Full Cow: Edge Talks Leather and Kink
Join Edge as he shares his 30+ years of experience in leather, kink, and BDSM. Each episode centers around a theme, explored through several segments. In the first, Edge shares his leather journey in relation to that theme in order to draw some larger lessons about the leather community. In the second segment, the focus is on practical knowledge and history. Then, we speak with another member of the community who shares their knowledge and experience in relation to the theme. Occasionally, there will also be bonus segments, like erotic story time or kink centered meditation. Come learn more about leather, kink, and BDSM with Edge.
Full Cow: Edge Talks Leather and Kink
All Ask!
Welcome to Full Cow, a podcast about leather and kink where your host, Edge (he/him), shares his 30+ years of experience in the community. In this special episode, it's all Ask Edge! Join me as I answer a series of questions submitted by all of you.
Ask Edge! Go to https://www.speakpipe.com/LTHREDGE to leave ask a question or leave feedback. Find Edge's other content on Instagram and Twitter. Also visit his archive of educational videos, Tchick-Tchick.
Let's Ask EDGE that you are an adult.
Speaker 1:Welcome to Full Cow, a podcast about leather kink and BDSM. My name is Edge, my pronouns are he, him, and I'm your host, and we have a super special episode for you this time, and it's something I always kind of hoped would happen and it finally did. I finally got enough questions from all of you to do an entire episode just answering your questions. I think this is exciting because you get lots of different topics, because you get to hear lots of different voices, because we're going to visit lots of different spots in the world of Leather King and BDSM. So I want to invite all of you to send in more questions so that I can do this again. Perhaps sometimes, assuming you like this episode, you can send your questions by email to ask at fullcalshow or, even better, leave me a voicemail at speakpipecom slash leatheredge L-T-H-R-E-D-G-E. That's speakpipecom slash leatheredge, and both those links are available in the show notes, so no need to take memory or special note, you can simply go click on it and send in your questions about anything.
Speaker 1:They don't have to be deep, they don't have to be profound. If you want to know more about me, I'm pretty much an open book, as I think this podcast illustrates, so I'm very excited for this show. This is probably one of the episodes I'm most excited for and I say let's get started. Let's get started. Our first question comes from Chaste, florida.
Speaker 3:Guy Hi Edge, I'm a fellow Chastity enthusiast and myself own the Ovation Orion and spend a significant amount of time in it. Thank you so much for your podcast. It's nice to hear the experience of a fellow locked boy and what we deal with. So anyway, I also live in Fort Lauderdale and it would be great to actually meet you and chat in person sometime.
Speaker 1:Well, hello there. Yes, we have been chatting on Twitter and trying to coordinate some schedules and finally meet, and I think I love this question because it really points to the importance of connections. And with chastity, yes, especially you don't just want a keyholder, because a keyholder should be someone who is supportive and working with you through your challenges with chastity. But that is also a very power kind of dynamic. Knowing other people who also enjoy being locked and I consider myself not a locked boy but a locked man Knowing other people who also enjoy being locked and connecting with them can give you a kind of camaraderie that you don't necessarily get with a key holder, and this isn't simply about chastity.
Speaker 1:I often think some of the most powerful groups I've seen are small circles of boys who are very good friends, because, let's face it, it is really hard to find a counterpart, find a daddy, find a mistress, find a whatever you need, or to find a key holder. That's really hard. And so having people who are looking for the same thing and understanding you're not in competition with them, you are in allegiance with them, you have the same needs it provides not only a sense of support while you're searching, but it also offers you a kind of group that can check potential suitors and really help you look for red flags, that can offer you advice in complicated situations, who can celebrate your victories but also console you in your sorrows. So I am hoping to connect with you and I will be following up to work on that, and I encourage all of you to look for others like you not your counterpart, but others who are also dog girl slave, however you identify because that horizontal camaraderie can offer you wisdom and support wisdom and support.
Speaker 1:I'll also point out that my chastity journey hasn't really exactly started yet. If you've listened to the podcast with some regularity, you know that I did get the Evotion Orion custom and I had some fit issues. They corrected those, but I haven't had the time and space in my world to dedicate to really making a go of it and I'm not yet convinced that I got the rest of the measurements right. So there may be some adjustments yet to come. I actually have on my to-do list for Saturday to try everything back on and give it a go. Now, as always with chastity, it's not simply I'm going to lock myself and throw away the key no I'm going to spend an hour in it.
