July 19th, 2025 Tarheel Leather Run https://tarheelleatherclub.org/register-for-the-2025-run/
July 26th, 2025 Onyx Carolina Chapter Celebration https://www.facebook.com/events/736195202502339
Sept 20th, 2025 Greensboro Pride https://greensboropride.org/
Oct 10-12 2025 Atlanta Pride https://atlantapride.org/
Oct 16-19th, 2025 Blackout 30 https://blackout.onyxmen.com/
Oct 29-2nd, 2025 - World Bear Weekend https://worldbearweekend.com/
Feb 11-15th, 2026 - North American Bear Weekend https://nabweekend.com/
Feb 27th-March 1st, 2026 - Vision 2026 https://visionlotus.org/
April 8-12th, 2026 - SouthEast LeatherFest https://seleatherfest.com/home

I can’t believe I’m writing this post as SELF Boy. It was just over 2 years ago when my Mama Bear approached me & talked to me about running for a title. At the time I didn’t know what that meant really. I definitely didn’t think I was the type of person who could do something like that. But I chose to trust her & begin preparing to compete for Mr. NCLC 2024.

Fastforward to now where I gone from the state level & to a regional title holder. It’s only through to the support of my queer & kinky community that I’ve gotten as far as I have. I’m so glad this journey has led me to feel more comfortable as my authentic self & I’m glad that SouthEast LeatherFest turned out to be a place that celebrates that authentic.

SouthEast LeatherFest was such a wonderful entry into the broader leather & kink community. The best part about the weekend is how communal everything felt from the time we arrived until we hit the road. There was such a focus on connection, education, & exploration that was done in a way that felt so foreign to me. But this was also the nexus I've been yearning for in our leather & kink spaces.

I cannot thank the volunteer staff enough for their hard work in preparing my fellow contestants and I to compete this weekend. As well as all the ways our Den Mafia, Thumper & Megan, supported us through the competition. I also want to show appreciation to the people & clubs that helped me in preparing & helped me with my presentation throughout the weekend.

 Charlotte Tradesmen
 Columbia Leather Order
 Simbah Onyx of Onyx Carolinas
 Boy Andy of the Tarheel Leather Club
 Shannon Ashley of Kentucky Bourbon Bears
 Kyle H. of our monthly naked boardgame nights.

Huge shout out to my fantasy partner MasterDHM who stepped up when I asked for help, 3 weeks before the event. You don’t know how much that meant to me & you turned out to just the kind of mentor I needed coming into this competition.

None of them compared to the support Ryan gave as my handler. He deserves his props for keeping this brat on time & keeping my spirits up through the weekend. Really glad to get to go on this ride with you by my side.

I'm so grateful for all the new connections I've made these last few weeks. I've already been hitting the road to support pride festivals in Greensboro & Salisbury, NC. This month I’m looking forward to attend Tarheel Leather Club’s Stars & Stripes Leather Run. I’m also looking forward to celebrating with my brothers with Onyx as they official launch their Carolina chapter. There are other events I’ve begun to plan for. Check out my calendar & let me know if you’re coming too!

Don’t see you event on the list? Let me know what events you have coming up. I would love to come learn from more clubs & groups of all kinds. It could be classes, nude camping, critter party, demo, oil wrestling. I’m interested to see how the south gets down & kinky!

It’s been a busy summer for this boy. I’ve been racking up the miles on the highways and skyways visiting leather clubs, attending socials and club runs, and getting a chance to judge a bear contest out in Chicago. All this while staying active with local issues for my city and state as we deal with the fallout of government cuts and harmful policies.

I started with a trip out to Columbia Leather Order for their July bar night. This crew always shows me a warm welcome and I was glad to have the time to get to know them more on their “home turf“. I took some time to experience Chicago and visit with friends for the Illinois Bear Contest. Originally, I was simply coming as a guest because I missed my North American Bear (NAB) family. It was later that I was approached to judge the contest which was a great experience. It was great to see how the bears get down in the Midwest & getting to judge the contest alongside a lot of title holders I admire.

