Leather and Fetish Pride

Six years ago, Tampa Bay resident Matt Wolf decided to explore the local leather community in a very big way. He competed for a leather title in 2008—and won!

“It was horrifying,” he recalls. “It was one of the scariest weekends of my life. I didn’t own any leather and I had to borrow it. And at that time I wasn’t comfortable with the way I looked, and here I was in a leather jock strap in front of strangers.”

But Wolf, 44, became Mr. Gulf Coast Florida Leather 2009, and has been a staple in the Tampa Bay Leather community ever since. Today he is a founder and the Vice President of Florida Leather and Fetish Pride. Of course, he had experienced some leather before his big win during that “horrifying weekend.”

“I think the first leather bar I went into was the Mineshaft in California—I was in my late 20s,” he recalls. “I think the dark side of the leather community caught my attention. The smell, the eroticism of it and the actual picture of what I considered a leather person: someone very masculine and very butch. I was looking for that hyper-masculine kind of scene.”

He admits he was more of a wallflower back then, watching things unfold in the bar while he observed, dressed comfortably in jeans and a t-shirt.

“A hot man came up and started talking to me and that’s where I first got the idea of what it was about and that these were the type of masculine men I wanted to be with, ” Wolf says. “But I still didn’t really pursue it strongly.”

Wolf says he doesn’t have a specific role in the community—at least a labeled role. He’s not a Daddy, a boy or a Sir. He says he’s just, simply, Matt.

“I have one sir and I guess I’m his boy,” he says. “But I have pups around me, boys around me, sirs, masters—all of them are around me. I don’t prefer a role or a title. I just enjoy being who I am.”

Currently, Wolf is single, but he has a lot of family—blood family—nearby. His mother was extremely supportive when he told her he was gay and even makes gift baskets for his leather raffles. His sister-in-law has attended many of his events and fundraisers.

“There’s a misconception that it’s all about pain and BDSM,” Wolf says. “To me it’s a community that’s not about smacking someone to the point of pain. It’s an energy exchange and camaraderie. Yes, I have blood family nearby locally, but I also have a family—a leather family—that I can go to when I need anything. There’s an empowerment there.”

And Wolf wanted to spread that empowerment, which is why he wanted to start Leather and Fetish Pride.

“I saw a rift in the community,” he says. “I decided to try to mend that rift between the clubs, between the gay, straight and trans communities. There just wasn’t any communication between the clubs and I just couldn’t see us surviving like that.”

Wolf doesn’t belong to any one club, but says he supports them all any way that he can. He realizes that the common perception of the leather community is that it’s all sex, all the time.

“But it’s about people sharing their lives with others in a non-sexual way,” he says. “It’s about controlled pleasure, and that’s not always sex. I can do a scene with a male or a female, and sex won’t be a part of it.”

A scene, he explains, can be anything from a whipping or a flogging to lighting someone on fire.

“You can take it to an extreme or you can hold back,” he says. “I look at flogging like a deep-tissue massage. It’s pleasurable and releases endorphins.”

The overall leather community, Wolf says, is accepting and happy to explain just about anything to those who are genuinely curious. Those people just have to ask.

“Ask questions humanly,” he says. “Google is great, but until you can actually ask someone and talk to them, you won’t know the history and you won’t know what we’re about. People are naturally nervous when they approach leather. I’m an open book and have a lot of contacts. I can point anyone in any direction. It’s all about the communication.”

Wolf says he is still learning and he still asks questions.

“Whether it’s about a new fetish or a new device, I know I can ask,” he says. “Sounding used to seem so scary to me until I asked about it and tried it. now it’s one of the best things in the world. It’s about growing and learning and learning as a human and an individual.”

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