Mike, would you be surprised to find out I agreed with you? Well, to some extent anyway.

Marching in leather is one thing. But we don't run around having sex during the parade or grabbing people out of the audience and hitting them with floggers (well, not unless they ask nicely). But I do not condone gay people at pride festivals getting sloppy drunk, having sex in public places, whipping their dicks out or being offensive any more than I like to see men and women making out in shopping malls, or getting sloppy drunk at football games, or women flashing their boobs at passing cars. It's not an issue of being straight or gay,it's an issue of just being offensive, period. There's a time and a place for such things.

And leatherfolk showing our pride at the gay pride events is important because we are ostracized by a lot of the gay community the way that gay people are often ostracized by the straight community. We are a minority within a minority. We don't want to change anybody, we don't want to throw our lifestyles in anybody's faces, we just want to say, "Hey, we're here and we're a part of this community too".

Although I will fight for the right for men to wear chaps with only a jockstrap on underneath because women have been wearing thong bikinis to the beach for ages. If they can show off their asses, why can't we? :donmike: