 I'm going to start the chat with BJ a little differently than I do most of the other chats because of his significance to this situation. About two years ago, I was contacting everybody and their dog about trying to bring these chats to Australia and, you know, someone would say, we'll contact this person, that person, someone else. And it was mostly, well, gee, I don't know, and I don't know anything about that. Well, finally, I get through this whole loop of people and I come to BJ. And we got on, it was either FaceTime or Skype. He listens to what I had to say and then said, you know, I do know someone that might be worth meeting and he introduced me to Renee Lee. Here we are. So technically, I owe you a gigantic thank you. Oh, no, thank you for coming down. Enabling these chats to be happening here. I could probably say that this is as far south in the world as you will travel to do these types of interviews. Unless you, I don't know, is there anything going on in Antarctica? Big murders? I don't know. It's pretty lonely there, I think. Who knows? You know, there are people all over the world who knows what's there. So we're going to start again right at the beginning. Please tell us a little bit about your growing up, because you used a phrase I didn't know when you told me about that, and that was 10-pound poms. Would you explain that for the international audience, please? Okay, so, POM is a term that's used by a lot of Australians. It actually comes from pomegranate, well, some people say it comes from pomegranate, which is a term for British immigrants. And some say it's because Australians slang pomegranate immigrant. I don't know how that really works, but they say it's kind of a rhyming slang type of thing. And other people say it's because the British were so white when they came over here, they turned the colour of pomegranates, because of our son. And the 10-pound, that comes from, you know, basically how much it costs to come over here to immigrate to Australia, and in the 60s and 70s in particular. So, my mother and father basically paid a tenner, and my brothers and sisters, they came for free. It was a pretty good deal these days. A lot of people want to come to Australia to immigrate, and it's a lot harder than that, of course. And look, it was the best move that they ever made, and they feel the same. I think there was one point where they missed the old country, as they would say, and then they went back and they're like, oh, what did we do, you know? And it was very hard to come back again. But then, you know, they had my older brother and two older sisters. They were all from East London, which is around East Ham. And so, I think when they came to Australia, I thought, like, I guess that they were kind of almost what they were done having kids. But then they came to Australia, and they thought, these are good breeding grounds. Lots of sunshine and fresh water, I guess. And they had another, they popped out another three, and I was one of them. And I had another, yeah, it was another younger brother and an older brother as well. And yeah, so there were six of us. And back in those days, a lot of people who were immigrating to Australia, in particular. Melbourne, you kind of, a lot of British were moving to the Frankston North. And also, there's a lot of people moving to Perth as well. Like on the West in Australia, as well, there seemed to be a big immigration there. Yeah. Okay. Was that some sort of special program that Australia had to try to bring people here? I'm guessing, yeah, kind of, whether we actually saw a big influx of Greek immigrants and Italian immigrants during that period as well. Which is why you see so many, you know, there's a lot of people from Greek backgrounds in Melbourne. We've got a lot of Greek, a big Greek population here. Big Italian population as well. But yeah, it was, you know, I guess we were under, Australia was very underpopulated at that point. And it was all, you know, a lot of it was about building it up. And I look, I just think it was the best move that my parents ever made. Without a doubt, I feel privileged to be in Australia, to live in Australia. And we're very, very lucky here. And I personally believe bring more immigrants over. That's what I'd seriously believe. I look, I feel like a spoilt brat here sometimes. You know, we've got this great, beautiful country that's incredible. And I think we should work out ways to share it with other people who are not so fortunate as well. And yeah, and embrace them. Like, I guess people would embrace my family when they first came over as well. Fantastic. When we were preparing for this chat, you spoke at length about your father and his philosophies. What did he teach you? So one of the, first of all, he taught me how to love immensely. And my mother did that too. And I feel like he installed something into me that has carried on to this day into, you know, into my spirit. My, I've got the most extraordinary parents and most unique parents that you'll ever come across. So my father was a stand-up comedian and my mother was a clairvoyant. Oh my God. So you had a pretty unique combination there. And my father, he in particular, and my mother as well, they would make a joke out of everything pretty much during our childhood. And if times were tough, and you know, we weren't very well off financially, but they would make, you know, everything would turn to a