DOCTOR TOM: NAVIGATING TRADITION & COMMUNITY

In this interview, we sit down with Dr. Tom, a seasoned participant in and student of the leather community, to discuss his journey, insights, and hopes for the future of leather culture.

His experiences bridge the gap between traditional fetish scenes and newer, evolving dynamics—spanning everything from early suit-and-tie uniform fetishes to navigating the intricate rituals of leather protocol in areas where community gatherings are sparse. Dr. Tom shares candid reflections on mentorship, leadership, and the ways geography, personal identity, and changing social climates shape the leather landscape today. Along the way, he reminds us that leather is more than a set of customs or costumes; it is a living, breathing network of people learning to honor their history, care for their members, and include those too often left behind

1.What initially inspired you to join and become a part of the leather community?

For me, suits and ties were the first online kink community to which I claimed membership. I joined Recon back in 2004, and connected with suit fetishists across the country. (Mostly in New York, since that community tends to be sparse and unevenly distributed.) However, I began to notice that quite a few leatherfolk expressed an affinity for suits and ties. It is, after all, a uniform fetish.
Historically, suits and leather both take their sartorial references from military uniforms. This is unsurprising: the squared shoulder, the nipped waist, the attention to structure and crispness. All of this is shared in common with leather.

So for me the iconography of leather was the initial draw.My first pieces of leather gear were driving gloves. I purchased a pair of those during the pandemic, and the leathermen started coming out of the woodwork. I’d struck a nerve.

Later on, the pandemic threw into high relief the uneven geographic distribution of the suit fetish community. I could count on one hand the number of actual suit fetishists who lived within 600 miles of me. Sure, many gay men see the appeal of suits, but for them the suit is a prelude to nudity. For me, it’s much more than that. So I went to a leather shop up in Atlanta and got fitted for my harness. And then the gear started coming in.

I will confess that I made the mistake of purchasing my own cover. That is a breach of old guard protocol by all counts. After I purchased it, I read up on it and realized what a mistake I’d made. I wanted to feel as though I had earned my cover, rather than having purchased it as a mere accessory for a uniform. So my husband and I had some difficult conversations in 2023, and he permitted me to reach out to the local leather community in search of a Sir to mentor me.

My Sir permits me to wear my cover as an acknowledgement of my Dominant temperament. But he has told me that he will only give me a proper Cover Ceremony once I have earned it. I’ve found in my journey that such is the way of protocol: it’s only in places like San Francisco or Chicago that the protocol really matters. For the rest of us, we make do with the pockets of leatherfolk we can find. Protocol requires a high population of leatherfolk, a robust community of mentors. But here in the South, I find that leatherfolk are spread far and wide. And so we must adapt the old ways to the realities of where we live.

2. How has your journey within the leather community shaped your personal identity or leadership style?

For much of my life, I’ve thought of myself as a submissive. And my Sir has certainly brought out that side of me as I explore these power dynamics in my training. My husband is older than I am, so I assumed that he is the more experienced, and therefore the more dominant. It wasn’t until about 2018 that I began to discover my Dominant streak. I enjoyed bossing around suited submissives, picking out their outfits and playing the role of the imperious professor disciplining an unruly student.

In my everyday life, I don’t feel as though I have much control. The political winds shift, and blow in an ever hostile direction. Administrators and supervisors bloviate; students walk all over me. I have to tread on eggshells and be painfully diplomatic to get my way. So for me Dominance in kink spaces gives me permission to demand what I want, without shame and without apology. At the same time, I also see my Dominance through the lens of the teacher or mentor. I am a student in the leather community, but I learn through teaching, through sharing what I’ve discovered, through relating to my fellow kinksters as a fellow traveler, a fellow student on a journey of self-discovery.

Thus, for me, Dominance is ultimately about humility, respect, and self-knowledge. I must understand my motivations, and why I wish to hold the power that the submissive entrusts to me. And I must hold that power responsibly.

3. What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced as a leader in this community, and how have you addressed them?
My biggest challenge has been geography: the nearest leather bar is 90 miles away from me, and I’ve never lived in a part of the United States where my rights as a queer person can be guaranteed or respected. I am a Red State Gay, and I have always had to struggle to find community amidst the megachurches.

I am grateful that more of the leather lore of our community is available in online spaces, and I hope we continue to protect and curate that knowledge. I don’t think that we ought to be bound by old guard tradition, but I do believe that we need to study that tradition and understand how to adapt it to our circumstances. That’s our history, and we keep our history alive by practicing and recreating it, not by crystallizing it in amber. And certainly not by relegating it to the rich urban spaces at the expense of more rural communities. Leatherfolk are everywhere, and we need to look after each other to find our own.

4. What goals or changes would you like to see in the leather community in the coming years?
Related to my previous point, I want to see a more robust conversation about (1.) inclusion of trans and nonbinary people, and (2.) the role of geography. Many of us live in places where we have to travel to make it to leather events, or order our gear online and hope that it fits. @LthrEdge of the Full Cow podcast calls this “leather privilege,” which he defines broadly as the degree to which access to leather gear, leather spaces, and leather experiences is unevenly distributed. Not everybody gets to go to IML all the time: most of us can’t afford it, and most of us live in places where we’d have to book expensive hotel rooms and plane tickets just to get there. And this is to say nothing of the gear itself.

So, in sum, I want to see the leather community have a better conversation about how to look after the folks who are excluded. Notice I don’t say “feel” excluded. We are excluded, by the fact of where we live. That exclusion isn’t just in our heads.

5. What advice would you give to someone just starting their journey in the leather community?
Try to seek out in-person leather spaces or leatherfolk. If you can’t access these in person, try to find them online. Strike up respectful conversations. Approach the experts as a student–not as a prospective sexual partner. Recognize that many mentors have jobs and relationships and families and–yes–other boys and mentees whom they’re having to take care of. They’re not always going to be able to give you the one-on-one attention that you need. But you can still learn from them. And that is key.

Ignore the poseurs. Social media has a way of magnifying the images of those who possess tons of gear and who somehow manage to make it to IML or CLAW or all of that fun stuff in Berlin. Truth is, those folks aren’t the majority. Most leatherfolk are relegated to the sidelines, forced to make do with the limited resources and experiences we have access to. And that makes you no less of a leatherman.
Remember that, at its heart, leather is a community of outsiders, for outsiders. Look for the folks who take care of the outsiders: folks who look after the marginalized, folks who use their privilege to speak up for others, folks who carry themselves with kindness and humility. Those are the true leatherfolk.

6. How can folx get intouch with you
https://www.southernsuitorssmut.com/
Recon: @DoctorTom
BLUF: 5214
BlueSky: @SouthernSuitor