 | |
| Use | Represents leather subculture |
|---|---|
| Adopted | 1989 |
| Design | Nine equally sized horizontal stripes (from top to bottom: four of alternating black and royal blue, one white, and four of alternating royal blue and black) with a tilted red heart in the canton |
| Designed by | Tony DeBlase |
The leather pride flag is a symbol of leather subculture as well as kink and fetish subcultures more broadly, including BDSM. The flag was designed by Tony DeBlase in 1989. [1] [2]
The leather pride flag was designed by Tony DeBlase in Chicago, Illinois. [1] [2] DeBlase explained his decision to create the flag: [3]
For the 20th anniversary of Stonewall, I felt that the time was right for the Leather men and women who have been participating in these same parades and events more and more visibly in recent years to have a similar simple, elegant banner that would serve as a symbol of their own identity and interests.
DeBlase described the flag design as follows: [1]
The flag is composed of nine horizontal stripes of equal width. From the top and from the bottom, the stripes alternate black and royal blue. The central stripe is white. In the upper left quadrant of the flag is a large red heart.
DeBlase had no specific symbolism in mind when he designed the flag. [4] He once said, "I will leave it to the viewer to interpret the colors and symbols." [1]
DeBlase first presented the flag at International Mr. Leather (IML) on May 28, 1989. [5] He considered the flag to be a first draft and expected the community would suggest changes to the design. [4] While some community members wanted a say in the final design, [6] the majority embraced DeBlase's original design as-is. [4] To this day, the flag has not undergone any significant revisions. [4]
In June 1989, the flag was used by the leather contingent in a Portland, Oregon pride parade, which was its first appearance at a pride parade. [7]
By 1990, IML had incorporated the flag's design into the sash awarded to IML contest winners. [8]
In 1991, Melbourne Leather Men became the first club to incorporate the design elements of the leather pride flag into their club colors. [7]
On December 12, 2000, NLA Florida presented a suggested pledge of allegiance to the leather pride flag at its holiday party in Fort Lauderdale, which reads, "I pledge allegiance to the Leather Pride flag, and the union of Leather people for which it stands, with safety, sanity and consent for all." [7]
For the 24th annual Folsom Street Fair, held September 30, 2007, the official poster artwork was a controversial photo featuring well-known LGBT and BDSM community members in festive and fetish attire including Sister Roma "as players in an innovative version of the culturally iconographic" The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, complete with table draped with the leather pride flag and "cluttered with sex toys, whips, and various (BDSM) restraints". [9] The image by FredAlert [10] was used on the official event guide and produced as collector's posters that were displayed throughout the city as advertising for the event.
In 2010 DeBlase was inducted into the Leather Hall of Fame. [11]
Although the flag is common in the gay leather community, it is not an exclusively gay symbol, but rather for the entire leather community and fetish subcultures. [12] [4]
In 2019, the Schwules Museum remarked on the flag's impact: [13]
The Leather Pride flag is at the beginning of a long line of similar flags, marking a turning point in the history of the mostly gay leather and BDSM movements: moving away from secret signs and symbols (hanky cloths, for example) to more obvious and public visibility, both in the gay scene and society in general.
One of the three original flags that DeBlase assembled was donated to the Leather Archives & Museum (LA&M), where it is on public display. [14] [12] LA&M also holds DeBlase's papers. [15]
Since 1998, the Twin Cities Pride parade in Minnesota has featured a "curb-to-curb and a block long" leather pride flag measuring approximately 75 x 50 feet. [4] The first such flag was donated to LA&M in 2008. [4]
In 2006, fetish pornography studio Kink.com bought the San Francisco Armory building. [16] The company flew the leather pride flag atop the armory and featured imagery of the flag atop the armory in the intro to many of its videos. [17]
The leather pride flag is featured throughout San Francisco's Leather and LGBTQ Cultural District. [18] The San Francisco South of Market Leather History Alley, which opened in 2017, features the flag as well as metal bootprints honoring DeBlase, among other important members of the city's leather community. [19] Since 2023, a 20 x 30 foot leather pride flag has flown 80 feet high above Eagle Plaza (adjacent to the San Francisco Eagle). [20] [21]
Although Tony DeBlase is quoted as saying the design of the leather pride flag, which he created, is copyrighted in the U.S. (as well as all countries where the Berne Convention standards apply), copyright is automatic, and need not be obtained through official registration with any government office. Once an idea has been produced as a tangible form, for example by securing it in a fixed medium (such as a drawing, sheet music, photograph, a videotape, or a computer file), the copyright holder is entitled to enforce their exclusive rights.
