Ink Medicine
Ep. 73: An Original Leather Dyke Daddy: Skeeter Barker
I met Skeeter Barker at her queer community yoga classes in the Mission circa 2007 or 8, and fell in love with her immediately. A strong, heavily tattooed, older butch in loose fitting cargo shorts and tank, with sparkling eyes, glasses, a British accent, and a gentle yet firm style of teaching, she was unlike any other yoga teacher I'd met before. And being in her classes made me want to keep doing yoga. So I did.
Over the years we found other things in common, such as the leather community, a love of retreats... and a bunch of years ago Skeeter found her way to my tattoo table and never left.
For Ink Medicine I spoke with Skeeter about ... everything. Identity and community, and tattoos, and queer history. At 60 she knows a thing or two about being a dyke and a leather daddy, since she has been out in the scene for more than forty years. I suppose some would call her a queer elder.
If you'd like a visual treat, and you love leather dyke culture, find your way to a viewing of the Michelle Handeman documentary BloodSisters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BloodSisters_(1995_film)
Skeeter happens to be one of the main people in it.
You can connect with me, Micah Riot, as well as see my tattoo art on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/micahriot/
Micah's website is www.micahriot.com
The podcast is hosted on Buzzsprout but truly lives in the heart of Micah's website at:
https://www.micahriot.com/ink-medicine-podcast/
I met Skeeter Barker at her queer community yoga classes in the Mission circa 2007 or 8, and fell in love with her immediately. A strong, heavily tattooed, older butch in loose fitting cargo shorts and tank, with sparkling eyes, glasses, a British accent, and a gentle yet firm style of teaching, she was unlike any other yoga teacher I'd met before. And being in her classes made me want to keep doing yoga. So I did.
Over the years we found other things in common, such as the leather community, a love of retreats... and a bunch of years ago Skeeter found her way to my tattoo table and never left.
For Ink Medicine I spoke with Skeeter about ... everything. Identity and community, and tattoos, and queer history. At 60 she knows a thing or two about being a dyke and a leather daddy, since she has been out in the scene for more than forty years. I suppose some would call her a queer elder.
If you'd like a visual treat, and you love leather dyke culture, find your way to a viewing of the Michelle Handeman documentary BloodSisters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BloodSisters_(1995_film)
Skeeter happens to be one of the main people in it.
You can connect with me, Micah Riot, as well as see my tattoo art on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/micahriot/
Micah's website is www.micahriot.com
The podcast is hosted on Buzzsprout but truly lives in the heart of Micah's website at:
https://www.micahriot.com/ink-medicine-podcast/
Hello darlings, hello this is Micah.
Micah Riot:Riot. Today I have a guest on my podcast that I've been wanting to have for probably as long as the podcast has existed. It is Skeeter Barker and if you don't know who she is, I'm sorry. But if you don't know who she is, she is a community leader, a yoga teacher, a dyke, a butch dyke very hot butch dyke, daddy style. A leather dyke, a leather woman, a leather maker. Skeeter Barker works for MR S Leather, world-known leather outfitter for gay men. They make toys, they make clothing, fetish gear, and she designs and used to do a lot of the sewing but I believe now is managing the sewing at Mr S Leather. She travels for the company and she's one of the main people there at the company. She's really built the company up to be what it is today and this is not a flex for all, but she is friends with people like Dan Savage and his husband Terry.
Micah Riot:It's a flux for me. I love Dan Savage and I've known her for almost as long as I've been in SF living in the Bay Area and for a lot of that time. In early years I had a giant crush on her and we have now become friends. She's been getting tattooed by me for a bunch of years and the very first introduction to her I had was as a 24 year old I think I was 24 at the time, maybe 23. And I started coming to her yoga classes with my then lover, who broke my heart into a million little pieces.
Micah Riot:It was really probably the hardest time of my life as far as heartbreak goes, as far as relationships coming apart go, and I started going to Skeeter's yoga class every week and sometimes twice a week, and just healed myself through it, like really, I mean I did a lot of things that first year after that relationship, but that was one of the main things and I kind of imprinted on Skeeter as a mentor and kind of a lovely parental energy and by parental I mean daddy energy. I think of Skeeter as kind of energetically community daddy. I don't know anybody that I spent time with back then in those days in SF when I was in my 20s who was not affected by Skeeter, by her kindness, her presence, her wisdom, her adjusting us on the yoga floor. We all wanted to be adjusted by her. Anyway, why don't we listen to her? Here she is Skeeter, micah, how long have we known each other?
Skeeter Barker:You know you might be better able to answer that than me. I have no memory.
Micah Riot:I was like 24 and I'm 40 now. Oh, there you go. What's the math on?
Skeeter Barker:that.
Micah Riot:It's like about 16 years or so.
Skeeter Barker:Seems longer, but yeah.
Micah Riot:Yeah, I mean it's also my adult life, yeah.
Skeeter Barker:I mean, you were definitely a baby when I met you like young, you know queer.
Micah Riot:I mean I had just had my heart broken, yeah, and just was like coming to your glasses like crying yeah.
Skeeter Barker:Yeah, that was a very common, I think, thing in those queer classes, you know, or heavily queer, where people and I hope I gave permission to just be like you know what Lie down and cry and what can I do.
Micah Riot:So you know before you, like I didn't. I wasn't seeking out yoga ever, right, like yoga wasn't something that I was like I want to go do that because it was so skinny white lady like thing. And then I came to your classes and I was like here's like a butchch, like a very different type of person covered in tattoos, yeah, older. It just felt so good to be in that space, like I felt so held by you and like so did everybody else. That's why we kept coming right, yeah, I mean it's funny how did you come to that?
Skeeter Barker:yeah, it was an act. I call myself the accidental yoga teacher because I really I had done yoga for years, but I was that like, especially back in the day, I was the hairy leg tattooed butch in the back with weird cargo shorts on, while everybody else were these skinny white ladies and lululemon. I mean, it really was uncomfortable. But there was something about the practice of yoga, in this particular style of yoga, that really spoke to me in my body in a way that, because I wasn't a gym bunny, I didn't, you know, I was never a jock, but it spoke to me and I felt like empowered in it. So I kept going.
Skeeter Barker:And then I found a teacher who I really loved and I did a whatever three month in-depth training with her in San Francisco and I was like, oh, I want to know more. And then she was doing the teacher training and so I signed up for the teacher training, which was a year long, to get deeper into it myself. And at the end, before the end of it, and she taught at that studio in San Francisco, she looked me up, she literally looked me up and down and said you need to teach. And I'm like, no, no, no, I'm not trying to teach. She said said you need to teach. She said I have a community class at this studio. There's the slots opening up for a teacher. Maybe five people come donation on a Wednesday night.
Skeeter Barker:You should take it maybe five huh yeah, right, it was like that, yeah, and I was like you know what, okay, let me give it a go and I think, exactly. I think, because of the way I looked and the way that I teach, which is I'm not in your body, I don't have the experience of your body, so I'm going to throw some things out, you can modify, you can expand, I think the class became permission for however you were walking in Plus, I think, yeah, the way I looked and who I was in community, other people could come and access it and it very quickly, like within a month, it swelled to like 25, 30, 40 and this was the yoga coolest space this was the year and yeah, in San Francisco, beautiful studio, right, yeah.
Skeeter Barker:And then I went to a Friday night as well, wednesday, friday and Monday. Monday started over in Oakland. It started in the um. I was doing three days a week when I went to namaste and you know it was I've always done, even in the park, wherever I've done it and done talk with rachel as well always been donation based. You know, at the studios it's harder because there was like we, you have, I'm like I will only teach anywhere and you see, a lot of people come. If there's got, there's got to be a sliding scale.
Skeeter Barker:So it just grew and I think people, yeah, people who'd never been into yoga or thought yoga was for them, found access and community. Like so many things happened. People found partners, they found a wardrobe because somebody was getting rid of it. They found a roommate. You know there was so many connections. People would talk because it was always the last class and I love that, like I love seeing the connections. And I've had people many years later say, me and my partner, we were married with a kid. We met in your class, we met at your retreat.
Micah Riot:I'm like that's beautiful, the retreat so the retreat, the retreat happened like I think I got to start going at like the second retreat, like I was super early on that train yeah, you were, and it was so great and for a decade you know, I looked forward to that. Every that would come. Every fall, we would do it in september, right, and I mean?
