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RE: Old Guard-who are those people? - 8/28/2006 8:40:12 AM

onestandingstill

Posts: 1335
Joined: 8/3/2006
Status: offline

Hi There,
I too have only been in the life 1-1/2 years. I lived for a short time with a Dom who was in his terms Old Guard. I too tried to research this concept. Searching for the Old Guard Instruction materials were like looking for the a unicorn. The information is limited and contradicts itself every where you turn. I think the frustration of each and every person having their own interpretation on not only where it came from, but the protocols, and growth that's happened as the 1950's met the year 2000 and beyond.
I got so frustrated I decided I don't really put much stock in the origin of it. I don't have much faith in the way it was inflicted upon me in this past relationship as the correct version either. I also have decided it does not matter what the name of the group I'm in today is as much as the integrity and like path of those in it to my own ideals and notions. We all have our ideas and value systems that seem to be fragmented by the groups of Old Guard, New Guard, New Age, Gorian Etc... much like organized religion segregates itself in main stream society. Everyone is so busy pointing fingers at the other groups claiming all other paths are wrong when within their own group there's divisions too. A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF CAN NOT STAND. We all need to consider that more.
I say don't let it frustrate you, recognize it for what it is, and be true to yourself no matter what someone else says should be the right path or standard.
I also would like to say I feel the same frustration you do in the literature and lack of clear guidelines available. It seems (like me) every one complains there's no universal rule book of how to live a real BDSM life, but it's impossible to get one everyone will enforce, so why try.
I think a lot of subs who come in new turn their backs on BDSM and run for the hills due to the inconsistency of it all. It's hard to be in a place where you can't train in ways that are more universal than just the Dom your with notions of this world. That coupled with all the negativity of you're not real unless you do_________ or if you do ___________.
Overall my advice is this world is like playing in a bee hive with a blindfold on. You could get through without being bitten, but the chances of you not being welted up in your path are not very promising unless you can play with the smokescreen in full force around you.
Not positive input, but how I feel.
Suzanne

(in reply to prettichinadoll)

Post #: 21

RE: Old Guard-who are those people? - 8/28/2006 10:27:49 AM

raiken

Posts: 868
Joined: 10/18/2005
Status: offline

i just want to add that you have to just go with what yur gut tells you, while keeping in mind everyone elses perspective, and dare to form your own, and bring it to life.

(in reply to prettichinadoll)

Post #: 22

RE: Old Guard-who are those people? - 8/28/2006 5:21:31 PM

Noah

Posts: 1660
Joined: 7/5/2005
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: onestandingstill

Hi There,
I too have only been in the life 1-1/2 years. I lived for a short time with a Dom who was in his terms Old Guard. I too tried to research this concept...

Suzanne

Thank you for a wonderful post.

(in reply to onestandingstill)

Post #: 23

RE: Old Guard-who are those people? - 8/28/2006 8:18:32 PM

Archer

Posts: 3207
Joined: 3/11/2005
Status: offline

As to why Hets would find Gay Leather and attach themselves to it is a relatively easy question. The Gay Leather culture became politicly active and came "out of the closet" faster than the Het side did., and back in the 70's there was a certain joining of causes, purely for political and educational reasons.

What was once strictly gay leather is now just Leather and Within reason accepts lesbians, as well as Hetero men and women.
I proudly adopted Leather traditions and history, I have met one or two First Generation Leathermen, truely Old Guard with histories dating back to the 50's the last one I knew died a couple years ago, Frank Pucket, if you look you can find some mentions of him around. I've heard the personal stories from people with 30+ years who remembered Frank as an Established Master when they were starting as a boy/ slave.

Why Adopt values and culture from a Gay Leather group? Simple they were the ones in the city I started out in that had two things Verifiable Experience, and a history they were willing to share with me. I didn't undergo a formal mentoring under some Old Guard Master instead a few 2nd and a few more 3rd Generation Masters (generation not as in blood ties but as in a Master trains a slave who becomes a Master) were people I spoke with regularly, asked questions of, went to parties with, raised money for HIV charities with, and watched as they played and trained their slaves etc.

Differences in Old Guard protocols comes from a few things, protocols while sharing a basis in military traditions were forming in widespread and unconnected areas. A group would form in LA another in SF and yet another in Chicago another in NYC and those groups would form and formulate their protocols from the same basis but isolated from each other.
Eventually the groups would hear about each other and swap ideas. Of course during this time many of the gay leathermen were part of various motorcycle clubs and shared some history with them. So while some similarities between protocols would be there there would also be differences.

