By Uncle Abdul

It was quite a nostalgia trip for me during Cleo and Fakir's excellent BDSM history presentation in June. Many of the images shown on the screen and on the tube brought back personal remembrances of people, places, and events. I would also have to give equal kudos to the audience. Based on the experience of many who remember their school days when history was made less interesting than pocket lint, the large size and interest of that night's audience was encouraging.

History is a funny animal. While it is a rigorous discipline that sometimes drive grad students batty, it is still basically a way of finding out about and telling a story.

History is also full of currents and eddies. While the understanding of the general trends can be derived from reviewing the main currents, it is the little eddies that gives us the full richness of a historical picture. As an example, the main events of World War II can be understood by reviewing the significant battles, but you get a better sense of the world at that time by also studying the reasons for and intrigues within neutral countries like Spain, Switzerland, and the Vatican.

But why study history in the first place? Certainly in the course of current events, what happens in the BDSM community barely ranks a footnote--unless it's related to some George W. Bush scandal (like branding initiates at his college fraternity, for example). But for those of us who are part of the scene, understanding its history may take on more importance than the larger picture of current events.

But why specifically? Well, we can always drag out Santana's, "If you don't learn from history, you're doomed to repeat it," thingie, but I feel there's more.

I'm not going to place myself in the same league as the eminent BDSM historians such as Rubin, Truscott, and Hawley, but I share my remembrances as the OLDTIMER for the following four reasons:

But I can't be doing this forever. Who is going to be the next OLDTIMER?

Our community... our Leather Nation... is not one that does a lot of recording of our history. Certainly there are well-reasoned protocols that restrict the taking of images during scenes and events. This almost guarantees loss of much that contributes to the richness of our very human community. The only way I can see to combat this is for you to start keeping journals of the things that are significant to you. Not only will they have a value for the remembrance of forebears and past events, but they can be useful to you in seeing how your perceptions have changed over the years. And those of you who can show also support and promote the Leather Archives.

I'm fully impressed with many of the things the current community does now. I'm looking forward to the next history presentation made by one of you twenty years from now.

Chao-4-Now

Unc'