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ItalianoCountering the void of leather invisibility
| “The items of significance in our sexual lifestyle are not gathered into the biological family’s collection of treasured remembrances. Instead, they are consigned to dumpsters and trash cans either by our own anxieties or by our survivors’ disinterest or revulsion. Every generation of leather men and women has had to reinvent itself or base its communal knowledge on the memories of living individuals.” Leather Archives and Museum Statement of Purpose quoted in Robert B.M. Ridinger (2008) Introduction At the start of the 1990s, HIV/AIDS had ripped through the lives and fabric of queer communities leaving loss and sorrow in its wake. Whole generations of gay men were torn away from their loved ones. The images of emaciated bodies and hollow faces were paired with photographs of dead bodies in sealed plastic bags, perceived in both death and life as a threat to public health. In the United States queer lives, history and memory had already become a matter for queer memory institutions and collections. Museums, libraries and archives grew from communities and networks organising themselves to do that which other institutions could or would not do. The fight against stigma and hatred towards same-sex desires and the fight for accessible and adequate healthcare fuelled a further need not to let the efforts and documentation it generated fall into forgetfulness. Often this material came from those who had died, a way of embracing their personal lives in a homophobic society that had little to no interest in remembering those who had been marginalised (Ridinger 2008). However, not all documentation, artefacts or potential archival material was to be found in those community archives. More often than not, certain documentation didn't even get so far as to even be considered for the queer archival efforts; instead loved ones of those who passed away saw blood family throw out materials, or the loved ones did so themselves on behalf of the deceased, either at the request of the diseased or through a desire to not expose a private life. This documentation was specifically related to Leather, BDSM and fetish practices, their communities and relationships; visual and textual representations of sex¸ desires and interactions, memorabilia and records of relationships both personal and organisational, of formal and informal organisations and events (ibid.). As a reaction to this, the eradication of memory and history in which not only the human remains but also their belongings were wrapped up into binbags and removed from sight, and consequently the histories of leather and BDSM communities disappearing, the foundation of the Leather Archives and Museums (LA&M) in Chicago was initiated by Chuck Renslow in 1992. The initiative was supported by the larger leather, BDSM & fetish community all over the United States through monetary donations, volunteering and the donation of archival material, physical objects, books and other ephemera. By 1998 LA&M moved to its current location in Chicago where it houses 7000 books, 12 600 periodicals, over 60 private collections, audio and visual media, pins, banners, clothes, flags and leather ephemera including museum objects such as venue interiors and other objects pertaining to leather history. More material and objects arrive every week and is continously catalogued by the full time archivist. While LA&M is the focus of the research proposed in this paper there are other memory institutions geared towards the same type of communities. The UK Leather & Fetish Archive resides at the Bishopsgate Institute in London, together with other large collections of community archival holdings. Here, in the same way, material related to shame and stigma is to be found in the collections. In 2023 papers that had been hidden away inside the walls of a recently deceased persons' home were discovered. These documents were related to the Spanner Case in the U.K. The Spanner Case was the result of a police investigation in which adult gay men engaging in consensual sadomasochistic practices with one another were persecuted by law in the 1980s. 43 people were identified and named in the final report, 16 charged amongst other things, assault. Some of the persecuted were men who had consented themselves to the 'assault', i.e. the 'bottom/masochist/submissive'. The court found that giving consent to the practices was not sufficient as a legal defence as they in the eye of the court were so brutal. The case went all the way to the European Court of Human Rights where 9 of the sentences were upheld. The nature of the case, shrouded in homophobia and shame sparked at the time a conversation about consent, its limits, privacy and police enforcement of morality. It also followed that 62 people were being publicly outed thorugh court documents and the press at a time when the stigma against homosexual desire was rampant due to the public and political stigmatisation of HIV and AIDS. The documentation uncovered in 2023 serves as another example of shame resulting in the proverbial bin bags of memory erasure. However, this time, hidden inside the walls until after the death of the survivors of judicial violence and moral indignation. Sweden on the other hand removed sadomasochism and fetishism, as well as cross-dressing from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders VI in 2013, with the result of de-pathologising those individuals engaging these practices, identities and desires. Histories and possibly archival material from the Swedish communities are at best scattered and at worst non-existent. Various internet communities have community news records, but they are at risk of completely disappearing or becoming fractured as links might die or with other aspects affect their availability for conservation, discoverability or retrieval. From my own experience over years of working as a sex educator and activist as a part of the leather, BDSM & fetish communities, this fact has not gone unnoticed, since there is a void in the history seen and spoken, both within the community as well as a denial of that history from outside of the community, within and beyond LGBTQIA+ circles. This denial can be seen in both public discourse as well as in parts of the larger LGBTQIA+ community with calls to exclude fetishists, leather and BDSM from pride events and parades. In these silences, the void of leather invisibility create a lack of knowledge and understanding, furthering division, exclusion and discrimination. These are just a few examples that highlight systemic and structural aspects of the marginalisation and stigma that leather, BDSM & fetish communities and individuals have suffered, with the consequence of silence, invisibility and even the annihilation of its histories and artefacts; the black bin bags of non-existence. I propose then, that Archives such as L&AM have the potential to become a counterweight against stigma, loneliness and shame, where communities can be seen, take up space, be understood and understand each other, while also acting as a community-building effort. Purpose The purpose of this research is to explore the relationship between a community archive and its archivists and volunteers, focusing on their work and understanding of the archive’s significance and what it means to them. By centering their perspectives, the study seeks to deepen an understanding of how their engagement and connection with the community archive shape its impact on both the individuals involved and the broader community. .... I am not sure I will move on with this project as motivation is pulling me towards another focus, but thought I'd share some of what I've been working on. We must become better at helping our histories survive, otherwise it will become like the issues of the perpetrators of sexual violence in our communities: the histories will be forgotten. We must remember and criticise, honor and question. |
Excerpts of a research plan on the Leather Archives & Museum in Chicago. Please note this is a work in progress.
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