International Mr. Leather
25 Years of Champions
Compiled by Joseph W. Bean
Nazca Plains Corporation, ©2004
An Introductory Essay by Jack Fritscher
The Envelope, PLEEZ!
THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL MR LEATHER CONTEST, MAY 20, 1979
THE WINNER IS SAN FRANCISCO’S DAVID KLOSS
Feature, and photo captions for Male Hide Leathers photographs, written July 1979 after the first IML Contest in Chicago; published in Drummer 31, September 1979. This was the first appearance in print of the high-concept word, homomasculinity. The two contests of Mr. Drummer and IML presented an occasion to visit some of the same reasons the women’s movement questioned the Miss America contest. In this first article about IML, I theorized that the ideal Leatherman was something other than handsome and muscled. Theorizing was my job as a gay writer closing out the first decade of gay lib when everything we did was pretty much being done for the first time, and then we had to think about, and analyze, what it was we had done. There was never any question that Mr. Drummer and IML were terrific photo opportunities for a magazine like Drummer that had hungry pages to fill each month. I liked the contests because, instead of models, they brought forward actual, real guys who were into leather which made the photographs a reflection of the readers. I’ve always thought the goal of gay media should essentially be to mirror the readers and viewers to themselves–which was why even years before these contests I concocted for Drummer the “Tough Customers” page which featured actual readers themselves. The page later became the magazine Tough Customers.
Mr. America looks like an “a-sexual-all-Americanned boy” compared to the sexually upfront All American Men of the International Mr. Leather competition. [The All-American Boy, the first expensive and chic clothing shop to open on Castro Street in the 70’s, was held up by some for satire mostly because of its name which was ironic long before the “age of irony” in the 90’s.]
Lats and Latitude for lots of Attitude: when these Leathermen do you like they do you when they do you, you know you’ve been done.
Ain’t no way nobody is gonna rain on a macho meat parade: well planned, and packaged better than a basket lunch, by Chicago’s classic Gold Coast bar (where us Midwest boys knew to go to come out as interstellar men.)
Gold Coaster hoster Chuck Renslow runs full upstairs/downstairs with manager Pat Batt backed up by Male Hide Leathers.
Together, the hottest twelve contestants this side of the Apostles, man-ifested themselves in hard-assed leather, definition harnesses, and Pavlovian jockstraps.
Judging was by godlike Olympic methods: “Keep in mind that what you are judging is not necessarily the handsomest face or the most muscular body; but, rather, the man who best typifies the Ideal Leatherman. A man whose command presence and sense of self communicates that special quality we celebrate as ‘Leather.’”
Medallions hung on adult manly chests. Not a missed congeniality in the lot, these men typify what the upcoming new decade of the 1980’s have in store: The New Homomasculinity calculated to blow the righteous socks off straights overdosed on stereotypical fags.
Every man on stage was a winner, while the International Mr. Leather First Place went to David Kloss, sponsored by the Brig bar, San Francisco.
The other men, daring to put their pecs and ass on the world’s toughest Chorus Line, were: Terry Hunter, Carol’s Speakeasy, Chicago; Reg Simpson, RR, Miami; Donald Rahn, Foxhole, Denver; Stan Masterson, Landmark, Daytona Beach, FL; Daan Jefferson, Gold Coast, Chicago; Jim Kazlik, Wreckroom, Milwaukee; Harry Shattuck, South town Lumber Co., Denver; Bill Maggio, Harder Than Hell Productions, Chicago; Jesse Capello, Café LaFitte in Exile/Coral Bar, New Orleans; Durk Dehner, American Uniform Association, L. A.; Bruce Wachholder, Touche, Chicago; David Kloss, the Brig, San Francisco.
The judges were Chuck Gockenmeyer, General Manager of Leatherman Inc, New York; Robert Dunn, Advertising Director, Drummer magazine; Dom Orejudos (Etienne/Stephan); Tom Gora, In Touch magazine; and Lou Thomas, Target Studio, New York.
© 1979, 2002 Jack Fritscher