 to Inside Leather History, a fireside chat. I'm Doug O'Keefe and I am the host and the co-producer of these chats with Mistress Joanne Gaddy. The fireside chats are a program of the Leather Archives and Museum. Today I'm sitting down for an interview with Auntie Kaupinen, who is the ECMC Secretariat. He's a Leather and Fetish activist in Helsinki, Finland. How are you, Auntie? I'm fine, I'm fine. Very good. Well, let's go back a little bit. Please tell me about your growing up, a little bit about your family, where you're from, so that we can understand you a little. Okay, so I'm from quite original middle-class family from Helsinki City. Yeah, I went to the College of Performing Arts, so I have this sort of an artistic background, and then I started to do cultural science and cultural philosophy studies, and I have been living quite here and there. I've been studying in St. Petersburg and in Hong Kong, and I have been traveling. I was also in Los Angeles in the Tomofiland Foundation as an artist residence, and I have been doing quite so many sort of things going around, and that's the reason why I'm also active in the more wider LGBT things, not just in Finland. Why did you study in St. Petersburg and of all places, why Hong Kong? I just wanted to get out from Finland, that was my first thing I wanted to go, and I wanted to go somewhere different. I didn't want to go to any similar place. I found it very interesting, and St. Petersburg was in 99 when I moved there, and I actually ended up living there for seven years. So it was really interesting times. It was the times when just a year after I moved out, the first anti-LGBT laws were introduced, but back then, when I was living there, there was still a possibility that it could have gone through the other direction, but it didn't go. But they launched interesting new trans laws, which were quite advanced back then, and so on. So there was possibilities of things going differently, but then the church cuts hand on politics, and that's when the shit hits the fan. How was the gay scene that you knew in St. Petersburg? Well, it's a huge CC people of five, six million people, so obviously on the city of that size, there is always a gay scene, whatever happens, whether it's in Saudi Arabia or wherever. So I was quite nerd back then, and I was just reading and quite monogamous in my perspective, and quite reading poems and being very romantic. So that's how it's gone. But no, I was quite okay to be in more of a vanilla situation in my life back then. I did an interview with the late Alexey Khrachev, and he spoke about the kinky scene and the leather scene in St. Petersburg. It was very underground. Did you experience any of that while you were there? No, I didn't think so. No, but I didn't experience it anywhere. Obviously, I remember when I was probably, I was like 13 or something, and I saw Tomofinland cut this award, this national award of comic drawer, and his drawings were in newspapers in Finland. So I remember, I saw them, I was actually in library, and I just immediately ran to the toilet in the library to have a van, because that's what you do when you see naked guy with leather, so on. So there was obviously these sort of tendencies going on already when I was quite small, but I didn't, I wasn't looking for them. They weren't something that I was interested in when I, in my 20s. Tell us a little bit about your coming out, about your journey with all of that. Yeah, well then I, little by little, I just, MSC Finland, Tom's Club is the club that is, it's my fetish home, so I knew that they had parties, and I went there, and obviously there was this whole brotherhood feeling about it, and also the sexual tension, like the feeling of leather and the warmth, and the smell of it, and so on. And through that, it somehow opened. But I was in my late 20s, so it wasn't something that happened when I was like, except those first drawings of Tom of Finland that I went with in the library toilet. But like, after that it was, yeah, I was probably like 29 when I started to realize like, ah okay, this is the direction I actually want to go with my sexuality. How did you discover that section though? Well, I'm from Finland, and we have the phenomenon of Tom of Finland, so like, it has always been there, so to realize that you are more drawn to the fetish side of the vanilla spectrum, then yeah, like it's so visual and existing in Finnish, like visual culture and in the talk of art in Finland, so yeah, everybody knows about Tom of Finland in Finland. Well, since you have brought up this topic, some people would love to know how do the people of Finland see the images that Tom of Finland created? Because is it different from what we would think about it over here? I don't really know how the people of Finland see it. Okay, I think there is a huge difference between cultures that see, like, what do you see sexual upreary? Like, for some cultures it's touching, and for other cultures it's nudity. Finland has this whole sauna culture, so it's normal, like I have been a sauna with my grandmother naked, and like there is no, like it's not weird, it's not even nudity, it's on being not naturalistic or what is it, nudist or anything like that. It doesn't have any sort of conversation, it's just being normal without your clothes on. So seeing a picture of a person nude isn't sexual for our culture, as it is for many other cultures. Then again, touching, like we have really huge differences, as I showed at the beginning, like that we are now going back from the two meter COVID restrictions to the normal being three or four meter apart. So touching is way more sexualized in our culture than in, for example, southern European cultures. So I think this is something