joke. You know, sometimes it would be dark humor as well. But every, like, you know, everything would be about humor and making sure that we had a good time. And you could never be really sad in that house. And like, I had the father and the mother that was off, I guess, of fairy tales really. A lot of children would come and come over to my house and they'd say, I want your dad to be my dad, you know. Because he was just like, you know, he was just incredible. Like, and he still is to this day, incredibly supportive. And one of the philosophies that he really installed into me was that to find something that you enjoy doing and try and make a living out of it, you know. And that happened to be sex, but I don't think that was intended. But it just so happens to be that. And he sees how my life has turned out. And for him, it's like, it didn't matter what I was doing as long as I was happy. And for all of his children, it was all about them being happy first and foremost. There was never any pressure on us to do anything that he wanted. I feel like if you try and have children to emulate yourself or to progress yourself by emulating yourself, maybe that's part of a human trait that we try and do as humans to try and evolve the species, but it's brutal. You know, we can't do that to our children. That's just maybe that is natural or something that we do, but it's not fair. We should be focusing on making sure that our children are happy and whatever they do makes them happy. I am so lucky that he's both my mother and my father have blessed me with a happy spirit and they've blessed me with, I guess, their blessing of working in the adult industry from a pretty early age as well. They never tried to view me from it, not once. You married very young. Why did you do that? Yeah, so I fell in love madly. I was madly in love. Like I met my wife at the time when I was about 16. OK. So just around about the high school age, I always wanted like a girlfriend. I can remember being a child and riding around on my bike by myself. And pretending that I had a girl that I was thinking on my bike. Dinking means, how would you say it? Sitting on the handle, but that sounds worse, doesn't it? Sitting on the handle. OK, I don't know how to explain this one. Sitting on the city, riding like basically, I don't know. Let's just say dinking. And I was I always wanted to share experiences with somebody and go through life. Even though I had a very close relationship with my brothers, like we all shared a bedroom. And I've always lived in houses full of people as well. So I've always, yeah. And we moved out together pretty young. I think I was about 17 when I moved out. Wow. Yeah, we were like pretty much wanting to get married after about eight weeks. And yeah, as soon as we met like it was we just couldn't get out of the bedroom. We really were always in the bedroom. And I think my parents got a little bit upset because I was always in there. I think it was like in the phone would ring or something and they'd be knocking. And yeah, but, you know, when we started with all that time, you know, I guess I'll go back a little bit. I had an obsession with with with like really high impact sports from an early age. Like I was I was doing freestyle wrestling. I was doing boxing training. I was playing rugby league all at once. You know, and I had this enthusiasm. I had like this like this massive energy all the time that I could never unleash. And I loved things to do of adrenaline. Like I even horror movies, you know, and everything. And then when I guess when when I met my first love and we had this connection, then I discovered that sex was like some type of fulfilment. It was like the next level. And I gave a pretty much gave up on sport after that. That was my new sport. And and we tried to experiment with so many different scenarios. And we started, you know, I guess a few years later, we, like in, you know, our teens, while we're still in our teens and about 18, we started talking about having group sex. And then we can remember the first time we we we made an attempt to hook up with other couples, we put a ad up in a local adult shop. And it was back then it was kind of, I guess it was pre-internet. So you'd get a piece of paper and cut it out and write your message on there. And I think that most people probably didn't believe it back then, because, you know, it was two 18 year olds looking for this. But how did you at that age, that's a very young age, to be exploring that kind of thing? What brought you to that? I so I did have a little bit of a fascination with sex, I guess. From, yeah, from I was exposed to, you know, not by my own choice. I was exposed to pornography at a pretty young age. I guess there is that. You know, so the first time I watched pornography, it was at my friend's house and his dad was it was a truck driver. So he'd go away for times at a time and would raid his bin, which was under his clothing. He did a terrible job of hiding his porn like it was awful. And so we would get all types of porn out of there. And he had a lot of bisexual porn as well, which was quite interesting. So it was the first time I actually saw, you know, two guys having sex as well. A lot of it was gold and chow porn. And so it was actually the very first porn I ever watched was actually gold and chow porn. And so I was fascinated by that. I was absolutely fascinated. I was watching people