 Okay, when we were prepared for this interview, you told me that growing up you were a weird kid. What did you mean by that? Well, I was a pretty weird kid. I was one of those people who figured out that he was gay right from the get-go, and kind of explored that as I was growing up, and grew up in California here in Southern California where it was an incredible environment for kids that there was just a lot of us and had a lot of fun. But it was a time that I don't know if it will ever happen again. But it was really exciting. How do you mean? Well, this is Los Angeles. We're constantly changing. So things that I look at and say, oh, I remember this, that's something different. Sometimes really exciting things. But especially in this community, there's just a lot of exciting things. Well, how did you know you were gay as a small child? That I was playing with my next-door neighbor in the bathroom for four hours. I kind of wondered what my mother thought we were doing, but didn't stop us from doing it. Uh-huh. So at what age were you doing this? Five. Wow, okay. And what do you remember from your childhood days here in Southern California that you no longer have? One, that it was a lot easier to get around, like just coming here today it was like, you know, you have to deal with traffic that you didn't have to deal with. In some ways it was that really idyllic childhood that people think of, that you played in the streets until the street lights came home, that we lived in a place where people had property and horses and barns. It was very fond of barns. Why? Because there were a lot more room in the barn than there had been in the bathroom. Okay. What else was in the barn that was so entertaining for you? Oh, it was just one of those really, it was an incredibly erotic space. Are you kidding? It was like just unbelievable. And when you kind of click on that and find the other people who do, it was really, really fun. So we knew the guys who were like, you know, playing football in the street, we were in the barn. Okay. Did you have any concept of like BDSM activity at that time? Um, I think, I, people have asked me, like, when did you know you were kinky? And I usually say when I was in the Boy Scouts, because I realized there were things we could do with rope and knots that were a lot more fun than pioneering projects. Okay. And what was amazing was how there was this kind of like, just being kids. It was like, yeah, that seems like fun. So, you know, we tie somebody with a tree and strip them naked and, you know, they'd struggle out of it and it'd be somebody else's turn. It was like, very weird, see. Okay. Exactly what might as weird. Okay. Yeah. But you said that, um, rather than starting over on that, tell us about your coming out because as a young man, you said that being naked with other boys was natural. Did your family have anything to say about this? Um, I don't know that my family ever figured it out. I know that, um, when I was in the third grade, my mom and dad called me and said, you know, how would you like to go to this military school? And I didn't know very much about it. I knew there was a kid down the street. And they were like, it's an all-boy school and they wear uniforms. I was like, I'm in. Okay. That was all it took. I was ready to go. Why that? Because it was hot. It was exciting. It was like, I'm going to be in an all-boy school getting to wear uniforms. How could it be better than that? Well, how did you have any concept of uniforms or anything if you were that young? I don't know. I had seen uniforms, so I knew that they were kind of something that looked great. It certainly looked a lot more interesting than the other things that I'd seen. And so it was like that finding attraction, the idea that you cast your eye over all kinds of things and something grabs your attention and it has that erotic energy behind it. But even as a little kid, that if you're not necessarily associating it with sexuality, you get that there's something about that, that that grabs your interest. It's the difference between watching soap operas and watching the western being like all turn on about the guys riding horses and living out under the stars and then there's Miss Kitty at the Long Branch and you're like, can we get through this part? Because I want to get back to the guys out of the range. So it's that idea of what draws your attention. Well, that's very cognizant though of a very young boy to even have a concept on some of that. You know, I'm not sure I completely had a concept. Like I didn't get that this was something that wasn't an option and it wasn't until later that people were like, yeah, you probably shouldn't do that. It was like, oh, I get that you're trying to shame me about this and I'm not sure quite how I feel about that, which I was really, I tried to be the good kid but there was a part of me that just wasn't buying it 100%. How did going to this military school shape this whole journey? Well, I was the only one who thought that knee-high boots made the uniform look a lot better. It was surrounded in this very, very homo-erotic environment of just all these boys. And you were aware of things, you were aware of the kids that were like just a beat-off and if you were not a complete asshole about it, you kind of had like there was a gravitational pull. I remember one of my friends who, you know, was this very sweet, very kind of effeminate fellow confessed to me one night that under his wool dress uniformed pants, he wore pantyhose because he couldn't stand the way that his legs looked. I remember thinking, if he had told this to anybody else, he'd get the crap beat out of it and thinking, go out. How did he know to trust you on this? I'm just an incredibly charming but weird child. Okay. I don't know. Any other experiences in this time? Did you explore more of your opportunities there, for