Painfully Obvious: An Irreverent and Unauthorized Manual for Leather/SM by
Robert Davolt
Published byDaedalus Publishing Company (2003)
Review by Jean Roberta
Is leather culture in trouble? Some observers think so. Some of the commentators from the front lines are probably not speaking to each other—especially to those in other sub-communities (dykes, gay men, Goreans, suburban bisexual married couples who own floggers, pro Dommes, drag queens, Old Guard, New Wave, etc.).
Robert Davolt is a leather maverick, a man’s man (in his bedroom and dungeon) and a seasoned journalist in the most professional sense. In this collection of essays, he tells it as he sees it. In an introductory piece, “The Metaphor of Leather,” he comments on the current state of the leather community:
“Call it a crisis of faith. Call it guilt. Perhaps it’s just what happens when you try to combine the social and sexual part of your being with how you earn your living. We market our community, icons and images to people who have no interest in the value of things, merely their price. We give up our secret and sacred traditions to people who consider them fashion, instead of passion. We distrust those whom we should embrace and embrace those whom we should distrust.”
Strong words. He goes on to lash other members of the leather press who probably know who they are:
“In the leather press our history is recorded by liars and fools. . . Dish sells papers, so instead of professionalism in our community journalism, we get dealers in pain, gossip, vicious filth, hurt and bitterness who heroically keep their words beyond any taint of either accuracy or fairness.”
The bitterness doesn’t seem to be limited to other journalists. In defense of his methods, Davolt claims:
“I am often criticized for being too critical of others (and of myself, believe it or not). Just the other day I got a message from someone that I ‘ruin the community for those who don’t take it so serious.’ I wrote back that the word she was looking for was ‘seriously’ . . . which probably went many miles towards proving her point.” In the rest of the article named “Why It Matters, Insisting on Excellence,” the author lists these reasons why leatherfolk should communicate clearly and effectively:
“1) Because the way you communicate indicates care and respect,
2) Because we have enemies and they are very good [so why give them ammunition?],
3) Because I sincerely believe that we are better,
4) Because it’s not just you [this is specifically directed to titleholders who are supposed to represent their community],
5) Because this is history [today’s notes are tomorrow’s documents].”
Does Mr. Davolt have any personal heroes or role models? Yes indeed. Or at least he did in a more innocent time:
“I once was one of those who thought that giants walked the earth. . . immortals such as John Preston, Dave Rhodes, Robert Payne, Larry Townsend or Marcus the Merciless.”
Such Men are a dying breed and hard to replace, or so the author implies.
Is the author simply disillusioned by the changes that occur in all sexually-oppressed communities when they gain a tiny bit of general acceptance and social visibility? This could be so. Is he grieving for all the Old Guard leathermen who died before their time? Beyond a doubt.
However, in an essay on the inherently “un-PC” nature of leather, Davolt makes a chilling comment which points to something worse than community growing pains:
“In the name of inclusion, we in this community have a habit of bestowing trust and respect where they are not warranted. . . We welcome criminals, dealers and predators into our inner sanctum – and then we are surprised when someone gets hurt. . . I will continue to be dubious of people who expect credibility (and handle cash) using cockamamie made-up identities.”
Egad. While Davolt acknowledges the huge advantages that the leather community has gained from the spread of how-to manuals, internet resources, organizations and even cautiously cordial relationships with some local police forces, he also points out that the community is now publicly visible enough to attract all types. In this sense, the leather community is parallel to other groups of stigmatized outsiders (gays/lesbians and various political groups, for instance) that have attracted human odds and ends who have fallen out of the cultural “mainstream,” sometimes because they don’t play well with others.
So here in its baldest form is the paradox of tolerance and inclusion: including and accepting all newcomers who appear out of the blue guarantees that other community members will not be safe from insane and nonconsensual harassment, theft, exclusion or other abuse. Not everyone who claims to be a rebel against the norm has the same agenda.
Davolt makes it his mission to debunk current community myths such as the belief that all human beings deserve equal respect. He scoffs at those who disapprove of bars (where the air is traditionally smoky and the patrons drunk) as leather watering holes, and at leather “fundamentalists” who would not have been allowed into the spartan, all-male bars and clubs where the Old Guard hung out in the 1950s.
The articles in this collection, many of which first appeared in the legendary journal Drummer, are wickedly funny when they are not grim (and funnier when they are). Davolt sums up the personality types in the leather community in “In Leather, We Are Family – then Again, So Were the Borgias.” He describes these types:
- “Our Surviving Sibling,” the one who has “seen it all: plague, wars, oppression, pestilence, time,”
- “Our Darling Daughter,” who can “get away with anything: but “Alas, the spotlight moves on eventually,” leaving the former diva on a dark, empty stage,
- “Our Crystal Sister,” either a functional user or a dysfunctional addict,
- “Our Kinky Cousin,” who just wants to get laid,
- “Our Second Son,” who has “always come in second place in everything,”
- “Our Narrow Nephew,” who “has read all the right books and can quote chapter and verse” and “tell you what is ‘not real leather’ and what is – whether you asked or not,”
- “Our Ozone Aunt,” who is “way, way around the bend,”
- “Our Crying Cousin,” the family’s “chief emoter,” and
- “Our Uncle Iago,” a schemer who manipulates for the sport of it; he is “a sociopath and a danger to the community.”
The section of the book on “surviving leather contests” continues the discussion of how different types interact or collide, and how not to crash and burn in community events which are openly competitive.
The last section, “Beyond Upholstery Notes, on Leather as Life,” is the most wide-ranging and philosophical. In the last essay, Davolt says:
“This thing called ‘Leather’ has always been my shout of defiance to the universe. . . It may indeed be a futile gesture to shout at the deaf stillness of the ages, but it still seems like a necessary one. You never know, maybe I’ll get a laugh in return.”
That just about says it all.
Purchase a copy of Painfully Obvious: An Irreverent and Unauthorized Manual for Leather/SM from Daedalus Publishing
Read an Interview
with Robert Davolt by Jean Roberta
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Jean Roberta has had an interesting life. Over 70 of her erotic stories have appeared in print anthologies, not including websites and magazines. Her diverse collection of fourteen erotic stories, Obsession (Eternal Press) is now available in print and e-form. When she was a staff reviewer for the BDSM site "The Dominant's View," she reviewed Painfully Obvious and interviewed the author. He came to hear her read from Best Lesbian Erotica in A Different Light bookstore in San Francisco in 2005, and she was privileged to join him for a drink in a nearby queer bar afterwards. Although he had only a few months to live, she remembers him as being very much alive. Enjoy.
Read more about Jean Roberta online at: www.JeanRoberta.com
