World War II has recently ended, and I’m fresh off the boat in New York City. I survived the trials of the Atlantic Theater, killed Nazis, liberated Europe. The War has ended, but I have no wife awaiting my return to kiss me passionately as I disembark, no future family to plan or care for. My duty to my country was my wife; the men I served along side were my family. But the war has ended, and my life as I know it is over.
Lost in my new civilian role, I drink my way through the ticker tape parade. I should be going home with any of the beautiful girls that will have me, but I prefer the company of men. I should be reveling in my new found freedom, but I miss the tradition and discipline of military life.
Flush with victory, the military purges its unnecessary soldiers, sailors and marines. They no longer need my labor. I do what’s expected of me and start my life over. I muddle through, a day at a time, for years, unfulfilled by furtive backroom encounters, until I meet an older gentleman who talks of other veterans like me, veterans, he says, who have adapted the protocol of military hierarchy and brought it into a homoerotic realm.
He tells stories of similar things happening in San Francisco, the port where veterans of the Pacific were dropped off. As in New York, those in the West with no place to go stayed put. With no other support structure, these veterans looked to one another. He asks me if I would like to attend a meeting, if I would like to meet these men. I accept.
I am aware of the risks involved, that I could be arrested, have my name printed in the paper. I know the police despise the underground gay culture, and that gay bars are prone to police raids. The cops rush in and indiscriminately lock up the fags in an act of intimidation, an attempt to smear the reputations of the men arrested. We will attend the most hated of these clubs, the gentleman says, that of the gay leather community. The leather attire is not coincidental. These men forged bonds riding motorcycles in gangs.
I do not own a bike, but I insist I am still interested.
Use an alias, the gentleman advises me. It will protect your identity. The others there will have them as well.
The club is not in a bar, as I expected, but in the basement of an adult bookstore. It is as bewildering as it is exciting. As the gentleman suggested, there is a lot of protocol to navigate around. Visual signifiers abound, but what they indicate I do not know. There is a litany of unfamiliar terminology.
The handful of men divide themselves into two groups, and the division seems to be marked by age. The older men generally seem to be tops, or masters, the younger men bottoms, or slaves. One’s status as a top or bottom seems as much about experience as preference.
Many unspoken laws govern how the two groups interact, but learning to follow these codes is simple; I just do as everyone else does. All activity is steeped in ritual, and, at long last, I feel at home again. I belong here.
What occurs here are rites of passage, ritualized infliction of pain. But the pain is beside the point. I quickly learn that when I submit to a flogger, the meaning of it carries on much longer after the bruises have faded. The act transcends the pain. I give myself in an act of trust, and I am delivered safely. By engaging, I solidify my relationship and reaffirm my love.
A fundamental sense of pride underlies the posturing of the fraternity. We love one another -- although we would never use the word “love” -- and the dynamics of power usually at play in romantic courtship here are acted out literally and with mutual respect -- but we do not consider our relationships romantic. Instead this place is a crucible, and the essence of what we distill here is purely platonic. We are not “lovers”, but “brothers” or “buddies”. What our tribe creates is illicit, and the illegal activity lends gravity to the atmosphere. Our mere presence here is a tremendous leap of trust. The irony of not knowing each other’s names or true identities is irrelevant. Here we know exactly who we are.