example? It was weird because you know how kids go to school, they all go to the same grammar school, they live in a neighborhood. I went to a school where nobody lived in my neighborhood. So when I realized that somebody lived close, we would instantly kind of connect. Okay. And so those often became the guys that we wanted to play with each other. Okay. We weren't playing football. Did you learn new things there, things that you hadn't been trying in the bar? You know, if I think about it, it's that kind of childhood exploration. It's like it starts with, oh, we're going to look at each other and then we're going to touch each other and then it's like, oh, but you know, we could do this and eventually it's like, you know, I actually think I could stick my dick up your ass and it's like, oh, let's give that a whirl. It was this very primal kind of exploratory experience. It was just completely judgment-free because we at least knew this isn't something we should be doing, you know, like out on the parade field. So when you did it, it was with people who were just kind of like very exploratory without that kind of judgment. Do you know if any of these other people have come out as gay? That's interesting because if somebody is getting fucked, you'd think that that's a little heavy for only just exploring. I'm not sure we were horribly successful at it. It was more of that kind of exploratory kind of thing and it just seemed like that's the next thing we would try to do. Okay, fascinating. And I remember one time we were out and it was late. So it was dark. It was nighttime. And one of the guys I was with was like, I have to pee. And the idea of peeing in front of somebody was like, oh, that seems really fun. And it just led from, okay, we're all going to pee together. We're going to pee on that. It wasn't too long before it was like, all right, I'm peeing on you and you're peeing on me. And I was like, all right, that's cool. Wow, wow. I can't help but wonder in other institutions whether other people were doing the same kind of exploratory action. It's just fascinating. I really think that in the movie 6 Feet or the television show 6 Feet Under, there's a scene where one of the characters is kind of a typical metrosexual and somebody says something about he's being gay and he says, I tried it, it wasn't for me. And it was this completely non-judgmental kind of, I ate mashed potatoes and decided I didn't like them without any judgment. And I thought, you know, that was really very, it was a synopsis of what it would have been like for me as a kid. Fascinating. Let's take a step back though. I want to come back to your very early kink because you said that you explored a little bit and you learned a few things from Boy Scouts. But bring us back to really what sparked that. That's one that actually does get a little cloudier. When I remember being in grammar school before I went to the military and my entire life, I was always the biggest kid in my class. And without, after a couple of years I would usually be the biggest kid in my school. So even though they were kids who were older, I was bigger than they were. And I had this friend who, you know, he was a bully and he would grab these kids and I remember if you went to Disneyland they had these belts that had leading on them like this frontier village kind of thing. But I'm sure we're all made in Indonesia where someplace had no Native American influence whatsoever. But he would take his off and whip the tar out of somebody. And I remember after that this idea was so anathema to me to be thought of as a bully that it really became hard. I can remember a moment when I had to really process that to be able to endorse my own sadism because the idea of bullying had been associated with that. And so it was hard for me to see there was something else in there because that was so overwhelming. But I remember being incredibly excited about it and then feeling like, yeah, but you're doing it to this person who doesn't want to. So it was really conflictual for a long time. Oh, okay, okay. Do you feel that the instinct is, how can I say, that that's indigenous to you? Is it innate? Yeah, innate, you know. I think people ask the wrong question. So they ask why. Yes. So if somebody says, I'm interested in this or I find that this thing turns me on or I'm really craving this daddy-boy relationship. There must be something pathological about that. So then they do this why. And it's like, well, you know, my dad wasn't the greatest dad or I didn't have a dad. That must be the why. But we don't ask people questions like, why do you like chocolate ice cream more than vanilla? It just is. And the problem that I see is that we impose all these kind of judgments that goes with it. And then instead of being, this just is the way it is, it becomes pathologized. And so, especially in mental health, there's this tendency to look at these very extreme examples and then assume that somebody who says, I like being phoned, that they must have some kind of pathology that's underlying it. And I think the most pernicious part of that is that there is this tendency, especially among people who are very homophobic, to explain this away as some kind of pathology. So you're gay because your dad was distant, your mom was overwhelming and you just didn't play enough basketball. I played the world's longest basketball game so that I could get into the world records. We'll tell us about that. 111 hours, 11 minutes, and 11 seconds. All right. We did it when we were Boy Scouts, the older Boy Scouts. And I can tell you, it did not make me gay. It didn't cure. It didn't go away. I really enjoyed the showers and sleeping with people. It was fabulous. All righty then. Basketball was not a cure, despite the repair of therapy. But coming back to the Boy Scouts, because you've mentioned that now several times, that was a