 I'm Doug O'Keefe, the host and the producer of the chats, which are a program of the Leather Archives and Museum. Today is May 23, 2022, and I'm having an interview with Cleo Dubois. Cleo is the widow of Fakir Moussafar. She is an educator and a member of the Society of Janus. How are you, Cleo? I am doing just great. You know, one from one day in Dalton, California. That's what I do. I'm great. Thank you. Let's start right at the very beginning. Please tell me a little bit about where you're from, a little bit about your background. I was born and raised in the suburb of Paris, France. Of a family where there was a lot of drama, a lot of abuse, psychological abuse, a little bit physical, not sexual abuse there, and my family was very extremely right-wing. The kind of right-wing that we see raising here right now. So I went to Catholic school, girls only. They were also very racist, as well as anti-gay. So I would say my life turned around completely the opposite of what they wanted me to be. At the time I was 16, I decided to leave home and stop going to school, even though I would have loved to become a philosophy teacher. That was my dream. But I couldn't take living there anymore and at 16, it's allowed in France to leave your family. And I took typing and I started taking, you know, providing for myself. Before I was 21, I moved to the state. Basically, I was attracted to the idea of sexual freedom, of happiness, of free love. I think that one song, if you go to San Francisco, make sure to wear some flower in your hair. Actually, I wore a flower dress from India when I bought the flight that brought me to the state. I had a lot of dreams. I was very adventurous, I was a little crazy because I really didn't know what to expect. I didn't speak English. I knew your basic go to the blackboard, my teller is rich, my teller is not rich. Okay, I knew maybe, you know, where is that, how much it cost, what time is it, but that was about it. And I had a friend who lived in Santa Barbara and at the time he had to get a visa to visit the state and I asked him to invite me. So I had somebody to actually meet and I met him in Santa Barbara. And that was in 1969, I had to say, oops, I aged to everybody, oh well, so I did. Why San Francisco, why not another city? Because that song, I'm serious about the song, I wasn't kidding you, that song was like, you know, that's where I want to be, that's where freedom is, that's where love is, you know, like that. And some bad thing that happened to me in France, I suffered sexual violation in a very difficult fashion, which I did a lot of therapy so there's no need to discuss on that. And I wanted out, I wanted to escape, you know, I came from abuse and then I was abused and then I said, okay, I'm going to escape this. And then I became a seeker, seeking for what I really wanted and that was the first thing I wanted. I was also, you know, interested in theater and the person that I knew in Santa Barbara was, you know, a teacher, I knew about theater and things like this, so I had a place to land for a little while and that's what happened in 1969. Well, that was a very tumultuous time to arrive in San Francisco. Tell us a little bit. It was a great time, that's what I was concerned, it was a great time, it was love, sex and rock and roll, I mean, what else could you have at that time, you know? So I moved around, I met different people, you know, one time my bedroom was a janitor closet in a little hotel in Norse Beach, I followed somebody to a commune in Oregon with there was no electricity, completely living, you know, naturally, I mean, I did all kind of things. And then eventually I ended back again in San Francisco, I've gone through a couple of different lovers, I had done a lot of sexual experimentation in terms of free love. One man I was in San Francisco and I had a lover named Bob Starfire who passed away to heart issues and he was a Nazi, he was very supportive, very, I would say he was submissive but I did not know that. He was actually more into service than being submissive. And one day he said to me, look, there is a program I think you'd love, the Gorilla Grotto and I said the Gorilla Grotto, he said, yeah, yeah, it's that place near the hate that is a play environment, you know, intellectual and books and theater and all that and there is a program I think you'd love. And I said, okay, don't tell me, I won't surprise and I'll go with you. So I went with him and that program was the first open talk by a SM woman named Katzon Love, who is still in love, it was still alive, was a journalist for the Berkeley Bar and the Spectator magazine today I think and a wonderful young blonde, very well spoken and she was talking about erotic dominance for women running the show in the bedroom and our, our with consent, we could do all kind of things and negotiation and it was just like the light went boom in my head and she emphasizes that because this was really the date on that which had written some praise but I cannot remember exactly, I think 81, oh 1981, that there was a society, it was a society of genres and that that was started by a woman since just later and if anybody in a audience right there was interested in exploring this erotic venue of power of exchange that it would be the right thing to do would be to join genres because we, I would need, we would need to learn a lot of things so that everything was consensual, negotiated, people would not get hurt, safety and I just went wow, I'm in, I think I joined, there was