 Let's begin at the beginning. Where did you grow up then? Tell us a bit about your family. I grew up in Chicago, Illinois, and my father said that the taxes were too high. So we led it to Columbus, Ohio to get away from some taxes. So to the rest of my youth in Columbus, Ohio, and I'm currently living on a farm in Southern Ohio. Where in Southern Ohio? Frankfurt, which is near Chilacoffee. It's very small. So tell us a bit what prompted you to explore SM's sexuality. I saw this program on television when I was three years old, and it was Boys Town, and these guys were walking around in a duck waddle, and I said that's hot. That was really hot. And later on somebody got put in a cell, and I thought that was really cool. So I started doing, having a set of fantasies that sort of ruined that age, and I knew there was no role models for this. So I really didn't tell anyone. Tell us a little bit about those fantasy scenes that you had as a child. You know when I was little, I thought about stuff like machines. I didn't know anything about sex, but I did know a lot of my imagination about SM. So a lot of my fantasies at that time were machines doing things instead of people doing things. For example? You know, like, I get rule Goldberg's banking contractions. Interesting stuff like that, sort of like, you know, the mouse trap game, you know, with a ball move from ear to ear to ear to ear. And so machines were doing things rather than people, which shows you where a three-year-old is at, which was not... Well, I didn't know about role models. Did you know anybody else was like this except for me? So tell us a little bit about networking with others during your journey. How did that benefit you in your SM journey? When I was in eighth grade, I saw a magazine and the magazine was called I, and it sort of implied that there were dirty old men in Times Square that, you know, had... that there was SM in Times Square for dirty old men. So I thought, oh, well, maybe there's no whether women besides me like this, but there are dirty old men if I could ever get to Times Square. So at one point I got divorced and decided that, you know, I just fucking my husband up the ass with a dildo with a strap on was not really all there was at that time. And then I really ought to find a community out there. So that's when I decided that I was going to find a community. I went to the library. I got a book on SM by Weinberg and there was an essay in there by Clefia, now Patrick. And I wrote Patrick and I said, so there are women into this, yeah? And Patrick says, yeah, but, you know, you got to get either Boston or San Francisco to get to a support group. So that's what I did. I drove for a one-hour support group meeting, 17 hours from Columbus, Ohio to Boston to Euronia. And this woman was so neat to me and I came home and I decided I was going to start a group in Columbus, Ohio. And I told absolutely everyone I knew that I was SM and then I was starting this group. And people's draws dropped. And I got told that it would be better to have a book at the local feminist bookstore saying that Hitler was right. Then have Samua's book, you know, Coming to Power. And I kind of knew that I was fine because I'd been like this since three years old, so I had a fairly good self-concept. So I knew that there was nothing wrong with me, but that was daunting. And if I hadn't had that self-concept, I might have, like, scurried back in the closet. But instead, I decided before the students to recover our rose, and that was in 1984. And believe me, we did not know what we were doing. I've done solo for lots of years, so I had more experience than anybody else in the club. But, you know, this was the first time I'd ever tried it out on other people, which was what I really wanted to do. I did get women to fall for this. People started telling other people, there's this girl who's an SM and really I need her, you know. So we had a club called Briar Rose, and it was really great. I had this, oh, we would do things like I had this Victorian couch, and I had a woman back on her back, and I would sit on this Victorian couch, and we would do the old fisting. And you know why? It was because I was reading Larry Townsend. Yeah. You know, I was reading Larry Townsend's book. That's what there was out for me, and I thought, this is how they do SM. And I was like, I'm going to get all of it. And so it became very important to have those women to start making those contacts, and then we got this little letter in the mail. A little letter that said, there's going to be a march on Washington in 87. Would you like to come to the SM convention? And it was signed Barry Douglas. And they thought, who is this Barry Douglas? And why is he throwing this party for us? And so I thought, I'm going to call him up, and I'm going to say, yeah. And so where's the hotel? Where do we start partying? I didn't know the community wasn't quite there yet. But I called Barry Douglas, and the first, because I've been pretty good at getting phone numbers. And he says, how did you get my number? Well, of course, by the 93 march on Washington, I was working with Barry as the co-person doing logistics. And so we started in 88 to form a National Letter Association. So for those who aren't particularly familiar, tell us about the National Letter Organization. What was it in its original incarnation? Originally, it was meant to be an organization of organizations. So in other words, every single letter club in the entire United States wanted to be a member and set members. And when they went to Dallas to the blood bath that was Dallas, people came and you know, you eat over there. I know Jim Richards was there, he was just shaking his head. Tony Gauze was there shaking his head. Well, what went on in Dallas? A lot of the gay guys wanted to be an organization of organizations. A lot of the gay women were angry and upset because they were afraid that the men were going to go out of power