Tarsus

I, (as any Leather Man/Woman that has traveled this path), have a story to tell and this is my story.  I could say it started one night seven years ago in the Eagle PDX with a platinum blonde spiked hair woman dressed in a fireman’s uniform, a pair of hand cuffs and a single tail whip.  But the story goes back many years further than that.  12 years ago when I took a trip to San Francisco I watched their gay pride parade and visited a bookstore where I bought my first Tom of Finland retrospect book.  The images in that book were both masculine and sexually erotic.  They set me on my path.  At first I wanted to draw like Tom but his art helped me realize I wanted to explore the kink I saw in his illustrations.

It’s funny how a persons journey affects their lives.  Their have been many obstacles I faced on this journey but I learned I was the one that placed many of those obstacles in my way.  Through many struggles, hardships, laughter and pain I learned that I am stronger than I realized and have come out of it a better person.  Relationships, whether they are friends or lovers, come and go.  Yet I still live…stronger because of the impact that they had on me and better for what I learned from them.

In the past 6 years that I have been an active member of this community, I have helped others on their path, educating them about the BDSM lifestyle or simply listening to them when no one else would.  I have often worked behind the scenes volunteering my time and gift of Art in the form of illustrations in charcoal and paints in oils.  I take pride knowing that my art has helped raise money for charities to help others.  My involvement ranges from volunteering tie and art, sitting on the board of BLP, forming a leather family and happily volunteering myself to be a willing victim during Black Sundays at the Eagle PDX.  What was once a highly charged sexual fantasy for me has become reality.  I now know where I belong.

Truly feeling that the BDSM-Kink community is a brotherhood and Portland is home; I joined the board of Blackout Leather Production for the 2009-2010 title year.  Through my involvement with BLP I learned what responsibility to a community means.  It means you do what you can for the better good, even if it means putting others first.  I have watched our community change over the past few years and it is this change that has encouraged me to run for the title of Mr. Oregon State Leather.  It is this change that fuels my need to contribute to this community that I have come to love.