an orientation and I joined genres pretty much the week after and that's how it started. Take a moment to explain to the audience what the society of Janus is. The society of Janus is still happening even though I've not been to any of that event in a long time. Most Fakir and I and many of our friends are all in their horror fame. It's a second American association for about BDSM, about what was then called SM, about education and the first one was Thess, so we're going to speak of society in Janus in New York and then the society of Janus in San Francisco. It was started by Cynthia Slater and a partner of ours who I didn't meet and I actually do not recall his name at the moment but she was the one who was mainly active. At the beginning it was very much a gay group. People like Guy Baldwin were involved in it and his banner or, you know, it was the beginning of it. She, she was bisexual and she invited a gay man that she was close to a world of France and one of her, one of them actually was a lover and that was the owner of the catacomb. She invited them to give program. So by first sharing, sharing about the lifestyle, what worked for them, it was not classes. They were not really classes. They were more sharing time. And so I went to a lot of these things and that's, and the society still exists. It's called society of Janus. They still have orientation and of course you know with COVID the last thing went online but she, it's, it's, I learned a lot from attending meeting, watching demonstrations. In fact that's even where I met Fakir. So one thing to understand is we're talking about the early 80s to mid 80s and during that time here in San Francisco everybody knew everybody. Everybody was into SM because it was not called BDSM and actually there were these discussions about DL. Should it be more DL? Should I have the whole collection of all the news that are right there in my office? Every single one. And we all knew each other and a lot of these people were gay men. Why, um, fetishize was really our love, getting to know, crowded ways, enjoyed, respected. So that's really how, how my leather life started. And the reason why, the real reason, why is the light went up in my head was really not that I thought I was dominant, which in fact I've switched like a lot of people. I'm way more picky about who I bottomed to, that who I would top, but I'm a different choice and value that, that, that those, the reality very much and I've learned a lot from them. But it's a reason why the light went up in my head is because the whole thing was about consent and negotiation. I went, oh my God, I have been going to all these sex parties that were called orgies at the time. And the people are very nice and nobody was doing this, wrong or bad, but there was no knowing the person. There was no discussion. They were just like, oh, you look, you look, you look hard. Can I, can I get close to you? And then can I fuck you? And that was it. And for me, there was something missing. And when I discovered that there was a place where people would negotiate, talk with each other, try things. There was, I was like a kid in the candy store. I wanted to try everything. And then of course, with Janus, this young man named Mark Joplin, who left us during AIDS, was a friend of Fakir, but Mark approached me and he said, I want you to be my dominator. I said, oh, okay, I guess I better learn a few skills. And you know, it was a wonderful playground. And of course, that, you know, that, that goes on because then Mark took me to Karakor, but then I can talk about that if you want to. Yeah, let's take a step back, though. You've covered a lot of material. And I think the audience would like to know a little bit more about Cynthia Slater, for example. Tell us a little bit about her. Why was she so important? She was so important because she was a creator of the Janus Society and she was strong. She was out there, very well spoken and definitely dominant and a good organizer. And you could not, not know her. Cynthia Slater was Cynthia Slater. There was also others like Pat Califia at the time and Gail Rubin. See, all of these names, Mark Thompson, Pat Califia, Gail Rubin, all these people, we all were part of the same bubble for a while, of the same circle. And Cynthia was lover with the owner of the first Karakor. She was lover with Steve. So you see, she invited Pat to the Karakor and Pat had a party there. And then Mark Joplin invited me because you only could go if you were invited. And it was very protected environment in that you could not just show up, you have to reserve. There was a call list, you had to be invited. And I don't know what else to tell you about it. It was a magical environment. But Cynthia had her feet in all of this, all the aspects. And she was a mistress and a zee mistress. And she was a very well respected mistress. So she also left us to AIDS. And that's what got her. But I had the privilege to know that wonderful woman. You've mentioned the catacombs. For the sake of the audience, would you please explain what they were? I can explain what they were. But I hope that you don't mind my extrapolation. There is a book. This book is called Leather Folk by Mark Thompson. This is the old history of the beginning of the movement. From San Francisco to New York, Gail Rubin wrote the entire piece on the catacomb with details. That book you can get online if you are really interested. It is marvelous to see how everything got created. So the catacomb was not up until