Micah Riot:then we started doing a spring one closer we did and I didn't go to that and it's up one time, but, um, it was a different space. I really loved that land.
Skeeter Barker:Different space, different vibe, different vibe, those two yeah. But being on that land up there in what was that town called, I always want to say Ukiah, but that's where all Hot Springs is Higher up.
Micah Riot:It was higher than Ukiah.
Skeeter Barker:It was higher yeah, and it's Christy Kiefer's land. Yeah, christy Kiefer's land, women's land.
Micah Riot:It was so beautiful there and it was so restoring. I felt like that was my sort of turnover of relief of the year, like going there, leaving some things, taking some things.
Skeeter Barker:Yeah, and I think we set intentional space to have circles of like what are you working with, what are you bringing in? In the closing circle. It was very woo-woo yeah people did they?
Skeeter Barker:they released things, they let things go. Um, you know a dear friend of mine who, like you, came on the early train, was coming, coming, coming, and you know she a few years ago died of cancer in her 40s and one of the things that was really meaningful was to see her blossom over the years, because she came very, very shy and she was a writer an amazing writer and she was very nervous.
Skeeter Barker:We had the talent show, right. It's like, do whatever, just get up there and you know everybody will clap for you. And I saw her sort of really blossom and she started reading her, her work and she, she became a writer, so things like that. Where it was yes, it's about yoga, but it's not just about move your body in these particular positions, but like become empowered, you know, in in in yourself enough to live a powerful life so I mean, that's how I know you from yoga.
Micah Riot:But there's so many other sort of crossovers or pieces like yeah, there are. So let's talk about your tattoos. So you started coming to me to get tattooed at some point. Yeah, periodically, for different pieces, like through the years. Yeah, you had you. You have a lot of tattoo work. You probably were the most tattooed person for much of your life, right, and you were out and about, yeah, yeah, I think.
Skeeter Barker:You see, I do think that's true. I mean, I think there were people more heavily tattooed than me in the sort of san francisco body mod world of the 90s. But you know, within yeah but I definitely was how did you? Start that journey the tattoo journey for me. Yeah, so okay, how?
Micah Riot:old, are you? I'm 60 and you are from.
Skeeter Barker:England.
Micah Riot:Great Britain.
Skeeter Barker:Yes, there are many ways to say that that's going to one way or another, going to sort of be the right or the wrong way to say it, but I was born in Scotland, grew up in Devon in England.
Micah Riot:And then, when did you come over here to the New World?
Skeeter Barker:Yeah, I moved to London and was a young dyke in London, a young leather dyke, had a really good time in my sort of early twenties, very early twenties. And then I moved or I didn't move to San Francisco. I came on a visit because I'd just broken up with somebody and was like, oh, I just need different change of scenery. Came to San Francisco late eighties heyday I mean heyday and hard because the AIDS epidemic was just a whole generation of gay and the leather community at that point was very integrated between, you know, the dykes and the gay guys. It was like the leather, you know, it was just, it was beautiful. So came to San Francisco, had the big earthquake in 89. I'm like, what the fuck is that?
Micah Riot:You were here for that and you were there.
Skeeter Barker:Yeah, that's wild, I don't this. And people are like, no, no, no, we and you have a bit. Yeah, that's wild, I don't this. And people are like, no, no, no, we have earthquakes, but that is an earthquake, yeah that was a special one.
Micah Riot:That was a very. What were you doing when that was happening?
Skeeter Barker:I was actually buzzing Jamie's hair. Okay, we were watching the World Series at a friend's house and suddenly the game cut out. Game cut out the clippers that I had done. Half her hair stopped and the whole place started shaking. These old San Francisco flats Terrifying, like for me. If, like, the ground beneath you completely is shaking everything, there's nothing to hold on to. So the funny part was that we had no power for you know whatever a week after, and so Jamie had half a shaved head for a while, was that?
Micah Riot:we had no power for you know whatever week after, and so Jamie had half a shaved head for a while. No one took like a little hand shaver.
Skeeter Barker:We were just all freaked out. We were all sitting in coffee shops like where were you?
Micah Riot:You know, it really was a. Thing.
Skeeter Barker:It was very anyway, and there were many aftershocks, but I love San Francisco. I was having great fun playing, falling in and out of love. Just the heyday of, like you know, there were bars and it was just fun.
Skeeter Barker:How long of a visit was it? Well, the first time I came for three weeks, okay, and I went back to my life in London and I was like I like I gotta go for longer. So I think after about another six months I got a year visa. I came here for a year and during that time it really was, like you know, I met jamie. She became my boy. You know we really I just really started to make some yeah, how you do when you're in your early 20s, like roots, like this is, you know, chosen family, chosen family. And so I went back to London after six months, moved for a year, back and forth for a couple of years, and then Jamie's roommate, scott, who is just a great guy, and we were really good friends. And one night, at New Year's I think, we were all drunk on Jägermeister at a club and he got down on his knees said will you marry me? So I did and, if immigration's listening, we were very in love and I know the story.
Micah Riot:I've heard that you were very in love.
Skeeter Barker:We were very in love and we got married and I got, you know, my permanent green card. Yeah, so I just I never really planned on it. I didn't emigrate, I didn't, you know, for years after my mom was like are you coming home? You know, you got stuff in the in, so I just kind of left and stayed again, kind of accidentally, but created a life. And now I bridge two worlds because I go back to england and they're like you sound so american and I'm hearing people like are you australian?
Micah Riot:new zealand south african.
Skeeter Barker:So yeah, I've been here 35 plus years thinking about it the.
Skeeter Barker:And I'm hearing people like, are you Australian, new, zealand, south African? I was like, oh, so yeah, I've been here 35 plus years. Thinking about it, the other day, you know, people ask me how long I've been at Mr S. You know Mr S Leathers and I, yeah, that's 35 years too. I mean Jamie worked there first and I got a job there. So I've been there a long, long time, kind of run the company with two other guys, two guys, so longevity at this point of being 60.
Skeeter Barker:And you know I moved around a lot in my youth. I traveled through europe, I hitchhiked, I moved a lot. We moved a lot when I was a kid. So the fact that I have been in a job as long as I've been in and know, have a 15 year old son and have solid family, chosen family here, you know, I feel you sort of look back sometimes. I mean, when you get older, you look back and you're like, wow, like when and how did all that happen? Like you know that thing, my memory is so always been weird. And sometimes I look back and I'm like it just was yesterday, like I remember the earthquake.
Skeeter Barker:I remember moving to San Francisco. I remember the you know summer of love and it was amazing. And then sometimes it's like that is a long time ago and so what I love is like yourself, like I've known you 16 years. You know I've got friends Jamie and I have known each other most of that 35 years. I've got friends, jamie and I have known each other most of that 35 years. Richelle and I, you know 20 plus. So it's a good thing and sometimes it's really, I think, as you get older, to look back and be like, wow, a lot has happened and I look forward to a lot more happening.
Micah Riot:But it changes, it's different, and I look forward to a lot more happening, but it changes, it's different. I started doing this thing on New Year's around New Year's that I look at the year and I just know the things that happened Through the year. It's so easy to forget, yeah, like literally what happened. I took this trip, I had this amazing conversation, so I remember I made stickers, I made a podcast.
Micah Riot:I made this many episodes of the podcast. I worked on like this thing in my life. I got done to work Like what you know, just noting things that happened because it is so easy to lose track of like things that happened Right and then 20 years later you're like all this shit happened somehow, somewhere, somewhere.
Skeeter Barker:Do you also then do a sort of visioning for the next year? That were things you want, or is it just that retrospective of this has been my year and I'm just going to mark these achievements so that yeah, more that, less of the like, what's going to happen next year?
Micah Riot:we'll see what happens next year. I mean, if I have some goals that might be like, oh, I'm going to try to, you know, tighten up my finances, I'm going to try to you I have, uh, an apprentice to teach like I know that's gonna happen next year, right, but yeah, just to like really look at each year and just be like all this stuff happened and I remember it.
Skeeter Barker:Now that I've said it, yeah I usually tell it to liz, you know yeah, we have a conversation about things that happen I mean, I think that thing of the tradition in many parts of the world and cultures is that oral oral history where you tell the stories and you know, in, in, in cultures where the elders are more respected and people will sit and listen, that oral history is passed on. And you know, I I do think that it is good to recount things and remember things and have people witness it. You know, I think that there are people who you know. I think that there are people who you know I'm just going to keep using the earthquake as an example but there are people like I was with jamie when that happened. So when we talk about it or remind each other, it's very visceral, it's very like, yes, we remember that trauma bond, the trauma bond, as you will, but you know, um for sure.