drinking, you know, each other's urine. And I thought, why are they doing that? You know, and that kind of sparked some curiosity. Then it progressed to, you know, once once I didn't really see that friend so much anymore, but this sounds really tragic, but you'll have to forgive me. I was young and I would go through big, big recycle bins and I would actually jump in and go for looking for porn. Because I was so fascinated. I wanted to see more. I just wanted to see more. I was like thinking, why are these people doing it? Doing these things to each other? And I actually remember, I went to a went to a primary school called Frankston Primary and across directly across the road from this primary school, there was an adult shop. And this adult shop used to have these kind of almost like Western saloon doors on it that swing open and swing close. And I would go, I'd be babysit sat by my by my sister after school quite often. And sometimes when I was walking there, I'd try and peek under and in my immature mind, I thought that there was women stripping in there. And I thought it was people having sex, you know. So that's how you discovered the King community. I guess that's what I thought the King community would have been. But yeah. But so sorry for going back a little bit further there. Let's fast forward again. So around about 18, I really knew that sex was was was seriously for me and I wanted to be around it a lot. And I wanted to explore it more. And that fascination was like insane, you know. And now I was actually have, you know, I was actually having sex on a regular basis and where does this go? Why do our brains do these things? And so I started working in an adult shop. Like there was actually an adult shop that was there was a job advertised. Yeah. That was. And I basically went into the interview. And I pretty much begged to work there. I think. But and I didn't really have much work experience in anything else other than going to working in trade jobs where I just felt like I didn't fit in. You know, my father was a comedian. My mother, as I was saying, was it was a clairvoyant. I wasn't really broader and they were both from East London, where they got the they got, you know, the tube or the buses. I didn't know much about cars, so I couldn't become a mechanic. Had no carpentry skills whatsoever. I didn't have much of an interest in trades at all, like a lot of the times. And I didn't really fit in into that mold. Like, you know, I went I went and worked at places like that. I'd last about a week and I didn't feel comfortable with the other men there. They just. They just didn't seem like real, you know, there seems to be this much of mentality where it's that that's what I felt a lot. And I never felt connected to a lot of people. I had trouble getting a like a, you know, retail jobs in general. I guess it was, you know, a bit different if you were kind of a guy. I mean, it's completely different now. But back then, like, I think that someone made a joke that with the area where I grew up, if you want to go in camouflage, you go in high views, you know, it was very much a trade area, you know, for full of tradesmen. But you said at this at this porn shop that you learned very solid core values. Tell us about that. It was life changing. I don't I'm not even sure if I would actually be doing what I'm doing today if I hadn't had worked at that particular adult shop. This adult shop, it was in it was in Mornington off the main street. It was run by the most incredibly amazing woman. Her name is Andrea. I've tried to find her for so many years and I just can't find her because I want to thank her really, really bad. So she was the most beautiful and incredible person. She would actually take care of injured wildlife as well as running this adult shop. Oh, well, so we would actually have baby kangaroos at the back of this adult shop. This probably sounds like, yeah, well, it's Australia because you're from America, but that's pretty rare, you know. So you'd have possums and baby kangaroos if you've ever seen a baby kangaroo wrapped up in like a baby's rug in like a baby rug or a blanket with its big feet poking out. It's the most adorable thing. And I kind of saw myself as one of her injured wildlife a little bit, I guess, you know. That's a strong sting, man. Yeah, at that stage because I didn't have a place. I didn't feel like I had a place, really, because I didn't feel like I fitted into that area where I was growing up. And so her core values was basically a professional environment and all about being proud to be an adult industry worker. And that's something to this day that I try and carry on. And I thought to myself, you know what, I don't care what I get paid at this job. You know, I'm going to do the absolute best I can possibly do. Well, tell us a little more about the shop and some of the things you learned there. So one of the things that, in particular, that Andrea would make sure, we were selling with the pornography we're selling, she would make sure that every single porn cassette that we sold had the ACT classification code on them. So she'd make sure that none of them were pirated. Oh. And that was really important mainly because she believed that every porn that was sold, every cassette that was sold, or watch something should be going to the producers, something should be going to the directors. And the only, and of course the actors, and