levi Kamel publish the first edition of Sadomasochism. Studies in Dominance and Submission. The book summerizes the historical research on SM and promotes the empirical sociological viewpoint. [wd]
1983: Publication of The Correct Sadist by Terence Sellers.
1983, May: Colt Thomas of Houston TX is named the fourth International Mr. Leather at the contest at Park West in Chicago.
1983, June: John Garger is chosen 1983 Mr. Drummer at a contest held at the Russian River in northern California. First runner up David Earl Lee, later assumes the title.
1983, July 14: Massachusetts congressman Gerry Studds comes out as a gay man in a speech to the House, following charges linking him with a male page.
1983, Aug. 17: An ad-hoc committee of GMSMA issues a report: APropoed New Statement of Identity and Purpose@ using the phrase Asafe, sane, consensual.@[GK]
1983, Sept. 9 - 12: Chicago Hellfire Club holds Inferno 12 in Douglas MI. Ron Bentley of Midland, Texas, receives the Caligula Award.
1983, Sept. Publication in London of the first issue of SMART, A journal of SM how-to modeled after DungeonMaster. It lasts for three issues.
1983, Oct.: GMSMA switches its meeting site to the new New York City Lesbian & Gay Community Services Center.

1984

1984: Formation of Arizona Gay Rodeo Association; California Eagles, SF; Copperstate Leathermen, Phoenix; Defenders of Mithra, Portland, OR; Disciples of DeSade, Dallas; GLSM Hamburg; Golden State Gay Rodeo Association; Grand Rapids Rivermen; The great Midwestern Society for the Promotion and Proliferation of S&M; On Motor Club, Paris; The Outcasts, SF; Pittsburgh MC; Severn Link MSC, Bristol, UK; SigMa, DC; Tridents MC, Boston; Two Wheelers, Omaha; and Wasatch Leathermen MC, Salt Lake City.
1984: The American medical philosopherFrederick Suppe shows that all diagnosis included in the diagnostic groups of Aparaphilias@ (perversions) can be substituted by other, non-sexual diagnosis. He concludes that the current classification of sexual disorders by the American Psychiatric Association in DMS-III is Amerely the codification of social mores@. [wd]
1984: An exhibit titled AEldorado -- Homosexual Women and Men in Berlin 1850 - 1950, History, Everyday Life, and Culture:@ opens at the Schwules Museum in Berlin. This is the first known museum exhibition centering on homosexuality.
1984: Books Published:
Urban Aboriginals by Geoff Mains
Leather Blues -The adventures of Denny Sargent by Jack Fritscher
Corporal in Charge of Taking Care of Captain O'Malley a collection of short stories, by Jack Fritscher.
Beauty's Punishment by A. N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice), the second of the Beauty trilogy.
The Mineshaft a novel by Tim Barrus.
The Raging Peace by Artemis Oakgrove, the first in the Throne Trilogy of lesbian leatherish erotica.
The Brig by Mason Powel, a novel which had been previously serialized in Drummer.
1984: Lady Thorn sponsors her first Bizarre Flea Market in San Francisco.
1984: San Francisco closes bath houses and sex clubs in an effort to limit the spread of AIDS. [R]
1984, Jan.: Staff writers at the Wall Street Journal were first allowed to use the word Agay@ instead of Ahomosexual@. [TOL]
1984, Apr. 21: "Farewell Catacombs, Fuck You World!" party held at the Catacombs as its final event. [R]
1984, May: Ron Moore of Denver becomes the 6th International Mr. Leather at the contest at Park West in Chicago. He is the first black man to hold an international leather title. Died: Feb. 25, 1997.
1984, June: Sonny Cline of San Francisco becomes the 1984 Mr. Drummer at the contest in San Francisco.
1984, June: GMSMA organizes its first Leather Pride Night in New York City.
1984, June 25: Michael Foucault dies at the age of 57 of AIDS in Paris, France. [wd]
1984, Sept. 7 - 10: Chicago Hellfire Club holds Inferno 13 in Douglas MI. David Lewis of Dallas receives the Caligula Award.
1984, Sept. The first Folsom Street Fair is held in San Francisco.
1984, Oct 5-8: American Uniform Association 7th Annual Review is held in Denver.

1985
1985: Formation of Hartford Colts; Krew de Cuir, SF; Men in Boots, Vancouver BC; MSC Iceland; PEP, Phoenix; River City Outlaws, San Antonio; Seattle Dungeon Guild; Texas Renegades, Houston; and Total Devotion and Alliance Club of Atlanta.
1985, People Exchanging Power (PEP) an SM club open to all genders and orientations is founded in Phoenix by Nancy Ava Miller, who goes on to found several similar organizations across the country.
1985: The Tom of Finland foundation, a not for profit corporation formed to preserve the art of Tom of Finland, and to promote erotic art and artists, is founded in Los Angeles.
1985: The Defenders of Mithra begin sponsorship of the Oregon State Leather Woman title.
1985: Books Published:
Beauty's Release the third in the Beauty trilogy by A. N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice).
Exit to Eden by Anne Rampling, which turns out to be another pseudonym for Anne Rice.
Slaves of the Empire by Aaron Travis in book form after being serialized in Drummer.
Physical Interrogation Techniques by Richard W. Krousher. A how-to manual for interrogation & torture.
Torture by Edward Peters.
Torture in Brazil a secret study by the Archdiocese of Sao Paulo, English edition in 1986.
1985: Norman Breslow and collegues become the first researchers to report the existance of nonprostitute female sadomasochists. Their results, which contradict one of the most cherished beliefs among Freudians, behaviourists, and sociologists are not accepted by the research community until the late 1990's [wd]
1985: The Fraser Report, Report of Special Commission on Pornography and Prostitution is issued in Canada. It sets three tiers of "obscenity". Sexually violent or "degrading" activities are deemed worse than everything except child pornography.
1985: Leon Golub retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. Golub's subject matter is larger than life size canvases of instances of torture, often based on actual cases.
1985: Artist Daniel Kelly retrospective at Corsh Gallery in Chicago. Kelly's art blends religious, sexual and sm themes.
1985: Peter Thomas begins his lengthy service as Coordinator of the Mid America Conference of Clubs. [RR]
1985, Jan.: The first Mr. Mid-Atlantic Leather contest held in Washington DC. Sponsored by Centaur MC.
1985: May 12: A pink granite memorial to the homosexual victims of Nazi concentration camps is unveiled in Germany.
1985, May: Patrick Toner of San Francisco becomes the 7th International Mr. Leather at the contest at the Park West in Chicago.
1985, June: Steve Reiswig of Seattle becomes the 6th Mr. Drummer at the contest in San Francisco.
1985, June 29: The French National Assembly passes a bill prohibiting discrimination against gay men and lesbians.
1985, July: Ringold Alley, a favorite nightime cruising ground for leathermen, is the site of the first Ringold Alley Fair, a charity fundraiser sponsored by Up Your Alley Productions, a group in which IML 85 Patrick Toner plays a very prominent role.
1985, Sept. 6 - 9: Chicago Hellfire Club holds Inferno 14 in Douglas MI. Harold Cox of Wilkes Barre, PA, receives the Caligula Award.
1985, Nov.: The Mineshaft is closed by New York City officials for "health" reasons.
1985, Nov. 11: GMSMA holds its first Leatherfest in New York City.
1985, Nov. 13: Nargret Roff, an out lesbian, is elected Mayor of Manchester England. The first out gay or lesbian to be elected to mayoral office in Great Brittain.

1986

1986: Formation of Bournemouth LSMC, UK; Club Mud, Rio Nido, CA; Essex Leather MSC, UK; Der Ledermeister, Syracuse NY; The National Leather Association, Seattle; Portland Power and Trust, OR; and Utica Tri's NY.
1986, Jan 10: GLAAD, Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation is established in New York City.
1986: Portland Power and Trust, a woman to woman SM organization is formed in Portland Oregon by Sallee Huber, Sashie Hyatt, and Judy Tallwing McCarthy.
1986: Lee Willis begins The Studworks in Seattle and quickly becomes recognized as the foremost artisan at creating studded leather work.
1986: Sexual Magic, a collection of SM photographs together with thoughts about SM by the subjects of the photos, most of whom are members of the SM organization Janus, is self published by San Francisco photographer Michael A. Rosen.
1986: Sex Magick, a collection of poems by Ian Young is published in Toronto
1986: Publication of The Sexual Perspective, Homosexuality and Art in the last 100 years in the West by Emmanuel Cooper, Second Edition 1994.
1986: The film A9 1/2 Weeks@ directed by Adrian Lyne, staring Kim Basinger and Mickey Rourke opens in the USA. [wd]
1986, May: Scott Tucker, of Philadelphia is selected as the 8th International Mr Leather at the contest at the Park West in Chicago. Jim Ed Thompson, former editor of Gay Bondage and Action Male, is first runner up.
1986: Apr. 15: Death of French writer Jean Genet who had spent most of his adolescence and young adulthood in prison. A prolific writer his works were filled with raw sexuality, often with SM overtones. Examples are his play The Balcony and the novels A Thief's Journal, Our Lady of the Flowers, and Querelle of Brest. (Birth: Dec. 19, 1910)
1986, June: Mike Murray of San Diego becomes the 7th Mr. Drummer at the contest in San Francisco.
1986, June: The National Leather Association is formed in Seattle by Steve Maidhof with the help of a few other leather men and women.
1986, June 30: The US Supreme Court upholds Georgia's sodomy laws in a 5-4 ruling on the conviction of Michael Hardwick for activities that took place in the privacy of his own bedroom.
1986, July 4: New Zealand passes a homosexual law reform bill extending basic rights to gay men and lesbians.
1986, Aug. 22: Desmodus Inc. (Tony DeBlase & partner), publisher of DungeonMaster, purchases Drummer, Mach, and Foreskin Quarterly magazines from Alternate Publishing (John Embry). Desmodus relocates from Chicago to San Francisco.
1986, Sept. 5 - 8: Chicago Hellfire Club holds Inferno 15 at Douglas MI. John Enteman of New York City receives the Caligula Award.
1986, Oct.: The first Living in Leather Conference is hosted in Seattle by the newly formed National Leather Association.
1986, Nov.: GMSMA spearheads organizing a special Leather-S/M contingent for the 1987 March on Washington.
1986, Fall: Seattle Leather Woman title begins.
1986, Fall: In a literature survey from 1977 to 1984, Breslow and collegues can only find five eimpirical studies on sadomasochism. Of these, only one study (Spengler 1977) gives enough data to be evaluated or replicated. In their own study on male sadomasochists, Breslow and collegues point out that there is no data that would justify subdividing sadomasochists into groups such as sadist and masochist based on role preference. [wd]

1987

1987: Formation of Boston Ducks; Diablo DV8's, Walnut Creek CA; Firedancers LLC, Dallas; Griffins MC, DE; and Trident International LA.
1987: First International Gay Rodeo Association (IGRA) Finals Rodeo.
1987: The British police conclude Operation Spanner with the arrests of several gay men participating in a private party where consensual SM was going on.
1987: Desmodus Inc. and Zeus Studios jointly publish a volume of still photos from Chicago Hellfire Club's Inferno 15.
1987: The Schwules Museum in Berlin begins publication of Capri, a periodical deadicated to gay history.
1987: Publication of:
The Green Hotel by Gordon Hoban writing as Tom Hardy.
Hell's Angels by Yves Lavigne
Slavery in the Arab World by Murray Gordon in France, first American edition 1989/
1987 The sexologist Charles Moser and psychologist Eugene E. Levitt publish the results of an emperical study on sadomasochists. [wd]
1987: The German SM-group Suendikat Hamburg is formed. By 1995, it will have about 100 members, roughly half of them women. This is the first knowen heterosexual SM group in Germany. [wd]
1987, Feb. 2: First Portland Leather Woman contest won by Judy Tallwing McCarthy.
1987, Feb 11: Death of D. Lyn Sterling, known as AThe Leathermaker@.He originated many unique designs in leather clothing (and toys), including chaps with the zippers on the outside! and was for many years Leathermaker to the stars in Los Angeles. [LJ 93]
1987, Mar. 21: Judy Tallwing McCarthy of Portland, OR, is named the first International Ms Leather at the contest in San Francisco.
1987, Mar. 24: The newly formed ACT UP holds its first demonstration in New York City.
1987: Mar. 25: Robert D. Reite begins SM Board in Los Angeles, one of the first telephone bulletin boards specifically catering to SM men. SM board is now accessable by Direct dial, telnet, and the Wold Wide Web. it celebrated it's 10th anniversay in 1997.
1987, May: David Rhodes begins publication of The Leather Journal in Los Angeles.
1987, May: The National Leather Association holds its first May Day conference in Seattle.T. K. Cuellar is named the first Mr. National Leather Association and Jan Brown of Vancouver BC is named the first Ms National Leather Association.
1987, May: Thomas Karasch of Hamburg, Germany, is named the 9th International Mr. Leather at the contest at the Park West in Chicago.
1987, June: Mark Alexander of Los Angeles becomes the 8th Mr. Drummer at the contest in San Francisco.
1987: Following the traffic of leathermen cruising, Up Your Alley moves it's San Francisco leather charity street fair from Ringold Alley to Dore Alley, across from the Powerhouse.
1987, Aug. 1: The first Mr. & Ms Vancouver BC Leather Contest is held.
1987, Aug. 7: Over a hundred people protest a British law against same sex hand holding and other public displays of affection by holding a Akiss-in@ at London's Picadilly Circus. [TOL]
1987, Aug. 28-31: NLA's Living In Leather II is held in Seattle. Tony DeBlase of San Francisco, and Susie Bright of Denver, are named NLA Man and Woman of the year.
1987, Sept.: Chicago Hellfire Club holds Inferno 16 in Douglas MI. Robin Tutt of Fire Island Pines, NY, receives the Caligula Award.
1987, Oct. 10: A National Leather Conference is held in Washington DC on the day before the march. Barry Douglas of GMSMA is the prime organizer, NLA organizes the panels. Judy Tallwing McCarthy gives keynote address. Thousands attend and the next day march, for the first time, behind a banner using the phrase "Safe-Sane-Consensual".
1987, Oct. 11: Hundreds of thousands, including thousands of leather people of all orientations, march and rally in Washington DC for the 1987 March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay rights.