Nevertheless, variations on the original leather pride flag have been created. On September 18, 1990, Clive Platman (Mr. Australia Drummer ) presented Tony DeBlase with an Australian version of the flag, incorporating the southern cross featured on the flag of Australia, with the original design of the leather pride flag. [7] On October 11, 1991, at the opening ceremonies of Living in Leather, a Canadian version of the leather pride flag was presented, which added to the original flag's design a row of red maple leaves running horizontally through the white stripe. [7]
Leather & Grace, a (now defunct) organization of Unitarian Universalist kinksters, founded in 2011, combined a red flaming chalice with the stripes of the leather pride flag for their logo. [22] [23]
The BDSM rights flag, designed by Tanos, a Master from the United Kingdom, is partially loosely based on the design of the leather pride flag and also includes a version of the BDSM Emblem (but not similar enough to fall within Steve Quagmyr's specific copyright claims for the Emblem). The BDSM rights flag is intended to represent the belief that people whose sexuality or relationship preferences include BDSM practices deserve the same human rights as everyone else, and should not be discriminated against for pursuing BDSM with consenting adults. [24]
A rainbow flag is a multicolored flag consisting of the colors of the rainbow. The designs differ, but many of the colors are based on the seven spectral colors of the visible light spectrum.
The handkerchief code is a system of color-coded cloth handkerchief or bandanas for non-verbally communicating one's interests in sexual activities and fetishes. The color of the handkerchief identifies a particular activity, and the pocket it is worn in identifies the wearer's preferred role in that activity. Wearing a handkerchief on the left side of the body typically indicates one is a "top" while wearing it on the right side of the body would indicate one is a "bottom". For example, a dark blue handkerchief indicates an interest in anal sex, and wearing it in the left pocket indicates a preference for being the penetrating partner. The code was first used in the 1970s in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Europe, by gay and bisexual men seeking casual sex or BDSM practitioners. Over time the colors and types of apparel in use have greatly proliferated.
Leather subculture denotes practices and styles of dress organized around sexual activities that involve leather garments, such as leather jackets, vests, boots, chaps, harnesses, or other items. Wearing leather garments is one way that participants in this culture self-consciously distinguish themselves from mainstream sexual cultures. Many participants associate leather culture with BDSM practices and its many subcultures. For some, black leather clothing is an erotic fashion that expresses heightened masculinity or the appropriation of sexual power; love of motorcycles, motorcycle clubs and independence; and/or engagement in sexual kink or leather fetishism.
The bisexual flag, also called the bisexual pride flag, is a pride flag representing bisexuality, bisexual individuals and the bisexual community. According to Michael Page, the designer of the flag, the pink stripe represents attraction to the same sex, while the blue stripe represents attraction to the opposite sex. The purple stripe, the resulting "overlap" of the blue and pink stripes, represents attraction to both sexes.
Folsom Street Fair (FSF) is an annual BDSM and leather subculture street fair, held in September that concludes San Francisco's "Leather Pride Week". The Folsom Street Fair, sometimes referred to simply as "Folsom", takes place on the last Sunday in September, on Folsom Street between 8th and 13th Streets, in San Francisco's South of Market district.
The Society of Janus is the second BDSM organization founded in the United States and is a San Francisco, California-based BDSM education and support group.
The Leather Archives & Museum (LA&M) is a community archives, library, and museum located in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. Founded by Chuck Renslow and Tony DeBlase in 1991, its mission is making “leather, kink, BDSM, and fetish accessible through research, preservation, education and community engagement." Renslow and DeBlase founded the museum in response to the AIDS crisis, during which the leather and fetish communities' history and belongings were frequently lost or intentionally suppressed and discarded.