the only way to have a healthy industry was to actually do the right thing. Whereas pretty much all the other adult shops were just pirating cassettes, like it was unheard of to actually, and like our videos were a lot more expensive, people would complain, but she was all about industry. And she really focused in on that. I'd write a lot of porn reviews. She just let me actually watch porn on shift and then I'd write reviews about them to be able to share with the other staff. I watched a lot of porn. I watched so much porn. And that's actually where I think some of it started. I ended up going, I guess for a point where, like if I had sex, the person would have to have clothes. And that's where, because I kind of got, I'm getting bored of nudity now. And I kind of developed fetishes for rubber and different outfits, anything with color and dressing up and things like that. That was important. Tell us about some of the people you must have met in this situation. That had to be really amazing. So with working in a country kind of adult shop, and it was back then, Morning Gym was like the country, that is an eye opener. You know, that's where I learned that so many people, like you see one side of people on the outside walking around and that everyone is so unique in their sexuality and we're really complicated. Like humans are very, very complicated beings, like we're extremely complex. And so can our sex be. And so can our sexualities. Like it's incredible. Such as? Just like football players, that you see them on the weekends playing footy with their mates. And, you know, but they're cross-dresses, you know? Or they'll share some of their fantasies with you. That was a bit of a, that was an eye opener, especially people that were in their 80s or 90s that go to their local RSL wearing their RSL pins, which is like a kind of a veteran's. Oh, okay. Yeah, it's like a veteran pin. And, you know, what they'd be interested in, you know, pornography too, they had sexual needs as well, you know? And as a teenager, realizing that everybody had sexual needs, that all of us are driven. And, but most of all, the world is not what it seems. It really isn't. And I guess that's, you know, what's got me, you know, experimenting more as well. And I guess with that, that's when I started experimenting with both men and women as well. Group sex situations. I wanted to try as much as I could. I was like a kid in a candy shop in my early 20s, really. But if the world is not what it seems, then what is it? Oh, that's a good question. What is it? Yeah. I think it's, I think there's, to be honest, and I don't want to sound cynical, there's a whole lot of fakery going on, you know? There's a whole lot of barriers going on. There's a whole lot of need to protect people's, you know, personal lives, just as massive facade. Like there really is, you know, it's been over 20 years of the adult industry now. And it's been the most eye-opening experience that I've, I've changed with that. What's been the most eye-opening? The experiences that I've had and the people that I've had to deal with, in such a positive way as well, you know, how the way people can express themselves. And how much we've pined down and we've, you know, we've, people, you know, pined up, they really hide so much of their sexualities and don't, and it's sad because like life is so short and I personally believe you've got one of them, you know? And I know for myself and what made me get out there and experiment a lot more is I don't want to go to the grave thinking, what if, you know, what if I would have tried this? What if I would have done that, you know? And I definitely don't want to go through life wrapped in cotton wool either. So I've, you know, I've tried to experiment with as much as I possibly can. I've had lovely relationships and, you know, in some intense relationships, but they're all great. They're all human experiences. It's all part of life and I've got no regrets, really. You said you're not conditioned by life's conventions. So tell us about that. What do you mean? Oh, probably I should have rephrased that a bit better. I try and not be conditioned. So basically my philosophy pretty early on was I'm trying to live my life without being conditioned by things like, I guess, religion, what the status quo is with a lot of other, you know, with what we've been taught from a young age from the outside. Have I been impression by TV, media? What if we didn't have these conditions? So I try and live a life that's, I question everything. You know, I question all of my beliefs. I think one of the most common questions that we should ask in a lot of situations, especially when it comes to having, you know, sexual relationships with other people and some decision making is like, am I acting this way out of jealousy or is there any, what kind of emotion is dictating my response? How can I look at this from a different angle? And one thing that I've tried to do, and this is my ultimate goal, is actually be somebody that first and foremost that I respect myself rather than trying to, I guess, get the respect of others. So in a lot of situations I would go, okay, this is how I feel on this knee-jerk reaction right now, but if I could step out of sight of myself, then what would I respect in a human if I was looking at myself? And then I try and take away things like, try to take away things like ego and greed and