Another bonus to my Chicago trip was the Leather Archives & Museum. It was great to see so many parts of the leather community stored in one place. I encourage more folks to pay them a visit and support their work of perceiving our diverse & expansive leather history. It was really cool to also hold the contest and take a class in the space while I was in the city.

After my travels to the Midwest, I spent some time in Raleigh with my Onyx brothers as they celebrated the official Launch of Onyx Carolinas. It was great to be a part of the celebration and get to see all the new Onyx brothers representing for the Carolinas.

I got a lot of Run time in with some clubs as well. I got to attend the Tarheel Leather Run with the rest of my SouthEast Title fam in July. This past month I also visited with the First Coast Leather Society (FCLS) as they celebrated the 20th year of their run down in Augusta. Both were great experiences because I got to meet new folks like my Sash Papa & former SouthEast LeatherFest Boy, Quazi, and my local friends from the leather community with the Tarheels. I also got to try my first cigar and learn the various ins & outs of penis pumping with FCLS.

I’ve been busy with my title travels but I’m also staying just as busy at home. In Greensboro, we spent some time gearing up for our Pride festival that just wrapped earlier this month. I’ve been working to support the festival this year as they’ve been working to bring our queer community closer together. I’ve been coming out in support of a lot of their events and got to attend their GSO Pride Pageant. That was extra special because I advocated to them earlier in the year to include a non-binary title and this was the first pageant to include that category.

Since the Trump administration took office, I’ve also been working in my community to support responses to his harmful policies. I started volunteering with my local Unitarian Universalist Church to do outreach to local businesses to talk about how to respond to ICE raids. This work is in partnership with SiembraNC, a group that has been educating communities across North Carolina about how to protect individuals and their businesses from unlawful ICE presence. This effort has gotten over 200 businesses to sign on to become 4th Amendment Advocates. They’ve even had the city of Carrboro and, most recently, the city of Durham to sign on as well.

I’m also working to support change on my local city council with my comrades in Guilford for All & the Carolina Federation. Over the summer, I took part in an endorsement process with my fellow members to help identify candidates we think can help us co-govern our city to work more for its people & not just the businesses and developers. That’s been great work & we’re such a diverse group of community members working towards this goal. We’ve been tabling at events and canvassing across the city because we understand we’re the ones we’re waiting for. If we want to change how our government works for us, then we have to start in our own backyards.

It’s possible to be your most authentic self & still give back to your communities. I love my community because I’m not shy about being a promiscuous, bratty kinkster but they still accept & allow those parts of me into the work lives we share together. I’ve taught the vanillas so much over the years & they love it. Not everyone, but enough that I’m still able to be of service to my community.

We all have a way to be of service in our community. I want to hear what acts of service other people have been doing this year in their local community. It can be through your club, a community group, or a faith organization you belong to. Let me hear how folks are giving back these days!

Share your acts of service with me:

Email: selfboy2025@gmail.com
Fetlife: Phantomcub

We’re at the 6-month mark in my reign as SELF Boy & just a few weeks before the end of the year. I’ve been sitting in a lot of reflection over these last couple of months as I continued to connect more with the broader kinky community & seeing more of the diversity in leather & kink culture across the country. For someone who mainly has experienced leather through online spaces, bar nights, & bear runs, it has given me perspective on the importance of leather & our leather history.

For most of my adult life, most of the leather clubs near me are predominantly run & cater to white folks, particularly masc presenting white folks. I’ve been around these groups for years & even with our shared interest in leather & kink, I still end up feeling like I don’t belong or am not encouraged to explore with them. So, imagine my expression as I arrive to Onyx BlackOut Weekend & see a sea of BIPOC folks of all kinds rocking their chaps & gear.