Just as a side point at this same time there were Hetero Groups that were doing SM as well many of them learning their skills from Professional Dominatrix of the time. "Reading Circles" were another of the types of Hetero groups that were around .They would publish and share stories of bizarre sexual practices from around the world and throughout history. All very academic of course LOL. But as an academic reading circle they could get the reading material and not be busted for Pornography being sent through the US Postal Service. Which at the time was a serious crime wih Federal Jail time.

Contact Mags like "The Justice Weekly" were cleverly hidden readings about strange kinky sex crimes, or the strange torureous techniques of punishment for crimes, If you saw someone with a Justice Weekly poking out of their breif case that was a clue that you might have met a kindred soul. Contact mags were used by both Hetero and Gay kinky people.
"So do you play the Saxaphone or the Mandolin?" was a common code for are you a Sadist or a Masochist?

There is alot of history available if you really want histroy of Old Guard Leather then the place to get to is The Leather Archives and Museum in Chicago.

In Leather

Archer

(in reply to Noah)

Post #: 24

RE: Old Guard-who are those people? - 8/28/2006 8:53:36 PM

roughleather

Posts: 232
Joined: 11/11/2004
Status: offline

Here's a good summary from the Leather Leadership Conference: http://www.leatherleadership.org/library/LLC6Baldwin.htm

The "Old Guard" grew out of the post-WWII motorcycle clubs, and gay motorcycle clubs were the basis of the gay "Old Guard". By the early 1980s, the bar scene started to replace the bike scene, and AIDS killed off most of the Old Guard during the 1980s.

In the 1990s, you'd see a few old guys in leather cruising Folsom St, looking for a scene that no longer existed.

What's left today is more nostalgia and retro. The gay community in SF has gone off in other directions.

(in reply to prettichinadoll)

Post #: 25

RE: Old Guard-who are those people? - 8/28/2006 10:02:37 PM

prettichinadoll

Posts: 35
Joined: 12/16/2005
Status: offline

wow....thank you every one...I learned so much just by reading your posts. I'll check out the links you give me when I have more time.

I guess I want to know the "Old Guard" as it was. I like the systematic and linear structure of history, if I can fit BDSM lifestyle in my system, this entire choatic world would make more sense to me and make me feel a lot more comfortable.

Like mentioned in some of the posts, people use words when they don't know the meaning. I try to avoid it by learning everything i can about this lifestyle.

_____________________________

Happiness is a conscious choice, not an automatic response.

(in reply to roughleather)

Post #: 26

RE: Old Guard-who are those people? - 8/28/2006 10:28:14 PM

marieToo

Posts: 3595
Joined: 5/21/2006
From: Jersey
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Noah

quote:

ORIGINAL: prettichinadoll

Once again, my curiosity got the best of me. I start to get interested in the people or a concept known as "old guard". What are those people?

Happy to oblige.

It was the Easter Bunny who started it all but since he made his leather gear from unicorn hides there were a few problems. A few hundred years later Paul Bunyan, Father Christmas and Sherlock Holmes met at the first Old Guard Munch in New Francago, Switzerland where at last some good quality gryphon hide assless chaps were available from the tree elves. Before they had so much as finished their mermaid milk cocktails they had plotted for all time the course of BDSM throughout the world plus Canada and sealed the deal with the famous Olde Guarde secret handshake, which by most accounts involved a rather peculiar grip

... but of course no two accounts agree on what the grip was.

Almost every culture, prettichinadoll, harbors a myth which keys on a claim like "there were giants in those days." The BDSM culture, such as it is, is no exception.

Some day you'll get to meet "one of the last few surviving members to have enjoyed the full training and indoctrination of this hallowed and secret society that I can't wait to bore you with all the details of (in the vain hope that it will make your panty elastic loose its resiliancy)."

Be sure to ask him to take you for a ride in his black helicopter to meet his brother the (last surviving) crop circle/phrenology expert.

You are so fucking bad and so fucking funny at the same time. oh my god.

(in reply to Noah)

Post #: 27

RE: Old Guard-who are those people? - 8/31/2006 8:05:38 AM

onestandingstill

Posts: 1335
Joined: 8/3/2006
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Noah

quote:

ORIGINAL: onestandingstill

Hi There,
I too have only been in the life 1-1/2 years. I lived for a short time with a Dom who was in his terms Old Guard. I too tried to research this concept...

Suzanne

Thank you for a wonderful post.

You are most welcome Noah.