things and try my best to think with logic and be somebody that I would actually personally respect. And, you know, it's not always easy. But that's my goal, rather than looking at what everybody else, like what everybody else would respect. And then that's what I think a lot of people go through life going. I just want to be respected by everybody else. And, but I think it's important to actually, you know, like really be somebody that you believe in and you can be proud of. You mentioned the Kinsey scale. How does that apply to BDSM? Well, I love the Kinsey scale, especially for when it comes to, you know, talking about our sexuality, where, you know, one side is complete, you know, I guess is being completely homosexual. The other side is completely heterosexual. And, you know, I felt like I'm always all around that kind of place my whole life. And especially in my early teens, I thought that I was, you know, I kind of, there's a period there where I thought I was more gay than I was heterosexual. And then it sways from this side, this side, this side, and it's been like that my whole life. But I feel like that Kinsey scale, if I, if you look at it the same with BDSM, you've got one side which is non-sexual, you've got one side which is sexual, you know, and I feel like there's more, there's like so much of our body that can be stimulated from BDSM, rather than just our sexual organs, you know, our minds can be stimulated. Yeah. And like, I've been in situations in particular with flogging, like I love flogging. And I can be flogging a man over his back and just really drifting off into that. And especially when the breathing starts slowing and you can see their chest is, you know, slowly rising and closing again. And you tune in to them and you go on a journey together. And I'm not getting a heart on, you know, there's nothing going on there. And I'm just going off into a complete journey with them. And this is the thing, like so many men that even if they were really far on that Kinsey scale over to heterosexual, if there weren't so many barriers, I feel like they should be able to be comfortable to have those experiences with other men. And we've been conditioned that we can't share intimate bonding experiences with other men that don't always have to be completely outright sexual or end in sex. And I believe that there should be, you know, a world, ideally there would be greater than the other world where men were more comfortable with other men, but we have to go all the time, you know, and that's again where I'm talking about the conditioning as well, where I try and not let the rest of the world condition me. And I started, you know, so I buy with that philosophy and I've had many incredible experiences with men. And, you know, I feel like there's so many other things that I can delve into sometime in the future as well. But yeah, do you understand what I'm referring to? I do, yes, I feel the same. Yeah, yeah. What are your thoughts on monogamy? So I've been monogamous. I've been in open relationships. I've been polyamorous. So I don't think it's completely natural personally. I'm not a scientist, so I can't tell you specifically. There's a lot of debate over that. I think sometimes it can be fun. Monogamy can be fun. I think that open relationships can be fun and polyamory. I think it depends on the individuals and of course the relationship. I think there's unhealthy monogamy where there's like a lot of jealousy involved and there's a lot of control involved and I think that's when it can go a little bit too far. I also think that we would be less monogamous if we weren't so complicated as humans. We didn't create the five-day work week. You know, we're at work all of the time. We don't get to spend a lot of time with our partners and I think if we could actually live in a world where we didn't work so much and we could spend a lot of time building relationships, I don't think we would see as much monogamy. I actually personally, I think monogamy is also partly created because of the situation they've been thrust upon and probably religion as well and men trying to control women. Does it agree? Take us to Eagle Leathers, which from where we are here in Melbourne is not more than a five-minute walk away, really. Tell us about the shop. How did it evolve? It's coming up on an anniversary, isn't it? 25 years. Yes, yes, yes. So I started at Eagle Leatheroo 15 years ago and that was so part of my interest in going there was I used to get the level, like a newsletter called the Level Link and one of the great things about that was I saw that they were doing classes so they had a whole educational program and I used to get this sent to the adult shop that I was working at and it was a black and white printed newsletter and I used to see photos of men dressed in leather and they were running classes on fisting and talking about kind of like spiritual experiences with fisting as well, men doing classes on rope and cock pumping and I used to look at these photos of men all dressed in leather and I could see that you'd sense this brotherhood and it was so fascinating because then I wanted to meet these men and I wanted to be around these men in particular and I also wanted to work for a business, like I knew at that stage I wanted to work in adult retail for the rest of my life and seeing that they had an educational program where I could actually learn on top of