I’ve been in spaces with black kinksters before, but this was the first time I got to share space with black leather that was for us & by us. Not only that, but there were many folks from the African, Latino, Asian, & indigenous communities from all different expressions & walks of life coming together for an amazing event. It was amazing learning the foundations of Onyx, and hearing from Papa Mufasa & our elders of the importance of spaces like Blackout, being in community with THE largest leather club in North America. I felt so comfortable by the end, I took part in my first public flogging scene at the play party.

Getting to spend time in community like that was restorative to my spirit as someone who struggles to feel they belong anywhere. It was also eye-opening that I NEED to find a kink community locally that helps me feel that same sense of belonging. I have become close to the groups that run & attend our local fetish night events. Still, I feel I haven’t found the people around me that I could explore or feel comfortable exploring kink in community with. My desire is to make an effort to explore building that kind of community for myself & others. As my friend & mentor Slade Wade told me once, “Sometimes you just have to build the thing yourself”

Speaking of efforts, I gave a lot of myself in this past election cycle to help elect local community leaders & advocates to city council. It was a great victory & I’m excited for the possibilities to strengthen local protections for our immigrant, trans, & queer communities. At the same time, I ended up pushing myself too hard & I’ve been pretty burnt-out after Nov 4th. This has meant I’ve been forced to slow down in a way. Which has been good for me because I only know how to slow down when I’m forced to.

It’s actually been kind of a nice change of pace. For instance, my brother & Mr. NCLC 2025, Jeff Tanglewood, came to spend the weekend with us & got me out of my cave for a bit. We checked in with the Tar Heels & I had a lovely time catching up with my SELF title family & their adventures.

Slowing down has also made me more aware of the toll pushing myself can have on my chronic health issues. I’m a person that lives with chronic depression, chronic pain, & Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD). I’ve lived with them for a majority of my life, so this is a cycle I’m used to. Still, I’ve had to work a little harder to get myself out of my depression cave & continue to show up. That’s mainly due to the extra effort I have to pour into my title duties & volunteer work. All admirable in my heart & because of that I’ve gotten the okay to continue to push through when I have nothing to give.

As admirable as all these efforts & passions are, I’m still learning that my will is a finite source. When I'm pushing through, I’m doing more damage to myself because I’m pouring from an empty cup. This was a pattern I came to leather to learn how to break, but I still struggle. I’m glad to have the mentorship of Lady Cathrine & my other people invested in my care to help me catch the pattern as it’s happening.

The biggest reflection from this year has been this: As exciting & inspiring as title holder life can be, it is important to make space for other parts of my life to also feed me while I’m on this journey. I miss just being a bratty bear chaser & feel like I have to give that up sometimes when I’m in the sash. I have learned that it’s okay to just leave the sash in the suitcase sometimes & just enjoy frolicking with people that make me feel like I belong.

I’m really looking forward to the new year. I’m looking forward to getting ENERGIZED in April when we return to SouthEast LeatherFest. If you have not bought your run pass, you still have until Dec. 29th before the price goes up again. I’m personally looking forward to hearing how others have been growing & evolving on their own journeys. Before then, make sure you’re also taking care of yourself & making space & time for your own joy.

I find myself living in a world I don’t feel safe in. It’s weird to sit with that because so much of the world around me operates as if things are normal. It’s not normal to live in a world where one of the biggest consent violators is governing over me & millions of people. It’s not normal to watch that person in the white house send authorities to terrorize & disappear communities based on how they look like we’re back in Jim Crow. It’s not normal to watch the president of your country use all his influence to shield himself & the powerful from accountability in matters of child sex trafficking & allegations of pedophilia.

This. Is. Not. Normal.

Regardless of these crazy events, there is one thing that still feels normal & that is the power of resistance. Resistance is what has shaped this country. Resistance is how enslaved folks were able to fight for their liberation. Resistance is what fueled workers to strike through this country’s history for better conditions & compensation for their labor. Resistance is what also fueled the advancement of AIDS/HIV advocacy & treatment. Resistance is what we’re seeing now with communities coming together to protect people from the violence ICE has been enacting on immigrants & American citizens alike.