International Mr. Leather(IML) is a multi-day conference and competition celebrating the leather, kink, fetish, and BDSM communities. Established in 1979, IML is held annually in Chicago over Memorial Day weekend, drawing thousands of contestants and spectators from around the world. As of 2024, 27 countries spanning six continents have competed.
A pride flag is any flag that represents a segment or part of the LGBTQ community. Pride in this case refers to the notion of LGBTQ pride. The terms LGBTQ flag and queer flag are often used interchangeably.
Over the course of its history, the LGBTQ community has adopted certain symbols for self-identification to demonstrate unity, pride, shared values, and allegiance to one another. These symbols communicate ideas, concepts, and identity both within their communities and to mainstream culture. The two symbols most recognized internationally are the pink triangle and the rainbow flag.
The rainbow flag or pride flag is a symbol of LGBTQ pride and LGBTQ social movements. The colors reflect the diversity of the LGBTQ community and the spectrum of human sexuality and gender. Using a rainbow flag as a symbol of LGBTQ pride began in San Francisco, California, but eventually became common at LGBTQ rights events worldwide.
National Leather Association International (NLA-I) is a BDSM organization, based in the United States with chapters in various cities in the United States and Canada. It was founded in 1986 as the "National Leather Association" (NLA), as a national integrated organization including gay leathermen, kinky heterosexuals and bisexuals, SM lesbians and transgender sadomasochists, and representing their interests in the face of prosecutions. Adding "International" to its name in 1991, the organization staged "Living in Leather" gatherings until 2002. After a period of decline around the turn of the millennium, NLA-I has become more active again and runs a series of awards for fiction and non-fiction writing. NLA-I's records can be found at the Leather Archives and Museum.
Kink.com is an independent San Francisco-based bondage internet pornography company that runs a group of websites devoted to BDSM and related fetishes. Kink.com, along with Kink Studios, LLC, Hogtied.com and Behindkink.com are DBAs for Cybernet Entertainment LLC, the parent company that operates the studio.
Gilbert Baker was an American artist, designer, activist, and vexillographer, best known as the creator of the rainbow flag.
Guy Baldwin is an American psychotherapist, author, activist, and educator specializing in issues of particular relevance to the BDSM and leather communities. Based in Los Angeles, he maintains that inclusion of non-injurious elements of sadomasochism in a consenting sexuality does not itself indicate or confirm mental illness or psycho-sexual dysfunction.
Bill Schmeling, better known by his pen name The Hun, was an American artist active in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, known for his explicit, homoerotic fetish illustrations and comics.
Charles "Chuck" Renslow was an American businessman, known for pioneering homoerotic male photography in the mid-20th-century US, and establishing many landmarks of late-20th-century gay culture and leather culture, especially in the Chicago area. His accomplishments included the cofounding with Tony DeBlase of the Leather Archives and Museum, the co-founding with Dom Orejudos of the Gold Coast bar, Man's Country bathhouse, and the International Mr. Leather competition, and the founding by himself alone of Chicago's August White Party, and the magazines Triumph, Rawhide, and Mars. He was a romantic partner of Dom Orejudos as well as Chuck Arnett, Samuel Steward, David Grooms, and Ron Ehemann.
Tony DeBlase (1942–2000), also known as Anthony DeBlase, was part of the BDSM and leather subcultures. He was the designer of the leather pride flag.
Bootblacks take care of the boots, and garments such as leather jackets, vests, chaps, harnesses, as well as other gear of Leatherpeople and the BDSM community. With the establishment of local, regional and international bootblack contests in the 1990s and early 2000s, bootblacks have gained visibility as a subculture in their own right. Nowadays, bootblack stands as well as classes on bootblacking are common fixtures at events, contests, conferences and parties. Bootblacks are not only preserving the physical items but are also collecting the stories of their wearers. Therefore, bootblacks play a central role in the oral history of the leather scene. While outsiders often link bootblacking to service-oriented submission, Bootblacks might take on any role in a BDSM dynamic.
Various pride flags have been used to symbolize gay men. Rainbow flags have been used since 1978 to represent both gay men and, subsequently, the LGBT community as a whole. Since the 2010s, various designs have been proposed to specifically represent the gay male community.
Media related to Leather Pride flags at Wikimedia Commons| Bondage and discipline B&D or B/D |
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