that and just keep advancing and we were working in a regular adult shop, you're kind of limited to where you can go. I can remember I worked at an adult shop and we were selling a pump called the Handsome Up which was like a very basic kind of pump and it was just always flying out the door and I went to England for a bit and moved over there and then came back to Australia, worked at the same adult shop, still a top seller whereas Eagle Levera in a fetish store, you have something that's very popular and people gobble it up onto the next thing. So it's always changing, always evolving much like my sexuality was and my interest was always evolving and it just seemed like an unlimited opportunity to explore going to Eagle Levera. So I went for an interview with Brian Mia who is the founder of Eagle Levera, he founded Eagle Levera in about 1994 and he'd been running classes since about then as well, went to very early days and he could see my enthusiasm straight away during the interview and at that time I was also doing, I did a few party plans as well and I'd also done a talk for a group called Peninsula Guys on the Peninsula which was a gay group for men living on the peninsula and he could see that enthusiasm and he straight away wanted to put me on as a staff member and could see potential of me to become a presenter as well and eventually and he can remember like after the first week he gave me like $1,500 worth of electric sex equipment and said, go home and experiment. And I thought not many workplaces you'd go to and they'd say, here, here's some sex toys, go home and experiment, but he did. Yeah, I definitely gave my electric sex equipment a good working out that weekend. But you have an interesting philosophy about the responsibility of Eagle Leathers to the overall community and I'm gonna throw in here that numerous people tell me of the benevolence of you and of Eagle Leathers. Talk with us a bit about that. So, we're a business that is doing reasonably well because we have a great support, we have a great community and I believe that when you're, I've been blessed that this community has actually given me a living. This community has made my dream to come true. They really have. I don't know what I'd be doing without them and I've made a pact that I will never forget them and we're a financial business with this money we need to put back into the community. Like I believe that if anybody in the world should be supporting community, it should actually be fetish stores because we're making money, the community comes in, they buy their products, we need to put in and especially for people like particular ambassadors. What they're doing is they're preaching the good word of exploration and hedonism. That's really, really important and I also want to be a part of the evolution of this community and I just wanna say this as well. I feel honored that Man House is actually got me here today. They're like I'm actually presenting in a competitor's store. Not many places in the world would actually, that would normally happen so much but they've, in the spirit of community, they've let me come on board. That's wonderful. And you know, Lucretian decide where Co-Platinum sponsors for other events as well. Like you know, but I want to see this city and this country on the map and it's part of the reason why I was so eager for you to also come here as well and for us to share our stories and to put you in touch with Renee because she's also trying, she's on the same page. She's documenting the history here and I'm hoping that one day we can look back at this and 2030 this city and this country will truly be on the map. And I'm hoping that Eagle ever can be a part of that and help with that but it's also a major, major, major, major mission for our community to actually embrace that and move forward. The only way this country in my opinion is ever gonna be on the fetish map is if we can do things that most other countries and communities can't do and that's work together. We see politics so often we see community fighting within the community all the time and we should be fighting for our community rather than inside of our community. And humans are complicated again. We know that and we're always gonna have differences but we try, we try and be impartial and try to have a diplomatic approach to a lot of things and hopefully we can see Melbourne and other cities as well. There's Jerry and Skye in Adelaide that are putting on events like Geared which Adelaide, I didn't really hear of them for all these years. You didn't really see of much what was going on there and those guys are punching above their weight. They're in a city called the city of churches with a small population and people are traveling from Melbourne and Sydney in Queensland to go there. We've also got Scout here tonight from, you know, Bukko and Kupa. He's relentless in doing good things for the community. Like he just doesn't seem to stop. So we have these really, really great ambassadors and people doing good things and we need to bring it all together. We need to be where I'm hoping we will be. We need more of that. We need businesses to work together too. You took me on a very wonderful tour of Eagle Leather just a couple of days ago when I arrived here. What has all of that work taught you about the Leather Kink tribe? That, you know, if you show support, they will support you back. There was