The Myth of the Old Guard by Jack Rinella c1999 by permission

The Myth of the Old Guard by Jack Rinella c1999

"The Myth of the Old Guard"

by Jack Rinella

(Reprinted by permission)

A recent question on one of the newslists had to do with
smoking cigarettes at dungeon parties. The writer began her
question with a reference to the Old Guard/New Guard dilemma.

Things have changed in fifty years, that's for sure, but I'm
not sure that things have changed as much as most "young" Leatherfolk think.

I'll start off by saying that there's a good chance that
most of you think that I am "Old Guard." My age and my salt
and pepper hair make me look that way and the proliferation
of my writing (thank the gods) makes it seem that way.

The truth is that I am a relative late-comer to Leather,
having had my first "rough" sex about twenty years ago. Even
at that, I'm not sure that I met that many Old Guarders in
the early eighties. After all, no one ever walked up to me
and said "Hi, I'm a member of the Old Guard."

I know several people now who maybe thought of as in the
Old Guard, but I bet they don't think of themselves that
way. The oral history work I did with the Leather Archives
gave me a great opportunity to talk with many men and woman
who remember the old days. It is from my experiences and
those conversations that I am drawing these reflections.

All that is to say that I don't think of myself as a member
of the Old Guard. I do, however, admit to thinking like a
member of the Old Guard (whatever that is) when it comes to Leather.

If I'm going to make any point in today's rambling, it's
going to be that there never was, and never will be, an Old Guard.

For starters, try and date the time of the Old Guard. Was
there an Old Guard in 1949? I doubt it. The rough sex
sub-culture was hardly a culture at the time and even though
SM had been practiced for millennia, it was hardly noticed
by the rest of society and was probably more closely aligned
with profession dominatrices than with Gay men.

So shall we date it from 1952? Probably not, as no one is
going to say that one movie, "The Wild Ones," created a
group called the Old Guard.

So was it the sixties? Maybe. But if there were an Old Guard
in the sixties, they were young and new at it and feeling
their way through a hell of a lot of issues. Even if they
were the men and women who were to become the Old Guard,
they certainly weren't the Old Guard then.

By the late seventies Leather was alive and well and filled
with newly created traditions and a relatively short
history. After all, twenty years in the life of the human
race isn't much more than a blink.

Was there an Old Guard then? I doubt it.
And for my doubt I have some very reliable sources. The most
reliable is an original copy of Larry Townsend's "The
Leatherman's Handbook." First published in 1972, those pages
have a memory much better than anyone around to talk about
"the good old days."

In this book, there's no mention at all of an Old Guard nor
of requirements placed on fellow Leatherfolk by the Old Guard.

A case in point: A recent slave applicant and I had a
conversation about "slavese." For those unfamiliar with the
term, it is the requirement that a slave always refer to him
or herself in the third person, thereby never using the word
"I," or any other first person pronoun, for that matter. The
result is that you get horribly convoluted sentences such as
"Sir, this slave, Sir, requests permission for this slave to
use the bathroom, Sir."

Well, there is no way in Hell that such a requirement has
anything to do with Old Guard. You can read the Handbook,
for instance, all you want and you'll find only few
references to slaves and certainly no reference at all to
"slavese." You see, a person into Leather in the those days
was called an "S" or an "M," which stood for sadist and
masochist and had little or nothing to do with dominance or
submission.

Even the words top and bottom are rare in the Handbook, as
they were rare in the seventies.

Thirty years ago, or even fifty for that matter, the Old
Guard wouldn't have had a discussion about cigarette smoke
either. Groups may have but the Old Guard wouldn't. The
whole notion of smoking being permitted or not, you see, has
nothing to do with Leather. That, of course, is the crux of
the whole dialogue.

Most of what people want to foist on the topic of Leather
has to do with being human, not with being sexual, sadistic,
or kinky.

When I was a kid, and here I admit to sounding like my Dad,
smokers were considerate of the places where they smoked.
They asked their hosts if smoking were permitted. It wasn't
a matter of Leather protocol, it was a matter of manners.

It wouldn't have been a matter of using slavese. It would
have been a matter of using good grammar.

The examples can go on and on.

Do you think, after all, that the "founders" of Leather sat
around inventing a hanky code?

Sure someone sat down one day and compiled this long list
of colors and meanings, but I bet that by the time that
happened, the list was more tongue in cheek than color in
the pocket!

Life is never as pre-calculated as "historians" want us to
believe. Human culture grows by ebbs and flows, by trial and
error, by ideas rejected as well as accepted.

Groups have more or less formality, greater or lesser
structure, few or many guidelines. In the long run, life,
and hence living groups, are evolutionary, developing style
and tradition, manners and mores, by what is seen as
necessary, expedient, profitable, or convenient.

That's not to say that one "Master" won't do it one way and
another quite differently. One may line up "slave protocols"
ad nauseam and the other may quite firmly demand that
everything be loose and laid back.

Last week at the Eagle, while the writing of this column was
still in its germinal state, I asked Chuck Renslow about the
Old Guard.

As our conversation meandered, he reminded me of the terms
"S" and "M" and how there were all those difficulties and
arguments and human foibles then as there are now.
Eventually he reminded me that Leather isn't a lifestyle.
"We can only 'do Leather' so many hours a week," he noted,
"and then we have the rest of our lives the way everyone
else does."

Going to work and doing chores and paying bills, eating
and sleeping and studying are all parts of lifestyle.

Most of what Leatherfolk call "Our Lifestyle," after all,
has to do with being polite, careful, supportive, with
having manners and common sense. There are, certainly,
aspects of Leather that differ from other subcultures and
those differences are to be cherished, honored, and, most
importantly, enjoyed, but when it really comes down to Old
and New, Father Alliot's dictum, which I first heard from
him in 1966 holds true: "The more things change, the more
they stay the same."

So if anyone tells you about the "Old Guard," refer them to
Larry's paragraph on page 15 of the original Leatherman's
Handbook: "All through this Handbook I will be at great
pains to point out that much of what I have to say is
opinion. Your reaction may be entirely different, and your
desires may exceed or fall far short of the action I
describe. This is exactly how it should be. No one -- Larry
Townsend or anyone else -- can even begin to set the
standards for your sexual needs and/or behavior."

That I think is precisely the Old Guard's view of the Old
Guard. Have a great week. You can leave me e-mail at
mrjackr@leathermail.com or visit my website at

"http://www.LeatherViews.com".

Subj: Re: Permission to reprint your article
Date: 12/28/99 5:02:54 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: mrjackr@leathermail.com (Jack Rinella)
Reply-to: mrjackr@leathermail.com (Jack Rinella)
To: JimiTatu@aol.com
yes, you can reprint my article.
just put a link from it to my website at http://www.leatherviews.com

thanks

Jack

You might also want to sign up for my weekly column... It's free at
mrjackr@leathermail.com/myezine.htm
visit us at http://www.leatherviews.com

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