and there were all these bad feelings floating around about, you know, men, women, East Coast, West Coast. Well, after the whole weekend was over, there were only a few unscathed people left to form this committee. You know, to run this, to start this organization. And, you know, I happen to be one of them. So at the time, it was going to be an organization of organizations. But for people who were in places where there were no organizations, we kind of thought, well, we also need to have individuals involved. And there were people who didn't want individuals involved, they wanted only organizations. And eventually, in a way, drove into being more of an individual organization with chapters, rather than being an organization of organizations. And there still isn't an organization of organizations. But to some extent, the internet has filled that contact void that was not, you know, that there was that void prior to the internet of how organizations got melded together to actually do anything. And at the time, we felt terribly pressured to coalesce into some kind of unified factor because we felt that we were politically at risk that people might actually, and people were actually getting arrested, Thunderhead and Boston, Spanner in England, that people were getting arrested. And we really felt like we needed to do something before that ended up becoming widespread and that we all ended up in jail. Well, you were the National Leather Association's first chairperson for domestic violence. Please tell us about that role. We had problems over the years with submissives wondering is what my top doing team really is. And, you know, sometimes if we had newbies that didn't know, you know, they got into trouble. And we personally got tired of driving into another city, extricating somebody and driving into another city and getting them set up. And we started thinking Pat Cliff here wrote an essay about ethics and what was going on with domestic violence in the Ascend community. And NLA said, we really have to be up front about this because of who we are. This is really important for our members. And just for the general public to understand who we are and who we are not. So we get together and I wrote a statement on domestic violence and the entire national group, which at that time was very large because a lot of organizations were still in it, hammered this thing out. Over hours and hours, we came up with a statement of domestic violence which has now been used in court proceedings. It's now been translated into many languages. It's been, you know, published in a book by Simon and Schuster. It got very wide coverage, to say the least. And I think that it's meant the difference to a lot of people and our club still has a very strong organization to try to get out the word about what the difference is between Ascend and domestic violence. In your opinion, what is the difference? Consent is a big thing. And we also believe that, you know, you're afraid on a Wednesday night and then later on Saturday when nothing violent is happening, you're asked to get consent. It still is not really consent on Saturday because of what happened on Wednesday. So consent is not just what happens that day but it's an overall relationship what's happened before. You can get consent if you're afraid. Not really. What positions have you held in the NLA? You've had several. I think all told except for about a six-month period I was on the board for probably 13, 14 years and then included being treasurer at a time when we had a treasurer abscond with $17,000. And this is something we do want other clubs to know this can happen to you. It happened to us. It's really shocking when it happens. So I was treasurer for about four years to solve that buckle and then I was on the board, just in general on the board. And then I was also a co-chair president. What do they call us, Mark? Head of Home Shows. Wisdom Keepers Co-Chairs. Chief Cooking Bottom Washer. Hi, Mucky Buck. Hi, Mucky Buck. Our original setup was we had a female co-chair and a male co-chair. But so many people transitioned because we had a gender there on our terms so we just had to not be able to do more. You got dug. I need a second after that one. When we spoke earlier, you mentioned that there was actually a time in your life when you were so busy with things going on that you didn't even have time to get laid. Tell us about that. I mean, if you're in one of these organizations and you're running all this stuff and you're going to all these meetings, you really, if you want to have sex, you've got to schedule it and that's between the co-chairs meeting and the, you know, the global chapter meeting. And your girlfriend is saying, okay, look, we can stop at this rest stop and we're going to the next place. No one matters if you do that. You know, the portable vibrate in the plug-in your car became very cool. Well, tell us a bit about the NLA's death pendant workshop. That was fascinating for me to hear. We have panel with, I don't know, I think it was on Tony DuBois and a guy that was an extroversal witness and I'm not going to name his name because I'm not sure if he wants to, he wants to know that he's on that panel but I can feel how the extroversal witnesses are those folks get told by their parents that, you know, they're going to dig a grave for you and you're going to be pushed in and no need to go to college. And so no wonder he sort of was on that panel and they started talking about edge play and in this edge play people were talking about doing scenes that could involve death and that they don't really take that risk and I think the NLA was always very open to still discussing and putting out in the open topics like breath play and self-hanging and auto-erotic play, excruciation play and I think we always felt that it was very important to talk about that because if you don't talk about it people who are doing it, believe me people who are doing it are going