PARTY HAUS PREVIEW

PHOTOS: A Look At International Mr. Leather In Photos

By Dan Avery May 22, 2012 at 5:43pm

The 2012 International Mr. Leather hits Chicago this Memorial Day weekend. For those not knowledgeable about the 33-year-old event, IML is a sprawling conference that includes kink-minded parties, panels, demonstrations and retailers, and, of course, the infamous International Mister Leather competition. But you really need to see IML to understand it. So we’ve gathered some of our favorite images from last year’s event to tell the real story. If they whet your appetite, it’s not too late to book passage to Chicago: Single tickets are still available!

Click through for more images from the 2011 International Mr. Leather conference

Photos: Colin Davis

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44 Comments*

  • wtf

    This isn’t creepy at all! *looks at picture 8* Just kidding.

    ..also, nice manhole shirt? Awkward…

  • Oh, ok

    The first guy is hot, though I don’t really understand the leather thing, or running around with your butt exposed in public.

  • Big Daddy

    Judgmental much,why are you here?

  • Oh, ok

    @Big Daddy: Wooah no need to get defensive. Fetishes on a vanilla site unrelated to sex are asking for people to post opinions that won’t all be the most favorable.

    And well pic 8 is creepy…

  • Fitz

    Is Mr. Leather an actual Mr. this year?

  • Well

    Very hot, that first kid.

  • BlindedNYC

    I find it rather amusing that this looks like it’s on some random marriot event room.

  • Rusty Shackleford

    It’s fun.

  • Charlie

    @Oh, ok: Who said we can’t comment on people’s comments? If you want to be all judgmental about people’s level of exposure at a leather event then go for it but expect the same in return.

  • jason

    I just find this event very sad. It’s basically a money-making scheme for the leather shops. It’s sad that a fetish event has been allowed to define a same-sex orientation. We should take the gay rights notion back from the leather crowd.

  • Alexi3

    My favorite International Mr. Leather photo was of the guy in the orange, nylon, Nike, cutaway shirt. I think he’s very cute and isn’t taking himself too seriously. I like that.
    And Jason, for God’s sake lighten up.

  • Lifer

    I don’t remember that episode of the Simpsons on #8

  • Oh, ok

    @Charlie: Was I really all that judgmental or are you being overly-sensitive?

    I didn’t call them freaks, didn’t say it was disgusting, and didn’t ask Queerty to stop making articles like this.

    What are you mad about? Complaining just to complain or what?

  • reality

    @Oh, ok: Don’t let those weirdos tell you that you’re being “judgmental”. How is any of this crap apart of a healthy relationship? It all seems so retro and ridiculous. Yeah, I’d believe that gays aren’t a bunch of deviants by looking at this side show. Come the fuck on. It’s like you WANT us to be marginalized by the right wing forever. All you know is victimhood.

    Oh, sorry, I meant to say, “fuck yeah, this is so hot and masc, bro. you should fuck anyone you want whether they like it or not, any way you like it, even if it spreads disease. That’s so hot and masc and gay rights-y.”

  • eric

    how does the term “international” come into play? unless “international” means western europe and their direct descendents.

  • jerald

    @reality: Dude, you screw guys. You’re gonna be marginalized by the radical right regardless if you wear leather or play “white picket fence” with a couple Schnauzers. Get off it. Insisting that gays conform to your fashion standard is crap. We are as diverse as the heterosexual community if not more….and thats a good thing. By the way, who are you to say what a healthy relationship is? What works for you, works for you. What sanctimonious crap.

  • Tom

    I’m glad Queerty posted these / the guys are all attractive in my view ( if you’re not into leather and gear, I’m sure Andrew Christiansen has some new undie video to look at )

  • EdWoody

    I used to work with the hottie in #1. He had previously been a stripper in the DC area and was alleged to have a huge dick. I kept following him into the bathroom to try to get a peek, but I was unsuccessful. I would have thought lending him a Tori Amos remix album entitled me to sexual favours in return… But alas not.

  • Frank

    There’s just something about leather that has always done it for me. I love the crowd at leather bars as well. It’s been my experience that most of them men I’ve encoutered that patronize those bars have been very down to earth and unpretentious, even the incredibly hot ones. Compare that with the attitude you are likely to encouter at your average circut party or trendy gay bar.

  • reality

    @jerald:

    Stack up your leather weirdos against the picket fence gays. Who has more successful relationships? Careers? Less disease? I know you’ll want to tell me these groups have the same shot at both, but they don’t.

    Thanks for the “colors of the gay rainbow” commercial, but this kind of nonsense continues to make progress difficult.

  • Eric in Chicago

    @wtf: Manhole was a infamous gay bar in Chicago – FYI

  • Eric in Chicago

    @jason: If you find this event sad I feel sorry for you not seeing the fun and sexual freedom involved in IML. Leather people were at the forefront of fighting for gay rights, for AIDS and still are one of the biggest fundraisers for charity in the Gay Community. Leather is just one part of the gay community and isn’t it’s total definition so I don’t know where you get that.