(in reply to Noah)

Post #: 28

RE: Old Guard-who are those people? - 8/31/2006 8:52:58 AM

LotusSong

Posts: 6334
Joined: 7/2/2006
From: Domme Emeritus
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: MasterLon

Chinadoll, My name is MasterLon, I have 45 active years in this lifestyle...I have both lectured and mentored manyam now a teacher and senior dungeon monitor in the oldest and largest bdsm club in southern california....Old Guard...were gay men coming out of the military circa late 40's early 50's. They took with them the protocols of the military changed them around some and used them added some more as time went on to thier satisfaction, this is how the protocols began for the gay leather society when they were together as one group now they are two separate entities...they were gay men coming out of the military about them being hard and cruel on thier slaves yes that is very true and not one of them would change anything, also true they would be in thier 80's and 90's today, though some are still taught the old ways most are not, like old school for heterosexual folks of yesteryear some today are what is termed old school taught but but the original old schools would be way up there in age also, I am 60 years old and I was old school taught, by my parents mostly but was also mentored by a gentleman named Sir Brian of Phoenix Arizona...yes many have their own interpretations of what they think about many things, some true some just plain funny some even ridiculous. Master/Dom, slave/submissive....it all depends on the amount of devotion between the two people and the amount of control the sub/slave gives and retains...or the amount of responsibility the Master/Dom can handle this determines what they are or who they are....they each must look within thier own heart and souls to first find themselves then when found they learn much more about themselves and the learning never ever stops. Like a true dominant is not egotistical he/she may be like anyone else friendly easy going polite and courteousbut one can feel the dominance coming from his/her heart and soul. the same is true of the sub/slave they are submissive but not to every idiot that says he is Master they are to just one, the one they submit to...for those that pretend to be something they are not....they seek sex and will pretend to be anything to get it, best to learn of each character the dominant and the sub/slave, learn what makes then tick why they are what they are, learn the difference between real and fake, then seek your own true one, and there are just as many if not more fake subs and slaves, pretending to be something they can not be. Most have no idea what a sub or slave really is or does....please learn first I have sen so many get hurt and there was no need of them getting hurt all they needed was knowledge, hmm got off the subject, sorry. Hope this helps a little bit, take care of yourself.......remember knowledge is the key that opens doors........go get the keys..........
MasterLon

This is how I knew it to be.

_____________________________

Life Lesson #1

I'm not your type.
I'm not inflatable.

(in reply to MasterLon)

Post #: 29

RE: Old Guard-who are those people? - 8/31/2006 2:29:00 PM

MisPandora

Posts: 2911
Joined: 4/7/2004
From: Philadelphia, PA
Status: offline

Darling --

Much of the "OG" tribe is dead, taken from us in the AIDS crisis of the 70s & 80s or just old age. Incidentally, they never called themselves Old Guard, nor did they talk much about what they did, unless you were on the inside of their circle.

Check out an article written by Guy Baldwin, covering everything from earning leathers to cruising: http://www.tdl.com/~thawley/oldgd.html

To look into the past, check out http://www.colors-of-leather.com/. This is my friend Gwen's history project, documenting as much of the OG, back-in-the-day cruise spots, clubs, colors and hangouts as she can get her hands on.

"Located in Chicago, but serving the World" is the Leather Archives and Museum, dedicated to the preservation of leather subculture and its' artifacts. http://www.leatherarchives.org/ (The original sketch of my portrait as Ms World Leather 2004 was just recently dedicated into the art gallery by Ray Castro of Jacksonville, FL. My original medal will eventually reside there in the Women of Leather display.)

Dusk Peterson has composed a history bibliography during the supposed OG time: http://duskpeterson.com/leatherculture/bibliography/index.htm

Hope this helps.

< Message edited by MisPandora -- 8/31/2006 2:48:42 PM >

_____________________________

Pandora
Ms World Leather 2004
Ms Philadelphia Leather 2004

"Simply put, if you want a real femdom to love you, give her reasons to love you." Gloria Brame

(in reply to prettichinadoll)

Post #: 30

RE: Old Guard-who are those people? - 8/31/2006 2:43:27 PM

MisPandora

Posts: 2911
Joined: 4/7/2004
From: Philadelphia, PA
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: twicehappy

We do however have them to thank in part for bringing bdsm into mainstream awareness

I'm sorry, but I don't think that you're necessarily correct. If the OG types had it their way, folks still wouldn't have open access to SM & leather. They kept their affairs very private, and to be accepted into their inner circle to even find out about this stuff, you had to either know someone or really truly capture someone's attention out in a bar. You wouldn't just show up at a club meeting because you didn't even KNOW where or when they met, it was that secretive. SM wasn't something they taught in the community center, or shared with a bunch of strangers in a restaurant as we hets do nowaday.

