For his book States of Desire, author Edmund White set out on a cross-country trip to document the changing profile of gay America in the late 1970s. Upon his arrival in Chicago, however, he came face to face with the old school.
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While S and M circles had long taken a liking to leather, most experts trace the arrival of the leather scene to the first gay motorcycle club, the Satyrs, a group of Californians inspired in part by Marlon Brando’s star turn in the 1954 film The Wild One. Seedy bars in larger cities may have been known to host an occasional leather night, but under the threat of police raids no one would risk catering to the leather crowd.
In the late 50s, at the suggestion of his friend, tattoo artist Cliff Raven, Renslow and his cohorts began to gather in bars, finding safety in numbers. “Actually we wanted to start a leather group,” Renslow says. “And we felt maybe if we’d meet in a bar, people would see us, and maybe we’d attract more people who were interested in leather.” He says the group first descended on a “drag queen bar” in a Loop basement that was a cafeteria by day and a bar at night. But they were soon kicked out of that place and every other bar where they met. Eventually the group developed a big enough following to justify buying the old Gold Coast Show Lounge at Clark and Elm, which under Renslow’s ownership survived more than five moves over 30 years. Setting the standard for leather bar decor, the Gold Coast’s motif was dark and dungeonlike, with large depictions of jut-jawed muscle men lining the walls, some with penises bigger than their biceps, some committing acts that defy polite description even in clinical terms.
The leather uniform, with its bent for police and military gear, may suggest that the wearer’s identifying with his oppressor. Renslow says he won’t deny its obvious fascist subtext. “People didn’t want to wear Nazi emblems. They sure didn’t believe in the philosophy of it. But as a good friend of mine who was German told me, ‘Vell, I hate ze party, but I sure love ze boots.’”