to go underground and then there are not going to be other people who can talk to them about fail safes and of course there are no fail safes but to be a little bit safer and I know that from the years after that workshop people called it the death panel but in truth when we're talking about something really important which is why are you playing and I'm going to turn for myself that a good scene was a scene that you could repeat and therefore kind of be there in order to repeat it but on the other hand I know that there are people who play on the edge and what we need to say and believe me I love people that I know that play on the edge I love them very much and we say look you have a kid you get term insurance or three times your salary don't you ever go do this it would be like yes get a second to be with you when you do it well that's heavy how did the NLA benefit to spanner kings in the united kingdom well in 1993 March on Washington Barry Douglas came over to me and he always wanted me to be over to you and says he needs to talk to you what it is and Barry came this is the man who believed that the N's justified the means as long as it was for other people's rights it was okay to do even if you maybe got trampled in the process like he can underneath it I only have to talk to you about something and I was somebody to introduce you to and I said okay and out came this man Kellen Farshay who had a magenta mohawk up to here more piercings than I had ever seen in my whole life all over his body and you know I looked at Kellen and I said let's go talk over here tell me what's up Kellen and he starts telling me about spanner where a private party was busted up both the bottoms and the tops were arrested by the police in England and there was nothing that even required medical attention and these guys were put in prison they got put in prison for being a even if they consented they were put in prison and this is what I'm really worried about that we were headed for another stone wall that I was going to have to stand at the barricades and throw rocks and I was willing to do that if one of my friends got put in prison I was willing to go bring the cake with the saw and I said Kellen what do you need? and he says we're going to take this to the European Court of Appeals to see if they can overthrow this I said how much money do you need? he says we need 140,000 and I said Kellen the United States we will try to get you half of that and the sky the scary man with all these piercings and this mohawk leans over and kisses me very lightly on the forehead and says thank you and I'm certainly everybody I knew everybody I made pamphlets I sent letters I called people up and clubs got very interested New York was very strong in their interest a lot of clubs a lot of money a lot of clubs did fundraisers and we did not raise half but we raised $55,000 from Michael Horowitz and in the middle of it we got the industry international involved I went to the industry and I said here's what the problem is he said yeah we had to explain breadcourt to the industry international I said yes they took us out on the board and they hammered you in and this was hard to do so we talked to the industry international and their British part of the industry international did talk to the government there and say we are watching you and what you do with this so for two or three years we went to the embassy we went to all the embassy meetings and we decided in Chicago at Living and Lother to march and pick at the British embassy and that's what we did Chuck Higgins we got pickets went out to the British embassy and they knew we were there we did eventually some of the guys got out and then more got out and finally all of them were out but it's a shame that any of them spent a day in prison I think all of that can happen again anyway what would be your ultimate SMC oh okay well I'm very Victorian but I do like sexual service and I get very hot playing with my partner I I really really enjoy I enjoy anything that gives a thud or a whack I it's got to make a lot of sound I don't know what's going to happen when I go deaf but I really like the sound involved and after I make a lot of noise with somebody I really like being in a sling and having somebody who knows how to use a strap on and I've got my sling range on the chain by you know tape colored tape as to how you hang it which links for which positions for which sex act for my pleasure organization that works what's been your greatest SMC failure I had a person actually faint on me fortunately she was kneeling so it wasn't too far to go down but you know I really understood that when people get sexually excited their temperature goes up and it's hot in the room already it's a bad combination and from then on I bought lots of panic stamps what does mentoring mean to you measuring means if you don't want to get burnt out you'd better find somebody to replace you and in every case what happens is you earn your leather so part of mentoring was you took something under your wing and you showed in the ropes and I always loved movies to the group because they didn't have any preconceived notions about what SM was supposed to be so then I could do whatever I wanted with them but mentoring meant you took somebody under your wing you brought them into the language as well as what the activity was they earned leather from you you kept them out of the clutches of bad girlfriends or bad friends or whatever and you saw them along with this process and it wasn't just that they had to be your lover because when I first came into the scene there were no women or straight organizations in my area so it was really important for me to be connected with gay men because they were there to support you when you had questions like what is the mind shaft in New York all about are there really big bathtubs lining the hallways so you think they're the ones telling you that's what the mind shaft is all about