everybody. It was a little club, actually Fred called it the club. I didn't go to the first catacomb because I was in a different location. Steve was, Fred Haram's lover died of a heart attack. And the catacomb went silent. It didn't exist for a while. And then Fred reopened it. And he reopened it on Shortwell Street in 1982. And that's where I was invited to. I was welcomed there for a few months for the Saturday night parties, which was actually Gail Wood in the book that my private name is Carla. She would call I was the only woman that did the catacomb. And eventually Fred asked me, I can talk about what I was like in a moment, asked me to not come on Saturday because some patron wanted only mail space. But he said, I will give you my list, which was extremely generous. He gave me his entire list of phone calls because you had to call people and see if they were coming and had to reserve. And he said, call them all and create your own party. And you can also invite whoever else you want to invite. And you can do it on Fridays once a month. So Mark Joplin and I organize our own party. And we called them, what did we call them? The Serpent Mountain for SM Serpent Mountain. So it wasn't the catacomb, but it was in the same location. Now to get back to catacomb. So you had to have reserve. There was a bar area where everybody's nail were being checked. So nobody had un-fisting nail at the time, because at that time we're not using gloves at all. It was just before it's before a hate stroke. And the activity that we're going on there were flogging, spanking, improvisational weird funny stuff. There was a great sense of humor and mainly fisting. And as far as the great sense of humor that Fred had when I attended the catacomb, at midnight they would play the Alleluia chorus, disco version, the handle, Alleluia chorus, and everybody would get whipped if they weren't busy getting fisted. But that's really where I met Ger Ruben and I met Pat, now Patrick Califfia, and other people who may not want their name out, but I know those two their name are really out. About the sense of humor, I remember one specific Saturday night where I was, I got my legs up in the air and Fred was so incredibly charming, all wearing, wearing hats and top harness, came up to me with this pig made of a candle. So it was a pig candle about this size and put it between my legs and went up to the stereo and starting playing baby crying and saying, she had a baby and this was this silly pig made of candle, a little candle being between my legs. I was just laughing and laughing. There was an amazing sense of camaraderie there. And also, for instance, my first fisting was another man who disappeared because of AIDS, he was in a sling, there was nobody playing with him and he saw me and he said, I never forget, he said, hey lady, come on over here, you have small hands. I'm going, I don't know what to do. Don't worry, I'll tell you exactly what to do. And I said, oh, okay. I was adventurous and the sense of connection, you know, it was a place for really intense sensation where some enhancement used for lack of a better world. Yes, our drug were not permitted, but definitely some enhancement were used. And the sense of connection with people was amazing. That is what got me. Another thing is because of, you want to know a little bit more, because of the rape that I had survived when I was in France, to find myself in a sling as a bottom and I would do both. To find myself in a sling at the hand of my boyfriend, Mark, and have other men standing around playing with themselves, watching, going, wow, a woman. There was such a sense of power, there was such a sense of being seen, the sense of there was nothing wrong, there was no shame. It was, it was magical. Tell us about some of the other things you did at that time. You were very involved in the gay letter scene. That was the thing I did. I did see that. Probably should not have done, because there was no stopping me. Such as? There really was no stopping me. Such as, oh, you want three pieces of ID to get into the ambush, which was my favorite letter about. Fine, I'll get three pieces of ID. It didn't occur to me that the three pieces of ID was because I would prefer that no woman be there. But then, you know, I dressed in leather. I was French. I still am French, but I'm American, but I'm French too. And I really think that I kind of played you my favorite. And I was friends with wonderful gay men artists, like Marc Arichester, who was taking me to all these avant-garde gay theater events. And, you know, it was like art, sex, and my love of gay men. It was just like one big, and I saw some amazing artists. And that was part of the South Market culture. So, those are things I would do. Other thing I did was because I did bottom, like Fred would frog me, and I actually bottomed to gay men a lot more than to anybody else. I don't think I bottomed to a straight men for like 10 years. Actually, maybe even 15. I don't even think if I really bottomed to a straight men, bisexual, yes. But, okay. So, even though I appeared, even with Farquhar, like I wouldn't consider Farquhar to be straight. We appeared like a straight couple, but really, we were on our consciousness and our way of thinking was much more queer and gay oriented than anything else. So, that's why I say, well, that's another question you had. So, I'll leave it. But, you know, thing I did, I did after bottoming to gay men and needing to make some money. So, when I know a flugging fear, I have