_____________________________

Pandora
Ms World Leather 2004
Ms Philadelphia Leather 2004

"Simply put, if you want a real femdom to love you, give her reasons to love you." Gloria Brame

(in reply to twicehappy)

Post #: 31

RE: Old Guard-who are those people? - 8/31/2006 2:45:57 PM

MisPandora

Posts: 2911
Joined: 4/7/2004
From: Philadelphia, PA
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Archer
I proudly adopted Leather traditions and history, I have met one or two First Generation Leathermen, truely Old Guard with histories dating back to the 50's the last one I knew died a couple years ago, Frank Pucket, if you look you can find some mentions of him around. I've heard the personal stories from people with 30+ years who remembered Frank as an Established Master when they were starting as a boy/ slave.

Archer,

Thanks for posting this. Frank was a wonderful man, as were his brothers in leather, among them Thom Dombkowski. I miss the chief. If these folks only knew....

_____________________________

Pandora
Ms World Leather 2004
Ms Philadelphia Leather 2004

"Simply put, if you want a real femdom to love you, give her reasons to love you." Gloria Brame

(in reply to Archer)

Post #: 32

RE: Old Guard-who are those people? - 8/31/2006 2:47:39 PM

MisPandora

Posts: 2911
Joined: 4/7/2004
From: Philadelphia, PA
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Archer
There is alot of history available if you really want histroy of Old Guard Leather then the place to get to is The Leather Archives and Museum in Chicago.

Or catching Viola Johnson on one of her "Leather History Library" road trips around the country. She's got an amazing collection of Justice Weekly and other really incredible documents, books and other bits of where we came from.

_____________________________

Pandora
Ms World Leather 2004
Ms Philadelphia Leather 2004

"Simply put, if you want a real femdom to love you, give her reasons to love you." Gloria Brame

(in reply to Archer)

Post #: 33

RE: Old Guard-who are those people? - 8/31/2006 3:19:41 PM

Archer

Posts: 3207
Joined: 3/11/2005
Status: offline

LOL thanks now everyone knows my super secret sorce for old pervy research materials, LOL.

Viola's Traveling Library is fantastic, to sit back and hold a book on fellow perverts from the late 1800's, will fill most people with awe. To be allowed to thumb through it is a privledge. Then to look around a room and see enough reading material to last most people several years of daily reading, all of it kink related, that gives me at least a real sense of the truth of our history.

(in reply to MisPandora)

Post #: 34

RE: Old Guard-who are those people? - 8/31/2006 3:21:00 PM

CrappyDom

Posts: 1883
Joined: 4/11/2006
From: Sacramento
Status: offline

I have been "old guard" for a few weeks now and it is pretty cool. Chicks really dig it and since I am a natural at being a snobby ass it is great fit for me. Since I am getting older if I play it right the young ones think I am even cooler than the other guys as well. I highly recomend you doing this, sure beats getting by on your own ass!

(in reply to MisPandora)

Post #: 35

RE: Old Guard-who are those people? - 8/31/2006 9:49:46 PM

DreamyLadySnow

Posts: 359
Joined: 1/23/2005
Status: offline

<== is New Guard, and doesn't give a rat's ass what anyone thinks about it.

LS

(in reply to velvetears)

Post #: 36

RE: Old Guard-who are those people? - 8/31/2006 9:54:20 PM

Homestead

Posts: 1005
Status: offline

I'm "Beatle Guard"

Don't mess with me, or I'll sick Paul on ya.

(in reply to DreamyLadySnow)

Post #: 37

RE: Old Guard-who are those people? - 8/31/2006 11:06:46 PM

Wildfleurs

Posts: 1650
Joined: 9/24/2004
From: Connecticut
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: prettichinadoll

Once again, my curiosity got the best of me. I start to get interested in the people or a concept known as "old guard". What are those people?

They are gay men who were the first people that organized BDSM groups as well as gathered informally after World War 2 when a lot of returning soldiers were exposed to a wider range of sexuality (including homosexuality) overseas. For the most part people who are actually old guard are dead, and if they aren't dead they would be at youngest around seventy years old (the average age expectancy for men is in the late 70s so it wouldn't be unrealistic to expect most of them to be dead). The only commonality is that they practiced SM. There were no universal characteristics to their behaviors or some sort of codified protocol that across America leathermen in that time period practiced.

quote:

Well, I was told that old guard were mostly gay leather man.