Speaker 1:See how that feels. I'm going to the next day, spend a few hours, eventually try to spend the whole day. Do some important things like go to the gym in it, go to work in it. I slowly build up to being locked overnight and once I've done that then I can just repeat that every single day and stay as locked for as long as I want. So I will continue to update all of you on my chastity journey. I will connect with Chaste Florida Guy, and I will invite all of you to look for networks of others like you to provide support and comfort and hope and inspiration and experience and wisdom and everything. Sorry, our next question is from Charlie.
Speaker 2:Edge. This is Charlie. We worked together about two and a half years ago and you mentored me through some really important initial steps of my belated leather journey. I went to claw because of you. I did a very powerful third step of self-acceptance. Because of you, because of your help and the notion that I could think of submission as an essential gift, a divine gift like musical talent. Anyway, I've had to step away to do some other inner work for about a year. I'm finding myself ready to step back in, possibly in a more committed way. And my question is how often does that happen where? And my question is how often does that happen where a leather man has to step out of that identity for a time in order to return to it more strongly?
Speaker 1:Thanks, yes, charlie, actually I think he hunted me down on Twitter and kind of hounded me into being his leather life coach and I really enjoyed it and that was enjoyable work for me. It's actually made me think about getting some official life coach kind of training and offering leather life coaching as a service. But to get to your question, charlie, it is extremely common to step away from leather for some period of time, particularly for people of our generation, people of a certain age, shall we say, and let's call it later ages. We'll just put that very politely. As we grow older, we do have access to more resources that allow us to go to leather events, allow us to buy more gear. However, many of us find ourselves as caretakers for ailing parents or caretakers for an ailing partner or dealing with serious health issues of our own. So I know a lot of people who have stepped away for some period of time to cope with whatever else is going on in life and then have returned. It is perfectly normal. You have not lost anything. You can move back into the community, perhaps with better navigation skills than when you left.
Speaker 1:I myself did this when I was first getting sober. I took about a year off from leather. I just put it mentally and pretty much physically on the shelf and didn't do anything with it because I wanted to focus on getting sober, making sure I had that foundation. And I also understood that I had to look very closely whether or not a leather life was going to be compatible with a sober life and if it came to a choice between the two, I knew I was going to have to choose sobriety to a choice between the two. I knew I was going to have to choose sobriety. Fortunately, I didn't have to make that choice. I stepped away. I got my foundation in what worked for me, which was 12-step recovery, and then I came back to leather and I navigated it even better thanks to the work I had done on myself, and that was when I was in my mid-30s.
Speaker 1:So it's not even necessarily a question of what happens when you get older and people around you are experiencing health issues or you're experiencing them.
Speaker 1:It can happen even earlier in life and I certainly know several people in the rooms of recovery who take time off from leather to sort things out and to figure out what behaviors remain healthy for themselves. So the takeaway here for everyone you know I get a lot of, I run into a lot of people who feel like they started late or they're running out of time or some sense of missing out on their leather journey, and I don't want to dismiss those claims. Those feelings are perfectly valid, of course, and I've been super blessed that I've had a very long and fairly consistent leather journey. But in my heart I do believe that there is some sort of greater plan for us, some sort of arrangement in the universe. It's not simply random and chaotic, and if I am to believe that, then I have to believe that things happen when they're supposed to and how they're supposed to. So I feel like everyone is always arriving into leather at exactly the right time.
Speaker 1:If they'd done it earlier it would have been a disaster. If they'd done it later, it wouldn't have worked. But I think we come to this community exactly when we're supposed to, exactly how we're supposed to, and then the challenge is to take these rich experiences we're having as leather people and grow our spirit, our mind, our body of experiences, our relationships, our connectedness, our understanding of who we are, that we move into this not just for the pleasure and wow, it has a lot of pleasure not just for the affirmation of who we are and, yes, that's important. But we move into this because there are lessons to be learned here in the leather community in kink. There are lessons to be learned here. We could not learn someplace else.