very... it taught me a lot of skills. Tell us more about that. How did that prepare you for life? If you look at Baden Powell's model, the guy who started the Boy Scouts, if you look at it, it really is this leadership training experience. He had fought in the Boer War, and they were overwhelmed. He fought the Siege of Mafeking. So they're completely outnumbered. And he has this kind of brilliant idea that, well, we're going to have to make kids responsible. They're going to have to do the things that the adults can't do because they're busy defending us. So they delivered the mail, and they did all these kinds of things. So the idea of taking kids and saying, look, you're 13, but we have to be able to depend on you. And so in the best programs, it's a leadership training experience. And when you give the kids just a little bit of support and allow them to do their thing, they do incredible stuff. So as an adult, when I was involved in the Boy Scouts' volunteer, it was like, that's the program that we want to have. And I was really fortunate that I had those kinds of leaders as a kid where we got them that could say, we want you guys to be in charge of this. Let's make this thing happen. What are your thoughts on the Boy Scouts' stance on homosexuality? I was the council commissioner for the Western Los Angeles part of it. And the three people who were in charge of that are the council commissioner and the council president in the paid scouting thing. And the council president called me to go to breakfast. And we were sitting at breakfast and he said, you know that stuff that's coming out of Texas is about gays and scouting? And I thought, okay, here we go. And he said, we're not gonna do that. Wow. And the biggest problem with it is that the Mormon Church is the largest sponsor of Boy Scouts' units. They're so exquisitely homophobic that even people within this big national program were just like, we have to count out to them because that's where the checks are coming from. And so they had enormous power to do that. And in fact, when the Boy Scouts decided to be more forward-thinking about that, the Mormon Church basically pulled the line. And they also had the worst scouting program. The Mormon Church? But speaking of, you've brought up the Mormon Church. You were part of the Mormon Church, the Mormon Faith at one point in your life. And you told me when we prepared for this interview that that greatly shaped you. You think? And I've got a list here of things such as a stance on marriage, politics, social issues, very testimony, the role of the bishop, lay ministers, doctrines, and there's an answer for everything. I recall when we were preparing for this interview that we really had an in-depth conversation with all of this, depict a little bit of that for us. What would you like your audience to know about you and the Mormon Church? So, I grew up in a fairly in-religious family. They weren't just, it wasn't just benign, they didn't like it. What do you mean? They weren't big on religion. Oh, I have no interest whatsoever. Got it. When I was 13, some of their friends invited them to some party thing, and it happened to be at a Mormon Church. I knew nothing about this. I remember my father saying, well, I better have a cup of coffee now because I'm not going to get one all night, and I had no clue what he was talking about. So we went, they had a Boy Scout troop, all these kids are playing around, they came over and were like, why don't you join us? And I thought, okay. And then they said, well, why don't you join our Boy Scout troop? And my parents agreed. And I can remember the level of excitement that, you know, we went to J.C. Pennies and bought the Scout uniform, and I had the Scout handbook, and I was just reading it, couldn't wait to go to my first meeting. And I did, and I didn't realize that the Mormon Church and this Boy Scout unit were connected in any way, just dawn on me that that's the way things were. And my mom dropped me off, I walked in, no one was there. And I thought, I'm here all by myself, I must have got the day wrong. And all of a sudden, the chapel doors opened and all these people come finding me. And it was like, oh, I guess there's a thing that happens beforehand, and I didn't know anything about it. It was kind of overwhelming, and I remember experiencing this horrible social anxiety of all these people I didn't know, and what's going on, and I was there on the wrong day, all that stuff. And this guy came up to me and said, I'm your patrol leader, and he just took care of me. This is what you do now, and raise your hand and do all this stuff. And then when we started going camping, he was my temp. And so he told me we could stay up until 3 o'clock in the morning and we were just talking about all these things. One night he was telling me about the church. And part of the Mormon mythology is that when you hear the truth, you'll have this burning uniqueness which is an interesting term for it. I had a bosom up until that point. But it's how you'll know that it's the truth. I had had the most incredible emotional experience, so when they came and told me that, I was like, yeah, I guess this must be true. It all fits together. It wasn't until quite a while longer that I realized, no, I just fall in love with my people. Oh, I see. And we stayed friends for a very long time. There was a chunk of time where we didn't see each other and then had sex for the first time almost two, perhaps three decades after we had been little kids. Really? Wow. Now was the growth of your Mormon faith and your Boy Scout activities congruent with your time in the military school? It overlapped a part of it. In fact, that was one of the problems that I had. There were two groups of kids that, the kids who stayed there overnight and the kids who went home every day. Oh, I see. And my mom and dad had said, well, you know, your