  • Eric in Chicago

    @reality: Um I know plenty of Gay and straight leather people who are in healthy long term relationships. I don’t know what you’re talking about but it’s ignorant. The right wing will marginalize you even if you look like a JC Penny Catalog couple – they want you to die and go away. Trying to shove the leather community back in the closet (or drag queens or transgender folks) won’t help the gay community. You need to be educated.

  • jerald

    @reality: If conformity and close mindedness is progress, I want no part of it. Your insistence that others adhere to your “higher morality” is no different than that of those you wish to be accepted by. But, those people will never accept you. You’ll be that nice queer dude who “seems so normal”but is stll gonna burn in hell for those disgusting things you do. Leather dudes don’t hold back your progress, your buying of the bullshit the right feeds you does. The leather guys don’t represent you any more than drag queens or Ted Haggard. There’s room for all of us here.

  • Tone

    I find leather folk no more bizarre than the average golf fanatic. We all need our little diversions.
    Mine happens to be pastry…

  • jerald

    @Tone: Weirdo! 😉

  • Storm

    @Oh, ok: This site is unrelated to sex? Coulda fooled me. How many articles about porn stars, navy guys sliding on slippery poles, Channing Tatum’s new stripper movie, beefcake rugby players, firemen’s calendars, etc., does it take before a site is “about sex?”

  • jason

    Eric in Chicago,

    Sexual freedom? LOL. More like sexual promiscuity. Many in this leather crowd are just as sleazy and promiscuous as the straight guys who go chasing women. No different. There’s no dignity in it.

    Imagine, also, the number of cows that had to die to furnish the vanity trips of these Mr Leathers. Can’t stand any of them – they are narcissistic to boot.

  • Tim

    @Eric in Chicago:
    Manhole was more of a “Leather Lite” bar—no real leathermen, just twinks and musclemarys with their shirts off….

  • AllenSF

    I have never been into the leather thing but whatever floats your boat! The first guy is quite hot I must say.

  • Martin

    LMAO not surprisingly IML is not the type of event where gay and bisexual men who are actually masculine and into leather go to. Then again many people who are into leather and/or BDSM such as myself find leather contests to be a total joke.

  • Nick

    Frank, yeah leather bars are fun if you like muscle Marys and guys who think that they’re “masculine” but then they open up their mouths and a purse falls out!

  • Schlukitz

    @Eric in Chicago:

    I cannot help wondering if Jason is as concerned about the number of cows that had to die to upholster the hundred of thousands, perhaps millions, of automobile seats in the world to “furnish the vanity trips” of mostly heterosexual drivers?

    And as if the only reason for killing a cow was to tan leather???

    In Jason’s limited world, no one eats beef, apparently. LOL

  • jason

    Wearing leather for looks is just as bad as wearing fur for looks.

  • steve

    @EdWoody: I still have that Tori Amos remix album! 😉

  • Eric in Chicago

    @Tim: Yes I meant infamous because MANHOLE was the gay bar every straight man used as a gay joke. “did you go to the MANHOLE last night?” etc

  • Eric in Chicago

    @jason: sorry Jason but you’re wrong it is about sexual freedom and you are assuming a lot. Lots of Leather men and women don’t even have “sex” together let alone are promiscuous. Some are tied up, bound, into role play, flogged, spanked but never ever engage in actual “sexual contact” meaning no oral, anal etc etc. You are ignorant.

  • GayGOP

    I’m not leather myself, but I have found several wonderful friends in the leather community. The men and women I know, gay and straight, are, I would argue, among the most charitable, kindest, and most stable sorts. You may not like their tastes, or fetish, or whatever you want to call it, but, as many above have said, the leather community truly, is one of the best communities around, whether they go to the IML/CLAW type events, or not.

  • Oh, ok

    @Storm: I take it you’ve never been to The Sword…uh yeah, Queerty is NOT about sex, thanks.

    http://thesword.com/

    Now you know what a sex blog looks like.

  • Jase

    @ Well: “…kid”? Are you kidding me?

  • Jase

    @ Ok, ok: You got it! That’s exactly what I would think a sex blog should look like 🙂

  • Rob

    Eric in Chicago-What you’re describing can be considered sex to people such as myself who are into leather and/or BDSM. I’m actually not nearly as promiscuous as people seem to think I am since it’s rare that I actually meet other men and women who are into leather and/or BDSM or certain kinks, and even then it doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re compatible or attracted to each other.

  • Charlie

    @Oh, ok: I don’t understand your position on being able to criticize the article and responses and your inability to hear criticism of your own posts.

  • XTIAAN

    can I please have 1,4,7 and 11 wrapped and sent to my room? thankyou.

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