Origin of The Leather Subculture
Although sadomasochism has been practiced for many centuries, the modern gay leather scene in the United States developed beginning in 1945 when thousands of gay servicemen were given blue discharges from service after World War II and came to live in the major port cities of the United States to live in gay ghettos. In 1953 the film The Wild One appeared starring Marlon Brando and the more butch gays began to imitate him by wearing black leather jackets, a black leather cap, black leather boots, and jeans, and, if they could afford it, by also riding motorcycles. Many gay servicemen had played sex games with each other where one played the top and the other played the bottom. In the 1950s, the magazine Bizarre familiarized people with sexual fetishism.
Read more about this topic: Folsom Street Fair
Famous quotes containing the words origin of the, origin of, origin and/or leather:
“The real, then, is that which, sooner or later, information and reasoning would finally result in, and which is therefore independent of the vagaries of me and you. Thus, the very origin of the conception of reality shows that this conception essentially involves the notion of a COMMUNITY, without definite limits, and capable of a definite increase of knowledge.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)
“The essence of morality is a questioning about morality; and the decisive move of human life is to use ceaselessly all light to look for the origin of the opposition between good and evil.”
—Georges Bataille (1897–1962)
“There are certain books in the world which every searcher for truth must know: the Bible, the Critique of Pure Reason, the Origin of Species, and Karl Marx’s Capital.”
—W.E.B. (William Edward Burghardt)
“What shall he have that killed the deer?
His leather skin and horns to wear.
Then sing him home.
Take thou no scorn to wear the horn,
It was a crest ere thou wast born;
Thy father’s father wore it,
And thy father bore it.
The horn, the horn, the lusty horn
Is not a thing to laugh to scorn.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)