that you need to put to your head, this idea that it's normal to be outside, happy, smiling, be with your family, running to the lake from the sauna or jump to the water, like this whole thing doesn't have sexuality or sexual connotations. So when you take Finland's pictures and you see negative or half-negative men smiling at each other, being fun, having fun in the forest, what most of the western cultures see is something sexual, but for us it's the skies being having fun in the forest. There was in 1920s or 30s, or was it 1932, Finland had a postmark that was a woman, naked woman stepping outside from a sauna facing the picture, and the postmark was restricted not to go abroad because there were countries that thought that it was pornographical. And in Finnish connotation it was mind blowing to think that somebody would consider sexual or inappropriate a person getting out from the sauna. So this is a huge and long and quite cultural, scientific explanation, but so this is something that's completely unique and different for the Finnish perspective. Then at the same time there is quite a lot of studies now being done about how in Finnish culture sexuality has been seen and we have the biggest collection of traditional poems than any other European or Chinese or any other culture and none of them has the poems of transsexuals or LGBT minorities in general. What does it mean? If it would have been restricted, illegal, somehow disgusting, there would be some sort of traces that they were restricted from the collection, but because it wasn't done it has been interpreted that it wasn't a problem at the time. So in the beginning of the 19th century when the poems were collected being queer in any sense of it wasn't important to the culture of Finland and then in 1920s when this sort of a more scientific and to say straight from Nazi Germany ideologies of straight and gay and male and female were introduced also to Finnish culture, that changed the system. But we can say that in the childhood of Toko Laksson and Tomo Finland he was living in a countryside society where still he you could see that being gay or being butch woman or whatever wasn't that important. So also there is this idea and that's how I interpret that Tomo Finland was born in Finland and came from Finland because of the weird idea that we have that nudity isn't sick or it doesn't have to be sexualized and also being from a weird Finnish culture that being gay or being queer isn't as important as other aspects of life like working hard and that sort of things. So I think those are the things that made his art and then in 1960s 1970s when the queer visuality was still quite restricted it was always behind the curtains and there was really the contact with the characters so his pictures were new and yeah came from different place from Finland. What were your thoughts about the movie? I think it was okay, yeah I actually liked it, yeah. Do you feel it was accurate? Well I don't know, I talked about with his other sisters boy and they told that Tom was totally spot on and also his boyfriend but then the sister how he was pictured like he they thought that it was she was quite fictional but the family felt that Tom and his partner were really spot on. Oh very good to hear it, very good. Let's take one step back a little bit. You mentioned that you didn't go into the leather scene until your late 20s. What were your concepts about the gay scene, your homosexuality prior to that? It was partying and just like going out with friends and like being in this sort of like and because I was in the performing arts college so obviously like everyone was gay or tried to be gay so it was more normal. It was who you were and it was the world where you belonged to and it was never I'm really blessed in that sort of way that I have never been surrounded with people who would be against it and I haven't had like my brother or father or mother like they have always loved me so I have never had that sort of problems as quite many people have. What did you find fascinating or shocking or intriguing when you entered the leather scene? I think the camaraderie and the whole brotherhood thing which I think has probably been in other forms of queer culture back in the days but as things become more mainstream those aren't anymore that tangible in most part of LGBT like surroundings but yeah I think that's quite interesting otherwise no like nothing shocking really. I remember when I started actually in then 2015 I started to write the 40 years anniversary book of my club and I remember I just found this old old no just all the members of our club's club and then I went and interviewed one guy who was in his 80s back then and then like he just we were having coffee and he started to discuss about about the peace parties back in 1960s and like being just really outspoken and relaxed and okay about it I remember we were like okay yeah here we go okay so this is the part of the history but like yeah like I love them I love the fact that how and especially the older parts of our club the journey that they had to do to become okay with being who they are has made them so powerful and so that it's yeah it's quite empowering to to speak with them. How do you see the differences between the gay community, the kinky community, leather community of Finland versus other countries other places? I'm quite surprised by the fact that there is no difference like it's it is like it's super same everywhere like I I didn't know how can it be because like then again in the in the more vanilla gay scene there are already cultural differences but in our scene I think like we are all the same it's it's quite unbelievable to realize how how similar to the even the problems in clubs