Speaker 1:I really believe everything serves our highest greatest good. That's not the same thing as saying everything is meant to bring us to happiness. Sometimes our highest greatest good is about facing nearly insurmountable challenges so that we can gain new strength or learn to draw help from others. That's a very long-winded answer, but it comes down to this for anyone listening yes, take a break. Yes, go work on yourself. Yes, come back. The leather community isn't going anywhere. There's a IML every year. If you didn't make it this year, you can make the next one. If IML stops. Well, you know what? There are a lot of other leather events this community has been going strong for, let's see, if we think mid-50s, 50s, like 70 years, I'm pretty sure it's going to still be here if you need to go do some work and come back, and I hope that offers not just you, charlie, I hope it offers other listeners some reassurance about where you are in your leather journey. And now we have a question from Austin.
Speaker 5:Hi Edge. This is Austin. He him from Houston, texas. My question is what do you think the role or responsibility is of leather and kink as it pertains to the political sphere, social justice and visibility for our community? Do we have a responsibility to make ourselves seen, heard and to fight for our rights, or should we just enjoy the sex of it in the community, amongst others, or is there a healthy balance between the two? Would love to hear your opinion.
Speaker 1:Thank you for everything that you do with the show first of all, I am fairly certain this is your second time, at least sending in a question, austin, because I'm I'm pretty sure last time I was so wishing you were Austin from Austin and not Austin from Houston. That's how I remember Speaking of. I will be in Houston for the Glue Leather Weekend in just about a month. I believe it's October 10, 11, 12, something like that. So I hope, if you're attending, you will come up to me and say hello, it'd be great to meet you.
Speaker 1:As for your question, I would first broaden it that we don't need to be asking the role of the leather community in activism political activism, social justice but simply the role of each of us, no matter how we identify, no matter where we are positioned in the community, outside the community. What is the role of people in political activism, social justice, visibility, and I would say I'm a big believer that people should be politically active for whatever politics they choose to engage. I try to remain fairly, I try to create space in my world for people whose politics are very different from me, politics that I may not even really agree on and that can be challenging, of course, but I think if we lean into the democratic process. If we lean into rational conversation and critical thinking, then there's space for everyone. And so I would encourage everyone, no matter what your politics is, no matter how you feel about the phrase social justice, to be active in the world, because I think what's more dangerous is when we acquiesce and we become apathetic. And trust me, I am Gen X. We originated apathy. That was sort of the X part of Gen X. We were seen to be extremely apathetic. Turned out we weren't, but that was the impression. So the first thing I would do in response to your question is say hey, everyone, everyone, not just leather folk everyone needs to engage in political processes to whatever level they're able, Because a lot of your ability to engage in these processes has to do with the amount of privilege you carry.
Speaker 1:If you are a person of color, that your engagement with political processes and let's say you're a leather person of color right. Each vector of oppression we add in doesn't just add in a linear sense, it adds in a sense that we can't really predict, but each vector of oppression adds in to increase the risk to you when you become politically active, even as it becomes that much more important for you to be politically active. You know, except for the queerness, I'm sort of sitting pretty on top of the privilege hierarchy, and I am cis, I am white, I am firmly upper middle class, I am able-bodied, I have a little bit of pretty privilege at least. I live in an urban center, I live in a western country. I'm really in a place where I can do things like make videos on Twitter, make podcasts, which is for me a form of political activism by creating education and entry points for others who want to join this community. So the first answer is everyone should be politically active.
Speaker 1:The second qualifier is to the extent they're able, based on the amount of privilege they have and basically, the more privilege you have, the more you are able to be politically active. Hopefully you are being politically active for those who have less privilege, who are at greater risk of physical, financial, political, social harm if they try to be politically active. So the third answer is I want to pick up on that term. You said visibility. I do necessarily, absolutely believe that simply walking through the world as a leather person in gear is a form of political activism. So every time I go out to the bar, every time I go to an event, every time after the bar I stop at the grocery store and I'm still in leather. Those are moments of political activism because it is my way of letting the world around me know that I exist. Now, obviously, even with all the privilege I have because I've got the queerness and that sort of blunts, the cap of my privilege Obviously being in leather in public spaces can be risky.
