Cuddling on the
Wild Side

The Leather Pride flag being carried through the Twin Cities Pride

This past weekend, I went to Minneapolis for Pride and to visit my family. I spent 24 yrs there, it’s where I came out, so it’s nice to get back there and see my friends. It didn’t hurt that it was 30F cooler than Texas either. Twin Cities Pride weekend is the 3rd largest in the US and the parade alone attracts about 125,000 people.

If you’re reading this expecting some wild, kinky, hot stories… you’re not going to find any from this trip. Sorry.

I spent much of the weekend at one of my favorite bars, the Minneapolis Eagle. There were a lot more guys wearing leather than I had remembered, so that was very cool. On Saturday night, I managed to make out with and manhandle about 4 different guys in the bar. The problem was all of them were staying with friend, and I was with my parents. I like things wild and kinky, but I still like a bed and things like that. So, I didn’t get any action over the weekend.

At the Pride Festival I was a little disappointed there was only one leather-related booth and that was the local leather club, the Atons. In past years there were some leather stores, but nothing this year. I’m guessing they were impacted by the recession.

The main kink-related excitement actually happened in the airport on the way back to Texas. When I do trips like this, I fit everything into my carry-on. Apparently there is a screw in my flogger that looked a little suspicious when going through the x-ray machine. So they did a check through my bag and a secondary scan of my flogger.

When she first pulled out my flogger, she was like “what’s this?”

I told her it was a flogger. She then asked “Is this for Renaissance festival type stuff?”

I just said yes because I figured the fewer questions the better. While my flogger was going through the x-ray by itself (and being waved all around the security checkpoint area), she continued to look through my sex bag. She pulled out my bag of nipple toys and looked at them for about 2 minutes. I really wonder what was going through her mind. She briefly pulled the paddle out, and the hand mitts. She also looked in the pouch where I have all my condoms and lubes stored. She didn’t ask any more questions really.

I just sat there and smiled. I actually found it all pretty amusing, although I would have been pretty disappointed if I lost my flogger. I got it back and packed everything up and went on my way.

It’s always best if you can pack your sex/BDSM toys when flying, but if you can’t remember they may decide to take it. Avoid things like rope, cuffs, clubs/extra-large dildos, etc.

Overall, it was a great trip and tons of fun.

The Stonewall Inn in 1969. On the Window: "We homosexuals plead with our people to please help maintain peaceful and quiet conduct on the streets of the Village—Mattachine"

This weekend is the big Pride weekend where a lot of people will be out in their cities having a grand time. Try asking some of them, old and young if they know what caused the start of Pride celebrations.

Hopefully you’ve heard at least a little something about the Stonewall Riots. This year is the 40th anniversary of the riots. Pride celebrations happen in honor of the Stonewall Riots. It’s a little scary how few people know some of the major points in gay history. To me it’s a little like not knowing who won the Civil War. I’m not saying you need to know every aspect, but know at least the jist.

The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969 at the Stonewall Inn, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. They are frequently cited as the first instance in American history when gays and lesbians fought back against a government-sponsored system that persecuted homosexuals, and they have become the defining event that marked the start of the gay rights movement in the United States and around the world.

American gays and lesbians in the 1950s and 1960s faced a legal system more anti-homosexual than those of some Warsaw Pact countries.^{[note 1][2]} Early homophile groups in the U.S. sought to prove that gay people could be assimilated into society, and they favored non-confrontational education for homosexuals and heterosexuals alike. The last years of the 1960s, however, were very contentious, as many social movements were active, including the African American Civil Rights Movement, the Counterculture of the 1960s, and antiwar demonstrations. These influences, along with the liberal environment of Greenwich Village, served as catalysts for the Stonewall riots.

Very few establishments welcomed openly gay people in the 1950s and 1960s. Those that did were often bars, although bar owners and managers were rarely gay. The Stonewall Inn, at the time, was owned by the Mafia.^[3][4] It catered to an assortment of patrons, but it was known to be popular with the most marginalized people in the gay community: transvestites, effeminate young men, hustlers, and homeless youth. Police raids on gay bars were routine in the 1960s, but officers quickly lost control of the situation at the Stonewall Inn, and attracted a crowd that was incited to riot. Tensions between New York City police and gay residents of Greenwich Village erupted into more protests the next evening, and again several nights later. Within weeks, Village residents quickly organized into activist groups to concentrate efforts on establishing places for gays and lesbians to be open about their sexual orientation without fear of being arrested.

After the Stonewall riots, gays and lesbians in New York City faced gender, class, and generational obstacles to becoming a cohesive community. Within six months, two gay activist organizations were formed in New York, concentrating on confrontational tactics, and three newspapers were established to promote rights for gays and lesbians. Within a few years, gay rights organizations were founded across the U.S. and the world. On June 28, 1970, the first Gay Pride marches took place in Los Angeles and New York commemorating the anniversary of the riots. Similar marches were organized in other cities; today Gay Pride events are held annually throughout the world toward the end of June to mark the Stonewall riots. [Source: Wikipedia]

There is much, much more out there on Wikipedia and many other places. Educate yourself and find out about your history.