Micah Riot:Yeah, I mean, we all remember where we were at 9-11. You know exactly. I was sitting in a classroom.
Skeeter Barker:Exactly, yeah, and I think that one of the things for me because my memory has, or maybe because I moved and had, you know, whatever childhood I had but I think that I once described myself as a loaf of sliced bread. You know, and it's like the whole loaf is me, the whole loaf is my life. You know, from one end to the other is going to be my life, but each piece of it is can feel like a separate slice. You know, I can talk about my yoga and I can talk about queer yoga and the retreats, and that's like a full, beautiful slice. I can talk about kink or, you know, sort of being in the leather scene and, um, that is something else, and sometimes I have a hard time weaving the thread through the whole loaf. You know, like these, these pieces belong together. I don't think you're a bread loaf.
Micah Riot:I'm not a bread loaf. I think you're like a cake. Oh yeah, like like many, layered like. Do you have chocolate? I love chocolate, chocolate cake.
Skeeter Barker:I don't know, but you're like a bread loaf I mean, you know, I'm just thinking about sliced bread. You know, I'm not necessarily like slices of a cake.
Micah Riot:Sure, your cake with, like, some chili on it and some chocolate. No chili, no chili not with chocolate.
Skeeter Barker:I don't do so. You're not spicy.
Micah Riot:Oh, I am spicy, which is why I don't need spice, I just yeah um well, it's not a cake you want to eat, it's, you are the cake oh interesting.
Skeeter Barker:Yeah, I'll take it.
Micah Riot:I mean you can pick whatever flavors are in the cake, but I'm like a bread loaf, that's funny.
Skeeter Barker:I never really thought about the whole you know sort of um deliciousness of it.
Micah Riot:It's just the way I sort of visualize my life I do love bread, though, so not nothing against bread, nothing wrong with bread, but you know, it's like we'll say white bread or whatever. Like yeah, it's like boring. Yeah, like there's nothing boring about the different, like chapters of your life no, no, no, not at all.
Skeeter Barker:I, I they're very full and I just I feel very, you know, yeah, there's been some tricky parts and difficult parts and there's been some amazing parts and you know, I really I feel grateful because I've known a lot of people who did not make it past 40, past 30, past 50, like a lot of people, a lot of 20-year-olds, you know, gay guys, died in that. You know, we constantly at that time in the leather community we were often sitting at the bedside of, you know, because it went really fast from somebody getting full-blown AIDS and without having any medicines.
Skeeter Barker:And they just died Very fast, and so we were often sitting at bedsides and going to memorials, you know, most weekends. And so to get to 60, to be healthy, to be, I still think of myself as vibrant, to be sort of out in the world doing things. It doesn't go unnoticed that it's really a privilege. Aging is a bitch and it's a privilege to be able to do it. I mean, what other choice, right Otherwise?
Skeeter Barker:you die, otherwise you go on to whatever's next. So obviously I'm not done. I've got a long life ahead of me when did you get your first tattoo, you know? I think it was around the age of 15. I remember the place, you know. It was in Plymouth, where I was growing up and I had slept with my first girlfriend when I was 14 she was kind of a little bit older than me came, started coming to my school and sort of seduced me and how to say more.
Micah Riot:How say more about that? Like at that time you've had no books, no other people probably that were really visible like how did you, how did it happen? How, like, how did you just sort of know, like what you want?
Skeeter Barker:and oh, I didn't want to did and I had no idea I was a tomboy all my life and I was never. I went to an all-girls school and I was never. You know, the girls were like, oh, because the boys school was next door and I never, never have had a sexual attraction. I men are great. I love men, work with them all day, have a son, love men. Just have never had a sexual attraction to a guy. I'm a you know what, do you call it a gold star? Gold star, I'll take it. Um, and so I.
Skeeter Barker:But I wasn't also necessarily that I can remember attracted to girls. I love my friends, I was funny, I was popular, but I, I, and then this, this tough girl called Debbie, came to my school and she, man, she was a character but you know, beyond tomboy, just like, and she was very, I think she had a tough time. I know she had a tough time. So she was very sort of like she was not trying to make friends with anybody and for some reason she liked me and we started hanging out and then I remember one night she stayed over at my house. She was sleeping on you know whatever, on the floor and I was in my little single bed there and I remember she got into bed with me and she just started kissing me and I think I cried. I mean I had no concept. She knew what she wanted. I had no concept of what was going on.
Skeeter Barker:But you know, later learned that, you know she was, she was 15, maybe going on 16. And she had already explored, because back in the day this is Plymouth, it's a naval, working class town there was a red light area, you know, and where all the sex workers worked, there was a back street. That's where I got my first tattoo. It was like a sailor shop, literally like you know, the stereotypical. And then there was a gay bar way down this old cobbled lane, you know, and she'd already been there and I remember, after we started doing our thing you know, she completely underage but nobody caught it in those days she took me into that bar and I remember so clearly. I walked in and there were all these bull daggers at the, at the bar, you know, sitting there like full on older bull daggers, and the ladies, the femmes, were all kind of sitting around the tables and I feel like I'm sure it wasn't this clear, but to my mind I feel like I got looked up and down, like it was almost like where are you going to sit?
Micah Riot:Like it felt like I had to choose right. Like a gender, like you had to choose a gender, you just had to choose and you had no.
Skeeter Barker:No, I always had short hair, I was always a tomboy, okay so, and Debbie had been there before and she walked straight up to the bar. I walked up to the bar, sat down, you know, and I remember this old butch. I mean, again, my memory is. You know how you piece memory together, but in my mind and in my memory, this old butch slapped me on the shoulder and she's like hey and year, you know, I broke her heart, sleeping with a, an older woman who's a dj at club, and she joined the army, which was one of the choices, and she went away, so she was a butch on butch kind of she was a butch on butch, yeah, and I were not.
Skeeter Barker:Well, I feel like all I didn't know, I didn't know at that point I I didn't know, but I had a very much a that sort of awe about the mystery of femmes. You know, like it was so opposite to me and butches were familiar to me, or at least you know I can model myself in that way with them. So I have certainly dated and had good relationships with, you know, two or three butchers in my life, but really I am, you know, mostly my attraction is for feminine women, or not, you know, not high femme, like just just a powerful femme woman.
Skeeter Barker:But, I have such a deep appreciation for mask, you know, like like a pride, and I like like that attraction, like I see someone mask in the street and I'm just like that head nod in that way that they show up or watching young you know butchers or mask people just finding themselves and I'm like it just makes my heart full. And you know, like in the kink world I've certainly like I love to beat a boy. You know I love to sort of I had a boy for quite a while.
Micah Riot:so yeah, different scenarios different things, but you know, um and so what was your first tattoo that you got there in the back streets of the red lights?
Skeeter Barker:yeah, I know right, it was um first gay bar ever, the back of my shoulder, and you may have seen it may not as a very old spider. Okay, yeah, I think it must have been on his wall or something and nice, and I never have had. You know, like how things get incorporated later. People tattoo around it. Sometimes people do cover ups. I've only got one cover up and I, because to me it really is, it's a map of my life. I can show you that spider and I can tell you that story. So I I've never wanted to really do and I don't love all my tattoos. I'm not like, wow, this is great, they're faded. I had friends practice on me.
Micah Riot:It's a very different way of getting a body of work where you came from versus what's happening now. People used to do that. You were kind of a quilt of things.
Skeeter Barker:Exactly.
Micah Riot:Different pieces from different times. Now people want a comprehensive body of work.
Skeeter Barker:They want a full thought through kind of a yeah body suit the same styles repeating, you know, and it's just, it's a very different trend it is a different trend, you know, and I also see a lot of the young folks, you know, doing the sort of stamp tattoos where they've got, you know, and it's it's I think I mean I love, I love tattoos. It's a turn on for me. I love it. I love all the different styles. You know, when it fits a body, when you look at somebody and they're embodied in a way that they're decorating and living in their body, it's fucking beautiful, you know, and sometimes that's a full color arm sleeve, sometimes it's a bunch of stamp tattoos, sometimes it's an old.