are similar and and everything so it's yeah it's surprising. But how about differences between Helsinki and Berlin or Helsinki and London or Chicago? Yeah I think it's the size because Helsinki is anyhow a smaller city than any of those so so yes the size is different but like yeah like I don't know there is something anyhow when you are a minority inside of sexual minority you know whether how big your your association would be you still have gone through quite a lot of things to be okay who you are way more than the standard vanilla gay so so people are quite open and when a person is open it's quite universal in a really beautiful way. What were your thoughts how did you feel about the Toma Finland Foundation in Los Angeles? California has been quite elementary in in in many ways in in our history so it was really interesting to see those those parts also and obviously the southern Californian people they are they are hippies in so many ways and they are lovely but it's like they have their own concept of time and all that so it's wonderful to be there but trying to do some process with them like from from somewhere else it's always a big difference but yeah I really love them and it was like really lovely place to be and again this sort of camaraderie and the whole Fettis brotherhood thing was really tangible. What work were you doing there? I have actually one book project that I I still haven't been able to finish but I'm going to start to work on it then again beginning from from next year so so I'm now working in Atmoseum so so I have I have done this in between and then I will continue the writing my first novel. What is the topic? It's about it's quite hardcore like I I had a boyfriend who who was beaten so that he lost his conscience and then he was dumped in the snow and he froze to death because he didn't come to his senses so that was quite a huge thing when I was 27 that happened to me oh no I was younger no but yeah 26-27 so so I've been thinking about that I should write about it like I'm really okay I I've really prosided and and it's just a huge part of my life but it's like I had really good long relationships after that so but yeah so I and now when this whole phenomena like it happened in in Russia and now as this whole phenomena of LGBT refugees in Russia is now happening so I have been doing quite a lot of LGBT work in with people from countries where being LGBT is illegal so I have been starting to collect those stories so it's a mixture of of like everything in the book is true but then the phrasing of the like the how things are connected it's not true because like obviously like I can tell my own story and that's the reason why I'm putting it to the book because I just don't want to be using other stories I also like want to open my own own story reason why I am interested in in this sort of like more hardcore stories of LGBT people but the main idea is to open the stories of people who are now having their refugee trip and and how they become who they who they have and because quite many obviously trans people as they do the refugee trip they are being raped and and misused in so many ways and and it's not like if you are like already being a refugee is a huge risk for your life but then if you belong to a minority it's even bigger risk but that's the reason why it has been taking so long to write the book because like I have to change them like I can't use the stories so that people will be recognized from them so I have been changing the stories and connecting them and recreating them so I have this sort of a fictional character doing her trip as to say my time as I'm recovering from my lost lost and and this whole parallel things like how anyhow coming from where I come from because I am white a privileged privileged cis men male I recover from huge traumas better than people who are in so many different ways like not as privileged because it's it's also it's not hardcore just hardcore it's also it's life of the people like there are so many people amongst us who are at this at this moment struggling with the horrors of trying to get a refugee place and and trying to survive at the same time because they are the trans or LGBT. Is Finland welcoming a lot of these refugees? Not enough I think and yeah and I think we should yeah yeah we should definitely take way more and and and yeah it's it is if the questions on that side if they are really problematic because at the same time you don't want to create gay ghettos where you force like people with with the same background but at the same time for the yeah it's yeah it's really problematic I don't know how to how to but yeah but I hope that western world would show that we believe in the in the morals that we believe and that's how we show it is that we open our borders to people who will not be safe in their own country. From what countries are you seeing many of these refugees? Russia is growing like and and Russia is very interesting it's a way to weird word for this but it's because people are quite educated over there and they they almost have the possibility to travel freely so so we easily don't realize that they are actually refugees and and there there can be situations when when being an LGBT parent for example is threat both to your children and to yourself and and so on so so we have to keep our eyes open and now there is obviously happening weird things in in in like also in in EU countries happening weird things and then there are parts in in in your country that have also quite alarming so yeah the Nazis are rising. What what weird things are you seeing from your point of view? Well for example in Poland in Poland they have there there are parts of the country that have said that we are LGBT free