last year, if you want, you can stay in the dorms. I was so excited for that. But then I couldn't have gone to Scout meetings. So I didn't do that. I didn't do the dorm for them. Because the Scout meetings were so much fun. It was just so cool. But let's explore a little bit more about how the Mormon faith shaped you. Where do you see that in your current world? Okay. There's the face that said everything. It's hard for people outside of that system to understand what it's like. People will say, you know, I grew up in the Catholic Church and this is what we're talking about. And they kind of assume that there's an overlap. And it's almost impossible for them to believe what controlling, crazy cult this is. That's a very strong statement. It's an underestimate of what it relates to. It's impossible to be too carnival. Wow. It controls every aspect. And at the time that I was growing up, the historical part of this American church thing was just this is the way it was. And you believed it because there wasn't any evidence to the contrary. With the advent of the internet, it's become really clear that all of that history is bullshit. And yet, here are these people who are totally committed to the story. And it's a very fascinating story. A 14-year-old kid's questioning goes and prays and, you know, God shows up. If a 14-year-old kid came to you and said, I was in the woods and I saw God, now we give them how-doll to make the hallucinations go away. You don't give them 10% of your income and all your time. But that's what this is like. And so this incredibly powerful, monolithic organization, when you're a young man, you get the priesthood when you're 12 and you're advancing in that priesthood. And part of that is a worthiness in you. So they ask you very specifically about, do you masturbate? Do you do these things? And when I was about 14, the bishop clocked it and was like, are you playing around with other boys? And I was like, yeah. I was like, yeah, don't do that. So I guess it must have been about 50. And it was like, okay. Because at that point, I was aware that if I didn't, all this stuff in my life was going to disappear. All the activities that I was doing, all the things, all my friends, every aspect of that would have just disappeared instantly. Wow. Because the level of homophobia is so unbelievably toxic that if you were that little gay kid growing up in that hormone family, the idea of, yeah, I'm going to kill myself. That's the only option I have. Wow. Is not an exception. Wow. That really is the modal experience for most people. Did you do a mission? Yes. Where did you go? Argentina. Okay. Yeah. When I came back and I had left the church and everything, people were asking me about it. I remember being interviewed by the advocate magazine. And when I was a missionary, there was actually because of all these visas, things and stuff, there were times you just had to share a bed with your companion. And it was the most homoerotic experience that you could possibly imagine with the caveat that you better not do anything. So here I am, this gay kid, laying in bed with my companion with a raging heart on. So I said, yeah, I was wore two pairs of gym shorts so that I, you know, there's pajamas so that I wouldn't get in trouble in any way. That was the only part of a four-hour interview that got published. It's the poll quote in the middle of the page saying I slept in two pairs of gym shorts. That was the only thing out of four hours of talking to them. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. So you had no exploration during that time in Argentina? Oh my god. Okay. That, from the minute you step into that system, there are very clear messages that if you act on this at all, in any way, shape or form, he will shame you in a way that is almost impossible to believe. So for example, if you were in your Mormon ward and you, you know, sucked your neighbor's dick, it's like, okay, well, we're going to deal with that here. As a missionary, anything that happens, they send you home in shame and then in order to get back in the good graces of the church, you would have to confess in front of the entire stake of all of like seven or eight wards, thousands of people, because technically you represent the state. Wow. And so what you hear as a missionary are these stories of like, you know, oh, there were these two guys in Peru that were, you know, fooling around and they got caught. And so those constant messages, these very warning, threatening messages that if you do anything about this, there will be a level of chaos and punishment that you can't accomplish. Well, and this is voiced upon very young kids, too. The average missionary is what, maybe 18, 19? When I was going, it was 19, they lowered the age to 18. Okay. It is an exercise in narcissism that's hard to believe. Yeah. To be 19 years old and telling, knocking door to door, selling Jesus, telling you, your life is all wrong, I have the truth and you don't. And you need to conform to all of this stuff. It's a horrifying experience when you think about it. But what it really does, the most important thing, it's not a great way of bringing people to the church. Right. What it is, is a great way of inculcating the values in somebody who's suffering through two years of, you know, just abject boredom and stupidity so that for the rest of their life, they're wedded to the program. What was the best experience you had as a missionary? The companions that I fell in love with and never did anything about it. Oh my gosh. And the worst? I didn't realize the worst until after I was gone. The kind of damage that I had done to people. That permission president called me in for an interview one time and he said, you know, you were one of the most successful missionaries I ever had. And at the time, I was all choked up about it. It was years later that I thought, what I