Skeeter Barker:You know my current girl lover. You know she's like she's younger than me and um tattoo artist, and when she saw my tattoo she's like, oh yeah, real, like I think she said nineties and I'm like, yeah, this, this was my era of when I got a lot of my work done. But I've had a lot more done. You know, even very recently with you Love your work that you've done. You know the tattoos on my neck, on my chest, work, on my thigh. So you know, I love, yeah, I just I think it's a beautiful form of expression.
Micah Riot:It's not everybody's so what was it like to be heavily tattooed in the world as a butch and a heavily tattooed person when not a lot of people had them? I mean as a butch and a hapli tattoo person when not a lot of people had them. But I guess your world has always been like what you wanted it to be, more or less.
Skeeter Barker:Yeah, I mean, I definitely I my early life, I definitely was. I had enough of, you know, being feeling on the outside, being gay, bashed, being you know, sort of feeling endangered, you know, in most spaces, and I very quickly found communities, bubbles of people. It's one of the reasons I moved to London, it's one of the reasons I moved to San Francisco. So, again, the privilege of being able to find community and you know, back in the eights and 90s it was definitely there. It wasn't like I'm not talking, I came out in the 60s and 70s. I mean I definitely, you know, came out at a time and could find kink, could find leather parties, could find leather people, queer people, other butchers, you know, and I don't know that I felt different particularly. I just felt like, yeah, I just feel like that's just me, you know, that's who I am and how I show up, and I don't think I've ever really, in queer community, have experienced any.
Skeeter Barker:I remember once going to LA and with a girlfriend of mine, very femme, very beautiful, and we went to an LA club back in the day when it was a girlfriend of mine, very femme, very beautiful, um, and we went to an LA club back in the day when it was a lot of lipstick lesbians and we walked up to this, the door of this woman's club like a a a dyke bar, and my friend, of course you know the door person's like who was a lipstick lesbian, big hair. She's like, oh cause, you know, stephanie's gorgeous. And she just waltzed through and then she looked me up and down. She goes you can't come in. I said I'm sorry, what she's like, you can't come in. And stephanie came back and she said what's up? I said they won't let me in and I'm like it's a woman diaper, right, and she's like, yeah, but we don't you know. And I said what the fuck?
Micah Riot:so I, I went, you didn't go in no, we all left the whole group.
Skeeter Barker:There was a few of us. We just like fuck you, you know wow, so you?
Micah Riot:there was no, like you just had to leave there. There was no. We talked to the manager.
Skeeter Barker:No, because I didn't want to walk into a place where and stephanie did not want to walk into a place where we and you know, I don't know what it was like inside, I didn't get inside, but maybe if it was a bunch of people like the woman on the door, I remember going to a Dinosaur weekend because I was doing some kind of work thing there and it was just like wow, like a very different type of lesbian scene, and in those environments over the years I felt like, wow, I'm sort of an outlier, which didn't make me feel bad about myself. I was just like, wow, this is not my people. And I think being queer, being however you describe yourself it doesn't mean that everywhere you go in queer community or gay community or whatever it's like, you don't always feel like, oh, these are my people.
Micah Riot:And then you know, I feel like our queer culture shifted to there being like a worship of the mask, like the masculine person, the butch, the trans mask person, Like. When do you think that shift occurred?
Skeeter Barker:Well, when I really feel like I remember things happening because the same incident I'm talking about in LA what was happening in San Francisco was, you know, we had the bearded lady, we had, you know, some clubs, and then the lexington opened and very clearly, in fact, at first the lexington and you know leila who opened it um, and a lot of us started going early on, it was very much I wouldn't say predominantly, but heavily laden with butch femme. That was the vibe, you know, it was incredible, it was lovely. I've since talked to people and said, yeah, I walked in and didn't feel I fit. So, you know, if we fit in the bubble, we feel great, if we don't, we don't. But then this interesting thing happened.
Skeeter Barker:So there was this celebration of butches and masks. But then several of my solid butch friends started transitioning and so early on, and I think that there was this sort of time where people who really had felt like you know, I'm not in the body that I need to be in, I'm not, you know and there was access in San Francisco to not in the body that I need to be in, I'm not, you know and there was access in San Francisco to tea and to surgery and to other communities and to professionals here who people could transition. But then there was this weird stage, I feel like, and I noticed it and I can only sort of pinpoint it really to this micro world in the Lexington where so many young butchers started just taking tea, having the tits cut off, but it became almost like it became a little bit the thing to do and Bear agrees with you, bear, my dog, agrees with me and then, for example, boy Sue, who was my boy for quite a while, beautiful, amazing, intelligent person was like we started to get to know each other and they were in the world of that as a young, you know, butch and and one of the conversations I remember having and with two people and like something's like. I feel like I have to like. I don't feel like there's an alternative, like it's. It's almost like a this is what we do now as a young butch, I have to like. I don't feel like there's an alternative. Like it's. It's almost like a this is what we do now as a young butch. I have to then start taking tea and I was like wow, is that is that true? Is that like?
Skeeter Barker:And one of the things I started to notice was less and less were there slightly older, and at that point I'm talking you know, forties butch is visible. You know, forties, um Butch is visible, you know, and certainly not older than me um, in these public spaces. And so I think there was a sort of a little bit of the mix of celebrating people finding themselves in their bodies and really just that pride in that and like the Transmarch and it really growing into this beautiful celebration and a little level of, maybe a lot of level of grieving. Um, that happened. You know, I've femme women who are like, you know, my partner's transitioning and they became, they felt, even more invisible but also really wanting to celebrate their partner, and I think that I feel like there was a bit of grieving for me that I lost quite a lot of butch friends in that way and gained trans, you know friends, trans men friends. But it was and and both. I have to be really honest about it.
Skeeter Barker:And there was a moment in that time where there almost felt a little bit of competition and friction between trans men and butchers. You know, I had conversations with butchers who were like I don't feel butch enough now I feel like I have to. You know, I'm not enough or something. And you know trans men who were struggling with being accepted into queer spaces, you know, like dyke spaces, because they were starting to feel like they were not included. So it was a moment in time, I think.
Skeeter Barker:I think if you could sort of put it under a microscope and go this moment in time in San Francisco where something started really shifting and I think we've come a long way of like community and celebration and there's space for everybody and we all get to, you know, um, explore what we want.
Skeeter Barker:But I think that's whenever I see especially older butch women, I'm like hey, you know, um, and just always want to be sort of role model in some ways for younger butch women who are like that trans is not my journey, and I see you living a life and having the things you want and representing yourself in the world. So to me, the pronouns of she, her are really important. Yeah, so I just think it's a changed world and I think that you know it's really about just we're not in competition and you know we're in celebration of each other because, like you said, there's fewer of us and we just we really need. We cannot have that kind of difference. You know that tearing apart, but it was a moment in time where it was very, um, it felt that way. My experience, yeah, you know.
Micah Riot:So I wanted to offer you my experience, which was a little different. Coming out of college in 2006, um, having gone to college in ohio for a bit of a more old school place, you know very, very queer college and kind of being there and being like, okay, there's different kinds of folks here. There's butch people, there's trans people here, like young, so nobody was like fully transitioned or like there were some that were starting to. But as I was coming into my queerness I realized that only was attracted to masculine people, only butches, and the butches that I had crushes on would be like bro, you're my bro. Like this is not that's too gay for me, like it was always like an issue you know Too gay yeah.
Micah Riot:Like for them. It just was unthinkable that butch on butch could be. I wasn't that butch, but I was, you know, dressing masculine and kind of presenting masculine. And so what I saw was that there were trans guys with trans guys and so.
Micah Riot:I was like, if I want to be with a masculine person who was born female, I have to go the trans route. Yeah, and for me, love and relationships were always so important. I was so taught from the very early age that that's like the epitome of happiness and I really internalized that not just from my family but also from like movies and books and stuff. Um, that I was like, okay, I and that's not to say that my gender isn't true, you know that my experimentation with testosterone wasn't true, that my desire say that my gender isn't true. You know that my experimentation with testosterone wasn't true, that my desire to have chest surgery isn't true. But, like in that early stages I was like, okay, if I want to be mask on mask, I have to, I have to be trans.
Skeeter Barker:Wow.
Micah Riot:And so I started binding and I started dating trans guys.
Skeeter Barker:Yeah.