1988

1988: Formation of Atlanta S&M Solidarity (ASS); COMMAND, Baltimore; Panthers L/L, Atlanta; Gay Male S/M Cooperative (GMSMC), Philadelphia; New York Bondage Club; and Southbay Leather and Uniform Group (SLUG), San Jose. Knights Templar, SF, disbands.
1988: Jaye Evans opens the Atlanta Eagle as the first definite leather bar in that city.
1988: Extablishment of the Human Sexuality Collection at Cornell University Library. David B. Goodstein, longtime publisher of The Advocate, and Bruce Voeller, early leader of the National Gay Task Force, are the driving forces behind its creation. The Mariposa Education and Research Foundation donated it's huge collection of papers, photographs, art, films, etc. to form the core of the new Cornell collection.
1988: John Stout, a gay man living in West Hollywood, wins a legal battle with his landlord over his right to fly a rainbow flag from his apartment balcony. [TOL]
1988: Publication of The Lesbian SM Safety Manual edited by Pat Califia.
1988: Publication of The Tom of Finland Retrospective a coffee table book on Tom's art and life.
1988: Publication of First Hand Events #1 in magazine format, featuring the International Mr. Leather contest. #2, also published in 1988 covers the Gay Rodeo circuit. No further issues were published.
1988: Publication of Ecclesia Militans, The Inquisition by Miroslav Hroch and Anna Skybova in Germany. English edition in 1990.
1988, Jan: Desmodus Inc. publishes the first issue of The Sandmutopia Guardian and Dungeon Journal, a SM how-to publication similar to DungeonMaster but written for all genders and sexual orientations. Carol Truscott is editor.
1988, Feb.: Barry Douglas of New York City and Cookie Andrews-Hunt of Seattle are named the Leather Journal man and woman of the year. These are the Leather Journal's first such awards and the beginning of what will grow into the Pantheon of Leather awards.
1988, Feb.: Lambda Delta Lambda at the University of California, Los Angeles, becomes the first lesbian sorrity to gain official recognition from a US college or university. [TOL]
1988, Feb. 10: The Gold Coast, Chicago's best known leather bar, closes after 28 years of operation.
1988, Feb. 13: A conference of Leather-S/M men and women is held in Dallas, an outgrowth of the Oct. '87 conference in Washington DC. It's purpose is to organize a national organization. After two days of heated debate a statement of purpose and some organizational guidelines are adopted, and a steering committee is elected. The group begins functioning under the name Safe Sane Consensual Adults, SSCA.
1988, Feb. 24: Lambda Delta Lambda, the first lesbian sorority in America is oficially recognized by UCLA. One month later, the first (admittedly) gay college fraternity will be formed.
1988, March: Shan Carr of Portland, Oregon, is selected as the second International Ms Leather at the contest in San Francisco.
1988, May: NLA's May Day Conference in Seattle, Steve Maidhof and Cheri Mattise are selected as Mr. and Ms NLA.
1988, May: Dave Pallone, a 10 year vetran National League umpire is fired because of his homosexuality.
1988, May: Michael Pereyra of San Diego becomes the 10th International Mr. Leather at the contest at the Vic Theatre in Chicago.
1988, June 21: Art Agnos, Mayor of San Francisco, Declares Alan Selby Day to honor the man often called the "Mayor of Folsom St."
1988, Aug.: GMSMA establishes the Hocutt-Ferguson fund to assist leather people with AIDS.
1988, Sept. 24: The Mr. Drummer contest is switched from the June Gay Pride weekend to coincide with the Folsom Street Fair in September. In advertising Tony DeBlase begins calling it "San Francisco Leather Pride Weekend". Ron Zehel of Columbus, OH becomes the 9th Mr. Drummer.
1988, Sept.: Chicago Hellfire Club holds Inferno 17 in Douglas MI. Wally Wallace of New York City, receives the Caligula Award.
1988, Oct. 8-10: NLA's Living in Leather III Conference is held in Seattle. Alan Selby and Gayle Rubin, both of San Francisco, are named NLA man and woman of the year.
1988, Oct. 10: The SSCA steering committee merges with the National Leather Association, SSCA members are added to the NLA board of directors and the NLA accepts the statement of purpose adopted at the Dallas Conference. Work begins on bylaws.

1989

1989: Formation of Affirmation Leathermen; Boston Unified Leather Legion (BULL); Brotherhood of Pain, Houston; Knights on Iron MC, San Diego; Leather United, Chicago; Menamore LLC, Wilmington NC; Mike's Men, Boston; Omaha Players Club; Oregon Activists of SM (ORGASM); Rangers, Inc., Cleveland; Sacramento Leather Association; Seattle Men in Leather; Silver Dolphins LLC, Corpus Christi; Trash, Vancouver BC; and Trusted Servants, SF.
1989: California Motor Club of San Francisco disbands after 26 years. [LJ 93]
1989: The German SM-group AfreieSMuenchen@ is formed in Munich. By 1995 it will have 50 members about 30% of them women. [wd]
1989: Stormy Leather opens at 1158 Howard in San Francisco. This is probably the first leather shop owned by, and operated primarily for, women.
1989: Publication of Gentle Warriors by Geoff Mains.
1989: Publication of Macho Sluts by Pat Califia.
1989: Publication of The Language of Sadomasochism, A Glossary and Linguistic Analysis by Thomas E Murray and Thomas R. Murrell.
1989: Fantasy >98, organized by Dustin Logan, brings a great many title holders to Omaha Nebraska for a weekend of interaction that inspires the term Asash bash@ and raises over $9,000 for local charities.
1989, Feb.: The Leather Journal names Alan Selby man of the year and names Shan Carr and Judy Tallwing McCarthy jointly Women of the year.
1989, March: Trash, a woman to woman SM organization is founded in Vancouver BC. Disbands in 1990.
1989, March 9: Robert Mapplethorpe dies of AIDS in New York City.
1989, March: Susie Shepherd of Portland, OR, is named the third International Ms Leather at the contest in San Francisco.
1989, May 8: Fred Halsted, erotic film actor, director, producer, as well as leather writer and magazine publisher, commits suicide in Los Angeles.
1989, May: NLA: Seattle holds May Day Conference, Guy Baldwin and Jan Lyon are selected Mr. and Ms NLA.
1989, May 28: Tony DeBlase presents his design for a leather pride flag to the audience at International Mr. Leather, the first time the flag is presented to the public.
1989, May 28: Guy Baldwin of Los Angeles becomes the 11th International Mr. Leather at the contest at the Vic theatre in Chicago.
1989, June: The Leather Pride flag is carried by the leather contingent in the Portland OR pride parade, it's first appearance at such an event. (A week preceding pride parades in San Francisco and New York City, where it is also flown).
1989, June: The Corcoran Gallery in Washington DC, cancels a scheduled Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit because of pressure by anti-gay Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) and others.
1989, June: 20th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, GMSMA organizes a massive leather contingent for the New York City parade.
1989, June 20: Death of bar owner, and guidebook publisher, Bob Dameron. Among the Los Angeles and San Francisco bars he owned are the Hideaway, Febe's and the SF Eagle. But he was also the originator of the bar guide that helped us all find what we were looking for wherever we were.
1989, June 30: Laser artist Rockne Krebs projects the photograps of Robertty Mapplethorpe on the exterior walls of the Corcoran Gallery in Washington DC. The exhibit of Mapplethorpe's work, scheduled to open on this day, had been canceled due to polllitical pressure from Jesse Helms and other conservative members of Congress. [TOL]
1989, July 26: US Senate passes the NEA funding bill with the AHelms Ammendment.@ This is probably the first time SM is mentioned in a US law.
1989, Sept.: Brian Dawson of Los Angeles becomes the tenth Mr. Drummer and Dieter Edwards is named the first Drummerboy of the year at the contest in San Francisco.
1989, Sept.: Chicago Hellfire Club holds Inferno 19 in Douglas MI. Fred "Ollie" Stewart receives the Caligula Award. Jim Ward is named the first recipient of the J Paul Eaton award.
1989, Oct.: Cynthia Ann Slater, founder of the Society of Janus, dies of AIDS in San Francisco. [wd]
1989, Oct. 1: Axel and Eigil Axgil, a male couple, become the first to marry under Denmark's Same Sex Marriage registry. [TOL]
1989, Oct. 7-9: NLA's Living in Leather IV conference is held in Portland, OR. Geoff Mains and Cynthia Slater receive the NLA Lifetime Achievement Awards. Dr. Nan Borrows gives the keynote address.
1989, Oct. 17: The Loma Parieta earthquake shakes the San Francisco Bay area virtually destroying the buildings containing the Drummer offices, the Lone Star Saloon and many other leather oriented businesses, as well as the homes of many leather people.
1989, Nov. 4: NLA: Los Angeles sponsors Bondage as Art show at Leonardogavici Art Gallery. Bondage themed paintings, drawings, collage, photography, and inanimate sculpture are augmented by living bondage sculptures created by numerous artists from around the country. Huge crowds attend, including LAPD and Fire Departments who close down the show due to overcrowding of the facility.
1989: Deaths: Bob Damron, bar owner and creator of the gay bar guide; Fred Halsted, porn star, film producer, writer, and magazine publisher; Sashie Hyatt, spouse of Judy Tallwing McCarthy and leatherdyke from Hell! organizer of many lesbian SM organizations, and driving force behind many leather dyke titleholders; Geoff Mains, author of Urban Aboriginals and Gentile Warriors. [LJ 93]