Speaker 1:You know there are people who get gay bashed. You can imagine what happens to people in leather. In fact, I believe the night that Backstreet was closing in London there was a sort of queer leather bashing of some patrons. So yeah, it is an extreme political statement to be visible in public in leather, but one not without risk. And again, the more privilege you carry, the less risk. But it's never going to be without risk, and that's why I think it contributes to notions of political activism broadly taken. Beyond that, obviously they're coming for us. They are coming for us and we're not probably their first target. They've already targeted other kinds of sexual, gender, political minorities. If we think about the waves upon waves of legislation banning gender-affirming healthcare, if we think about the assault on women's rights and control over their own bodies, do not for a moment think that ends there. Do not for a moment think that we won't be next. So, yes, I think it is important for us to be visible and to be more broadly politically active as much as possible, not just for leather causes, but for all these other causes, all the dominoes that stand before us. We want to keep them standing before we too fall.
Speaker 1:That being said, I also love that you talked about striking a balance, because at a certain point, if leather's not fun, there's not really a lot of reason to do it. It's got to be pleasurable for you and for others. So it's about figuring out where the moments are to be politically active and where the moments are to simply have a fantastic scene and a lot of great sex. A lot of those are context dependent, based on space and, again, based on privilege. So, yeah, if you're in your playroom, it is not the time to be thinking about political activism. If you are in a pride parade, that's probably the time to be thinking about political activism.
Speaker 1:I do think it's possible to balance. And it's not even less about balance. It's about being aware of when your action has an opportunity to shift something. Legislation opportunity to shift something. Legislation someone's vote, someone's opinion, and understanding that those shifts come with risk. I know that's in some ways kind of a non-answer.
Speaker 1:I feel like I've played all the cards to try to win every position, but this really is where I stand. I have a lot of privilege. I try to create entry points for people in the community. I try to have a lot of visibility, both in public spaces, locally, but also in virtual spaces, as a way of letting people know that people like me exist, as a way of creating these aspirational points for people who may come across an image of me and say, oh, that's who I want to be. I still have fun. I have a lot of fun. My life is in all politics, but I'm super aware of the fragility of our existence in terms of political rights, and I do my own kind of old-fashioned political activism that isn't necessarily about leather, it's not necessarily.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's really hard to push a leather agenda in politics right now, but those allied causes, those dominoes that stand before our domino, are places where I can do interventions, where I can contribute to political organizations or candidates who I think are going to help change the system, to secure other people's rights gender, sexual minorities. If I secure their rights, then I have a nice chance of securing my own. Not the best answer, but it is an honest one. And now we have a question from Howie.
Speaker 6:Hi Leather Edge. This is Howie from San Jose, california. I was listening to your recent podcast about books and at the end of it you were talking about the fact that there were no real good written books about old guard leather lifestyle and I just happened to run across from Mascular Living as a new magazine, new publication, an article called Living an Old Guard Lifestyle by Master Lupus, and I wanted to make sure that you were aware of it and get your thoughts on it you're aware of it and get your thoughts on it.
Speaker 1:Howie, thank you so much for directing me to that article. I was unaware of it. For listeners who are curious, you could do a simple web search, as I did for Masculine Living, and locate that article. As for what I thought of it, this is part of what's fascinating about Old Guard. First, I think I'm going to assert I'm fairly, almost positive, I'm sure about this that those people in that article are not Old Guard in the sense of Old Guard, what we mean when we say Old Guard. Here's what I mean. First of all, they're in Italy and, as far as we know, the old guard as we conceive of it was a particularly American phenomenon, driven by post World War II veterans and their motorcycles. The second thing is one of them I think one of the masters, or it's a very complicated hierarchy, but one of them has only been I shouldn't say only has been in the scene for 16 years.
Speaker 1:So it is entirely possible there was a unbroken chain between some old guard unit in America that came into being in the 50s and passed on its knowledge and traditions and at some point it leapt over the ocean and was passed on to these people and that they are embodying a continuous, unbroken chain of knowledge. I don't think that's likely. And I don't think it's likely for a number of reasons. First of all, the HIV pandemic really devastated the queer community and therefore also the queer leather community, and that would have meant a serious disruption in the ability to transmit cultural knowledge. So it would have taken someone making that leap across the pandemic in good health and it's not impossible. But I know that we lost more than I know how to count Well, not that I know how to count. More than I can count are people we lost. And then the second thing is we always want to press against gently and interrogate this notion of quote, unquote the old guard, as though there was a single set of knowledge, traditions, rituals that would have been passed on person to person from the beginning to now, person to person from the beginning to now.