so this sort of thing there was also a small city or something just off Finnish border on the russia side that said that they are LGBT free and then on the other in the Finnish side of the border they had a huge bright march after that so so like this sort of we are having we are having both inside of the countries but also like in the nearby countries this sort of like quite hardcore backslashes it doesn't take away from everybody any anyone any anything if we give people rights to love who they love and and and so on but there is something weird going on with people. How do you see the situation here in the United States? People should talk more to each other it's not good that you are iso lazy like I was quite surprised when I talked to people and I couldn't find anyone who would even know a person that had voted for Trump so so like you should like there should be and you should recognize the family member and go and talk with them and talk endlessly until until they change their mind so like like you have to be in the dialogue although the dialogue would be super uncomfortable but it's the only way that we can win is that we just explain ourselves and reason and just like so if we isolate ourselves from from their media and from their platforms like I love going to different sort of Nazi chat pages with some sort of nickname gay 77 or something like that and then I'm just chatting with them about these subjects often I'm thrown away from the whole chat program but like then I can go back so that's how you should do you should like interact and and somehow try to reach do bridges even the place that you know that whatever you do you won't change anything but just that you are there you create something somebody reacts with you something stays so like I think that was something that I recognized three years ago when I was a couple of months there in Los Angeles I was quite surprised like how divided the country is and how little there is interaction and and like even the TV channels are different for for different people and like that's bad like if you have two completely separate narratives and no dialogue between them I'm a little surprised to hear that you would go on a Nazi chat page and engage aren't you afraid of that well it's just a chat I can then turn off my computer obviously I don't go with my own face or own name but I have had really like sort of my 77 and is quite normally what I use when I go so already from from my nickname you realize that ah okay this is what he's going to be ranting about I am not afraid of conflicts as long as it's not physical I'm not that afraid of physical conflict either I'm quite good with type boxing but like but it's not okay anyhow I don't like physical violence how is it eye-opening what should I even ask what you have yeah well it's it's yeah it's quite interesting when when they like how deranged people are but also like after like now and then you also get an interaction with people and you realize that it might be actually some sort of more mental issues and not just like not just being actually Nazi or or being like right wing that there might be actually some sort of other solution to the facts and maybe it's because of the society isn't able or isn't willing or isn't just don't want to put money into it don't want to help people so people turn to become something quite horrible I admire you for doing that I would never have the ability to do that multi mostly as a seat and what's golden girls but like a couple of times a year I do doubt right let's let's switch over a little bit to look at the ecmc for the benefit of the international audience would you please tell us what the ecmc is organization that is created by non-profits leather and fetish clubs of Europe try to create a platform and possibility to to interact and and and do more international work together so it's quite and the main idea that it's non-commercial so so all the associations are just the associations and there are no like like merchandising companies or anything like that involved so that's quite important it has been quite elemental in in creating and having this sort of continent wise nets of discussions what challenges does the ecmc face well there has been the discussion now to open the collapse to a more broad audience there was a huge discussion just like 30 years ago whether whether rubber was even a proper fetish or should it be only leather and so on so like like it's baby steps but but it's also when things are happening and now as as the concept of of gender and sexuality as the concept of gender changes obviously the sexuality will change so so it's good to have these discussions and have the and give the more traditional opinions the possibility to be spoken open and then to actually see like how and which angles and how how can we go further and and because like we sexuality can't be a tradition it can't be like no how do I say this can't be like museum like we can't have sexuality freeze like like well disney and then wake that wait a day that it will come back again so everything will change little by little and and we see changes in in young generations that are now mixing the fetishes and and the sport fetish with the leather harness and so on so everything goes and and obviously the I love how how trans men are now normal part of of our fetish existence so these sort of changes are coming but at the same time it's very important to to keep the discussion and to realize that uh that we have to respect the safe space for different sort of minorities and safe space uh isn't away from others so if we would open the safe space and everyone can come then it's not anymore safe for the people we wanted to create the safe space for you mentioned I'm going