1990

1990: Formation of Bay Area Levi/Leather Society (BALLS), Corpus Christi; Bluegrass Colts, Lexington; Northwest Bears, Seattle; Omikron, Indianapolis; Tarheel Leather Club, Greensboro NC; Tri-State Gay Rodeo Association; and United Leatherfolk of Connecticut. Barbary Coasters MC, SF; Trash, BC; and Zodiacs, BC disband.
1990: Formation of the Betty Page Social Club, sponsor of Toronto's Fetish nights.
1990: The Finnish Government awards a $50,000 grant towards the making of a documentary on the life and work of Tom of Finland, to be intitled Daddy and the Muscle Academy. [LJ 93]
1990: QSM (Quality SM) founded by Karen Mendelsohn starts a series of SM/fetish educational classes in San Francisco, that is still going strong as this is published. [LJ 93]
1990: The newly formed Tarheel Leather Club of Greensboro North Carolina, takes on the formidable task of trying to unseat US Senator Jesse Helms R-NC. Their ABeat Jesse@ campaign gains nationwide support, including that of IMsL Susie Sheperd with her t-shirt campaign. [LJ 93]
1990: The US Census Bureau for the fist time includes a question on the census form that can help identify same sex couples. 69,200 female couples and 88,200 male couples self-identify. [TOL]
1990: Release of USSM 1, the first of a series of four videos coproduced by Zeus and Drummer that depict real SM scenes with real SM players. There will eventually be four titles in this series. By 1995 they will be withdrawn from the US market due to persecution of the Los Angeles police.
1990: The 16 defendants in England's Operation Spanner case are brought to trial and convicted of assault and battery, because the judge rules that consent is not recognized, and even the bottoms who were consensually "assaulted" are deemed guilty!
1990: Publication of:
Bad Boys & Tough Tattoos by Sam Steward.
Some Dance to Remember by Jack Fritscher, a novel set in San Francisco's gay leather scene.
Lights out in the Reptile House a novel by Jim Shepard, a novel with strong SM overtones.
The Quest a short story collection by Ben George.
Doc and Fluff a lesbian SM novel by Pat Califia.
Mineshaft Nights by Leo Cardini, an accurate picture of this famous place by one of its former employees.
From Female to Male, The Life of Jack Bee Garland by Louis Sullivan
Encyclopedia of Homosexuality a two volume set edited by Wayne R. Dynes
Coming Out Under Fire, The History of Gay Men and Women in World War Two by Allan Berube
1990: Jan.: The German SM-group AgibS/Mir@ is formed in Kiel. By 1995 it will have about 20 members. [wd]
1990, Feb.: The Leather Journal names Dustin Logan, of Omaha Nebraska, and Jan Lyon of Seattle, man and woman of the year. Tony DeBlase is named business person of the year and GMSMA is named club of the year.
1990, Feb. 24: Death of Malcolm Forbes, American millionere and publisher of Forbes magazine. After his death it was revealed that Forbes, who had been divorced in 1985, spent an increasing amount of time in his later years in leather, riding his motorcycle and visiting New York City's leather/SM bars and backrooms (born: Aug. 18, 1919)
1990, Mar. 3: A fire destroys Touche, a prominent Chicago Leather Bar.
1990, March: New York City officials close safe-sex clubs in the wake of a club fire.
1990, March: Gabriel Antolovich of San Diego becomes the fourth International Ms Leather at the contest in San Francisco.
1990, May 10: Chuck Renslow awarded charter membership in the City of Chicago Gay & Lesbian Hall of Fame.
1990, May: Mark Ryan of Boston is named the 12th International Mr. Leather at the contest at the Vic Theatre in Chicago.
1989, May: Susie Shepherd, International Ms Leather 1989, is the first woman to appear on the cover of The Leather Journal #15. The decision is not popular with magazine readers. [LJ 93]
1990, June: In New York City GMSMA is invited to send a representative to a community meeting to be held at the residence of the Mayor.
1990, Summer: Luke Owens' Master & Slave contest is held in Los Angeles and won by Mark Bowers and Bob Farrell.
1990, July 24: Congressman Bob Dornan reads his Apsychopath@ speach into the US Congressional Record, saying, AThere are no psychopathic dark recesses of my mind that know how to handle sadism, masochism, bondage, discipline, or torture dusguised as some sort of sexual thrill...@ [JWB]
1990, Autum: The German SM-group SMbH is formed in Hannover. [wd]
1990, Sept. Chicago Hellfire Club holds Inferno 19 in Douglas MI. William Robert Birtles receives the Caligula Award and Brian Drake the J. Paul Eaton award.
1990, Sept. 18: Clive Platman, Mr. Australia Drummer, presents Leather Pride Flag designer Tony DeBlase with an Australian version of the flag, incorporating the southern cross, from the Autstralian national flag, onto the original LPF design.
1990, Sept. 22: Clive Platman of Melborne, Australia is named the 11th Mr. Drummer in the first truly International Mr. Drummer contest in San Francisco. John Siracusa is named Drummerboy of the year.
1990, Oct. 26-29: NLA's Living In Leather V conference is held in Portland, OR. Jim Richards is reelected Male cochair and Shannon Kenedy is elected Female cochair. The Rev. Troy Perry is keynote speaker and Chuck Renslow and Pat Califia are presented with lifetime achievement awards. The contest is switched to LIL from May Day and Howard Martin of Seattle and Ruth Marks of San Francisco win the Mr. and Ms NLA titles. Jan Lyon presents the organization with a huge, spectacular, studded leather banner created by Lee Willis of the Studworks.
1990, Nov. 6: Deborah Glick becomes the first out gay or lesbian elected to the New York State Assembly. [TOL]
1990, Dec. 5: Death of Robert Chesley, Author of the play Jerker, and many other works.

1991

1991: Formation of Baltimore Leather Association of the Deaf (BLADeaf); Chain of Command, San Antonio; DAMES, Milwaukee; Key West Wreckers LLC; Melbourne Leather Men; NLA:Houston; Ozbears Australia, Sydney; Patrol Uniform Club, San Antonio; Stars MC, Albany NY; Tri-State Wolfpack, Cincinnati; Three Rivers LC, Pittsburgh; and Unicorns of Madison, WI.
1991: Melbourne Leather Men become the first club to incorporated the Lether Pride Flag design elements into their club colors.
1991: C-Space, a leather/SM/fetish educational service, which conducts lectures, demonstrations, etc. on various subjects, is organized in Seattle.
1991: The German lawyer Valentin Sitzmann publishes Zur Strafbarkeit sado-masochistischer Koerperverletzung. His analysis of German federal law comes to the conclusion that consensual sadomasochism is legal in Germany as long as any injury is not excessive. In his opinion, Masochists cannot be sued at all. [wd]
1991: Actor Paul Reubens, better know as his character Pee Wee Herman, is arrested for exposing himself and mastrubating in a Florida porn cinema. He lost his job as host of a popular children's TV show.
1991: Publication of:
Frisk by Dennis Cooper, a highly controversial novel full of violence and terminal scenes.
Leather Rouges and Rouges to Remember by Bill Lee (R. L. Warner).
Understanding the Male Hustler by Sam Steward.
A Breviary of Torment poems by Thomas Cashet.
Master's Counterpoints by Larry Townsend, the first in a series of gay mystery novels with a leather theme.
The Joy of Sexual Fantasy by Dr. Andrew Stanway.
Leathermen Speak Out, An Anthology on Leathersex Edited by Jack Ricardo.
1991: The first American Leatherman contest names Jose Alberto Ucles as the titleholder.
1991, Feb. The Leather Journal holds its first Pantheon of Leather awards ceremony in Los Angeles. Bill Costomiris and Susie Shepherd are named Man and Woman of the Year. Lee Willis of the Studworks is named Business Person of the year and Tarheel Leather Club is Club of the Year. New awards this year include: Forbearer - Tom of Finland; Not for profit Organization - The Robert Maplethorpe Foundation; Reader's Choice - Susie Shepard; Publisher's Award - Bob Craig. Regional: Race Bannon, Bill Costomiris, Jaye Evans, & George Nelson.
1991, March: Kay Hallanger of Bloomington, IN, is named the 5th International Ms Leather at the contest in San Francisco.
1991, Mar. 8: GMSMA celebrates its 10th Anniversary with a reception, conference, banquet, and show. The printed program is rich in historical information including a prototype of this timeline compiled by Gil Kessler and Thor Stockman.
1991, May: D. Cannon of Palm Springs CA is named the 13th International Mr. Leather at the Vic Theatre in Chicago.
1991, Summer: Luke Owen's Master & Slave contest in Los Angeles is won by Race Bannon & Mike Pierce.
1991, Summer: The German SM-activist group AAG SM & Oeffentlichkeit@ is formed as part of the Suendikat Hamburg. Its aim is to imporove the contact of sadomasochists with the general public and spread information among the German SM-subculture. [wd]
1991, July 7: Philip Rubin is named the first International Mr. Deaf Leather at the contest in Dallas.
1991, Sept. 6-12: Chicago Hellfire Club holds Inferno 20 in Douglas MI. Tony DeBlase receives the Caligula Award and John Robbins the J Paul Eaton award. This year Inferno is expanded to six days, divided into A and B sessions.
1991, Sept.20 - 21: Woody Bebout of St. Louis is named the 12th Mr. Drummer at the contest in San Francisco. Kevin Stedman of Orlando FL becomes the third Drummerboy of the year.
1991, Sept. 24. Dom "Etienne" Orejudos dies of AIDS related causes in Boulder, Colorado.
1991, Oct. Leatherfolk, a collection of essays on gay and lesbian SM, edited by Mark Thompson is published.
1991, Oct. 11: At the opening ceremonies of Living in Leather a Canadian version of the Leather Pride Flag is presented. It ads to the basic design of the flag a row of red maple leaves running horizontally through the white stripe. To the best of my knowlege the design has never been used again. [AFD]
1991, Oct. 11-13: NLA's Living in Leather VI conference is held in Chicago. Perry Watkins delivers the keynote address and Steve Maidhof and Jan Lyon are presented with Lifetime Achievement Awards. Bill Miranda Saltzman and Laura Goodwin are named Mr. and Ms NLA at the contest.
1991, Nov. 7: Tom of Finland dies of emphysema in Helsinki at the age of 71.
1991, Nov. 11: Steve Maidhof, founding daddy of the National Leather Association and creator of the Living in Leather conferences, dies in San Francisco.

1992

1992: Formation of Cable Car Chapter of Knights of Malta, SF; Defenders LLC/Washington; Long Island Ravens MC; and URSAMEN New Preston, CT.
1992: The German SM-group Sadomasochistische Interessengemeinschaft e.V. is formed in Berlin. [wd]
1992: The AG SM & Oeffentlichkeit becomes an independent group [wd]
1992: The German Peter Bahnen publishes Zur Sozialgeschichte des Sadomasochismus in which he explains his theory on the processes that enabled the formation of sadomasochistic subcultures at this time in history. [wd]
1992: Publication of:
Tales of the Dark Lord by John Preston.
Dream Master and other SM Stories by Larry Townsend.
One for the Master, Two for the Fool by Larry Townsend.
The Switch and other Stories by Torsten Barring.
The Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices by Brenda Love.
Learning the Ropes, A Basic Guide to Safe and Fun S/M Lovemaking by Race Bannon.
Sir! More Sir!, The Joy of S&M by Master Jackson.
SM 101, A Realistic Introduction by Jay Wiseman.
Making History, The Struggle for Gay and Lesbian Equal Rights 1945 - 1990 by Eric Marcus
The Homoerotic Photograph, Male Images from Durieu/Delacroix to Mapplethorpe, by Allen Ellenzweig.
1992: Publication of the first issue of Body Play magazine, edited and published by Fakir Musifar.
1992: Canada lifts its ban on allowing lesbians and gays to serve in the military. [TOL]
1992: Jose Alberto Ucles is named to continue for another year as American Leatherman.
1992: Bob Donaldson is named the second International Mr. Deaf Leather at the contest in Baltimore, MD.
1992, Jan.: The German SM-group Main Pain is formed in Frankfurt am Main. [wd]
1992, Feb.: At The Leather Journal's Pantheon of Leather awards ceremony in Los Angeles Jim Richards and Pat Califia are named man and woman of the year. Other recipients are: Business Person - R.J. Chaffin; Business - Mr. S Leather; Club - Chicago Hellfire Club; Not for profit Organization - National Leather Association; Reader's Choice - Clive Platman & Ruth Marks; Forbearer - Gayle Rubin; Lifetime Achievement - Tom of Finland; Publishers - Chuck Renslow; International - George Whiting; Regionals: Southeast - M. P. Breslin; South Central - Philip Rubin; Rocky Mountain - Dino Rosie; West Coast - John Siracusa; Midwestern - Thom Dombowski; Eastern - Peri Jude Radecic.
1992, Feb.: Luke Owens coupled his contest to the Pantheon of Leather weekend and renamed it the International Master & Slave Contest. Winners this year were K.T. Chase and Susie Shepard.
1992, Mar.: Blair of San Francisco is named the 6th International Ms Leather at the contest in San Francisco.
1992, Mar.: The German heterosexual SM-group SMart Rhein-Ruhr is founded in Essen. By 1997, it will have 100 members and regional groups in seven cities. [wd]
1992, March 30: Debra Chasnoff wins an Academy Award for the documentary film Deadly Deception. [TOL]
1992, Spring: The German SM-group Lustvolles Leiden is formed in Muenster. [wd]
1992, April: The first regular Munch takes place at AKirk=s@ in Palo Alto CA after STella posts the date on the internet newsgroup alt.sex.bondage. Sporadic Munches had taken place before then. [wd]
1992, May: The German heterosexual SM-group SMart Bremen-Oldenburg is founded in Bremen and Oldenburg. [wd]
1992, May 12: Death of Bob Mizer, age 70, who from 1945 to 1990 was The Athletic Model Guild and from 1951 to 1990, held total contoro over it's publication Physique Pictorial. He created a 45 year celebration of the male body beautiful, and along the way invented gay wrestling, and discovered many prominent artists, including Tom of Finland. [WES]
1992, May 19: Desmodus Inc., including Drummer, Mach, Tough Customers, DungeonMaster, The Sandmutopia Guardian, and The Sandmutopia Supply Company, is sold to a Dutch corporation headed by Martjin Bakker, who is also the owner of RoB Amsterdam stores and galleries. Tony DeBlase becomes Editor Emeritis.
1992, May 23: The first meeting of the Board of Directors of the Leather Archives and Museum is held during the IML weekend in Chicago. LA&M is officially founded.
1992, May 24: Lenny Broberg of San Francisco becomes the 14th International Mr. Leather at the contest at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago.
1992 May 17: Clubs across the continent host screening parties for the comedy video Out For Laughs a collaboration of many gay and lesbian talents spearheaded by stand up comic, and International Ms Leather 1988, Shan Carr.
1992: Sept. 6: Death, in San Francisco, of International Mr. Leather 1983, Colt Thomas. (born: May 22, 1959)
1992, Sept. 9 - 13: Chicago Hellfire Club holds Inferno 21 in Douglas MI. Robert Guenther receives the Caligula Award and Ty Clements the J. Paul Eaton award.
1992, Sept. 19 Emerson Briney of Omaha, is named the 13th Mr. Drummer. John Hare of Los Angeles is named Drummerboy of the year at the contest in San Francisco.
1992, Oct. 9: NLA organizes demonstrations at the British Consulate in Chicago protesting treatment of the Operation Spanner defendants.
1992, Oct. 9-11: NLA's Living in Leather VII conference is held in Chicago. Pat Bond, a founder of Eulenspiegel in New York City, gives the keynote address and also receives the Lifetime Achievement award. Andy Anderson and K. T. Chase are selected as Mr. and Ms NLA.
1992, Nov.: Australia ends its ban on gays and lesbians serving in the military. [TOL]
1992, Nov.: Publication of the first issue of Checkmate, by T. A. Feldwebel, former editor of DungeonMaster, as an alternative to that title.
1992, Nov. 8, Representatives from the leather/SM communities meet with representatives of the National Endowment of the Arts to discuss attacks on freedom of expression. The meetings are organized by Peri Jude Radecic of NGLTF.
1992, Nov. 9: The German Sadomasochist Wolfgang Boghardt holds public information courses on SM at Volkschochschulen (adult education centers) in Duisburg and Muelheim an der Ruhr. Media attention will force him to stop the popular courses. [wd]

1993

1993: Formation of Icon Detroit; Long Island Ravens; Journeyman of Syracuse; South Texas Leather Men, Corpus Christi; Suncoast LLC, St. Petersburg FL; Tartarus, St. Louis; and Trident International Windy City, Chicago. Cycle MC and Wheels MC merge in NYC.
1993: AThe Magazine of a Sadomasochistic Club: The Tie that Binds@ by Rick Houlberg is published in the Journal of Homosexuality, Vol. 21 (1/2). This is the first know content analysis of such a publication. [wd]
1993: Books Published:
On the Safe Edge, A Manual for SM Play by Trevor Jacques with Dr. Dale, Michael Hamilton, & Sniffer.
Dirrerent Loving - The World of Sexual Dominance and Submission by Gloria Brame et al.
SM: Sensuous Magic, A Guide for Adventurous Couples by Pat Califia.
The Arena by John Preston.
My Life as a Pornographer, & other indecent acts by John Preston
Exposed, Big Shots, and Beast of Burden, three collections of short stories by Aaron Travis
Lewd Conduct a collection of short stories by John W. Rowberry.
Peter Thornwell by Torsten Barring.
Ties That Bind by Guy Baldwin, a compilation of his columns from Drummer and other publications.
The Leather Contest Guide by Guy Baldwin.
Bob Flanagan: Supermasochist published by REsearch as Vol. 1 in the People Series.
Ain=t Nobody's Business If You Do, The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in a Free Society by Peter McWilliams.
Le Phallus, Sacred Symbol of Male Creative Power by Alain Danilou in French. English edition 1995.
1993: Mark Thompson's Leatherfolk is published in German as Lederlust -- Der SM-Kult. [wd]
1993: Los Angeles Police raid the San Diego home of Lee Baldwin, who produced, directed, and starred in his own line of gay SM videos. Police confiscate Ass Play, a video that includes several fisting scense, and several others. Baldwin is convicted and sentenced to 547 hours of community service and fined $3000.
1993: Sports Illustrated rejects an Adidas advertisement because it featured a Canadian soccer team wearing nothing but their athletic shoes, despite the fact that thanks to artfully arranged hands, heads and soccer balls, not one team member showed more flesh than the average female model does in SI's notorious annual swimsuit issue. [Hooven 95]
1993: Jeff Chiofolo is named American Leatherman.
1993: Chris Muller is named Internaational Mr. Deaf leather.
1993: John Ferrari is named Mr. Vulcan Rubber.
1993, Feb. 14: The Lesbian Avengers erect a paper-mache sculpture of Alice B. Toklas beside the statue of Gertrude Stein in Bryant Park in New York City. [TOL]
1993, Mar. 5: Tam von Hohenzohllern & Kit Terkel are selected as second International Master & Slave at contest in Orlando.
1993, Mar. 6: The Leather Journal's Pantheon of Leather awards ceremony is held in Orlando. Woody Bebout and Kay Hallanger were named Man and Woman of the Year. Other awards are: Business person - Kevin Drewery; Business - The Hun/Bill Schmeling; Club - Outer Limits; Not for Profit Organization - AIDS Emergency Fund of San Francisco; Forbearer - Dom Orejudos; Lifetime Achievement - Chuck Renslow; Publisher's - Wane Griffith; Reader's Choice - Joseph Bean & Woody Bebout (tie) & Kay Hallanger; International - Andy Anderson; Regionals: Southeast - Janet Blevens; South Central - Chuck Higgins; Rocky Mountain - Pat Sanchez; West Coast - Race Bannon; Midwestern - Bryan Smith; Eastern - Barry Douglas; Canadian - Bill Houghton.
1993, Mar.: Amy Marie Meek of Omaha becomes the 7th International Ms Leather at the contest in San Francisco.
1993, Apr. 24: The second ASM Leather Conference@ is held in Washington DC during the March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Rights.@
1993, Apr. 24: Jad Keres and other members of the American lesgian SM-group Female Trouble Philadelphia launch a study on violence against lesbian sadomasochists at the ASM Leather Conference@ during the AMarch on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Rights.@ [wd]
1993, May: The German SM-group SMAGK is formed in Karslruhe. By 1995 it will have about 15 members. [wd]
1993, May: National Leather Association opens international office in San Francisco and hires first paid staff member.
1993, May 28: Leather Archives and Museum opens its first display of collected materials during the International Mr. Leather weekend in Chicago.
1993, May 28: Publication of the first edition of this Leather History TimeLine edited by Anthony F. DeBlase.
1993, May 29: Leather Archives and Museum holds it's first membership meeting in Chicago during IML.
1993, May 30: Henri Ten Have from the Netherlands is selected as the 15th International Mr. Leather at the Arogon Ballroom in Chicago.
1993, May 30: David Morgan is selected as the first International Boot Black during the IML contest in Chicago.
1993, June 23: Lorena Bobbitt, for whatever reason, used a kitchen knife to slice off her sleeping husband's penis, which she tossed into a grassy field. It was recovered and, through the miracles of modern surgery, reattached. In their separate trials both John and Lorena Bobbitt were acquitted.
1993, Aug.: The German AG SM & Oeffentlichkeit publishes the first edition of the SM Adressbuch, a yearly collection of mostly heterosexual SM-resources and addresses. More than 3,500 copies will have been sold by August 1995. [wd]
1993, Aug. 12: Trident International Windy City founded by John Schultz, Rob Ridinger and Ed Luisi. (RR)
1993, Sept. 8-13: Chicago Hellfire Club hosts Inferno 22 in Douglas MI. David Clare and Stephen Shorle jointly receive the Caligula award and Anthony Kohut the J. Paul Eaton award.
1993, Sept. 9; the first leather/sm/fetish munch in Oregon is held at the Cornelius Pass Roadhouse in Hillsboro. 19 people attend including Patti Beadles who, as Kris Asber, had posted the infvitation for the munch to alt.sex.bondage. Within the next two days she had founded the pdx.abs mailing list and shortly thereafter the group started having munches on a weekly basis at the Blue Moon saloon in Portland. As of this printing they still do.
1993, Sept. 25: Graylin Thornton of Sacramento is selected as the 14th Mr. Drummer, during the Leather Pride Week contest in San Francisco. Spot Gilea, also from Northern California, was named Drummerboy of the Year.
1993, Oct. 8-10: NLA's Living In Leather VIII conference was held in Houston. Peri Jude Radecic keynote speaker. Lifetime Achievement Awards to Fakir Musafar and Dorothy Hajdys. Mark Frasier & Artemis Silver Owl both from Dallas, are named Mr. & Ms NLA.
1993, Nov.: The German sociologist Thomas A. Wetzstein publishes the results of a study on the German SM-subculture in ASsadomasochismus - Szenen und Rituale@. The findings support the concepts of Spengler and Weinbert. About 38% of the respondents are women. The results are not published in English and receive no notice outside of Germany. [wd]
1993, Dec. 31: Death of Samuel Moris Steward, 82. Instructor in SM to Chuck Renslow, Alfred Kinsey, and many more; recognized writer under his own name, and as Phil Andros. recognized artist under his own name, and as Phil Sparrow, tattoo artist.

1994

1994: Clubs formed: Bears LA (Los Angeles), Bears of San Francisco, Bears SD (San Diego), Vancouver [BC] branch of Betty Page Social Club, Black Eagle Leather Klub (Los Angeles), Black Jack Bears (Las Vegas), Boston Rubber Club, Brothers in Leather, Chemnitzer Eagle (Germany), Club Les Cuirasses de Quebec (Quebec City), Defenders LLC/San Francisco, Delta International, Enforcers RI (Providence), Empowerment through Sensual Conduct and Attitudes Power Exchange (Escape, Las Vegas), FIST (Houston), Females Investigating Sexual Terrain (FIST, Baltimore) 4-L Club (SF), Houston Area Bears, Inter-Bike (Copenhagen), Leather Club Thuringen (Germany), Leather Scribes, Mates Provincetown, Mecs en Caoutchiuc (Dammarie Les Lys, FR), Rogues MC (Roanoke, VA), SandMen (San Diego), Silver State Leather Association (Reno), Steel City Centurions (Birmingham AL), Tennessee Leather Tribe, Memphis: Toronto Deaf Leather Association, ), and Trident Knights (Charleston SC). [G 96]
1994: Mudmen (Houston) changes name to SludgeMaster. [G 96]
1994: The pansexual German SM-group Offener Gespraechskreis SM is formed in Berlin. [wd]
1994: The German SM-group SMile Freiburg is formed in Friburg. [wd]
1994: Satyrs MC, the oldest leather/motorcycle club in the USA (and the world) holds the 33rd and LAST Badger Flats Run. [G 96] That is what they said then, in 1998 the Satyrs resume the Badger Flats Run!
1994: First Mr. Bear Ohio, Ms East Coast Leather, Idaho Leather Pride, Mr. New Mexico Leather, Mr. New Mexico Leather Pride, Mr. Oklahoma Drummer, Mr. Philadelphia Deaf Leather, Rocky Mountain Ms Leather, Ms San Diego Leather Woman, and Western Canada Drummer contests. [G 96]
1994: Brent Lacey (IML 1993 fist runner-up) receives Order of Australia from Queen Elizabeth II for success of the Red Ribbon Project. [G 96]
1994: Chicks in White Satin, a documentary film by Elaine Holliman about a lesbian wedding ceremony is nominated for an Academy Award.
1994: First issues of serials: Black Leather...In Color, Fetish, In Uniform, Masta Entertainment Complete Video Catalog, and Project X. [G 96]
1994: Books Published:
Mapplethorpe, Assault ith a Deadly Camera, A Pop Culture Memoir by Jack Fritscher.
Shaddowman by Torsten Barring,
The Flesh Fables, a collection of short stories by Aaron Travis.
The Slave Prince by Vince Gilman
A Caning For Sinngapore, by RT/Texas
Leathersex: A Guide for the Curious Outsider and the Serious Player by Joseph Bean,
Doing it for Daddy by Pat Califia,
Public Sex by Pat Califia
Beneath the Skins, by Ivo Domingues Jr.
Elements of Arousal by Lars Eighner
Leathersex by Max Exander (Paul Reed)
Sadomasochism by William Thompson.
Submission Holds by Key Lincoln
Hustling: A Gentleman's Guide to the Fine Art of Homosexual Prostitution by John Preston
Tales from the Dark Lord II by John Preston,
The Kiss of the Whip: Explorations in SM by Jim Prezwalski,
The Master's Manual: A Handbook of Erotic Dominance by Jack Rinella,
Tom of Finland, His Life and Times by Valentine F. Hooven III.
Animal Handlers by Jay Shaffer,
That Day at the Quarry by Tom Shaw,
Resource Book Three by SM Gays of London,
Erotica Universalis by Giles Neret
Rituals by Kyle Stone,
The Case of the Severed Head by Larry Townsend,
Hazing: An Anthology of Hazing Tales by Bob Wingate. [G 96]
1994: Gayle Rubin completes her PhD in Anthropology at the University of Michigan. Her dissertation is The Valley of the Kings: Leathermen in San Francisco, 1960 - 1990.
1994: Business openings include: Clone Zone store on Earls Court, across from the Coleherne, London's oldest leather bar; Gays and Lesbians of Brooklyn and Everywhere community center; Mon Cheri's The Chamber, Atlanta, GA; Our House Gallery, Amsterdam; and 7702 SM Club, West Hollywood. [G 96]
1994: Faultline, formerly Griff's Los Angeles, reopens. [G 96]
1994: James McGlade buys The Leather Rack (DC) from Richard Cogan. [G 96]
1994: In an interview published in AThe New Yorker@ Dominique Aury admits that she is Pauline Reage, author of The Story of O. She said she wrote the book as a love letter to the man she adored, Jean Paulhan, a prominent French critic, after he said she couldn=t write an erotic book.
1994, early: The mailbox Slaves and Masters BBS is founded in Hamburg, Germany. [wd]
1994: The new Republic of South Africa constitution prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation. [G 96]
1994: The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition is issued with considerably revised definitions of Masochism and Sadism, which in essence say that it they are not illnesses unless you are bothered by your interest in them and they interfere with your normal functioning in other aspects of your life.
1994: Thomas S. Weinberg publishes a summary of two decades of sociological research on sadomasochism, describing it as Aerotic, consensual, and recreational.@ [wd]
1994: The American psychologist Eugene E. Levitt and collegues confirm Breslow's finding that nomprostitute female sadomasochists exist. [wd]
1994: The first Spanner/Mart fundraiser, organized by the 15 Association and others, is held in San Francisco to raise money for the Operation Spanner defense fund. [G 96]
1994: A film version of Ann Rice's novel Exit to Eden is released. It is very SM positive, but critics pan it. It is pretty silly, but so was the novel.
1994: Victor Magide is named American Leatherman and Sarah Humble is named American Leatherwoman.
1994: Jose Granda is named International Mr. Deaf Leather.
1994: Ryan Johnson is named Mr. Vulcan Rubber 1994.
1994: Misouri high school teacher Rodney Wilson organizes teachers and community leaders to educate the public about the history of lesbian, gay and bisexual people. The National Gay and Lesbian History Month each October grows out of this movement. [TOL]
1994, Jan.: The Lure, a leather bar, opens in New York city just around the corner from the former site of the Mineshaft. The consortium of owners are all leathermen. It is instantly successful.
1994, Jan 19: Tennessee Leather Tribe founded in Memphis.[RR]
1994, Feb. 4: Sheila Kuehl becomes the first out gay or lesbian elected to the California Assembly. [TOL]
1994, Feb. 26: For the first time Gay and Lesbian Asian-Pacific orgaizations are included in the San Francisco Chinese New Year Parade. [TOL]
1994, March: Publication of Doomed Rabbit, Recipes from the Kitchens of Leather Folk and Friends compiled by Aubrey Hart Sparks, and including recepies contributed by leather people from all over North America, and from some non-learther people including Hillary Clinton, is published as a fundraiser in the "Hands off Washington" campaign.
1994, March: The American lesbian SM-group Female Trouble in Philadelphia publishes the study AViolence against SM Women within the Lesbian Community@ (The AJad Keres Report@). Based on a 539 questionaires completed by lesbian sadomasochists, the study documents that 56% of them were subjected to some form of violence from vanilla lesbians because of their SM orientation. This is the only known study on violence against sadomasochits, lesgian or otherwise. [wd]
1994, March 5: John Birch and Beau Lee James of Oak Brook IL are selected as the International Master and slave at this year's contest in Houston.
1994, March 6: The Leather Journal's Pantheon of Leather awards ceremony is held in Houston. Joseph Bean and K.T. Chase are named Man and Woman of the Year. Other awards are: Business Person: Scott Rodriguez of the Cuff in Seattle WA; Business: Mr. S Leathers, San Francisco; Club: Centaur MC, Washington DC; Club sponsored event: Living in Leather VIII; Non-Profit Organization: Brother Help Thyself, Washington DC; Forbearer: Dom "Etienne" Orejudos; Lifetime Achievement: Tony DeBlase; Readers Choice: Lenny Broberg and K. T. Chase; Publisher's: Brian Dawson; International: Don Bastian, Calgary; Regionals: West Coast - Guy Baldwin; Rocky Mountain - Joe Potter; South Central - Boots Adams; Midwest - Ed Tobin; Southeast - Jose Alberto Ucles; Eastern - Alan Chiras; Canadian - Trevor Jacques.
1994, March 19: Anne Bergstedt of Seattle WA, is selected as the 8th International Ms Leather at the contest in San Francisco. She later resigns and Cindy Bookout, the first runner up, assumes the title.
1994, March 25-27: Omikron of Indianapolis holds its first major run: Omikron 500 -- Lap 1. The Mr. Indiana Leather Contest was won by Lance Bray of Fort Wane.
1994, March 31: Tom of Finland exhibition opens at the Schwules Museum in Berlin for a three month run. A Catalog of the exhibition is published: Tom of Finland Exhibition 1994-95.
1994, May 27: The second edition of this Leather History Timeline is published.
1994, May 27-30: Leather Archives & Museum exhibits a portion of it's collection in Chicago during International Mr. Leather 1994.
1994, May 29: 16th International Mr. Leather Contest. Jeff Tucker of San Jose is selected at the contest at the Congress Theatre in Chicago.
1994, May 29: International Boot Black 1994, William Steele is named during the IML contest in Chicago.
1994: June, : Gay Games IV held in New York City
1994: June, : Celebration of the 25th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots held in New York City at the conclusion of Gay Games 1994. Hundreds of thousands of gay men and women fill the city in celebration.
1994: June: A consortium of NYC area leather/SM clubs sponsors International SM-Leather-Fetish Celebration. The largest conference of SM/leather/fetish people yet!
1994: June: Becoming Visible, an exhibit centering on the Stonewall riots, but extending well into the pre-stonewall era of gay and lesbian history in New York City is featured at the New York Public Library. SUPERB!
1994, June: Publication of Long Road to Freedom, The Advocate History of the Gay and Lesbian Movement edited by Mark Thompson.
1994, June: Joe Granda wins International Mr. Deaf Leather contest in New York City.
1994, June 23: The German government television station ARD shows a documentary on the SM group Suendikat Hamburg. Though the end shows a female sadomasochist who plans to get rid of her orientation, the tone of this programs is mostly positive. [wd]
1994, July: Michael M. Schein is convicted of obscenity for producing and distributing gay male videos, including Give That Man a Hand, depicting urination. He is sentanced to 18 months federal detention.
1994, Sept.: Chicago Hellfire Club hosts Inferno 23 in Douglas Michigan. Tony Philbin receives the Caligula award and Ralph Cheesborough the J Paul Eaton award.
1994, Sept.: Leather Pride Week in San Francisco. Keith Hunt is named International Mr. Drummer 1994/95,and Mark Colter is named International Drummber Boy.
1994, Sept.: The first regular German radio program on sadomasochism by sadomasochists, ARadio Schwazer Adler@, is started in Hamburg. It will broadcast over 30 programs by July 1997. [wd]
1994, Oct.: Living in Leather IX is held in Toronto ON. K. T. Chase becomes new female Co-chair. Lifetime Achievement awards are presented to John Preston and Nan Burrows. Titleholders selected are Mr. NLA Don Bastian of Calgary and Ms NLA Mary Dante of Toronto.
1994, Dec. 10: Bear Dog Hoffman takes over Richard Bulger's ailing Brush Creek Media (Bear and Power Play magazines) and quickly adds Terry LeGrande's Parkwood Publications (International Leatherman, FQ, etc.) Brush Creek soon revives Bunknhouse and Honbres Latinos.magazines.
1994: Deaths: historian John F Boswell; Mr. Drummer 1993, Emerson Briney: Mr. Sacramento Leather 1991, Randy Gray; Great Lakes Drummer Boy 1993, David Hawn; International Mr. Leather 1987, Thomas Karasch; author John Preston; The first Mr. Leather New York, Henry Romanowski; Leather Journal columnist Paul "Papa Bear" Shem; San Francisco Eagle manager, Terry Thompson; Mr. Indiana Leather 1992, Ed Tobin; and David Weinbaum of GMSMA. [G 96]