Micah Riot:And I moved to San Francisco and I was in the trans guy community but I was never like I took T for a while. I never could imagine like how I would ever have the money to have chest surgery and I wasn't ready for it then.
Skeeter Barker:I think, that's around the time I started to meet you, wasn't it?
Micah Riot:You were sort of in more of the. It was right after. So I took T for about a year. I was on a low dose. It did some things things, but not enough to like even pass as a man and I didn't want to pass.
Micah Riot:I always felt in between yeah you know, but I um met idexa and I dated idexa for a year and I was like this person is very gender fluid, quite non-binary, older, masculine, but still plays with like femme accessories or like, yeah, different energies. If, if this person can do that, I can do that. And so I got off of tea because being on tea didn't feel quite right. I'm glad I experimented and I'm glad it did what it did for me, but it didn't feel quite right so I got off of it because of because of her.
Skeeter Barker:Yeah.
Micah Riot:Because I saw that you could exist and live your life as a kind of a fluid, non-binary queer person and have sex with all kinds of people. I mean, I'd actually wasn't very discriminatory, um, although I think she probably is more masculine as far as, like, her interests go, but yeah, she kind of was like whatever's hot she would try to get at it. Yeah, um, but so for me it was such a thing connected to who I could love, who I was allowed to love, and without being trans, I could not find another masc person who would be into me.
Skeeter Barker:That's such an interesting perspective, I mean obviously Very different from you.
Micah Riot:Very different from what I mean different, slightly different era, different, totally. This is like 2006 to 2010.
Skeeter Barker:These, like four years, is what I'm talking about in that time frame, but fascinating to sort of hear from you on that sort of inside of that you know. I think that you know often we only ever have our own experience of it. And one of the things I do really love about this sort of you know, the younger, queer kids is like the language that has been exploded now you know the language that has been. It's exploded now, you know, and it's like that sort of the fluidity of it is so much, gives so much freedom to people to not have to. You know, walk into that bar and like are you going to sit at the bar, are you going to sit at the table? You know where? Are you butch? Are you trans? Like you know? Do you feel enough? I love? You know I'm old school, so I am what I am.
Skeeter Barker:I'm butch. I'm like you know, I'm a butch woman. I'm proud of who I am. I walk through this world, but I've had time and opportunity to see other things and make that decision for myself. But I do love the fluidity and I do love the. I was reading an article the other day where somebody was saying that they're seasonal gendered, where it's like different seasons, they feel different gendered, so it's like it's autumn, so I feel more masculine. I was like, wow, you know. So I do appreciate language and I do appreciate people's um being able to really define who they are, but also as we take meaning out of clothing.
Micah Riot:You know, clothing is just clothing, like it isn't necessarily masculine or feminine, it's just whatever right seeing men, straight men, in the media wear pearls as a trend of earrings, like it's been really exciting for me to like see it. It seems kind of also basic, like of course men can wear earrings, yeah, but I remember, like you know, with with my jewelry being like I have to get my ears stretched, I have to, not that I mean I wanted to, but it was kind of like this is the masculine way to wear jewelry, this is how I can decorate myself, but in a way that's not too feminine. And now, like those things are losing their meaning in a good way.
Skeeter Barker:I think, you know, I think that people can dress. I mean, it's funny being, like I said, sort of. I try not to. I always want to be open and, you know, explore and I hope to always keep growing and being around people that always push me to grow, you know, and I hope to always keep growing and being around people that always push me to grow.
Skeeter Barker:You know, and I sometimes I'm like is it just that I know clearly who I am and for me, putting on dangly earrings or pearls does not feel comfortable, or is it that I'm so stuck in this kind of stone butch way of like this is how I have to show up, you know. So I'm always challenging myself on that and you know, sort of is clothing being a perfect example? You know, sort of is, would I wear that or would I not wear it? And if I don't want to wear it, why? You know it's like I'm watching my son grow. You know it's interesting because he's, you know he's clearly presenting as as male in the world and talks about that with all the choices. I'm straight, I'm like great, it's all good, you know, but I also see different ways that he will wear things or do things and I go. That's really, really great because you know that might not be have been masculine in the way that I would have thought about it.
Micah Riot:So I just love that.
Skeeter Barker:I love it, for you know that exploration would have thought about it.
Micah Riot:So I just love that. I love it, for you know that exploration. And so with the new generation of folks, how are you feeling about? I've had the. I've had the feeling that queerness is being co-opted completely. So how are you feeling with that?
Skeeter Barker:I mean, you know it's such a tricky subject for me because I don't want to be gatekeepy at all. You know, I live my life the way I want to live it. I surround myself with people I want to surround myself with. I love the way that I get reflected back who I am, by my lovers or by friends people in my life, by my lovers or by friends people in my life so. But it is a struggle sometime when it's like.
Skeeter Barker:Like where I work, for example, mr S Leathers, we've got about a hundred employees and in certain departments, you know, there are a bunch of young queer folks and they are dressing how they want, they are pronouning how it's beautiful, but it's like they're queer, and then you know it's a, a cis woman presenting female, they fantastic, queer, fantastic. And then you know they come to the christmas party, whatever, with their very male cis husband and I'm like so, and in talking to people more and asking questions, this is the thing we don't ask questions, right? Queer, I think, has become a word to me, my understanding of it. I've reclaimed dyke for myself, because for a while I was, you know, lesbian and I was queer and I was gay and I've been all the things Dyke for me is the one that sticks, because queer, I think now is any non-conventional relationship.
Skeeter Barker:I'm shaking my head for those who are not in the room with us, yeah, but it's like, if you're going to make a stand, like if you call yourself queer and you're in a non-conventional relationship, you're poly, you're, you know, sleep with, fuck with whoever, you're, kinky, whatever. If you are going to take a stand for me, if you are going to go against the grain for me, for you know, then I've got to claim you as my people. But do they? Well, that's, that's always the test. That's always the test, because if these two people that I'm talking about and you know, walk out in the world and safely passes straight and choose that privilege within their family groups, within their, and never say a word and never say a word and never say a word.
Skeeter Barker:But then in queer spaces they are, like you know, presenting queer. That's a whole other thing, because you now are using the privilege and co-opting that. But in the world I'm not safe to walk into a gas station in the middle of nowhere, my femme partner or my you know butch friend or my you know queer lover, we don't have that safety. So if you don't have my back when you pass and you choose to pass, then yeah, that that has me really questioning. Then I think that's where the co-option and the that's what gets me kind of upset. But I'm also have to keep expanding my views on what queer looks like. I do I do have to keep expanding my views on what queer looks like. I do I do, because if I stop expanding my view on what queer is like, then I'm saying listen, this is what queer is. I grew up in queer, I know queer, my queer is the correct queer and it's so. What I did is I chose another word I'm dyke, I'm a butch dyke.
Micah Riot:yeah, I hear that language. That Language is malleable. It keeps growing. But, as I hear, I heard Dan Savage say on one of his podcasts recently. He said something on the lines of like I think he was talking about the word queer and he was like language is so that we can understand each other. Like people just make things up, they just add meanings to language. Then it stops to mean the thing it meant.
Micah Riot:Like how we was supposed to communicate. He said in a different way. It was really precise and smart. He's very eloquent. He is very eloquent, but I was like dude, and maybe you know it's. I'm also. I'm 40, like I'm getting to that age where I'm like crotchety a little bit, you know. But, um, I had these two interactions, one in person, one online, and the one online was with a creator who's a polyamorous creator, who's a cis woman, has male lovers. I believe she identifies as queer, but she's talking about having sex with her male lover and how queer the sex is she's a cis woman with a cis man lover.
Micah Riot:I think most of her relationships are with cis men. She talks about only cis men. Really, I've seen her talk about only them. And she's talking about the queer sex she's having with her cis male lover because she feels like the sex they're having is expansive and not typical and I was like you just fucking own it, that it's straight and just like you're having straight sex and maybe he's putting panties on and you're strapping it on, but it's still straight sex.
Micah Riot:It could be subversive it could be interesting, but why do you have to call it queer? And I said something, you know, and a bunch of queer people liked what I said and a bunch of straight people put me down and I moved on. I followed her or whatever Social media, social media, whatever you know, but I couldn't walk past it because I was like you, as a queer, identifying person are doing a thing that feels very painful to those of us who are actually gay.