did to those people. What do you mean? What did you do? Did you take people and put them in this system that says, you know, all kinds of things, like every aspect of your life needs to change. But a big part of it is that, you know, you're not good enough. You have to do all these things to be good enough. That one of the fundamental concepts of their theology is that you lived before this life. And that in that life, in that pre-existence, you had to make decisions. And if you made the right decisions, then you were blessed for that and went into a nice little Mormon family. And if not, then you got kind of the second class as though you got a chance to find the church. And God forbid that you really fucked up because then you were born black. Whoa, really? Yep. Now, as shocked as you are, I want you to imagine sitting in a room through 300 people who are all going, oh yeah, that's what it is. Wow. Rarely am I at a loss for words, but I'm afraid you've done that. God, I'm not risked. Incredible. Yeah. How do they account for the other ethnic types of people? Not quite as bad as the black people, but on their way. They became white and whites. I'm sorry. Their skin actually changed. If you found the truth, your skin would change and you would become white and whites. They edited that out. They never told anybody that they did it, but if you look at old versions of Book of Mormon and newer versions, that's been changed. Part of what happened was there was a time that the doctrine was no one with a single drop of black blood would ever hold the priest to it. Wow. And that was great until the church started expanding into Brazil. Yeah. Where it's like, ooh, what? Everybody's got some. And so conveniently, the prophet of the church had a conversation with God and they decided, eh, fuck it, let's change the rules. Incredible. Yeah. Flabbergasting. I don't even know how to articulate another sentence after all that. At what point did you walk away from all of this? When I left my mission, I was very compliant. I was like, you know, I did everything I was supposed to do. When I, when my mission president, when I was leaving, he said, I expect you to be married in six months. My God. So at 21, I was expected to be married in six months. My God. I came home, it could be here. I told my, my grand fiance, I said, you do realize I'm attracted to men, right? And she goes, yeah, just don't do anything about it. Your trip to Palm Springs coincided with the breakup with your wife. Yeah. Decision to divorce. The same day. Yeah. Yeah. That night was a different kind of big bang. Okay. Which takes us to your turbo slut period. That was the turbo slut. Tell us about that. If you work with horses, you keep them in a small stable and then you let them out into the field. Yeah. You know, you can have fun and gamble and do all the things that horses have not been able to do. When you take a gay guy who's been stuck and yeah, I can't do any of that, it goes crazy. And, and I've heard it so many times when people do after they have this coming out experience. They just went nuts. And you make all the mistakes that you can possibly make. Such as? Well, if you'd made those same mistakes as children, it wouldn't have been quite so, you know, problematic. Because now you can drink alcohol, you can get into big problems, and you make really dumb decisions because you're like, yeah, this is so much fun that I'm willing to fuck really stupid people because, you know, I'm gonna do it. And then it starts to settle down into what you really understand and make sense to you. So hopefully you keep the best part of the slut part of it. Okay. But don't wind up doing the things that you're like, yeah, that's just not a good idea. That was not a good idea. One of the rules of life is that you should never fuck anybody crazier than you. And that's one that you're perfectly willing to, you know, ignore in that period. And it's hard to believe that, you know, mine was a transition out that allowed me to do a lot of thinking before I actually left. So I thought, I've done with this. I've dealt with this. And I realized years later that there were still things that were so ingrained. Yes. I just did some automatically. Yes. So part of it was like, you know, you told me I couldn't do it. I'm going to do it every second that I get a chance to instead of, yeah, I'm doing it when I want to, not because this is my way of rebelling. But it took a while to kind of settle into it. Well, you even said you had to adjust your judgments and your philosophies on life. Oh, yeah. What were some of the big ones that you had to do? One of the ones that I think, especially in our community, the hot issue right now is the idea of like monogamy. For Mormons who are, you know, have a history of being polygamous, they're really invested in this kind of idea of monogamy. And I remember in one of my first relationships who was with another Mormon guy, the idea of monogamy was like a really big issue in that relationship. And it wasn't until, you know, a little while later that it was like, that's such an important idea. What is there that's important about this? And to realize, neither was there wired for that. Why would you be even thinking of doing that? Okay. And these really weird things that are so prevalent in our heterosexist society, the idea of like, we do an irony relationship, so we share a bank account. And I remember one of my gay friends saying, you're the banker. He said, I wouldn't do that with anyone. And I was horrified. I thought, you know, I guess his relationship isn't that important. And then it was like, no, he's a banker. He knows what the fuck he's talking about. And his relationship was fine. And I never had that feeling again, like, you know, the symbol of your relationship is that you have a joint bank account. But all of those heterosexes kind of ideas and standards