1995

1995: Clubs formed: Brew City Bears (Milwaukee), Coastal Empire Sentinels (Savannah), The Dedicated and Safe Club (Chicago), Dragon Leather Club (Columbus OH), Firebirds, Milwaukee; Harbor City Bears (Sydney), International Dungeon and Playroom Association, Knight Cruisers (Lexington) Leather Engineers of Omaha, ONYX/chicago, Pikes Peak Summit Masters (Colorado Springs), Red Earth Bears (Oklahoma City), Seattle Kink Information Network (SKIN), South Sound S&M Leatherfolk (Olympia WA), Sober, Safe, Sane and Consensual Club of Chicago; The SOCIETY Connecticut chapter, South Texas Lather Men (Corpus Christi), The Spanking Club (Los Angeles), Texas Riders MC Corpus Christi Chapter, Trident International Baltimore, Vulcan America Southern California (Los Angeles) West Florida Growlers of Tampa, and Women's Welcoming Committee (Seattle). [G 96]
1995, early: The German SM-group aktiveS/Muenchen is formed in Munich by a splinter group of freiesMuenchen. [wd]
1995: The Polish SM-Society is formed in Nowy Sacz, Poland. This is the first known SM group in that country. [wd]
1995: Clubs disbanded: Black Angels (Koln), Cascade Bears (Portland, OR), Lost Angels (DC), Ozbears Australia, and Vanguards MC (Philadelphia). [G 96]
1995: C-Space, an SM instruction forum ceases operations in Seattle. [G 96]
1995: The David Weinbaum Foundation is founded in New York City. The purpose of the foundation it to make cash grants to organizations to be used for specific projects benefiting the leather/SM/fetish community.
1995: The 15 Association creates a fund, named for deceased member Alexis Sorel, in order to assist brothers in need . [G 96]
1995: Northwest Bondage Club (Seattle) secures new meeting and play space on Capitol Hill. [G 96]
1995: First Ms Florida Leather, International Mr. Fantasy, Mr. Leather Europe, and Ms New Mexico Leather contests.
1995: Books Published:
The Bottoming Book by Dossie Easton and Catherine A. Lizst
Screw the Roses, Send me the Thorns by Philip Miller and Molly Devon
Thy Rod and Staff by Edward Anthony
Writing Below the Belt, Conversations with Erotic Authors by Michael Rowe
Looking for Mr. Preston, A Celebration of the Writer's Life, Edited by Laura Antoniou
The Stonewall Experiment, A Gay Psychohistory by Ian Young.
The Gay and Lesbian Literary Heritage, A reader's companion to the writers and their works, from antiquity to the present Edited by Claude J. Summers.
Out of the Past, Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present by Neil Miller
Unspeakable, The Rise of the Gay and Lesbian Press in America by Rodger Streitmatter.
One-Handed Histories, The eroto-politics of gay male video pornography by John R. Burger.
The Hero, Manhood and Power by John Lash
Studies in Dominance and Submission by Thomas A. Weinberg, A second, revised, edition. [wd]
1995: Richard Kasak Books publishes a new edition of William Carney's novel The Real Thing, originaly published by Putnam's in 1968 and long out of print.
1995: Greg Lowe is named American Leatherman, Mon Cherie is named American Leatherwoman, and Kevin McGraw is named American Leatherboy.
1995: Jack Stice and tom Stice are named International Master and Slave.
1995, Jan. Publication of The Politics of Pain: Torturers and Their Masters Edited by Ronald D. Crelinsten and Alex P. Schmid.
1995, March 1: Firebirds founded in Milwauke
1995, March 8: Hungary legalizes common law same sex marrage.
1995, March 25: The State of Mississippi ratifies the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, making slavery illegal in the state.
1995, May : The Leather Archives and Museum mounts it's third exhibition during International Mr. Leather weekend.
1995, May : International Mr Leather contest at the Congress Theatre in Chicago is won by Larry Everett, Mr. Oklahoma Leather.
1995, May: Tim Cousins wins International Bootblack 1995 during IML contest in Chicago.
1995, May 26: The Supreme Court of Canada ruled it is illegal to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.
1995, June 1: Effective date of NLA: San Diego's decision to withdraw from affiliation with NLA:I. and rename itself Club X.
1995, June: Mexico's first March for Human Rights of Lesbians and Gays is held in Tijuana. [TOL]
1995, June 6: Craig Byrnes introduces his design for the AInternational Bear Brotherhood Flag.@ A design based on the Leather Pride flag, with seven fur-colored stripes and a paw-print in the upper left, is accepted. [JWB]
1995, Mid: The German SM group SMarti.e.s. is formed in Hamburg. [wd]
1995, July 6: David Cowan of Indianapolis is selected as the fifth International Mr. Deaf Leather at the contest in Montreal.
1995, July 20-23: pat baille wins International MS. Leather in Chicago.
1995, July 30: The 15 Association, The Outcasts and the Society of Janus join forces to host SpannerMart 2 in San Francisco, raising $7,248 for the Spanner Defense Fund.
1995, July 31: Iran's parliament votes to ban the sale of seedless watermelons because Athe unnatural melons spread corruption, robbing the youths of moral values, promoting homosexuality and asexuality@!
1995, Aug.: The Orange County Leather Assembly hosts its second annual Meet a Master weekend, this year featuring Tony DeBlase.
1995, Aug, 18-20: Fantasy 1995 changes format and includes the first ever International Mr. Fantasy contest, won by J. D. Buchart.
1995, Sept. 1 - 5: Delta International hosts it's first SM run in Pennsylvania. The core membership of the group is from Chicago Hellfire Club, and the Delta run is very similar to Inferno, but in an incredibly better venue!
1995, Sept. 7 - 13: Chicago Hellfire Club hosts Inferno 24 in Douglas Michigan. Michael Horowitz receives the Caligula Award and Race Bannon the J Paul Eaton award.
1995, Sept. 23: At the Mr. Drummer contest in San Francisco, David WW Walker is named International Mr. Drummer. and Pup is named International Drummer Boy.
1995, Oct. 6-8: NLA holds its tenth Living in Leather Conference in Portland OR. Mark Frasier becomes male cochair. Tony DeBlase and Woody Bebout are Keynote speakers. Viola Johnson and Larry Townsend receive the Lifetime Achievement awards. Mr. and Ms NLA are David Hoffenbacker and Stacey.
1995, Nov: The Leather Archives and Museum moves to a storefront at 5007 N Clark St. and opens its first permanent exhibition gallery. The first show highlights items from the collection and features the original artwork of Dom Orejudos. The collection is made available to researchers.
1995, Nov.: The Spanking Club of Los Angeles is founded by Glenn Walker and five other men.
1995, Nov. 5: Motor Sportclub Amsterdam and the European Council of Motorcycle Clubs sponsored the 1996 Mr. Europe Leather and Mr. Europe Drummer contests. Antonio Sanchez of Madrid Spain won both titles and will represent Europe in both IML and the Mr. Drummer finals in 1996.
1995, Nov. 15: Beyond the Edge Cafe, operated by Alena Gabosch and Denise Pedro, opens in Seattle. It quickly becomes the meeting place for men and women into the leather/sm/fetish scene. Many special interest and social groups use it as a meeting space and it is the site of many scene related art shows and performances. Closes, Jan. 1999.
1995: TLC: A year with a leather club is released. This documentary video made by Randy Riddle covers a year of activities by the members of the Tarheel Leather Club.
1995: Desmodus Inc. stops publishing DungeonMaster and The Sandmutopia Guardian. Harold Cox and Bob Reite, the owners of Checkmate purchase DungeonMaster and incorporate it into their publication. Mitch Kessler and Gerrie Blum, a couple from New York who have been involved in many aspects of the SM community for many years, purchase The Sandmutopia Guardian and resume publication of that title.
1995, Dec. 31: A New Years Eve SM Play Party is the first of many play parties in the lower level of the Beyond the Edge Cafe in Seattle.

1996

1996: Formation of Men of Rubber, Chicago; and Wisconsin Leathermen, Milwaukee.
1996: The National Leather Association of Canada (Vancouver), after years of no contact with any other part of NLA, changes its name to VantaSM.
1996: South Africa adopts a new constitution which bans discrimination based on sexual orientation, the first instance of such laws being incorporated into a constitution. [TOL]
1996: The German activist Matthias Grimme publishes the SM-Handbuch. This is the first SM safety book written in German. [wd]
1996: Books published in English:
Leathersex Q & A by Joseph Bean
The Second Coming - A Leatherdyke Reader, edited by Pat Califia and Robin Sweeney
My Private Life - Real Experiences of a Dominant Woman by Mistress Nan.
Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women's Rights, by Nadine Strossen.
Ritual Sex, by Tristan Taormino and David Aaron Clark
The Gay Almanac, compiled by the National Museum and Archive of Lesbian and Gay History.
Who's A Pretty Boy Then?, One Hundred and Fifty Years of Gay Life in Pictures by James Gardiner
The Only Reason I Mention This, A Collection of the Best of The Wearin= O= The Hides Columns by Daddy Bob.
Hard to Imagine, gay male eroticism in photography and film from their beginnings to Stonewall by Thomas Waugh
Valentine's Shanghaied by Valentine Hooven
1996: Daniel Sonnenfeld is named International Mr Deaf Leather and Cool Cat is named the first International Ms Deaf Leather.
1996: Morgana and michael, from Denver, are named International Master and slave 1996.
1996: Kevin Watson selected as Internatioal Mr. Fantasy 1996.
1996: The James C. Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center in the San Francisco public library opens as the first separate lesbian and gay collection in a US public library. [TOL]
1996, Jan.: Astride Indricane and Birgita Bohvinger, a lesbian couple, are legally united under new laws allowing same sex marrages in Latvia. [TOL]
1996, Jan.: Performance Artist Bob ASupermasochist@ Flanagan dies at age 42 of cystic fibrosis. [wd]
1996, Jan.: New York's White Columns mounted a show of bright color photograps of duo John Lovett and Alessandro Codagnone with their inlaws: Lovett's parents are all about American suburbia, Codagnone's live in a respectable home outside Milan, Italy. The partents smile, the boys are smiling too -- and draped in leather and bondage gear. AWe=re a couple, just as they=re a couple, and yet who is normal or abnormal?@ says Codagonone.
1996, Feb.: The Salt Lake City school board votes to ban all nonacademic clubs in order to quash the student's Gay-Straight Alliance. [TOL]
1996, Feb: Beasts & Beauties, The Erotic art of Olaf is published
1996, Feb. 10: The Leather Journal holds it's first Mr. and Ms Olympus Leather during the Pantheon Of Leather weekend. Ron Hendon and Daddy Flo are named to the titles.
1996, Feb. 11: Pantheon of Leather IV is held in New Orleans. Woody Bebout and Sarah Humble are Man and Woman of the year. Cindy Bookout and Frank Nowicki receive the Reader's Choice awards. Lifetime Achievement to Don Thompson. Forbearer to Judy Tallwing-McCarthy, Publisher's award to Walter Klinger and Gerald LeGault, Club of the Year to The 15 Association; Club Event of the Year - 25th Anniversary /ECMC Weekend, Motor Sport Amsterdam, NonProfit Organization of the yearCountdown on Spanner National Effort, Business of the Year to Gauntlet, Inc., Business person of the year to Jim McGlade and Chuck Renslow, International to Dom Bastian and Mary Dante; Regional awards are: Southeast: Bill Costomiris and Jack Stice, South Central: Dean Walradt, Rocky Mountain: Greg Lowe, West Coast: Jeff Henness, Midwest: Jan Hall, Canadian : Paris Elizabeth Sea. Local Community Service to Aubrey Hart Sparks.
1996, April: Companions on a Journy hold the first gay conference in Sri Lanka. [TOL]
1996, May: The Alternate Sources Guide by Trevor Jacques is published.
1996, May 8: Death of Alan Oversby, a.k.a. Mr. Sebastian, Britain's master piercer.
1996, May 9: The Canadian House of Commons passes landmark legislation banning discrimination against homosexuals. [TOL]
1996, May 9: The US Postal Service announced that it operated a mail order pornography company for nearly two years as part of an undercover investigation aimed at people who purchased illicit materials depicting children in sex acts.
1996, May 24: Denmark provides protection from employment discrimination for lesbians, gay men and bisexuals. [TOL]
1996, May 24-27: International Mr. Leather weekend in Chicago.The Contest at the Congress Theatre is won by Joe Gallagher of New York City
1996, May 26: Todd Nelson is named International Boot Black at the IML contest in Chicago.
1996, June - Aug.: New York's Whitney Museum of American Art features a show including three of Pal Cadmus= most controversial (at least in the 1930's when they were painted) works: The Fleet's In!, Sailors and Floosies, and Shore Leave, all of which feature ripe male sailor bodies interacting with prostitures, and each other.
1996, June 4: Iceland becomes the fourth country to create a domestic partnership registry for same sex couples. Denmark was first in 1989, followed by Norway and Sweden. [TOL]
1996, June 22: Beyond the Edge Cafe in Seattle hosts the first in it's series of Fetish Nights.
1996, July: SMart Bremen-Oldenburg becomes the second German SM group to be awarded the legal status as an eingetragener Verein (e.V.). [e.V. = Inc.] [wd]
1996, July: At the Republican National Convention there are four openly lesbian, gay or bisexual delegates. Later, at the Democratic convention there are 142. [TOL]
1996: Aug.: Republican Congressman Jim Kolbe (of Arizona) is forced out of the closet after he votes to allow states to ban same sex marrage. [TOL]
1996, Sept 6: Karl Watkins is found dead in his cell after being convicted of gross indecency at Wolverhampton Crown Court (England) His crime? Outraging public decency by trying to make love to pavements and, in one case, an underpass. Despite psychiatric help he hadn=t been able to shake off his strange fixation.
1996, Sept.: Chicago Hellfire Club hosts Inferno 25 in Douglas Michigan. Peter Fiske receives the Caligula award and Jon Baumgartner the J. Paul Eaton award.
1996: Sept.: San Francisco Leather Pride Week.
1996: Sept: International Mr. Drummer Contest is won by Kyle Brandon, Mike DeNisco is named International Drummer Boy.
1996: Oct.: Jean Beland and Joey Zocher, two lesbians, are ellected Homecoming King and Queen by the student body at University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point. [TOL]
1996, Oct. 3-6: Living In Leather XI is held in Portland OR. Jan Hall becomes female cochair. Lifetime Achievement Awards are presented to Bob Flanagan and Sheree Rose, and to Jo Arnone. The Internatioal Mr. and Ms NLA titles are terminated, though Stacey is designated to contunue as an Ambasador of NLA untill further notice.
1996, Oct. 10: The Austrian SM-group Eat Me, Beat Me, is founded in Vienna based on the model of American Munches. [wd]
1996, Oct. 18 - 20: Leather University's Dungeon 101, held in Ft. Lauderdale FL, brings two days of SM instruction by a natually recruited faculty. Small class sizes alow hands-on laboratory participation. And nightly homework assignments are given.
1996, Nov. The German lesbian SM group SMacht! -- AAutonomes Netzwerk lesbischer und bisexueller Frauen@ is founded. This is the first known lesbian SM group in Germany. [wd]
1996, Nov.: Matthew Bourne's new production of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake opens in London. Rewritten to feature an all male cast of swans and a prince who falls in love with the with the Swan King, who is dressed in black leather, the production is a hit in London and later in Los Angeles. It openes on Broadway in Nov. 1998.
1996, Nov.: Euro Bear magazine is launched in Cologne, Germany
1996, Nov. 12: Death in New York City of leather community activist Barry Douglas. He served four years as Chairman of GMSMA, was on the steering committee for the 1987 March on Washington, co chaired the National Leather Conference held at that event, Served on the executive committee for the 1993 March On Washington and on the board of the International Stonewall 25 commemoration in 1994. In 1988 he was the first person to be honored as AMan of the Year@ by The Leather Journal. (born 1949)
1996, Nov. 18: Death of Phillip Miller, coauthor with Molly Devon of Screw the Roses, Send Me the Thorns.
1996, Dec. 14: Marrage in Portland OR of Sharon Contreas and Lori Michelle Buckwalter. Buckwalter, still legally a male at the time of the ceremony, is in the last stages of gender change, which will be completed shortly after the ceremony. Then two legally recognized women will be partners in a legally recognized marrage.
1996, Dec. 16. Mach #34 is published by Brush Creek Media. The magazine originated as ADrummer's Big Brother@ at Alternate Publications, becomes International Leatherman's adopted brother after Desmodus Inc. sells the title to the Bear family of magazines. [JWB]