Micah Riot:There's harm Like we didn't reclaim this word so that straight people can just now take it and like, use it to look cool, to like look different, look more interesting. I don't know what they're doing. But and then another person and at least this woman identifies as queer. So at least there's that. But another person I talked to in person who is a client of mine and she, you know, in her whole history of knowing each other, you know, I'd asked her early on. I was like are you, are you queer?
Micah Riot:I know she's married to a man, has kids says man and she said, um no, not really, yeah, not really, you know. But you know I'm really open-minded, whatever it's like, okay, and so she's telling me about how in her she goes to conferences.
Micah Riot:Yeah, she goes to queer spaces in these conferences and I was like trying to like, gently, be like why do you go to queer spaces? Yeah, and she basically it was a really convoluted conversation, it was hard, it wasn't very straightforward, so it's kind of hard for me to understand, because I'm trying to be gentle and not gatekeepy, but also gently be like are you queer? Like did you change your mind? And she's essentially telling me that she identifies queerness is about not being in a box, that it's more. It's more of a queer theory, queer like the bending of time and space and identity. But I was like so are you opening your relationship with your husband because you want to explore things with, like, queer people and women, non-binary people, trans people?
Micah Riot:And she's like well, I could have sex with just about anybody. I mean, everyone's beautiful. And I was like that's not what I'm asking, right? And it was so frustrating because I was like this isn't what queerness is like. The spaces you go to as a non-queer person, those queer people want to. They want to be with each other. Like we want to be together if we're at a therapy conference. We might be processing something difficult and we want to be together if we're at a therapy conference.
Skeeter Barker:We might be processing something difficult we want to understand the word and the meaning of yes being a safe space and we want to be with each other like we like to be safe in safe.
Micah Riot:That's why we have queer spaces, so that people who are living a life that is um wrought with difficulty can come together and feel safe. And you're kind of messing that up for us.
Skeeter Barker:I think that's why, for me, the word queer has become something I don't really use for myself because I think it's gotten so murky. Yeah, and you know, it's not like I don't I have to, you know, again from from an era and it it still happens. In many parts of the world we live in bubbles, but you know, I have had my nose fractured by somebody hitting me in the face for being a dyke. I've, you know, I've sort of had so many fights, you know where somebody's yelling at my femme girlfriend, they just need dick, I mean all of the stuff that you know thrown out of places. You know I've been through the struggle in places, places where I had to fight and my, you know, people had to fight, um, and it has not felt safe. And there are many places still, even in this country, where I, if I'm on a cross country trip, I airport bathrooms fucking hard as a mask person.
Skeeter Barker:I sometimes go into the male bathroom because they don't look, and I've I've had people run out of the bathrooms and a boyfriend running like what are you doing? Like, what are you doing in here? I think that it's. I'm not. It's not like everybody has to struggle to be able to claim a label. You know what I mean.
Micah Riot:It's not like, but it comes with the struggle, but you have to understand having to do it.
Skeeter Barker:It just comes with it I think that you have to understand. And then there you said earlier, there's like this connection through hard times, trauma, you know, like when you're in queer space, you know like, or whatever, you know, butch space, dyke space, queer space, gay space, you know, trans space. And I mean my co-partner is, you know, black woman and there's a really clear like there are times where she just needs to be around black women and it doesn't mean that I, as her partner, have a right to walk into no, so I think that the reason we did, richelle and I, we started saying queer, you know, queer women retreats. But it got murky, because what does that mean? Are trans men welcome?
Micah Riot:Certainly trans women are welcome because it's queer women space. But yeah, we can go back to that, we can go back to that conversation. But that's kind of half of the retreat was kind of cool with that and half wasn't.
Skeeter Barker:It started confused it started changing, you know and I think one of the reasons we haven't done one for a while is because there there was that division starting to happen. But what I'm saying is it's like there there is importance in people having spaces that they can feel, clearly understood dynamics and safety yourself at that basic level, right, and you don't have to misinterpret somebody and get into this kind of vulnerable space or hookup space or whatever and and you're like, oh, oh you, you sleep with cis dudes.
Micah Riot:Yeah.
Skeeter Barker:Or you're a straight woman who's experimenting with you know, a dyke Like no, that's not what I, I didn't, I'm, no, I'm not doing that. So I, I hear you, but for me, my path queer, it's great out there. I tend not to refer to it myself because it's not clear enough for myself or for people. These days.
Micah Riot:You know it's funny when you were talking about the definitions of queer women for the retreat, I had one experience there of not quite hooking up but getting into that space with a woman who was bisexual. I think a friend of hers brought her and I think she only came that one time but we were laying on that. Remember that big hammock? Oh, I remember Covered in a blanket.
Skeeter Barker:I remember that.
Micah Riot:I remember that Slightly touching each other under the blanket and I was like this is super hot. And she was bisexual. I mean by curious, I don't know what she was, but it didn't go anywhere. But I was like, I mean, I was young, I didn't, it didn't matter to me, you know but I was like, oh, maybe she's not actually like gay, you know, cause she was willing to just like take a little little step towards a queer hookup, but not not really jump into it, not to say that maybe it was, she was not into me or you know who knows. But I was just like, well, you remember that moment.
Skeeter Barker:I do, I remember, I remember seeing you on the hammock. Do you know who?
Micah Riot:I'm talking about yes, I don't remember her name, or?
Skeeter Barker:anything but I remember her face. She was like a cute little femme. Yeah, a lot of my butch friends, mass friends, trans friends who love the challenge of sleeping with a straight woman who's curious, not me, not me, not me, because I'm not trying to be somebody's experiment, no, like, I tend to lean more into stone butch, so it's not even about a woman, you know. But I, there are so many fucking dykes, I, there are so many fucking dykes.
Skeeter Barker:Queer, let's say queer women, gay women, clearly loving being queer, dyke, gay, lesbian, whatever the word. There are so many and I love it and I I'm not trying to be someone's experiment, I don't want to be yeah, I just don't. I love queerness in that way. When I'm saying like lesbian, dyke, queer, gay, that's a huge hot switch for me. However, like, whether you're presenting, you know, mask or you're femme, if you're like, you know, loving women, I'm down, yeah, but I'm not trying to do. You know, it's not sounds awful to say I'm not saying if I would, I, yeah, but I'm not trying to do. I, you know it's not. Sounds awful to say I'm not saying if I would, I sleep with a bisexual woman. I mean, I have and, but I might, but it's just.
Micah Riot:I feel very clearly like yeah, what's your response to some bisexuals coming at you going well, that's biphobic, right? Exactly? What's your response to that? And I, I don't.
Skeeter Barker:I'm not agreeing with them, I'm just saying, I just think it's like I get to choose where and when I spend time with my body and someone else's body. Yeah, and I just there's lines I draw. I will celebrate you, I will march for you, I will have your back, I will, you know, protest against laws. You know, I love it, I love the freedom of it, I love that's your life. And there are, but I, personally, I, yeah, I'm not trying to, you know, and I've talked to a lot of bi women who are like, yeah, but it's not like we're just, you know, if you're in a monogamous relationship with somebody, it's like, well, I choose, I like men and women, so I'm choosing you as a woman, I'm hot for you, this is what I'm doing, this is the relationship I'm in.
Skeeter Barker:It's not like any more than another fully queer lover is going to be like there's another woman over there, right, right, but I just, I don't really want to be God. It sounds awful. I don't really want to be sharing a bed with a cis man on any level in my life. I don't really want to be sharing a bed with a cis man on any level in my life. So if someone is sexually active with cis men, bless it, love it.
Micah Riot:And that's you know.
Micah Riot:Say the thing out loud that people don't say it, cause I hear you and you know, if it had been on paper, like had I like, right, my partner, like love of my life, like the person I totally see myself with till I die, has a male partner of like 20 years, shares a bed with him. I don't know how much sex they have I think they have some here and there but it's like had it been on paper somewhere and I would have been like, do I go for this? I've been like fuck, no, I fell in love with somebody. I fell in love with somebody. I fell in love with somebody.
Micah Riot:This is the person I've ever. You know who's been the best for me. I've ever had the best to me and the best for me. And this is where we're at and it is what it is. And, like you know, for so long I struggled with that being like you could be with me all the time, but you're choosing to be with him half the time, like why, yeah, you know. And now I'm just like life is life, this is her karma, this is her family, like this is the person she chooses to like yeah you know, be her family like.