an experience that we had in 2017 where I nearly lost the business or we nearly lost the business. Oh, wow. And it was due to it, you know, there was a proposal to make out the front of our shop at 24-7 Clearway because, and it was also announced by our state politician. It was a state premier, Daniel Andrews. And, you know, it was almost like everyone was saying, look, it's almost a done thing. You know, my family said, we will do everything we can, but you've got to understand that they're going to make this a clear way at the front of your store. I wouldn't have been out, they were proposing this, you know, basically to do this in a couple of months. So if you're in a commercial lease, you can't move in that time, you know, and you can't, and we wouldn't have been to find a place in enough time. It would have really devastated our business. It could have even potentially put us out of business with what they were proposing. They basically wanted to put a big red line down Hodel Street. So I, the biggest thing was that I won't go deep into it, but the hardest thing is that in Melbourne, everybody knows Hodel Street as one of the worst roads you could possibly travel down, like it's bumper to bumper, you know, in people's minds all the time. And, but we were kind of debating that, you know, at one side of the road in the morning, it's bumper to bumper on the other side. And in the later afternoon, it's bumper to bumper and so forth. But during the afternoon, it's completely free running traffic. But trying to convince everybody that this wasn't a problem because they'd all had bad experiences. And everybody thought it was almost a joke. If you're outside of the community thought it was a joke that, you know, the idea that we would win. But this community signs like a petition that had our council absolutely gobsmacked. I had politicians calling me and saying, you know, basically saying, can you please tell this customer to get off our back? What were they saying to them? What was going on there? Don't take Eagle Lever away, you know? Don't destroy the character of our neighborhood because we had the lead behind us as well. We had piercing HQ, which, you know, is a lever-friendly piercing studio. We've got this whole area that, you know, taking away all of this parking out the front meant that there was no other parking anywhere to go. Everyone would have to move. And everyone banded together and even the other businesses around our area who were all going to lose their businesses. Some of them were, you know, they were having nightmares about this. Our community saved those businesses. You know, even these vanilla businesses. Our community, if it wasn't for this community, there'd be a 24-7 clear way there and there'd be a lot of bankrupt people. And they kind of changed the landscape of Melbourne, I guess. And they helped me and I will never forget that. Like, I will, yeah, forever. When we just, when they announced it, they were going to back down on the decision. I cried. And when, you know, more calls came in from politicians trying to tell me that, please, please, no, you know, I'm on your side. They weren't on my side originally. It's just that they got bombarded so much. What is the best selling things that you have in the shop? Crisco. Yeah. So if you need to do any baking, you know where to get it. I should have known. But it's actually quite incredible because we have a lot of people who come from the States and they can't get Crisco anywhere. So they actually do come in to buy it for baking. One of the only places you can get it in around the city. Are you saying it's not available in Australia? You can't get it in a Woolworths or a Safeways here. No, you don't have it in Superman. You don't have it in supermarkets. There's nothing comparable or? I don't know. Not really, no. Wild. Nothing comparable to putting a hand up somebody. Where would you like to see Eagle Leathers in about, let's say, five to 10 years? Eagle Leather, like I'd like to see us as, you know, still doing what we're doing but on a bigger scale, helping more community events. So we run an event called Fantastic which is held at Calvary which is traditionally a sex on site premises. And it's normally male only but once or twice a year they opened it up for all genders and sexualities. And we originally had it just once a year and we had got such good support from it and we ended up, you know, started growing. Then we started, you know, customers started supporting us more and more because we're putting this event on. So we're like, okay, let's get them international DJs, you know, and let's get our community international performers and DJs. So it grew and we, so we started growing Fantastic to the point where, you know, you have two international DJs and performers because we wanted to make the community to feel that they were actually part of the building of this, you know, and to know that Eagle Leather can be almost interactive for the community. And so we started putting on Fantastic as well twice a year and I would like, I'd like for customers to, you know, I would like for customers to feel like they're part of our family. You know, I want to be more than a business. That's basically what it is. And I want to have memories. Like, I feel like when you get to the end and when you're, you know, hopefully I won't be in a home one day but like, but I think all you've got is your