James Lohikaarme

I found my vest in a thrift store. I didn’t realize it was my vest, at the time. I just bought it because… it seemed like it needed to come home for me.

All the sequins – the dragonscale – and the brocade and the ribbons, that was all sewn on by the previous wearer. In a lot of ways, I was meant to wear this vest.

I call myself a leather dragon. I’m not the first, but we are certainly not a common creature.

A lot of folks recognize my vest at events, and point me out, saying, “Hey, it’s the leather dragon!” Being that recognizable can be uncomfortable – but I still love my vest. I may need to get new scales soon, I’m starting to shed.

Not everybody thinks a leather dragon is a real thing. A couple folks have told me that I’m just fishing for attention. Actually, I am trying to draw attention – to how looking for "real" leather drags our own people down, to why we need to rise up against this, and for each leather person to extend a hand and lift each other up with us.

When I started in the kink scene of Portland OR, leather was unattainable. It was a small group of quiet, private people who ran a few educational events around town, and otherwise kept to themselves. A few folks in the PLA at the time told me I wasn’t a “real” submissive, because I laughed and fought back, and I could never be a “real” dominant, because I was a girl. They said I could never be leather.

None of these folks bothered to explain what leather was. Just that it was another place I wasn’t good enough, and never could be.

Then I met my owner.

My owner introduced me to the leather family & communities that raised him, and I was in awe. How active and alive it was. How blindingly, beautifully violent and filled with bloody love it could be. How this leather, and many other communities across the country, focused on equity, on fierce service to each other and those in need, on honor and honesty and integrity. How we relied on each other, mutually supported one another through the mundane and through the sublime.

My owner was the first person I shared my dragon side with.

When I found this vest in the thrift store, I hid it in a closet for at least a month. How dare I buy my own leather! What would he think of me?

When I finally shared the vest with him, my owner nodded quietly, and pointed out the scales. “That vest is so very you,” he said.

“But I didn’t earn this!” I told him. “I can’t wear leathers, people will be mad. Nobody told me I’m allowed to be leather.”

“You don’t need to earn the right to be who you are,” my owner replied. “This vest reflects you perfectly – kinda spooky, actually. You're my boy - my little dragon. You are leather if you choose to be. Wear the vest.”

Leather is a reflection of who we are, and the communities we want to build for and with each other. Leather communities can challenge ourselves to be better, to be brave against our own flaws and shortcomings. Leather evolves, just like we do, and we breathe life into it through expressing our full selves – not as we’re “supposed to be”, but as who we want to be, and how we know we can be.

So I wear this vest. To remind myself – and people around me – that leather is not some cool-kids club full of dour “traditions”.

Leather can be, and should be, a source of life.

Maybe the previous wearer, the person who sewed on all the ribbons and my unwittingly signature scales, was like me. Maybe they were trying to let their much-ness, their beautiful self, shine through in spaces that weren’t open to having them… be them. Maybe, they did not find the safety they so badly wanted, and they left this vest in the thrift store for me to find.

So I wear my leather for them, too.