Skeeter Barker:This is not a business, it's not about me who you, who you crush on and who you fall in love with and who you like. I mean my girl, fucking hot as shit, kinky as shit. We have beyond. I mean it's it great she's a pussy loving queer, right, but I love the fact that she's so. It's not about creating a life with family. I have a 15 year old son. She has a life partner who she's raising kids with and I just I respect that completely, you know, but you know so it's not about not having men cis men in your life. One of my jobs in London when I was a young dyke was I worked at a strip club where I would be the person to go clean up the little booths after they jerked off oh, cleaning off the mirror. And at Mr S I go in the changer.
Skeeter Barker:I mean, I'm so close to men's bodies, yeah. Like I'm measuring their cock and balls for like a sex toy, or I'm trying to figure out a butt plug harness for them, and I have huge respect and love for men and their bodies. I love for men and their bodies. I mean I make stuff for them.
Micah Riot:But I don't need to. That's so true. You're very intimate with men's bodies, very intimate.
Skeeter Barker:But I don't need to be closer than that. Yeah, and that's my choice. Yeah, and it's not. I think the problem is when you start to say things in this era where people want to, then saying that I'm saying I, at this point in my life. These are choices for you and your body and your safety.
Skeeter Barker:Absolutely, and I love it for other people that they get to make choices. I love the freedom but I'm making my choices and these are the choices I'm making. And for most dykes I know, especially a stone, you know, butch dyke, the gold star, whatever you know. You know, butch Dyke, the gold star, whatever you know label you want to put on it. I have more intimate contact with men's bodies than anyone else. I know Right and so and I, because I have the line that I have, because I've never had a sexual attraction to a guy, I can do that with utmost respect and joy without having any weird feelings about it. Like some of the people, the most incredible, the straight women. When I listen to my sister sometimes and she'll say something, or straight women I know about, like this sort of disparaging thing, I'm like, wow, you know, I have nothing but respect for it.
Micah Riot:I don't need to get close to it. It's like you know people women who are straight will be like God. I wish I was a lesbian. It'd be so much easier. Like no, the people who you're vulnerable to are the people who hurt you. If you like men, they will hurt you. If you like women, they will hurt you. Like you will have things to say about whatever gender you like. It's not easier. It's. But there's also an and. For a lot of us queer dykes, lesbians, women loving women, giving it a big circle around that whole category like there's an innate respect of womanhood and women's bodies and being raised as female we just like know, yeah, I feel like a little bit more about it. Um, so that they really have to be really bad for us to talk shit you know yeah yeah, I mean like the straight women who are saying shit about men.
Micah Riot:It's like yeah basically kind of shitty. Sometimes, like I get it, not all men, but a lot of them, and and women too.
Skeeter Barker:I mean god, well right, women too. Some very toxic relationships and very toxic people out there in the diet community as well. I mean it's not. None of us are sort of immune from it's, just people being people.
Skeeter Barker:But I do think that we get to choose who our intimates are and where the safe spaces are and the vulnerable spaces. And I think you know, as a butch woman and I obviously in many, many conversations with butch women and mask people where our bodies are. You know it's a guessing game, it's hard, I mean I, you know it's a guessing game, it's hard, I mean I. Actually the couple of butch lovers I've had I was having this conversation the other day with my girl it's like the couple of butch lovers I've had, I felt much freer to do like things sexual acts, you know, sort of like, because it's butch on butch, whereas often over the years with femmes it's like, um, it's sort of a minefield, right, it's like. I have so much respect for fans who have navigated and navigate this minefield all the time of butch bodies like can I touch your chest, you know, can I touch your? Can I say pussy? You know, do I, because you know they're loving women and women's bodies, but they have to be very delicate around and it changes every day.
Micah Riot:So how do you feel like you do that with other butch people? You feel like it's easier for you, I think it's been a while, but I think that it's.
Skeeter Barker:It felt, I think, cause we're, there's a, there's a commonality with the. You're not being trans, so I'm not. I don't struggle about being in a woman's body because it's the one I want to be in, but it doesn't mean that the way that we've been seen in the world, our bodies have been disrespected or we've been, you know so there's not a huge, there hasn't been a huge love and respect of us walking through the world with these masculine bodies, you know so. I think that when, yeah, it's just, it's just weird, it's strange. I think it's a minefield for ourselves, you know, every day, and also for our lovers, and so I have a deep appreciation for anyone that can navigate that with me, with us, in a way that they're like using language, asking questions being bold, yeah, you know, like clearly expressing desire um in a way that creates safe space.
Skeeter Barker:You know to to be what feels vulnerable, you know.
Micah Riot:So yeah, I mean, our bodies are so connected to trauma, right, and so many people have trauma, like it's so common, that I feel like I can't assume anything about anybody, anyone's body, right. But you're right, like it seems like a more natural thing to, like, touch the chest of a femme person, assuming they're comfortable with it. But they might be.
Micah Riot:No, absolutely because of trauma, not because of gender absolutely gender and trauma and just there's intersections, yeah, so I feel like that's, I think, why there's also a lot of people who are a lot of young people who are choosing to forego gender altogether and, yeah, just kind of be like I'm a gender or I am asexual, because I don't want to deal with the trauma and the body and the complications surrounding all of that.
Skeeter Barker:No, you're right, I mean everybody. You know, hopefully, anytime you're being sexual and touching somebody, that you've there's some agreements and consent laid down at the beginning that you know you can. But just because someone's in a femme body doesn't mean that they love having their chest called breast and touched. I mean, of course, you know there's always that sensitivity and I think that it's just a dance. It's a dance and why I love kink is because I think that there are different avenues, so many different avenues to get to that sort of hot intimacy, versus often in non kink there's only certain avenues you're going to get there. You know what I mean. There are only certain body avenues you're going to get there. You know there's only certain body parts you're going to touch in certain ways. However creative you are with kink there's so many more dynamics or sort of, you know, power dynamics and physical dynamics and psychological dynamics. That really it's a, it's a playing field. It's such a good point and I love it yeah, I think that it's.
Skeeter Barker:Yeah, you can learn a lot about somebody you know in kink and sometimes it's not sexual necessarily like you were talking about with piercing and a lot of other podcasts, um, so I think it's just, it's a bigger playing field, yeah, which I think that a lot of people don't have, um, for whatever reasons. I wish, I wish people had it yeah, people don't.
Micah Riot:They think of it as like the scary dark thing, that dungeon with like chains.
Skeeter Barker:Like pain. It can be so many things Like pain doesn't.
Micah Riot:pain doesn't need to be a part of it at all, Not at all.
Skeeter Barker:Sex doesn't need to be a part of it. Pain doesn't have to be a part of it. Dark dungeons don't have to be a part of it. Tailor-made, yeah. Tailor-made, yeah.
Micah Riot:Made to measure, yeah I'll get my tape measure out, that's right. Um, how has we'll bring it back? Tattoos how has uh being tattooed has? Has a connection to your. Which identity is stone identity? You're like different intersections of identity, kinky person identity that you've held throughout your years, I mean absolutely.
Skeeter Barker:I think that taking my, the body of a woman and I was clear, I've never questioned that I am trans, want to be trans, clearly, in a woman's body, but that doesn't mean that it's a completely comfortable place for me to be. I used to have really, really, really big chest, really big breasts, and I had reduction. I didn't, and this was early on. This was like in the nineties in San Francisco. A lot of people were starting to have, you know, their tits removed and it was never. It was never that for me. But they needed to be a lot smaller. They were lovely, but they weren't mine. Yeah, be a lot smaller. They were lovely, but they weren't mine.
Skeeter Barker:And then tattooing has just given me the opportunity to claim my body in the way that I want, to map my life in the way I want to. And I do think for myself that my body, when I look in a mirror, it represents more of that sort of, yeah, masculine butch. You know, and it's funny because you know, I know a lot of femmes who've got finger tattoos and they look beautiful. They've got the nails, they've got the finger tattoos. It's hot. And then I look at my fingers that are tattooed and my hands that are tattooed, and to me it's a different. It's butch hands, yeah. So I love that it's changed, though you know it's like, if I'm sworn, doing that in the 90s, this is new. That was more of a butch thing to eat in Uccleston, you know, and I, just as you talked about in the last, one of the last podcasts, when you were actually talking to my girl, you know we had the daddy girl tattoos where I have the key and she has the padlock, and it's like um, tattoos where I have a key and she has a padlock, and it's like there are tattoos on my body that have that represent a time with somebody.