1997

1997 July 18 - 20: Genelle Moore of Lincoln NB is named International Ms. Leather. Her late brother Ron Moore was International Mr. Leather in 1984.
1997: Paul Thomas Anderson's movie Boogie Nights is released to critical aclaim. The story line is set in the porno movie industry in Southern California in the 1970's and >80=s.
1997: A theme resturant, La Nouvelle Justine, opens in Manhattan. The theme is SM, Along with the French cusine, the staff of Top identified waitpersons and bottom identified supporting staff, both male and female, approprately attired in leather and paraphanalia, will provide spankings, boot licking and other services. Prices are on the menu! Most guests sit at the tables, some eat out of a bowl on the floor.
1997: Tom Trading, Inc. begins marketing a line of designer clothing for men based upon the the clothing worn by men in the art of Tom of Finland.
1997: The US Supreme Court rules that the Communications Decency Act, which sought to censor cyberspace, is unconstitutional interference of free speech.
1997: US Television news programs shock the nation by broadcasting clips from home videos made in 1991 and 1993 showing US Marines enthusiastically pounding the sharp metal backs of awards pins into the bloodied chests of young paratroupers. Apparantly the hazing ritual has been going on for years. Military officials expressed Ashock@ and Adismay@.
1997: Pat Boone, pop singing star of the 1950's and >60's tarnished his squeeky clean Christian image by appearing on the American Music Awards telecast wearing a leather vest, dog collar, studded writsbands and flashing his 62 year old bare chest with temporary tattoos. Trinity Broadcast Network quickly canceled Boone's weekly gospel music show. On ABC's Good Morning America Boone later said, AGod is into leather. The first clothes he made for anybody on this planet, he made them out of leather.@
1997: Books Published:
Between The Cracks: The Daedalus Anthology of Kinky Verse, edited by Gavin Geoffrey Dillard.
Bound To Be Free: The SM Experience, by Charles Moser and JJ Madeson.
of men, ropes and remembrance, stories from Bound & Gagged magazine, by Larry Townsend.
Master of Masters by Larry Townsend
The Leatherman's Handbook, Silver Jubilee Edition by Larry Townsend.
Rainbow County and other stories by Jack Fritscher
HorseMen, Leathersex Short Fiction edited by Joseph Bean
>Rasslers, >ranglers & Rough Guys, The Erotic Art of Matt, Edited by Joseph W. Bean
1997: Jim Raymond is named American Leatherman, Leslie Anderson is named American Leatherwoman, and Max Steiner is named American Leatherboy..
1997: Patrick Richardson is named International Mr. Deaf Leather and Cool Cat is selected to continue as a second year with the title of International Ms Deaf Lather.
1997: Ariq Robinson named Internatioal Mr. Fantasy 1997.
1997: Rich Villagarcia is named Mr. Vulcan Rubber 1997, The third man to hold this title, the first since 1994, and apparantly, the last to hold it.
1997, Jan.: Margo Frasier begins her term as Sherrif of Travid County, Texas. She is the first out lesbian to be elected sherrif in the US.
1997, Jan.: New York S/M Activists formed. by Leonard Dworkin and Susan Wright. [LW]
1997, Jan.: Mike Seimer is named Mr. Mid-Atlantic Leather >97
1997, Feb.: The European Court of Human Rights upholds the original rulling in the British ASpanner@ case. [wd]
1997, Feb. The Black Guard of Minneapolis hosts their 20th Black Frost run.
1997, Feb.: Mylez Edward and Dauphine Sowell are named Mr. and Ms Olympus Leather at the contest in New Orleans.
1997, Feb.: The Pantheon of Leather Awards are held in New Orleans, winners are: Man and Woman of the Year to Mark Frazier and pat baillie; Reader's Choice Awards to Jack Stice and David WW Walker (tie) and to Sarah Humble; Lifetime Achievement to Frank Puckett; Publisher's award to Jay Allen and Gary Chichester; Forebearer Award to Tony DeBlase; Club of the Year to Sandia Leather; Non Profit Organization of the Year to the Leather Archives & Museum; Club event of the Year 25th Anniv of The Eulenspiegel Society; Business of the Year to Leather Rack, DC; Business Person of the Year to Audrey Joseph; International Award to George Cameron. Regional Awards: Southeast to Darryl Flick; Rocky Mountain to Daniel Sonnenfeld; Midwest to Cara Hanes; Northeast to Michael Horowitz; Mid-Atlantic to Suzette Danick and Joe Morris; Canadian Regional to Trevor Jacques. The Local Community Service award to Wes Randall.
1997, April 7: Death of Jack Stice, International Master 1995. and leather activist in Atlanta, the southeast, and the nation. [LJ 93]
1997, April 19: The first annual Leather Leadership Conference is held in New York City. [LW]
1997, May: The Internet SM group Datenschlag and the AG SM& Oeffen-tlichkeit produce the first map of hetersexual SM groups in Germany. At this time there are 53 known groups in 45 cities. [wd]
1997, May: David Cronenberg's film Crash is awarded a Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival Afor originality, daring and audacity@. Based upon J. G. Ballard's 1973 novel the film centers on a group of people who are erotically attracted to car crashes.
1997, May: Gene Harrawood from Bloomington IL is named Mr. Bear Pride 1997 in Chicago.
1997, May 12: The Internet newsgroup soc.subculture.bondage-bdsm is formed. [wd]
1997: May: Details magazine's A1997 College Sex Survey@ reports that 27% of the college men they asked had done bondage with a partner, 23% more had fantasized about it. 26% of the women had done bondage with a partner and 25% more had fantasized about it. This is more than 50% of all college students who have at least fantasized about bondage! The same questions about SM got identical percentages from men and women 6% had done it, 11% more had fantasized
1997, May 23 -26,: The International Mr. Leaqther Contest in Chicago names Kevin Cwayna as IML 1997.
1997, May 25: Driller is named as International Boot Black during the IML contest in Chicago.
1997, June: The American film parody, Preaching to the Perverted, opens in the USA. [wd]
1997, June: Mid America Confrence names Rob Ridinger of Trident Windy City to the newly created post of MAC Historian. [RR]
1997, June: German art publisher Taschen publishes a three volume boxed set of the complete run of Bob Mizer's Physique Pictorial. (Note: this is a complete run of issues still extant, there are no surviving copies of a few.}
1997, June 4: A full page ad is place in several American newspapers by the Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America, American Family Association, Southern Babtist Convention, Focus on the Family and Coral Ridge Ministries, condeming American Arlines for pro-homosexual business practices such as fair treatment of its gay and lesbian employees and its sponsorship of national and community based gay and AIDS service organizations.
1997, June 28: Master Roger and slave bill are named International Master and Slave 1997 at the contest in Denver, CO.
1997, July 4: The Eulenspiegel Society's Equestrian Club is founded. [LW]
1997, 4th of July weekend: Kyle Brandon, International Mr. Drummer 1996-97 hosts A Gathering of Eagles at a private estate in Philidelphia. An all expense paid party for the country's ALeather A List@ served as the setting at which $1000 checks were passed out to seven worthy recipiants from around the country. The Leather Archives and Museum was one of the recipiants.
1997, July 26, Joseph W. Bean arrives in Chicago to become the first Executive Director of The Leather Archives & Museum.
1997, Aug 16-17: The Orange County Leather Assembly hosts its fouth annual Meet a Master Weekend, this year featuring Guy Baldwin, M.S.
1997, Sept.: Atons of Minneapolis celebrate their 25th Anniversary. [RR]
1997, Sept.4 - 10: Chicago Hellfire Club hosts Inferno 26 in Douglas Michigan. Mel Austin receives the Caligula award and Tom Pscheit the J. Paul Eaton award.
1997: Sept. Leather Pride week in San Francisco.
1997: Sept. 25 -29: Jeffery Adler of Miami FL is named International Mr. Drummer and also receives the AGolden Whip Award@ (bestowed by the contestants) the first time any man has received both of these titles. dan hughes is named International Drummerboy.
1997, Oct. 3-5: Leather University's Dungeon 201, again brings instructors from all over North America to offer both basic and advanced courses to leather men and women in Ft. Lauderdale, FL.
1997, Oct. : Living in Leather XII is held in Portland. Under bylaws revisions Mark Frasier becomes President and Jan Hall becomes vice president and president elect.
1997, Oct. 17-19: The Tom of Finland Foundation's Erotic Art Fair, featuring hundreds of pieces of erotic are in all media by numerous artists from around the world. Los Angeles, CA.
1997, Oct. 24 - Nov. 2: Amsterdam Leather Pride Celebration.
1997, Oct. 27: The first version of Time Line of Sadomasochism is created by the Internet group Datenschlag in Germany. (Selected items indcated by A[wd]@ are included in the current Leather History Timeline.)
1997, Oct. 31: Mr. Drummer Europe contest.
1997, Nov.: Formaion of The Red Chair, a pansexual group created to promote Safe Sane and Consensual BDSM in north central Alabama.
1997, Nov. 1: Women's Studies Conference at State University of New York, New Platz includes coverage of SM and leather topics that enrage members of the SUNY board of trustees, and the George Pataki, Governor of the state of New York.
1997, Nov. 8: Mr. International Rubber 1998, Christoff Lehner, selected at a contest at the Cellblock in Chicago.
1997, Nov. 9: Mr. World Rubber 1998, Ketith Waltrip, selected at a contest at Man's Country and sponsored by International Mr. Leather.
1997, Nov. 14 - 16: Black Rose X, the tenth anniversary celebration of Black Rose is held in Washington DC.
1997, Dec.: The US Suppreme Court hears Joseph Oncale's sexual harrasment case against Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc. Oncale was harassed by his supervisor and other workers on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Lower courts had ruled that sexual harrasment laws required the predator and victim to be of different genders. In 1998 the Supreme Court rules in Oncale's favour, extending sexual harrasment law to same sex encounters.
1997, Dec. 25: Death of erotic artist Olaf Odegaard (born Dec 15, 1938)
1997, Dec. 27: Newsweek includes an article entitled ALick Me, Flog Me, Buy Me!@ on the mainstreaming of SM.