and values were implicated in a situation that had absolutely no connection to that whatsoever. Was there anything about your discovery in the gay community or the leather community or whatever? Was there anything shocking? Surprising. Yeah. Yeah. With the board scouts and the Mormons are a great training kind of thing. By the time you're a little kid, you're standing in front of people speaking from the pulpit. You know how to do that. So, you know how most people say the public speaking is this really terrifying thing for them? Not for most Mormons. They can do it since they're little. You know, how to organize something, how to plan an event, how to do all of that stuff is so natural. Yeah. When I was 16, I was in charge of youth programs that it was my responsibility to create a committee of other kids and for us to make this thing happen and have adult leaders who are encouraging us to do this and training us how to do it. So it's a really powerful training program. And I remember one time saying, okay, they did that. They gave me all those skills and now I'm going to go use them, you know, in the place they would probably least like me to. And sitting around in meetings for organizations and thinking, why are these the people who are here? Because they're not very good at this. They're willing, but they don't know what they're doing. And it took me a while to realize that we had lost an entire generation of the guys who had been the leaders and the creators and the founders, and they had died. Yes. And they hadn't replaced themselves. And so the people who kind of bubbled up to the top were the ones who were willing but didn't necessarily have the skill set about how to do that. So I would sit in things and think, wow, this is really difficult. And I think it's one of the things that we still continue to struggle with, that how do we prepare a younger generation to take on leadership roles and fundamental things about that leadership. That it's about service and not about no to ride. It's about service to people that sometimes are kind of annoying and obnoxious and you're willingness to say, yeah, but we're doing this because it's the right thing to do and it's for them. And it's real easy to sit around and kind of congratulate ourselves about what a great job we're doing and not see the people who are falling by the wayside because we're not doing a good job. And so I can remember thinking, these are big budget decisions being made by people who have never looked at a budget. Wow. Taking a slight step back, you said that joining the West Coast Singers, which is the LGBT chorus of Los Angeles, proved very beneficial for you. How was that? Why is that? Another thing you learn to do when you're Mormon is to sing. My vocal coach as a young adult was a guy who was in the Mormon Cabernet choir. He was incredibly talented, lived next to a word, talked me into doing all this kind of stuff. So he was like, well, that looks like fun. And so I remember thinking the gay men's chorus is really cool. They're big and they're powerful, but they don't have four parts. So it was like, yeah, the sound of women's voices in the choir is just so cool that I joined the West Coast Singers instead. And one of the other guys was, he was also a bass and we were both, he's an inch shorter than I am. So we had to stand next to each other. Incredible musician. So I always said I sang second bass whenever he did, I did second. And he was on the board of Christopher Street West. Oh, okay. And he said, would you come and help with erotic city? And I was like, yeah, sure, what do you need? And I had volunteered and done other things before with Pride, but he was asking me to do this. So I remember going and looking at what they were doing and I said, you know, Raymond, this is about as erotic as cream cheese. For the benefit of the audience, though, would you please explain what is erotic city? Erotic city is the leather communities part of the big gay and lesbian celebration, the GLBT celebration here in Los Angeles. So it's the leather part of gay pride. Oh, okay. And back then it was truly horrifying. They had a tent in an area that was kind of carved off. There was adult only because they hadn't dealt with that issue yet. And there was a sign outside of like a list of demonstrations. So 9 o'clock would be flogging and 10 o'clock would be bondage and 11 o'clock would be vaginal fisting. You know, 1 o'clock would be wax play. And basically somebody would get up and be like, we're going to do bondage and, you know, rope is used for bondage. Rope was invented by Seymour J. Rope in 1732 and then they'd give the comprehensive history of rope for 45 minutes in front of, it was just boring and awful and horrendous. And it's what happened. A lot of them were the kind of people who the most they've ever said in public is welcome to Walmart. But you give them a boom mic and suddenly they can't get off the stage. And you've heard the idea this was somebody who could fuck up a wet dream. It was like you could suck the erotic energy out of this by lecturing to people about it. And so people would be doing something and it'd be like, no, I'm doing this. And I remember thinking, why is that what we're doing? You know, we don't have like a fucking demo. So if this thing that I think of is incredibly erotic and powerful is being reduced to something that's like an infomercial, there's something wrong about that. So I did what I learned to do. I got the right people in the right room and said, we're not doing that shit anymore. This is our celebration. We're going to do what we do when we celebrate. So if you were going to come to this thing, what would you do? Well, I'd love to do flogging or spanking. Well, then do it. So set up the space to do that and make it happen. And then, if you can behave yourself, you're invited to join the party. So for somebody who