Old Gay Men. Primarily dead gay men.

quote:

They believes in rigid rituals, they have a certain way to do every things. They doesn't believe in the idea of "Limits" and "Choice" of a slave. A slave would get to make the choice once as to "serve" or "no serve". If he agrees to serve, than he would be treated as a piece of property in every aspect. He would be punished, beat up for pleasure, or sold for a pack of cigarrett.

That smells like a myth.

quote:

Some said the old guard movement started during WWII, yet others believes it reach its peak after the vietnam war.

Quite literally the old guard period is post world war 2. Once you got to the sixties and seventies there were public leather bars and already the grumblings about the new people on the scene who didn't take leather as seriously (sound familiar?). The seventies brought about another generation, particularly the hets and the lesbians towards the end of the seventies. The mid-80s brought the party line generation into the scene and the 90s and since then have brought the internet generation into the scene. There have been multiple "guards" in the scene (or another way to put it.. multiple generations and evolutions of the formal and informal structures within the scene). The old guard were just the first to begin development of a formal and informal organizational and gathering structure in the US.

quote:

Others would through me with terms like "Old guard", "the New-Old Guard", or "the New Guard"...Yet still, I have no idea who are those people, and what exactly is the "old guard" concept. So I went online hoping for some more systematic explanation, but have no luck at all. Most information I can find is people wrote about what they've seen or heard. People told me that if anyone said they know an "old guard" person, he would be lying. because You have to be like in your 80s to actually see a real old guard...well, we don't have that much of a history as BDSM community, and already we have our urban legend and myth.

That's why, as a student of history, I find the lifestyle of BDSM extremely confusing.

To be honest if you are a student of history you should know that most history isn't really going to be easily found online or even through current literature (like the IMO snoozer "Slavecraft"). Going through essays, articles, and periodicals published during that time period is really the only way to get an accurate picture of what things were like then. Several years ago I decided I wanted to learn factual information about that particular time period and the formations of the leather community as it currently exists so I went to the library (luckily I went to a college that had one of the best libraries in the country). I'd be surprised if it hasn't been said in the thread (I haven't read the responses) but an easy place to start is the Leather History and Archives Museum in Chicago.

C~

_____________________________

"Just because you've always done it that way doesn't mean it's not incredibly stupid." -despair.com

~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The heart of it all - http://www.wildfleurs.com
~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

(in reply to prettichinadoll)

Post #: 38

RE: Old Guard-who are those people? - 8/31/2006 11:21:21 PM

MisPandora

Posts: 2911
Joined: 4/7/2004
From: Philadelphia, PA
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Wildfleurs

They are gay men who were the first people that organized BDSM groups as well as gathered informally after World War 2 when a lot of returning soldiers were exposed to a wider range of sexuality (including homosexuality) overseas.

To be accurate, they weren't organizing BDSM groups. Mainly, their first goals were to organize fraternal times with likeminded individuals. Primarily, this was GAY MEN......and then it broke down further into the men who were into SM. Not all of these "leathermen" are into SM or power exchange. For some, it was the look and the power and it signified masculine sexuality period.

There was another entire faction of folks who were doing the SM thing, some gay, some not. Rob Bienvenu has a fantastic dissertation on the "other" aspects of fetish and SM history that is often left out and that does not involve the gay leathermen and this 'old guard' discussion. http://www.americanfetish.net/

_____________________________

Pandora
Ms World Leather 2004
Ms Philadelphia Leather 2004

"Simply put, if you want a real femdom to love you, give her reasons to love you." Gloria Brame

(in reply to Wildfleurs)

Post #: 39

RE: Old Guard-who are those people? - 8/31/2006 11:22:55 PM

MisPandora

Posts: 2911
Joined: 4/7/2004
From: Philadelphia, PA
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Archer

LOL thanks now everyone knows my super secret sorce for old pervy research materials, LOL.

Viola's Traveling Library is fantastic, to sit back and hold a book on fellow perverts from the late 1800's, will fill most people with awe. To be allowed to thumb through it is a privledge. Then to look around a room and see enough reading material to last most people several years of daily reading, all of it kink related, that gives me at least a real sense of the truth of our history.

Yep, and I'm kinda spoiled having them practically in my backyard, and being in the World family and all :-)

_____________________________

Pandora
Ms World Leather 2004
Ms Philadelphia Leather 2004

"Simply put, if you want a real femdom to love you, give her reasons to love you." Gloria Brame

(in reply to Archer)

Post #: 40

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