watched, and I watched all of this program in genies, all of Farquhar's years. They were not like program out too. They were more like, this is what I do. And this is how I do it. And if you want to do it, then be aware of this and that. Those were the learning experience. So, I learned a lot from watching thing Farquhar was doing. I learned a lot about all kinds of stuff. And then I went, well, why don't I become a mistress? I can talk straight guys. I would love stopping straight guys. I can do it. And boom, it worked. Let's take a step aside for a second before we come to fuck here, because that's going to be a lot of information. I found fascinating. I found fascinating that you were one of the first radical fairies. Please tell the audience what they were. What did they do? Okay, okay. Wait, there was a small issue with the World Radical Fairy on that. I was the first woman invited into Black Leather Wing. Black Leather Wing was the offshoot of the radical fairies, named by Harry, oh, please, named by Harry is, which a lot of people can research was, you know, a gay militant from the start who one day said, hey, we need to welcome our brother with Black Leather Wing. And that's how the name Black Leather Wing became. And this school called Mother with Black Leather Wing, one of them was Mark Thompson, who I had met, who I had actually met at the Catacombe. And if he was another person who was Guenemide, was into piercing and a friend of Mark Schuster. So everything cost over, you see, because we all knew each other. So that's how from the piercing world of the piercing ritual, the beginning of the piercing movement, and the radical fairy, my branch of Guenemide started knowing more where Kinky radical fairy, aka people in Black Leather Wing, who at that moment was a very gay group, which has shifted and is no longer a very gay group. It's more a home for Leather, Kinky, lesbian, genderqueer, trans, so it shifted through the years for many reasons, you know, including AIDS and changes in society. What did the group do? What was their purpose? Have a wonderful time, connect the spirit and the body and the sex and the power of orgasm. There was a certain sense of the spirit that body and spirit connect, and that orgasm and sexuality is a very clear for that, as well as SMM. So ritual experiences through intense ritual of flogging, piercing, fisting, etc. So that's what the group did. And we had a wonderful evening that were organized, and also the respect of others. So there was a sense of spirituality that was definitely not Christian. There was much more weaker oriented, or respect of spirit, per se. Mentoring was a very important part of your world. You've spoken of several people who were mentors to you. Talk with us about mentoring in the gay community, the Leather community. Okay, so here is another piece that is a little bit twisted. Really, the only mentoring was not an organized thing for me, as you take classes, and I'm going to see that you can do this or you can do that. It was much more of a natural process. I became very close friend with Mark Thompson, the guy, wonderful rider, the old gay spirit, gay body, and who is no longer with us, unfortunately, passed away a few years ago in Palm Spring. I think he was really the one that was the most my mentor. We had many conversations. And he also became a very close friend to Farkir. So Mark was my mentor. Farkir was my mentor by the fact of becoming my partner and me participating and then doing with him, expanding and doing working with him in different tribal sort of ritual that we were doing, which we did actually in Europe and all over many places in the state. So this was a kind of mentoring that I was receiving. I could say Fred of the Calico was my mentor by the way they treated me and the way they would joke with me and make me see bigger than myself. But it was not mentoring the way that he got organized letter for people. I hope this is not disappointing you, but that's the fact. Okay. I was maturing by watching being in a relationship with people rather than a set of things that followed the progression. What are your personal feelings on mentoring in the current community? I don't know if I can really answer that question. I think that there is probably some people who are fabulous mentors. I know that Patrick Mircaille who was involved in the mentoring is an amazing master. And I'm sure that the mentoring he did because he moved. I don't know if he's doing it right now. And people like Master Skip, I think those people would be amazing mentors and are if they are doing it in terms of what else I don't know. So I just started to say I don't know. You know like Tony Dublas, Tony Dublas was also an amazing mentor in some ways. But it was such a way of living in the moment and picking things up rather than organizing mentoring. So I really cannot talk about that. That's okay. I don't have enough information. That's fine. Let's come to probably one of the most important parts of this. And that was Fakir Musafar. First, tell us who was he? To me, Fakir Musafar was the man that I met at the chateau. The chateau was, one second please, excuse me. Okay. The chateau was a biliary place in San Francisco where professional mistresses which was very few at the time would see clients. And Fakir was invited there to give a program. And his program were whatever it is that he wanted to share with people. And I remember him standing there. I don't remember if he was wearing leather pants or not. But I remember that he had large little tubes in his nipple, long tubes like this, about that size actually. And he took him out and he said, and us were watching him, actually standing up. And he said, is there any of you want to put their finger through my nipple? Well, of course, I said yes. And I stepped forward and I put my finger through his nipple, like this. And symbolic clay was interesting because we got married, you know, many years after that. I wasn't really attracted to him. But he was fascinating me. I mean, the whole thing was, you know, the first photo of him, I saw he was decked out as a Christmas tree with balls, Christmas balls, sold out for the Janus newsletter. And I never forgot that. So the Janus newsletter is an important piece of the show. Marge-Japrin was helping Fakir do the Janus newsletter. Fakir was quote unquote, in his straight life, an ad executive, not for a newspaper that I would read or magazine, for the budding Silicon Valley industry. So they were industry people, industry ads for the beginning of the old computer thing, right? Because he lived in Palo Alto, where I am right now. So Mark would come and I would do the Janus newsletter. And then Mark wanted me to be his mistress. And I was doing my best to learn to be a mistress. And I knew in your Fakir. And then people started dying. It struck. And it was, you know, this has been, I hope that people will not forget. People will be young and six weeks later they'll be old and then two weeks later they'll be dead. It was amazingly difficult. Grief time. And the part of me, I knew that Fakir was connecting to body is a door to spirit. I knew that because I was one of the thing, that a few things he would say. You know, he really was a teacher. And he would say over and over, no matter, body is a door to spirit. And the only thing is to not want to know. Those were the two things that were his words, that I imprinted my brain forever in my heart. And he, I told Mark, I said, Mark, I want to do a ritual. And the only person that can help with that is Fakir. So can you help me make that happen? And he said yes. And I met with Fakir personally, not as a person watching his shares with the community. And I just say, you know, I want to do, like because I was raised Catholic, I want to do a little road with sticks and photos, polarized photographs of all the people that have just died on one side. And then on the other side on sticks, the photo around sticks, so I can see them. On the other side, I want a photo of the one I'm afraid of losing. And of course, Mark was in that. And Fakir said, sure, I know a place where you can do that. And I said, I want to get pierced so that I can feel all the sensation. I want to have balls all over my body, like your Christmas tree thing. And he said, sure, absolutely. I have the balls to do anything. I know a place to go in the country. I have a car. I have a van. We can all go together. No problem. And we set up a time and we went up there and I did the first ball dance ever beside the one that he did. And he was honored as could be that somebody would want to tie his stuff. And it was super powerful because we didn't, we pierced her with our sutures, sutures, and then tie the balls on. So the more I would move heavily, the more the ball would eventually fly off. Like, so it was an amazing deliverance. It was just a perfect ritual. And actually I'm writing it in my book. There was a freedom that I had the, the blessing to experience that I just wish others could. And, you know, so I do the ball dance. I'm crying and screaming and running and dancing and jumping. And then the ball are all flying off and Fakir is watching for safety. And Mark is playing the drum. He already had a patch on his eye because there was a disease that he shouldn't wear a patch. He couldn't function. And that was maybe a couple months before he died. And then I'm completely high and the sun is still up in the sky and it's warm. And there's a blanket there. And I should, you know, there's some gloom for whatever reason. And I say, well, you know, I'm completely high and this is my church. And would you fix me right there under the sky? And Fakir stood a few feet away playing the drum. And it was the whole thing was perfectly balanced. It really was church to me. And then I had a connection with Fakir. And then when Mark, I stopped wanting to be, have any physical, sexual connection with Mark. And eventually, and he was okay with that because I was too afraid of getting AIDS, any of which I was so blessed, I didn't. And then eventually I just said to Mark, you know, I really would like to date Fakir. Is that okay? And he said, sure, you know, I would be delighted. And unfortunately he died in 89 before, before my engagement to Fakir, married me in 1990. You and Fakir did a lot of work together. And then you've done a lot of work on your own. Tell us about a few of the things that you taught. Am I making those noise or this noise in the computer? Am I the one making them? No. I don't hear anything. You don't hear Oh God, I hear kakakakak in my ears. Oh it's healing. As long as you don't hear it, we're good. Let's start that question again, so we can edit. Please, please. You and Fakir did a lot of work together, a lot of education. Tell us a few of the classes you taught. Tell us a little bit about that. Well, for me there was a progression. I started to be asked to teach in San Francisco my own classes. And I developed, I would develop subjects like, you know, the magic of flogging, taking