stories what advice do you have for community novices I think that the best thing to do if you're a novice is get in with a club and get in a group and NLA would be such a club but there are other clubs like that and if there's no club in your area NLA you can always help you start a club because when you're in a club and you're meeting other people then you're able to see whether or not that person has any friends and whether or not they have a sense of humor and when you can play in a group and you're not in a hotel and get left with nothing even your wallet gone club, very important I've heard that you have a collection of the leather equipment in museums with its history project please tell us a bit about that well I have so much stuff and every year boxes and boxes in the archives where I'm sure they're probably still sitting but when I get retired I intend on going leaving my brother's house in Chicago for some time and go through all this material but there are so many neat leather women of the past including Jan Lyon and Sasha Hyatt and people that I would really like us not to forget so you quoted Tony DeBlas when we spoke and he said something about leather community history what did he say to you? he said when we submit stuff to the archives put in the good, bad, and the ugly because that's how it happened and as you know there are seven sins of samasicism and one of them is dirty because and it's all there we didn't censor it so tell us a bit about your professional work I put books together that people still remember all day what's the worst thing you've ever read? the absolute worst thing that I ever read was a book that I did on a lady that channeled people from 250,000 years ago and it wasn't until the end of the book that I realized that she was talking to these ghosts and not a real person that you can explain that to the end of the book and I didn't think that was very clear so I said you've got to move that up to the process that these are ghosts not real people that you're talking to throughout the whole book you wrote a guide and you created this guide and it came just to SF people with businesses so tell us a bit about that I'm working on a guide that would be for anyone who wanted to patronize a business that wasn't particularly a leather business for instance I put together books and if you had a book together that you wanted to put together I could do that for you and you wouldn't have to worry about what the material was like because I understand how to edit it but I think it's very personal that are particularly in leather businesses they might be in real estate they might be in medicine and I would really like our business to stay within our community whenever possible and there wasn't really a guide out there Trevor Jacques has a good one Altered Sources for different kinds of leather businesses but I'm working on this one that's really not for leather businesses and your work as an AIDS activist when I first got into the gay community I wanted to find SM women and some of along the way I found gay men who treated me and my daughter like we were queens which we've never had that experience before I actually thought there was biologically something missing in men about empathy and I realized that gay men have what all men really have which is empathy but I didn't realize that that was possible and they said oh it's possible Jean it's just how you're socialized and we're socialized differently we know how to delve into our feelings well I got to be such good friends with them and I lost 75% of my friends during the 80s and I was really determined that I was going to get involved in fight so in the early 80s in about 84-85 I joined the Columbus States Task Force and did a lot of public speaking but especially got into women's issues we spoke to the suburban house at nice medical centers at the suburbs but we also did a Clean Your Works program where we based an entire AIDS awareness program off of a group in Tucson where we taught all the prostitutes of a particular area called Short North out of Columbus and there were at least 250 women working in this area if you can believe it it was a small area we based all our work with them off of a Tucson program where we gave them the education and the Johns knew that these were the women that were educated and so they started patronizing the women that we were educated this was really good we also did a Clean Your Works program Save Sex at the prison so I would go two floors underground and I had a partner working with me and we would teach the women mostly who were there because of prostitution and drug use it precipitously had clean needles but that was a little on the scary side but the women at the prison who took a stand there who were the special issues in the uniforms they were really hot so made it worth your while and leave this to you what do you feel is the biggest misconception about you? I don't know if people really say that I look like Cookie Andrews Hunt and Cookie if you'll see her she's on a hey any special about the hillside strangler up there because one of our NLA people got killed by the hillside strangler in Seattle she's on there arguing for better protection of sex workers but Cookie was this lady who kind of lay on the weeds and she was so normal looking they kind of you know older and kind of on the frumpy side and she would go to these Christian right like she was like one of them and do the spy work about what they were up to you know and then come back and say well they're planning a you know rally here really and I think that the people who know me I'm called Cookie and I lay on the weeds a little bit but a lot of other people don't know that they don't really know who I am um yeah but it's at some point when you can ask directly are you a sadomasochist I don't care who you're talking to you do say yes there we go Janet would like to thank you that concludes the formal portion of the interview today