Speaker 1:I think what the article is really useful for is showing how some leather people choose to respect and honor the old guard by doing their very best to live what they believe the old guard was. So it's not that this leather family is old guard in the sense of, oh, they're old guard, they are the OG literally. I don't know that that's true, I could be wrong, and if one of them is listening to this podcast, I would certainly love to do an interview and find out more about how this knowledge from America in the 50s reached Italy in the 20s of the next millennium. Not impossible, I just feel like it's unlikely. I just feel like it's unlikely.
Speaker 1:But it is a beautiful example of how so many of us yearn for and therefore reinvent the old guard, that we take elements that we know were there. For example, we know a lot of them were military veterans. We know that they were used to hierarchies of power and discipline and rules and regulations. That's all part of military life. So if we yearn for the old guard, if we want to honor and respect our ancestors, I will say, then we do our best to recreate what we believe they were like, what they were actually like.
Speaker 1:We have fragmented knowledge. We have a lot of belief of what they are like. So I find the article inspirational in that it provides a model for people who are deeply into protocol, who deeply identify with what we think of as the old guard and want to align their leather life with their understanding of the old guard as closely as possible and it's beautiful for that. That is very different from saying it is an accurate representation of the old guard. It is an accurate representation of the old guard. I will continue to insist that we have very, very few. I know maybe a speech Guy Baldwin gave I think actually he wrote an article in response to a book that came out with some controversy where he talked about the old guard. We have the essay in Leather Folk. We have Hardy Haberman, I think, has a piece in reaction to this notion of the covering ceremony. So we have some written responses.
Speaker 1:We have some written memories of people who we can demonstrably say were part of the old garden of you. But I don't know that we have. We don't have a handbook. I promise you that we don't have a guidebook. We don't have a list of rules, we don't have an accurate sense of how they lived their lives on a daily basis. That is not at all to dismiss those who live in accordance with their conception of what the old guard would be.
Speaker 1:I think there's something beautiful about it because I do feel it's almost this sacred ancestor respect slash worship in the best sense of ancestor worship. I think there's something very sacred about it and I think it's very indicative of a broad hunger in the community for knowing what to do, for structure and order and direction and knowledge. So it is beautiful for what it is. But what it is is not, I suspect, the old guard as we think of the old guard. When we say the old guard, if any of you know some resources that are verifiably original OG, old guard, the OG, og from 50s, 60s into the 70s, you know things started shifting post-Stonewall because that's when you get this sort of opening up of leather bars that you know anyone can walk into a leather bar, and that's when you get the clone look of the 70s. So there was a kind of imitation of hyper-masculinity that would have echoed parts of the old guard. So I think we've got about a 20-year period, let's say, where we're talking about old guard, as we think of old guard, when we think of old guard who I'm going to call the OG, og and I don't know that we have a lot written from there and if I'm wrong, if you've been to the Leather Archives, I should also add leather archives. I should also add I never, never, never say anything on here. That is the exact fact. Truth. The only thing I'm ever sharing on this podcast is what I know. My knowledge is limited. It's limited but it's not small. I've been doing this for 30 years. I know a lot of major figures in the community. I grew up really immersed in an important part of the leather community in New York, so it's not like I don't know anything. I'm not making this up, but I also need to admit that I don't know everything, and so I rely on other people to point out where I may be missing some knowledge. And that's why, howie, I'm so grateful for your question, for pointing me to that resource, because I think it's an important resource and I think it's an important illustration for people who want to create their own instantiation of the old guard.
Speaker 1:Wow, man, this episode's a lot harder than I thought because a lot of these questions in some ways are delicate and require me to. You know, I don't have a script here, right, I'm just sort of speaking off the top of my head and the sort of mental gymnastics I'm doing to address the question have a sense of what's true. To address the question, have a sense of what's true, making sure I don't say something offensive. It's complicated, that's all I'm going to say. But hey, with that, let's move on to our last question, and that is from Arthur, who actually submitted it twice because he wanted better audio clarity, and I certainly appreciate that hey edge, this is arthur.
