Though, traditionally, the gay leather scene centres on “dominant” men wishing to “own”, or exert control over, a “submissive” male partner. Lesbians also adopted leather and, nowadays, female sex workers and dominatrixes often wear the material. In Hal Fischer’s seminal photography book Gay Semiotics, which analyses coded gay fashion signifiers in 1970s San Francisco, leather accessories like caps were indicators that the wearer was interested in sadomasochistic sex. These remarks reveal leather fetish fashion’s significance to masculine gay identities, particularly those relating to sadomasochistic (S&M) sexual practices. “There’s nothing hotter than the feeling of leather on my skin, it’s peak masculinity” – Paul, 34 It’s weighty too: the opposite of something light, diaphanous and feminine.” When I wear leathers, it feels like my exterior is reflecting my interior. “The more masculine I’ve become over time, the more I’ve been into it. “It’s just so fucking masculine,” he explains. Max, who was first drawn towards leather five years ago, also associates it with manhood. “There’s nothing hotter than the feeling of leather on my skin, it’s peak masculinity,” he says. He doubts that he could be with someone “vanilla” – a term for someone who doesn’t have any fetishes. Paul, a 34-year-old Recon user, tells me that he equates leather with “power, strength and dominance”. Recon – a fetish app for gay and bisexual men – allows leather wearers to connect with others and follow a year-round calendar of global events such as “London Fetish Week” and “Leather Prides” in cities from Los Angeles to Belgium. While leather fetishwear is not exclusively queer, there is a widely acknowledged parallel between the increased visibility of gay and lesbian identities and leather-based fetishes in contemporary culture. Common clothes and accessories include leather trousers, boots, jackets, gloves, ties and caps, with harnesses, masks and jockstraps more often worn during sexual encounters. Today, leather fetishwear is worn by leathermen like Max in sex clubs, parties, Pride parades and hook-ups, but some incorporate leather into their everyday lives, too.
On the gay scene, an infatuation with leather was alive and well as early as the 1950s. When fetishwear resurged for its second peak a century later, between 19, leather was the material of choice. “As quickly as new substances were manufactured, somebody eroticised them.” “The Victorians went crazy over silk and velvet,” writes Pat Califia, author of Public Sex: The Culture of Radical Sex. Lunning gauges that, in the history of fetish fashion, there have been two climaxes – no pun intended – with the first occurring between 18. Dr Frenchy Lunning, author of the 2013 book Fetish Style, writes that fashion has historically been the easiest way to “traverse” from one spectrum of fetish to the other. “Fetish fashion” is the term used to describe the intrinsic link between clothing and sexual fetishes, with materials like leather, lace, latex, and rubber holding particular prominence.