Darrell Blackandblue’s the Name, Gay Leather Sex is the Game

Man About Town. Photo courtesy of Darrell

A Boy and His Laptop. Photo courtesy of Darrell

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Darrell at the Folsom Street Fair. At most fairs you win stuffed animals, here you win a dildo, which can also be stuffed... photo by Bob Schaffer

This past Spring, (June 21 to be exact), the Folsom Street East Fair came to Manhattan, where aside form the usual trappings of a NY street fair (sausages, t-shirts, cheap pillows), there was s/m practitioners of both sexes wandering around, and performances by a variety of drag queens, including a Sarah Palin lookalike. I’m told this was the largest event of its nature on the East Coast. One of the people who was there was Darrell Perry, a 48 year old leather loving gay African American male, known around town as Darrell Blackandblue (http://notesfromthedungeonboss.blogs.com/).

Born on Staten Island, he had the common sense to leave that Twilight Zone borough quickly, to go live in Brooklyn and Japan, finally moving to Manhattan where Midtown has been his home for 25 years now. Working mostly in media and photography, Darrell recently quit his last job to develop several online adult web ventures. He also devotes time to throwing gay S/M leather parties, and you can learn more about that at http://www.darrellsdungeon.com/.

Darrell is a member of several educational and Gay clubs around town devoted to the gay leather scene. He has been going to events since 1991, and started giving parties in 2000.

Darrell is planning to expand his party venues to include bars, nightclubs and the like. He is optimistic, that despite the economic downturns, and the years of repression under Mayor Benito Giuliani, the gay leather scene is having a resurgence.

Despite the dearth of affordable real estate to throw events, people are finding ways of meeting up and playing. Darrell feels the internet will play a large role in this regard, and that more and more businesses, instead of fighting the web, will embrace it, especially in regard to nightlife in general, and gay nightlife in particular, and gay leather nightlife to be even more specific.

Darrell got involved in the scene the way a lot of people discover their taste for it: someone tries something out on them, often without their knowledge of what’s really happening. Darrell can’t quite recall the original scene that sparked his interest, perhaps spanking or role play involving daddy/son issues, but he soon realized he was really into it. Slowly, he came to discover others who share his off the beaten track interests. Darrell feels everybody is into something that other people would probably find kinky, but that many don’t want to own up to their desires, or be thought “odd."

This reminds me of one of something E.M. Forster once said, that there isn’t anyone whose sexual tastes if known, wouldn’t horrify other people.

The loss of a lover in 1990 decided Darrell to give himself totally to the scene, and with the end of his job recently, Darrell wants to embed himself further in the gay leather scene.