Speaker 4:First off, I just wanted to thank you for your um production of these podcast episodes. I'm a bit of a sporadic listener, um, but they certainly made my early morning flights to and from a day at the corporate office yesterday much more interesting. Um, I guess I do have a question, because a lot of the discussions so far have been around sort of old guard, but then you've got these influences of quite young kinksters coming on as your guests and interview hosts and they talk a lot about the intersectionality of kink and fetish. They talk a lot about the intersectionality of kink and fetish and I was wondering if you had seen any distinct maybe aesthetics or communities within the leather world developing alongside sort of the more classic military from America or Europe and doesn't have the deep histories and the the military side, and then I guess in America it's the motorcycle club side. I was wondering if there was influences from other parts of the world that are creating sort of a new or different aesthetic within the leather world.
Speaker 1:This is a great question and I think you're really asking two questions. And the first question I hear you asking is what are some new, distinct aesthetics that are not from the biker world? And then the second question I'm hearing is what is the global, non-Western influence on leather? Where does leather exist that isn't simply a recreation of sort of an American notion of the leather person? So, in terms of emerging aesthetics, the thing I'm seeing at events, here's what happened.
Speaker 1:I went to IML and I'm walking through the host hotel and I see someone dressed like an ogre, in a kind of cosplay ogre look, and I was so effing happy because that person felt safe enough and comfortable enough to be in a very and talk about very motorcycle uniform. Military like IML is the the epicenter of that kind of conception of what leather should be. But here's someone who was drawing from the gaming community, who was drawing from cosplay community, who is drawing a little bit from the sort of furry slash transformation community, and I thought that was just amazing and fantastic, because I do think the other, the big strain I see that is not military, that is not police, that is not biker is coming from nerds beautiful, delicious, glorious nerds. And I have many, many, many nerds in my orbit. I think I can say that Almost everyone in my orbit I'm trying to think in my kinky orbit almost everyone in a kind of romantic kind of way. Right, the various boys who orbit me, they're all either gamers or Dungeons and Dragons players, or into anime, or probably all three, and that sort of nerd factor is shaping an aesthetic and we see that in the strong emergence of the furry community. We see that in the strong emergence of cosplay. Cosplay is kind of I mean, cosplay is like IML with less sex. I assume I don't know there could be a lot of sex in cosplay events. I don't know, but these are people who have a kind of fetish. Maybe it's not sexual, Maybe it is, but they have a kind of fetish with a particular character from a universe and they dress that character of this nerd aesthetic, this nerd aesthetic proudly claiming space in the center of the classic, old fashioned, the old leather aesthetic that we know.
Speaker 1:The other place I see this happening a lot is in rubber communities. I have a friend who went to MIR, which is sort of the IML of rubber, and he had done an earth bender outfit from Avatar and the Last Airbender right, One of my favorite animated series. He did an entire earth bender thing in rubber and that's the thing about rubber in general, the rubber community. Yes, you can get a rubber uniform yes, you can. But the primary aesthetic of rubber is more something else. I think often it draws from closer to science fiction than it does to military communities. So I think you need to look at these young people, you need to look at the nerds, because they are bringing their nerd interests into leather and you need to look at the rubber folk because they've always had a different set of references for their aesthetic and these things are all merging and churning and merging and churning.
Speaker 1:The other thing I think I see emerging is a lot of people who are doing there's a big increase in vegan leather, sort of eco-friendly kink. In fact I thought about eventually I would love to do a whole episode on eco kink. But when you look at Mr Regalio, who is a really great retailer, and really, if you look at their site, they are very clearly geared towards a younger market with a lot of their styling and fashion choices and they have a whole line of vegan leather. Pretty sure I saw even Mr S has some stuff that's vegan leather. I might be making that one up, but increasingly you have these people who are vegan or choosing not to do traditional leather. Now, a lot of times that ends up being fashioned like traditional leather. But I do think the whole shift away from leather leather to alternative materials represents a different kind of influence. And then there are just people who there's also oh goodness, yeah, I'm seeing a lot of gender fuck going on. I'm seeing a lot of. There are men I really respect who are walking around in stilettos, thigh-high stilettos and corsets and just sort of living their best life. So that comes from this sort of development of broadened understandings of gender and gender categories and gender identities. So I do think there are actually a number of places where we're seeing new aesthetics, and that includes the nerds, the rubberists and the vegans and oh goodness, I just said it, what was the last one? And that last one I talked about?