memories and I want them to be really fond memories. I want to be able to look back and feel like we did something. Hey, is there anything as manager that you won't permit the shop to do for someone? Won't permit the shop to do something. For example, if someone came in with some kind of very extreme requests or something, are there limitations to what you will or won't do? Of course. If I feel like it's going to be dangerous to them, you know, I would try to guide them in the right direction and let them know that there's a lot of complications and hazards for what they're doing and I would definitely try to guide them. And we don't run as many classes as we used to, but a big part of that was we would guide them towards a class so they could learn more and how to do things safely. You know, we've had people using knitting needles for sounds and things like that. We've had people who have been, you know, putting electro-play toys above the waist onto their nipples with devices that aren't safe through above the waist. We've had people doing some pretty dangerous stuff and we've just had to actually say, you know, this is dangerous what you're doing. Not only for their own well-being, but for the community's well-being because we don't need any bad stories for our community and it doesn't shine a good light. People have passed away, you know, from doing stupid stuff all around the world, you know, and we want to prevent that and we want to educate. That's a big part of our philosophy is education and we really are a store for the converted. If you just are interested in starting out and you want a glittery dildo, we're not your store for that. We're not a store for Hens parties or Bucks parties. You know, we have some people wanting novelty things and we're not that kind of store, you know. What's the kinkiest request you've accommodated? That's a good one. I'm just not looking around the room. No. I probably wouldn't say. Come on. You've got an audience, you've got cameras. Tell us, tell us. I just don't want to... You don't have to identify anyone. We've done things where we've added into role-play and things like that, you know. But yeah, we've kind of stopped that because then it becomes expected a little bit too much, you know. Yeah, we've helped with an area once. Upon a time as well and things. Is there anything you wish you could redo in your kink journey? Anything you would rather do differently? If you could do it again? That's a really good question. I... Not really. Not really. To be honest, like I've... There's some things, I guess one of the things that I've been prone to which has sometimes been great and sometimes also been a bit negative. Sometimes I've overdone things too much. Such as? Like, you know, I probably overexposed myself at times to things, you know. And I wouldn't say it's something I regret because you've got no choice. So the very first time I bought a flogger, I got it home and I laid it on my bed and I couldn't stop looking at it. Like it was like this really, really mystical kind of object. And the BDS in community to me was like this, like it seemed like such another world and so fascinating and it still is so incredibly fascinating but sometimes one of the downfalls of doing I guess what I do is that for 15 years I love floggers and now sometimes I look at them, sometimes as a product and that's there and you kind of lose that impact. So what I sometimes do is I try and go back in my head and appreciate it a little bit more and that's kind of more of a challenge is to actually bring it back because I love taboo. I love things that make you feel like it's taboo anyway and the first time I received the whip it felt taboo and felt naughty and the first time I did it and a lot of these things like you know when you had that feeling the butterflies in your stomach when you're doing something that feels taboo like I've probably overexposed sometimes to some things however I've got no regrets. Like I really don't you know and I just think sometimes you've just got to go on to the next thing and it's just a challenge to go on to try to find something new and find something you're always moving on I guess. What's the biggest misconception about you? Well the probably the biggest misconception is that people presume that straight away first of all they presume that I'm straight out gay male and then if when they realise that I'm not they normally go oh you're straight and for some reason when people say oh you're straight it makes me feel very uncomfortable just because like that's definitely I don't want to be ever perceived to be that way it's probably the way that a lot of people want me to straight out identify and it's almost like announce yourself pick a side but the thing is unfortunately we live in a world where people have had to say we're gay and people have had to say I am this sexuality this is who I am because we've had fascism we've had there's been so many challenges with people who are of different orientations so we've had to say those things but wouldn't it be great if we lived in a world where we could just say that we're sexual beings you know I'm not gay I'm not heterosexual I'm a sexual being and maybe the year 2050 who knows but that would be great so I guess that could be one of the misconceptions BJ of Eagle Leathers in Melbourne Australia thank you for being part of Inside Leather History at Fireside Jats Thank you