1998

1998: Two professors at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon, receive a $5000. grant from the state organ of the National Endowment for the Humanities to study AMainstreaming and Identity Definition within a Sadomasochistic Subculture.@
1998: Martin Hall is named American Leaherman, Mercea is named American Leatherwoman, and Terry Sapp is named American Leatherboy.
1998: The World's first gay rights organization, The Scientific Humanitarian Committee, founded by Magnus Hirschfeld in 1987 and disbanded under Nazi pressure in 1933, is relaunched as an association of autonomous regional groups.
Publication of:
Confessions of a Naked Piano Player by Torsten Barring
Juice, Electricity for Pleasure and Pain, by Uncle Abdul
Completely Queer, The Gay and Lesbian Encyclopedia by Steve Hogan and Lee Hudson
Czar, a novel of Ivan the Terrible by Larry Townsend,
A Contagious Evil, The Mind of a Serial Killer by Larry Townsend
1998, Jan 15-19: Leather Weekend & Mr. Mid-Atlantic Leather contest in Washington DC, sponsored by Centaur M.C. Tony Mills of Miami Beach FL is named Mr, Mid-Atlantic Leather 1998.
1998, Jan. 8: Avatar of Los Angeles, one of the continent's oldest SM clubs, celebrates their 15th anniversary.
1998, Jan 12: NLA: New Orleans Officially accepted as the newest chapter of NLA: International.
1998, Feb. 13-15: Pantheon Of Leather Awards VII in New Orleans. Man and Woman of the Year: Joseph Bean and Jill Carter; Lifetime Achievement: Vern Stewart; Reader's Choice Tom Stice and Jill Carter; Forbearer: Chuck Renslow; Club: Black Rose; Non Profit Organization: David Weinbaun Foundation; Club event: Black Rose X; Business: Play House Studios and Gallery; Buisness person: Philip Turner; International Award: Jacques Happe of Amsterdam; Couple of the year (first year for this award): Jill Carter, Viola Johnson and Queen Cougar. Regional Awards: Southeast: Tom Stice; South Central: Michelle Buckle; Rock Mountain: Leslie Anderson; Northwest: Spencer Bergstedt; Western: Peter Fiske; Midwest: R. J. Chaffin; Northeast: Susan Wright; Mid-Atlantic: Jack McGeorge; Canadian: tie: George Cameron and Jay Wagoner. Local Community Service Award: Billy Lane. Publisher's Awards: Lance Brittain, Shelley Hagan and Kay Hallanger, and the San Francisco Eagle.
1998, Feb. 14: The Interclub Fund holds the 32nd Annual Motorcycle Awards in San Francisco. The Golden Gate Guards and its members walk away with 22 honors, the Constantines received four awards and the California Eagles MC won three. A lifetime acievemant honor is bestowed upon James Connor of the old Warlocks MC. The Community Service Award goes to Marcus Hernandez.
1998, Feb. 15: Charles Garrett from Orlando and Katherine from Norcrss GA are sashed as Mr. and Ms Olympus Leather during the Pantheon of Leather Weekend in New Orleans.
1998, Feb. 24: Off Center, a web-based radio talk show on leather /SM/fetish and related communities debutes with host Race Bannon interviewing Joseph Bean, Executive Director of the Leather Archives & Museum.
1998, Mar.: The Leather Journal, issue # 96, appears as a tabloid newspaper, changing from it's previous magazine image. Commencing with this issue it will have free dristribution in leather bars and other businesses. but will still be available by subscription.
1998, Mar. 12: An exhibit, AQueer & Kinky Danger: Artists Relating to Leather/SM/Kink@ opens at the Gay & Lesbian Historical Society of Northern California@ in San Francisco. It runs through May.
1998, April 7: George Michael, British singer noted for songs such as I Want Your Sex and Freedom, is atrrested for performing a Alewd act@ in Will Rogers Memorial Park in Beverly Hills. Four days later he appears on CNN to come out as gay and say that he is currently in a relationship with a man.
1998, April 17 - 19: Leather Leadership Conference II is held in New York City.
1998, April 18: Black Rose of the Washington DC area Publishes The Black Rose Guide to Hosting a Leather Event in time to be available at the Leather Leadership Conference II.
1998, April 21: The National Coalition for Sexual Freedom sponsors the first Leather Lobby Day, meeting with a number of Congress members= Legislative Assistants to discuss discrimination and hate crimes involving sexual-minority practices.
1998, April 24 - 26: American Brotherhood Weekend is held in Washington DC. American Leatherman >98 is Martin Hall from Rhode Island, American Leatherwoman >98 is Mercea from Chicago and American Leatherboy >98 is Terry Sapp from Baltimore.
1998, April 26: Death at age 90 of Dominique Aury, who as Pauline Reage, authored The Story of O.
1998, April 17-20: Indulgence >98, a new men only SM event, modeled after the Inferno, Delta and Boot Camp events, is held in Ft. Lauderdale FL, sponsored by the Ft. Lauderdale Leather Guild, Inc.
1998, May 23: The Mr. Ebony in Leather Contest is held at the Leatherneck bar in Chicago. Andre Macial is named the winner.
1998, May 23: Annual Meeting of the Leather Archives and Museum membership is held in Chicago. The person occupying the post of executive director of LA&M is made an ex officio member of the LA&M board of directors and Joseph Bean moves from his elected seat on the board to this new one. Chuck Renslow and Tony DeBlase are relected to the board and Phil AFluffy@ Swenson is elected to fill the open seat. Hilton Flax is elected to fill the remaining portion of the three year term to which Joseph Bean had been elected.
1998, May 24: The 20th International Mr. Leather Contest held at the Congress Theatre in Chicago. Tony Mills, Mr. Mid-Atlantic Leather becomes the 20th man to hold the IML title. A reccord 55 men compete, including Billy Lane, Mr. Seattle Leather, the first FTM transexual to compete (he placed 10th).
1998, May 24: The first public performance of One Common Heartbeat is presented by composer Gary Aldrich, backed by soloists Joe Ricci and Kevin Tyrrell and the Chicago Gay Men's Chorus during the International Mr Leather show in Chicago. The Leather Anthem had been written by Aldrich at the request of Chuck Renslow, executive producer of International Mr. Leather.
1998, May 24: The first public presentation of the video documentary In God we Trust, In Leather we Lust is shown at the International Mr. Leather contest in Chicago. The video was created by Yves J. Menou and Cyrl Zajac of The Underground Fire Tribe.
1998, May 24: The International Bootblack Competition is held during the International Mr. Leather weekend in Chicago. Matthew Duncan who boot blacks at the DC Eagle and is sponsored by Centaur MC wins.
1998, June 5: Death, in New York City, of Leonard Dworkin, a longtime activist in the leather/SM community. He was a founder of NY SM Activists; one of the motive forces behind the Leather Leadership Conferences, Creator of the NLA Friends on line bulletin board and many others of similar interest, a long time board member of The Eulenspiegel Society and editor of that organization's publication, Prometheus.
1998, June 11: Selection of the cover man for the 1999 South of Market Bare Chest Calendar. This year, sponsored for the first time, by Miller Brewing Company
1998, June 12: The first issue of Young Deviants, A newsletter aiming to broaden the Horizons of the inexperienced is published online by MMingle16@aol.com. The quarterly electronic newletter is intended to provide basic safety and other information for young people interested in leather and SM.
1998, June 12 - 14: The third annual Southeast Leatherfest is held in Atlanta, GA
1998, July 9: Handing a resounding victory to the Defendants and a huge rebuke to the Plaintiff in the Scanlon v. Gay Male S/M Activists lawsuit, New York City District Court Judge Constance Baker Motley issues a decision dismissing all claims against against the three individual GMSMA board members named in the suit and most of the claims against GMSMA, and aonly awarded Scanlon $500 - the absolute bare minimum possible - each for two incidents of copyright infringement.
1998, July 14: Chicagoland Discussion Group, a long running pansexual leather/SM orgaization holds its last meeting.
1998, July 17 - 19: Megan DeJarlais of Philadelphia is selected International Ms Leather 1998 at the contest in Atlanta.
1998, July 31 - Aug. 2: Thunder in the Mountains, a pansexual SM conference featuring a large roster of well known presenters from all over North America is held in Denver. The nightly Play parties are great fun too. The Leather Archives and Museum's Traveling exhibit makes its first appearance.
1989, Aug 9: Kink, A Women's Perspective opens at the Leather Archives and Museum in Chicago. This first special exhibit in the Museum's gallery space features contributions of women to the art and litereature of kink.The exhibit runs through Sept. 30.
1998, Aug. 20: The Lesbian and Gay Rights Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union hosts a symposium entitled Leather and the Law in Los Angeles.
1998, Aug. 21 - 23: Ohio Leather Coalition holds the First Annual LeatherFest, Cleveland.
1998, Sept. 4 - 7: Satyr MC hold their 37th Run to Badger Flats.
1998, Sept. 10 - 17: Chicago Hellfire Club hosts Inferno 27 in Douglas Michigan. Michael Blackburn receives the Caligula award and J. Weichert the J. Paul Eaton award.
1998, Sept. 26: The Mr. Drummer finals is held in San Francisco. Herve Bernard from Paris, France, Mr. Europe Drummer, is slected as the 20th International Mr. Drummer. Ryan Goldner, Mid-Atlantic Drummerboy from Philadelphia is selcted as Drummerboy of the year.
1998, Sept. 30: The Leather Archives and Museum in Chicago hosts a party to mark the closing of it's first special exhibit, and of its exhibition space, which will be converted to work space to facilitate handling its ever increasing collection of leather memorabilia. Traveling exhibits will represent the LA&M at events around the country and the former exhibition space in Chicago will be used for cataloging, conservation and research of the collection.
1998, Oct. 2-4: Leather University's Dungeon 301 is held in Ft. Lauderdale FL. This series continues with even more female and bi and heterosexual participation.
1998, Oct. 6: In Laramie Wyoming, Matthew Shepard, a 21 year old gay man, and a student at the University of Wyoming, is lured from a bar by two men, visciouly beaten, burned and left tied to a fence in freezing weather. He dies a few days later. The incident focuses national attention on Gay bashing and on hate crimes legislation.
1998, Oct. 9 - 11: The National Leather Association: Internation holds Living in Leather XIII in Dallas Texas. Jan Hall becomes President and Spencer Bergsted, Vice President and President Elect.
1998, Oct. 16: A Mariland court voids a decades old law criminalizing same-partner oral sex. The law, which dated back to 1916, made it a felony for lesbians and gay men to engage in oral sex and attached penalties of up to $1000 or 10 years in prison.
1998, Oct. 16 - 18: Black Rose of Washington DC holds BR >98. BR10, celebrating the club's 10th anniversary last year was such a success it will become an annual event!
1998, Oct. 28 - Nov. 2: Rubber Ball fetish party in London attracts over 3500 guests from around the world. (LW)
1998, Oct. 28: World premier of Razorblade Smile, at Prince Charles Cinema in London. The film is Jake West's homage to fetish vampires (LW)
1998, Nov. 23: The Georgia Supreme Court, in a 6 to 1 decision, rules that the Georgia Sodomy Law is unconstitutional on the grounds of the Aright of privacy@. This is the same law that was upheld by the US Supreme court in June 1986!
1998, Nov. 26: Former President of Zimbabwe, Canaan Banana, is convicted of sodomy and sexual assault against 11 male aides. He claims that charges aginst him are fabricated by supporters of vehemently anti-gay Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe.
1998, Nov. 29: Norbert Lindner, the mayor of Quellendorf, Germany, is removed from office via voter referendum because of his plans to undergo gender reassignment surgery.
1998, Dec.: The legislature of the Australian state of Tasmania votes to ban discrimination based upon sexual orientation, anong with 19 other grounds, including pregnacy and breast feeding.
1998, Dec.: In India the Supreme Court orders the government to provide godyguards to the two female leads and the director of the film Fire, a lesbian themed work that has inflamed the zealots from the right-wing Shiv Sena part. More than a dozen cinemas across the nation have been ransacked, and all those involved in the making of the film have been threatened. AThis film poisions our women. It makes them curious about something immoral.@ said a Shiv Sena spokeswoman.
1998, Dec. 1: Two gay men Amarry@ each other at Notary Office Number 46 in Bogota Colombia, the same place where heterosexual marrages take place. Luis Antonio Arias Bolivar and Isauro Rincon Angarita sign a joint-ownership-of-property contract stating that they are gay, love each other and desire economic union. The document was created by gay lawyer and activist German Humberto Rincon. The two men, wearing black and beige tuxedos respectively, watch as Notary Judge Rosa Falla Laiseca reads the document. Then they sign it, as do the numerous guests/witnesses. When the Judge signs it it becomes offical, Photos are taken and all leave for the reception.
1998, Dec. 9: The National Assembly of France passes a partnership registration measure that grants unmarried couples spousal rights in areas such as inheritance, housing, taxation, workplace benefits, social security and social welfare programs.
1998, Dec. 11: Police raid the gay bar, Tare, in Mexicali, Mexico, beating and jailing 14 patorons.
1998, Dec. 15: In Canada, Mark Tewksbury, who won three Olympic swimming medals and set seven world records, comes out as gay. He had recently lost a six figure contract as a motivational speaker because he was Atoo openly gay.@ So he decided he needed to open the closet door all the way.
1998, Dec. 16: The Supreme Court of the province of British Colombia rules that the school board of the Vancouver suburb of Surrey erred in banning books about gay relationships from kindergarten and first-grade classrooms.

1999

1999, Jan.
Members of the former NLA: Portland chapter continue to meet and, after last month?s rescinding of their NLA chapter charter, rename their group Portand Leather Alliance.
1999, Jan.
Beyond the Edge Cafe, Seattle?s premier gathering site for the kinky community, closes its doors.
1999, Jan.
Dean Ross of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada is selected as Mr. Mid-Atlantic Leather. The Centaur MC?s Mid-Atlantic Leather Weekend this year, for the first time, includes a bootblack competition which is won by a very popular woman, Tracy.
1999, Feb. 12
Louisiana?s sodomy law is removed by a 3-0 ruling of the state court of appeals.