Speaker 1:The second part of your question is also very interesting. It's very clear that leather is a primarily Western phenomenon, so it's very popular in the West, across Europe, in the United States, in Canada, and then it gets a little more complicated. There's certainly lots of leather in Latin and South America, but I also know there's a lot of struggle for visibility and community in some of those countries as well. And then when we move to the East, if we think about China and we think about Japan actually Japan probably has a huge kinky community. I would imagine it does become more complicated and I think the aesthetic shifts as well. It does become more complicated and I think the aesthetic shifts as well, Although Japan Japan's the exception, right, Because they really look to their post-World War experience was looking to the US again, Like. My understanding is that Langlitz's biggest market is Japan. I might be making that up, Maybe it's Wesco's biggest market, but the point is that I'm pretty sure the Japanese leather aesthetic is probably very Western.
Speaker 1:The other thing that I think is interesting well, there are a couple of things that are interesting. First, I do have listeners to this podcast on every single continent except Antarctica. I'm still waiting for my kinky Antarctic researcher to listening to my podcast so that I can finally get all the continents, but that suggests that there are people who are interested in these topics everywhere. I will also say that my experience on Instagram in particular is that there are a lot of men in the sort of South Asian and Middle Eastern communities who have a strong interest in leather but are then facing extra challenges in exploring it because of cultural, social and legal restrictions. But I get a lot of people from India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria, this whole area.
Speaker 1:I will also say my understanding is that Thailand has a really vibrant kink community. I forget how I found that out, but I found it out somehow, or I don't think I'm making it up, I'm pretty sure that's true. The takeaway there is. In response to the two questions I heard, the first was sort of like okay, what other aesthetics are coming besides this military one? And the second is what else is going on besides this sort of Western phenomenon? There are places in the world that are struggling to create king communities that face more challenges, that have greater restrictions on civil liberties, political liberties, sexual liberties, and also might face different kind of economic challenges, and that can make community hard. The truth is, community is kind of hard everywhere.
Speaker 1:I talked to a lot of people in the United States who don't think there's a lot of community, and I mean people in New York, people in Chicago, people who just struggle to find their place, and so I don't know that. I mean, that's a whole nother episode. So, to answer your question, I think there are places around the world that are exploring kink in ways that are going to look very different from the way we do it in the West. And then, although there are places around the world that also kind of look to the West for their aesthetic but if you want to know where's the aesthetic, I'm tired of.
Speaker 1:I don't have a military background. I don't come from a country with a big military presence. We're not all about the guns, like you crazy Americans. Where do I look? Look to the nerds. I think that's your best bet because they are blazing a trail into the community and taking it in fantastic new directions. I think that answered your question, arthur. If it did not, please query me again. I'd be absolutely delighted to provide you more responses on your next flight to corporate HQ. And that's what we have for this all-ask episode of Full Cow.
Speaker 1:I would like to invite all of you again to send in questions you don't have to but I get so delighted hearing from all of you, and everyone always asks the most interesting thought provoking stuff, you know, because it's weeks between. Like people will send me questions tomorrow and I'm not going to record an episode for weeks and weeks and weeks, Right. So so I spent a lot of time sitting with the questions thinking about how I might respond, and so I value your contributions, not only because I think it makes better content for all the other listeners. I value because you get me thinking and reflecting about what I believe, what I value and what I have to share with all of you.
Speaker 2:So think about it Once again.
Speaker 1:you can email me a question at ask at full cow dot show. And that's perfectly fine. I will read your question on air. However, it's even better, if you feel safe enough, leaving a voicemail for me at speakpipecom slash leather edge. That's speakpipecom slash L-T-H-R-E-D-G-E. Thank all of you. Thanks to all of you for joining me for another episode. I don't take it for granted that you take approximately 47 minutes out of your day to share it with me. I'm very grateful for that. I'm wishing all of you, all of you, a tremendously blessed leather journey Until next time.
Speaker 1:And that's it for this episode. Thank you so much for joining me. Please consider subscribing, or you can send feedback to edge at full cow dot show. As always, may your leather journey be blessed.