to take a step back you mentioned countries like Poland and other more restrictive countries are they also represented in the ECMC there was a club from Poland there is a club from from St. Petersburg and yeah yeah there are clubs and I think especially for those clubs it's very important to to have the camaraderie and and to have the possibility to meet others other other people and and yeah so I think it's very very important but at the same time it's so important that the collaboration goes on theorems so so that we don't from western countries go and say that okay this is how we're going to do it because they know their legislation and everything way better so we might fuck things up just by by for by forcing our ways of working things so they they know so it's it's very important for us to be not just humble but like just uh take them on the level and and listen how we can help and not go and give our help without asking like how they want to have it how many countries are represented oh my god I don't actually know we have like uh I don't know 15 something like that I don't actually know I should check that out I should know I don't know please tell us more about your specific position with ECMC it's quite a lot of diplomacy then just to find the find the right place to give somebody happy or everybody as evenly unhappy but what is the foundation motivation it's a platform for the clubs to meet and the clubs to create some sort of neutral territory where they can probably share ideas share their frustration share their possibilities that their dreams so so that's what it's all about so it's it's really for the for the clubs and that's the reason why it doesn't have president it has secretaries so the presidents are in the clubs and and then we just create them a place where they can they can meet it what are the plans post COVID I'm coordinating the media work so we have now created a new web page where the idea is that each club has two annual ECMC events so there is a pages where people can check those out and and then the clubs can go they have the right to go to the sections of the of the calendar or there and change the data and information and stuff so so it's more interactive and also the clubs can change the information and pictures of their own club in in the in the page so we are trying to make it more more so that it's just not so that secretariat does all the work but so that like all everybody is involved so that's the next page and then we are going to have a first like actual physical meeting where everybody is flying in we are going to have it in southern france in this in November so so and then then we see what happens there oh how interesting I wish I could attend what plans do you personally have for your future in the community I don't know a lot of sex what else I need to buy new boots I don't know like well yeah the new boots I need to buy like my expectations are quite low at the moment I just want to go to a party and meet friends and have a couple of beers like I will be really happy with that and now like we are actually in in two days we we end all the restrictions in Finland so so so yeah that's what I'm waiting for I'm quite easy as as long as the normality comes but then obviously I think probably in three months I'm already anticipating something more moon from the sky but now I'm just happy to have a couple of beers with my friends what do you still want to accomplish in the Leather King community interesting I think I'm like like obviously I have this book project and then I have another book project and then I would like to do my phd and then but then there is a book project I have I have some sort of like there should be something well written novel or something about about the chem sex scene or like something about like bringing this sort of like hardcore thing not as an obscurity but as a as a standard of of existence like I don't I don't know what I want to say with it yet but like it's it's a phenomenon that has been part of of a certain type of hardcore fetish community but at the same time it has quite been quite medicalized or or hushed up and there is quite a lot of almost xenophobic tendencies towards it so we hate people who do crystal meth or or we try to help them or like there is no normality and I don't know on which level can we have normality when there are so huge like problems and stuff going on on that scene but I think that's something I believe that in in 2030 40 years we will look back how we know how and which sort of legislations are do we have about chemical substances as we are now looking back the LGBT laws in 40 50 years ago so I think that's a change that is happening in the society and as a society or as a fetish community who have been always on the outskirt we might be able to open some eyes I don't know I might have to like Rosie ideas about this and it might be really horrible and and they're they're they're finding when you when you look closer to it but like this is something that I would want to see some sort of something more scientific and less moralistic being done with well I I can tell you that the chem sex scene is viewed very differently country to country how is the scene about it in Finland it's almost nonexistent and and also like yeah it doesn't there is no view on it's really in Finland so like I know that there was some sort of chem sex study done but there was probably like like 60 answers and you know it's not like like yeah it's yeah we drink alcohol and then we go hiking like we don't like we are disgustingly wholesome nation all right well that's very good to know I would like to thank you very much for a lovely interview today and for your contribution to inside another history a fireside chat