says, I've never seen this before. What is this? And there would be these people almost every year who would come on Saturday and just be mesmerized. And then Sunday come back and be like, I saw this guy getting flogged the other day. I'd be like, why don't you try this out? So it was this really fun, powerful kind of experience that grew and grew and grew until the leadership changes made big decisions about how they wanted to do pride as a music festival. And they said, we just have to separate. So we can't post that. But for a long time it was, I used to think, if everybody knew that this thing that we do, I learned how to do a courtesy of the Boy Scouts and the Mormon Church, that would be the perfect kind of... Absolutely. Absolutely it would. But you said you're actually honored to be an elder in the community. Why so? Carl Jung talks about archetypes. And so as a Jungian psychologist, I think about that a lot. And one of the archetypes that we lost were the elders. So a whole generation that... were the guys who had been there, who knew how to do it, who knew what the secrets were. And even in this very weekend, I've had this experience of the guy who was my predecessor in the role of being the guy in charge. The conversations that we had about, well, what about this? And then hearing the thought process of, well, you know, but if you do that, it changes this. And then there's this cascade. And then people without that elderly, and you're really enthusiastic, but not being able to see, if you do that, this is the problem with that. So you lost all of that experience. The guys who knew how to do it and avoid problems and solve problems disappeared. And when they did, all that information went with them. And so I remember the first time it was Mike Gurley, who called me one time and said, you know, as an elder in the commuter now, it's like, you know, Mike, fuck you. And then it was like, oh, wait a minute. I have to really think about that. And so it's an interesting role. It's kind of like, what are their names? Waldorf and whatever the guy, the Muppets who sit up in the... shit about everything that's going on. There's a little bit of that. And I try really desperately to never do the, you know, when we did this, but there is this sense of, we have done this before. And there's knowledge and experience that's really valuable in having done that before. And the elder part of it is remembering, yeah, sometimes you've got to let people find out for themselves. You can't tell them they've got to learn. So keep your damn mouth shut and wait until somebody asks you. And be as supportive as you possibly can. And then when the shit hit the fan, try not to be standing in front of the fan. Well, we are here on behalf of the LA Leather Coalition that has enabled the fireside chats to come here. What work did you do for the LA Leather Coalition? I was the chair of the Coalition. And there's one of the by-laws is that you can only be the chair for two years. My predecessor, Will Hildreth, was leaving. He was moving. And he came to me and said, you should consider doing this. It's really fun and it's easy. Yeah, so a couple of years later I was on stage and Bill was in the audience and the most important thing I can tell you is that Will Hildreth is in the line sack of shit. Because it's not fun and it's easy, but it was an amazing experience. But I did it. He said it was for seven years. I don't think it was that. I thought it was five or six. But it was a time of transition when things were growing and things were changing. And we had to deal with lots of legal kinds of things. It was also an interesting time because of the L.E. Letter Contest. We had used the L. Ray Theatre as our venue and Wolfgang Puck bought the L. Ray Theatre and was like, hey, all deals are off. They're all handshake agreements, so they're all off. And we had to find a venue and do all these things. And so it was this intense period of problem solving. Not the least of it was that Will put most of the expenses on his credit. Oh, my gosh. And so the coalition jointly made a decision that they would not make major changes in leadership until we paid it back. And we did that. But it was an incredibly powerful personal experience to work with the kind of guys who were committed to this kind of stuff. Fascinating. And that's the true nature of leadership. You actually produced the L.E. Letter competitions. Tell us about that. Is it of the same family as the rest of this? Things changed in the history of the coalition and the contest. Now they've reorganized how they do things because it works better now for them. For us, it was the members of the coalition were also the producers. So we asked somebody, would you be the head guy? And they would come and present and do. So in some ways it was a lot more autocratic. But it was also a group of us who worked together in a way that's absolutely remarkable. I remember one time there were a couple of groups who decided to join because they heard about it and wanted to be a part of it. We didn't have much connection with them but they wound up joining. And at one point one of them asked, you're producing the contest but he's asking you to judge his contest. And I remember almost being like shocked that anybody would ask that because the producers meeting would be all of the producers. So the guys from the bars and the clubs and everything would sit in a room and be like, okay, so what are we doing? Well, we know Sean always likes to do his contest first so give him the first name. And what about this? Well, there's another event. So let's move this and change that. It was a level of collaboration and trust. It was based on the fact that most of us were really intimately and sexually connected with each other. So we played together. We trusted each other. If you're talking about what date do you want with somebody who you