Skeeter Barker:And as we talked you and me talked about earlier, before this we started recording, is that you, I never want to throw anything away If somebody has been significant in my life and maybe we see each other, maybe we don't, maybe we're family now, maybe we're not, but there's a story of them in my heart, and so when I put that on my body and I could point to several tattoos on my body that are for somebody or for a time with somebody, and so I think for me it's just reclaiming my body, making my body, my own and also, yeah, so I think the tattoos are. It's almost like I don't I'm using a lot of words, but I don't necessarily have the words for how it feels to have them and I love you as a tattooist. I mean, I love you anyway, Micah, but as a tattoo artist.
Skeeter Barker:I think your skillset is incredible. I love everything you've put on my body and I love the way that you see me and that you I've come in. I'm like I think I just want small letters on my knuckles. You know, no, no, we're going big. You know, you change the direction of the thing on my neck every single time you have done a tattoo on my body and I change my mind all the time. I have adhd. I come in for this, I get this. I change all the time. Um, as aiden said the other day, she goes you must be a nightmare for a client. I'm like, because you, but you, you work really really well with me and every single time, because you see me and I feel seen by you, the tattoo becomes something that maybe I didn't walk in with the idea of, but I walk out being like damn, this looks good.
Micah Riot:I'm so happy to hear that. Oh my gosh, it's incredible. I really love the rope.
Skeeter Barker:Yeah, that one was a. That was a good one, wasn't it?
Micah Riot:I love it. There's a very uh, there's a very deep butchness in that. Like that we were talking about, like being in a kind of a there's the red lights district and the tattoo shop in the back and the what gay bar and like this, this, this is what that reminds me of. I guess like that, like your beginnings there.
Skeeter Barker:The anchor and the rope. I mean because you know, my dad was in the Navy and I was in a naval town, but so, yeah, there is definitely that and you know the knot, the rope, I mean it. Yeah, just thinking about my other hand now. But thank you for being who you are in the world because, just like you said at the beginning, people had access to yoga because of how I looked and who I was, and I think that coming to you as who you are in the world, to be tattooed by you, to walk in, feel seen, there's just a deep because it's a vulnerable spot to be tattooed by somebody and I really, really appreciate you.
Micah Riot:I think you play a very important role in the in the world of tattoos.
Micah Riot:Thank you for saying that. That's very kind, I mean it. What's the future of your tattoo work? Well, what do you see when you're, like, on your deathbed? What do you do you have significantly? Do you have more plans that you know of? Or it's just kind of like we're going. I mean, I know that you'll text me. You'll be like oh, I think I think I want this piece over here and I think I want to do this over here, and maybe we'll finish the belly piece at some point. Maybe we won't, but like you know you'll, you'll have your ideas, they'll pop up and you'll tell me about them. But, like, do you have some sort of plan?
Skeeter Barker:no, no no, I never have done. I think that, um, I get an idea and exactly like I might be in a moment in my life. I might be in a relationship in my life where I'm like that's gonna mark that time in my life and I want that I might change it. You know, I really want my thigh hip piece finish with with all the water, because there's a that is is a full piece. There's fire on the other one. That balance for me is something, but it's. I get this spontaneous, like I want a key, I want to lock, I want to this, I want that word, I want my hand done. There's definitely more tattoos in my future. Yeah, and I don't know what they're all going to be. And yeah, so going to be. And yeah, so I don't know. I don't know what it'll look like when I'm laying on my death bed and okay, we'll all be very beautiful. Yeah, all of us that are heavily tattooed will be like the sistine chapel I know, and it's a temple.
Skeeter Barker:It's interesting because you know that whole japanese art of more I don't believe it's japanese, but that was the piece I was reading about that where they take the skin and they make they, they dry it and they make art. Do they do that? Yeah, are you allowed to do that with human skin? I don't know whether it's something that, I don't know. I just remember reading an article and seeing the photographs of these human skins.
Skeeter Barker:Yeah, and I'm like it's so weird because in some ways, whether we choose to get cremated or buried or planted in a tree or whatever, and our bodies, you know, sort of disappear from this earthly realm and all that work and all that art, and so so I get it in some ways like taking that. But I also feel like my tattoos on my body and I see that in other people's is like this is me, this is Skeeter in this lifetime, in this body, this is the reflection of me, this is how I look, this is how people remember me and they see me. So that goes with me. You know, when I leave this earthly plane, my body is no longer needed, but I do get it.
Skeeter Barker:I do get that idea of taking it as artwork and sort of, you know, putting the skin on a wall in a frame.
Micah Riot:Yeah, but I think, thinking about it like someone who's worn their tattoos for 20 years, like they don't look very bright anymore, you know, they're kind of like it just kind of becomes part of your landscape. It's not really like a thing that's on you, so it's not like a painting. So I'm like I mean, maybe that will look like. If I think about, like my back piece is pretty cool.
Skeeter Barker:I could look cool once. I looks very different once you're dead.
Micah Riot:There's no blood to it anyway, but you know right. So I'm like does it look that good? Though at that point, like I don't, I don't even know that it's about the look. Maybe that's not the point.
Skeeter Barker:I think it's. It's a fascinating concept that I've seen and read about where people do that and definitely you know whether it's legal or not. It's not.
Micah Riot:My body will just go on, yeah, but you know something else.
Skeeter Barker:Yeah, but you're right. I mean, I, sometimes I, I don't forget, I have tattoos, but sometimes people you know that whole thing if you walk down the street and somebody, some dude or somebody goes, no, he's tipped. I'm like did you say nice tits? I'm like there. But thank you, um. So I think that you know. It just is, the newer ones I've gotten from you on my neck and on my hands are much more visible to me in the world and so, but so many on my body, I'm just like, like I have a back piece. I have a whole meatloaf song on my back. Heaven can wait, because that got me through some really rough teenage years. That song meatloaf and I love Meat Loaf, I love Meat Loaf and I put that song on my back. I never see it. You know it's productive. I forget it's there. Sometimes I'm at Kabuki or some hot springs and I'm in the changing room taking it and somebody. I turn around and some woman's reading my back.
Micah Riot:She's like hold on hold on.
Skeeter Barker:I was like what, oh, okay, yeah, yeah, so so yeah, I love my tattoos, I love that you're my tattoo artist love that too, it's been an honor, it's.
Micah Riot:You know, it's so often like it's not often that I get that, I get to tattoo people who have a lot of other work from other people and when, like that person you namely is like okay, like I'm sticking with you for as long as it makes sense, or whatever, it's such an honor, you know, because I'm like little old me, like I don't think of myself as like. I mean now I feel like I have quite a lot of experience but I don't think of myself.
Micah Riot:that way I still feel like a baby tattoo artist, you know, in most ways.
Skeeter Barker:Your work is gorgeous. I mean, you know I was talking about that back piece you did on that person. It suits me, you know what. So like people go to you know somebody else for solid black work, or somebody goes to somebody else for like you know whatever, but your work and who you are and how you see me in our relationship, it completely matches me. So it's like a relationship. I'm going to come back to you for that.
Micah Riot:Well, also that you know I was taught to do everything and people aren't taught to do everything these days, like people have a niche and that works for them and that's cool, you know.
Micah Riot:but yeah, like, because I was taught to do everything, I can meet your needs yeah I can do the watercolor on your thigh and I can do the trad lettering and I can do, like, whatever you need I can do. And I love that, you know, because I mean, who? Who would wish to have less skills when they do? For sure, I love that I have all the skills. But sometimes I'm like, oh, but people have a niche, have more followers and they have more, you know, yeah, cause it's like the yoga thing. You know, you being a yoga teacher, looking at what you do, like that's a niche. It took a niche and you like filled it Right and so I'm meet all of your needs. That's pretty cool, for me.
Micah Riot:Yeah, I think it's looking pretty good.
Skeeter Barker:Yeah, I'm happy with it. Yeah, look forward to the next one.
Micah Riot:Yeah, thank you so much for letting me come over and interview you and talking about all things so frankly and honestly and openly. I really, really appreciate that. I appreciate you and love you.
Skeeter Barker:It's an absolute pleasure. I love the podcast. I think what you're doing is great, and me and my dogs sorry if they've- been a little noisy they've been great. Yeah, but thank you so much.