somebody, letting your beast out. I would develop your subject and work on them and present them with demo. And that's how I started my teaching. And because there wasn't that many women doing that, I was really, very popular. Like Stormy Leather, their shop would ask me to teach. And House of Differences, which was a King here, BNB, who asked me to teach. And then the Letter of Conferences would ask me to teach. NLA, you know, Honor and Living in Leather, and all of this stuff. And then when I got together with Fakir, he knew that I could do public speaking and health. And he was very interested in how we could work together. And his take on it was ritual work, doing, presenting thing from a ritual standpoint with, and community works, things that, so we did a whole lot of work with the safety of piercing, breathing, being present, and traveled with all these things, and brought it to different community. And the main thing that we did over and over was energy pool with needles. So pulling a needle at the heart chakra, we did a lot of working with the chakra system. And then with hooks. And then we started bringing that to different Leather Conferences, like Thunder and the Mountain, or people in Europe, or the trip in Europe was like amazing. Also in Arizona, and that became taken by the apex of the power exchange in Arizona. It became the Dance of Soul. So those were things that we did, or I would help him with also subjecting one in the present, and then present my own as well, working with archetypes. So it became a big array of different things that I was comfortable with at the time. I was getting a little afraid when I would get started, but I would own my own material, and my main focus on everything was respect and presence, to be present, to watch the energy. So when I talk about bodies and of the spirit, which I really believe for myself, I think Donald's ritual is really about energy, our energy work. And I would do the funniest thing I tell people, if I was not into energy, then I would just as well flog my desk, because it doesn't give any energy back. What I want is to be in the loop, send the energy and have it come back, back and forth. So that's the kind of work that we did together, to do with energy and community. And if I was a very loving person, because he had tremendously intense out of body experiences when he was young, and there's a lot of stuff on you, you know what, maybe I should talk, can we cut his diving nuts and noise in there? Cut for a second. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Can you hear me? Yes. Can you hear me? I hear you. Okay, so let's start. So we have two devices. Let me put them away. I can hear you on the computer. Okay. I don't know what, well, should I put them far away? I think I have to put them far away. Yeah, I don't know. I'm sorry, I was making a lot of noise in my ears. No problem. Okay, go ahead. You mentioned that Fakir had out of body experiences when he was young. But he was very young. Actually, all that stuff is on YouTube, if people are looking at he had one when he was in his teenage living at his parents in South Dakota. He lived near an American Indian reservation. So he was inspired by that culture. He really liked the American Indian a lot more than the white people. And he tied himself up to the basement. Actually, he went there and actually saw the mark from the staple and hooked himself up in a way that he could not get free. And his parents were gone for three days. And he had done all kind of preparation. And he actually had out of body experience. And he described it. He described it exactly that he saw the cats walking around. He saw the town being quiet. He looked at his body from a distance. He was amazed like this. So he had a two OB. And then he went, he doesn't even know he managed to free himself. In his book, The Spirit Plus Fresh, there's an all explanation of that. I shouldn't be telling you about the book because there's only a very few left. But it's his art book, big book, Spirit Plus Fresh. He, and then he was an amount of the Sundance and the Okipa, which he learned about when he was a teenager in South Dakota. So he experienced that suspension by hooks. And he tied it at first with piano wire. There was no hooks. And eventually he had another amazing body experience, which was recording the film, Dancy's Secret and Profane, which is online, where he heard a voice that I tell him, he said it was the biggest love you have ever felt. It was an incredible love, so deep, so, so brilliant. And a voice told him, no, no, no, you can't go there because if you go there, you can, you cannot go back in your body. So you have to go back down. That's recorded with Jim Ward. This Okipa was done with Jim Ward in 1982. And the film is called Dancy's Secret and Profane. And it is online. And also Paul King of the APB has copies of it. I have a few copies. Somebody absolutely wants one. So, so because of that, his heart was blasted up. It's like he loved everybody. You know, he really did. And community matters so much to it. Of course, when he was not very happy, when he couldn't deal with his computer, and he would get very upset, and he'd be screaming and cursing like a maniac. Then he wasn't, you know, the whole loving person. But that has to do with his computer. A movie that's being made about him. Tell us about that. Well, I contacted the person who is doing it and asked permission because it is at the very beginning of it. And the film is called A Body to Live