Representing SELF during this last year has felt like its own act of resistance. I’ve decided to live proudly as a queer & kinky person because I want to resist the narrative that queer people or kinky people are the deplorables in our society. I wanted to instead be a role model for authenticity & compassion. Someone that is sure in themselves & the role they are willing to play in service of their community. I’m a big circuit bear that loves getting sweaty & pervy with the best of them. And at the same time, I’ll make time to knock doors to help my neighbors make a voter plan, support fundraising for mutual aid efforts, & even take a shift verifying ICE presence.

I’m proud to see so many folks across the queer & leather community that have also been doing their own work of resistance. I still have a desire to see more of my gay & leather peers make efforts to do their own form of resistance in this moment. If you’re reading this, who are your resistance role models? How are you working to resist in your own ways in your communities? How do you take care of yourself during these times of uncertainty?

In the meantime, keep up the resistance. Whether it’s protesting on the streets, volunteering in your community, or raising funds for mutual aid efforts, big or small, we have to find ways to do something to help those in need.

As my pilgrimage across the Southeast comes to a close, I’ve been thinking about empowerment. More specifically, how we empower power ourselves & others. I’m just coming off my time at North American Bear Weekend in Kentucky. This is my 8th year attend & I’m always come away feeling so empowered. That’s because a great weekend celebrating bear bodies & bear culture. There are classes on loving your body, dancing, yoga, & karaoke. That’s also paired with classes on things like bondage, fisting, M/s dynamics, & round tables.

Whenever I return to NAB I always feel like I’m with my people. I’ve learned so much about myself through these weekends & I’m made so many connections through the years. I have one lover who I met 9 years ago at my first NAB that we still use as a way to see each other every year. Not only have I learned so much from him in the Daddy/boy dynamic we shared, but we also became a part of each other's lives & support systems. When I had a mental break down after getting dumped, Deven was there for me to help me piece myself back together. & when he went through a trying divorce process, I was able to be there for him in return.

I appreciate the rich connect like the one with Deven because they make me feel a part of something. I feel a part of this community that the Kentucky Bourbon Bears have worked to cultivate these last 14 years. It’s because of that feeling that volunteered a lot this year. I wanted to spread that since of belong to more & more people. Some of that was greeting folks at registration. Other times it’s being my friends “rope dummy” for his bondage class, where he shows the class all the ways he can torment someone (me) with some simple knots. I even got to perform with our weekend dance crew during Saturday’s contest.

I’ve learned on this journey that the best way to make someone to feel seen is to allow yourself to be first. It’s such a vulnerable feeling at times. As a title holder, I’m a little more aware of eyes on me & it’s hard for me to not spin out about what people might be thinking about me. At the same time, I’ve learned that I can’t control what folks think & it’s not my job to. This year has really taught me the importance of living my life for me. What an empowering gift to receive when I was welcomed into the SELF family. I worried for a long time that I wouldn’t muster up to what folks “expected” of a leather boy to be. It was such a relief to have some many folks give me permission to make this title year mine. To be given that & also be welcomed into the broader leather & kink communities, as I am, has really affirmed in me that I’ve found more of my people with SELF.

Y’all have really empowered me to give this year my all. I have one more trip left to support my title family at SouthPlains LeatherFest before my pilgrimage ends. I’m looking forward to this return. I want to use this moment to plug the “energized!” them but truthfully, I’m not quite there yet with SELF. I’m writing this blog post while still recovering from a cold. I’m also just thinking of the upcoming trip & mine & my husband’s wedding anniversary the following weekend. After that I’ve have a week to get myself Energized before we see each other before then.

Until then, I hope you enjoyed how I shined for you all.