trusted to flog you, tie you up, do whatever, it's a really different dynamic. The idea that I will not do anything to hurt you because all these other people would be horrified. They'd run me out of town. And so the idea of your contest is being attended by the producers of every other contest to support you. It was just unsaid, it just happened. So when you said, here's this really great guy who's your title holder. Yeah, having come over to my house, I'm producing a different contest but I think I've got boots that he can wear. And that kind of brotherhood, that kind of connection, we laugh about it now because every guy that gets up has the word brotherhood at least nine times but that's what we felt. And as the process has become more diverse, parts of that have changed. And the most challenging thing is to try to keep the best parts of it and allow yourself to grow and that's incredibly difficult to ask for any organization. Our job as elders is to sit back and say we never would have done it that way. Oh, yes. Which brings me to my next question because today you've depicted yourself as the dowager chairman of leather leadership. Now what exactly does that mean? I didn't say that because there's a couple of other people in between. Facebook does this really wonderful thing about your memory from five years ago, your memory. Well, when it's this weekend, it's for years and years of the leather context that this is the 20th anniversary of the LA leather, of Mr. LA leather. I know every one of those 20 names in the back of that site and some of them might be incredibly close to me. And what's fascinating to me is that if somebody asks me, who's this leather after so and so? I can't remember all the time. And there were people in each of those classes that when I look at the group photo, it was like we never saw that guy again. That guy just wanted to be in a contest and we never saw him again. And that guy, oh, he's running this part of it. He's involved in that part of it. He's the president of this organization now. And so I know in the big scope because I talked to those people, too, the idea of, well, you know, it's just a beauty contest and it's, you know, the pageant queens and some guys brand new and people tell them, well, aren't you being a contest? That's a good thing for you to do. You know, he borrowed leather to do that. And I have a reaction that's very different than most people because especially my reaction to the borrowed leather thing, one of the guys who's truly a leather man in every way had all of his stuff in the car and it was all stolen. He had gone to play, had everything all the stuff he was going to wear in the contest got stolen. In a week's time, we had everything that he needed. Just making phone calls. You know, he lost, they stole his boots, what size did he wear? Well, I don't wear that, but I know somebody who does. Everybody took care of that. There have been guys who you're like, you know, if you said, tell us something about the local community there would have been like, I gotta fucking clue what I'm talking about. It was obvious. But they stuck around and they had fun. And the connection among those men was so unbelievably powerful that it continues to this day. If you're doing bondage, there's a reason you're blind full of people first so they can't see what you're doing. I had to learn to just be like okay with Latin New York. Okay. And to laugh about it. And to, you know, if you're covered in sweat and come and you're not laughing, then you kind of missed something. If you're not like just glowing when it's all over, then, you know, watch Netflix. Ah! It's, but it takes a minute to kind of, you know, go from that there's this image that I have in my head of what I'm supposed to be like. I'm not really good at that sometimes. And so I have to be able to just accept that, you know, I'm gonna do it my way. And if it matches with your way, we're great. And if not, then we're still great. We're just probably not gonna play to me. Okay. What's the biggest misconception about you? I would say that I'm, you know, the perception is that, you know, I'm a toxic asshole, but that's actually accurate. Why do you say that? A narcissistic asshole anyway. Tell you the thing that I hear the most often. And I have to own this, you know. If you're six foot eight and you show up anywhere, there's real advantages to that. Like, you can tell everybody whose hair is, you know, receding, because you can see it. I once asked my daughter if she wanted to go with me to Folsom. And she'd gone before and we'd always have a great time. And I said, you want to go? And she goes, no. And I said something about it. She says, you don't realize that for me, it's a sea of armpits. And it was like, oh my God, I've never actually thought about that. That everybody else is all down here. And I'm seeing all this thing. Yeah. And I don't think of that as intimidating. It doesn't intimidate me, so I don't understand. But I get that people can be intimidated by that. And I have to watch the idea of resting bitch face. That, you know, if you're not doing something and you have this look on your face, people project, oh, he's like pissed off. And I've had people come up and be introduced and they were like, I was kind of afraid to talk to you. I thought you were really scared. Oh yeah. So the idea that I was thinking about something, or I was just who I was, that I was scary, was kind of hard for me to like, I'm not sure I wanted that. There were times that I knew I wanted it and used it to my advantage. But I think that's the one. It's like when somebody says, yeah, I was afraid to come up and talk to you. I'm like, yeah, I don't know why. You're going to hurt your neck looking up at me. Well, Steve Gunzel, thank you very much. It's been an amazing interview. Thanks to everyone here. And another beautiful day in Los Angeles.