In. It just started. And it is not going to be a documentary like Ken Burns. It's going to be an art film. And the filmmaker who is making it, his name is Angelo Matson Minax. He's a trans man, who has just been recognized for his movie or PBS boat, and he got all kind of awards. So, Angelo Matson Minax is working on this art film for Fakir called A Body to Live In. We think probably, I hope you'll be done within a year. But it's, you know, filmmaker artists, they're very particular about telling you about their project. They're just like, wait, you'll see it probably comes out, okay? You'll see, I said, can I tell them for the LAM? He said, yes, the cat's out of the back. Go ahead, you can tell them. So, I had permission. I'm looking forward to seeing it. Oh, me too. I can wait. So, is there something else that... Well, I'm wondering, what advice you can offer people who are new to the scene? Be true to yourself. If you have fear, I hope that your fear is not about being shamed, because there is no shame about your fantasies. Do not let anybody tie you up unless you trust them. Good. Follow your intuition, if you're topping or bottoming. And also, learn from your elder, basically, is that join your community. Be in community, because that's where the real learning is. So, you're not isolated. Get out of the fucking computer and just go to event. Any big city in America has led an event. Unfortunately, we're coming out of COVID, so it's going to happen again. Go to conferences, let our conferences, watch the people that have presented those conferences. Pay attention to your reaction. There are things you might see that you might say, uh-uh, not for me. Respect that. It's not everything is for you. See what resonates with you. And, you know, learn to say yes and learn to say no. Very good. That's pretty much, um, yeah, how I would do it. You know, I was teaching a class for, I did it for 18 years. I think so. Wow. A three-day class and then a weekend course for erotic dominance. And when COVID came, I decided, no, not with screen. This is, this stuff is not for screens. It's for feeling the energy, the real interaction. And then, of course, we also sit there right in the class, right? So, okay, it's a different piece of my life now. I like my book. I'm not going to teach so we can intensive anymore. I will still do ritual. I love to do ritual work in my dungeon, um, which my dungeon was my wedding present. Can you imagine? How wonderful. It was, and it's so beautiful in there. You know, we're on a computer, so I cannot give you a little tour because I'm not on a laptop, but it's warm and, and the equipment, I love it. So, working with scouples, yes, I want to keep doing that. People that are trying to increase their intimacy or the quality of their play or start again because something bad happened and say, no, no, we're not doing that anymore. So that, that is something I am into doing besides writing my book and hoping to get a publisher. Um, tell us a little bit about your book. Well, my book is very much about what we just did here is to, to show how coming from a place of being put down, misunderstood abuse, having the courage to, all the folly is away. There's always a little bit of folly somewhere to step out and then find your way and find your people and, and stay ethical and grow into your truth despite, despite the difficulties, you know, there's price to pay. Like, you know, my sister are born again Christian. Let's say that spending time together is not going to be happening because, you know, they want to pay for my soul and they want me to repent. But, you know, I still love them and it's too bad I kind of lost them that way that happened to Fakir and his father as well. So they, but to keeping integrity with what is diving in us, what is a journey that we, we need to go on to find out what is our life about? Why are we here? No, no, it's just, you know, with what's going on in this country. It's so difficult. I mean, I came here to escape to have all of the the horrible party because that are happening now. So staying focused on, on our work. But my book is really about trying to inspire people. And also there are a piece of history that is gone, but it was here in San Francisco. And I'm going to have photos and this and there will be a piece of history that I can inspire them for whatever their journey might be. So that's what it is. I can't wait to read it. I look forward to it. Oh, that's sweet. Thank you. Well, I have to finish it first and finally a published show. So I hope that, I hope that we didn't forget anything that's of importance. I don't think so, but no, I love NAM. You know, Fakir has his, he has his own exhibit there and I still have some stuff I want to give NAM and, and yeah, Chicago, we're very well received and I love going to that beautiful building and. Yep, the Leather Archives and Museum. That's right. Yes, seeing that the history is being preserved. You know, to archive our history is really important. Absolutely. And our stories and thank you for giving me the honor and the pleasure to speak with you. Thank you. Thank you very much. I've had an absolute, this has been fascinating and I'm so grateful to you. Well, true to you as well. Thank you. I can't believe I'm able to see that on YouTube sometime. But Clio Dubois, thank you very much for participating in Inside Leather History of Fireside Chat. And thank you so very much for joining the chat and doing such a wonderful job and being so welcoming. Thank you. Thank you.