Joseph currently resides in Maui where he enjoys paradise and works on many new projects.

TDV:

TDV: What do you think is your contribution or legacy from the countless numbers of lectures you’ve given?
JB: I believe that there are many areas where I have had an important contributing voice and I see those things as my legacy, although I don’t expect to be remembered for them (either today or in the future when I am completely out of the picture). The one of these that matters most to me is consideration of the spiritual content of SM lives. When I first wanted to talk about this publicly—at the National Leather Association’s Living in Leather in 1988—I was allowed to do it because I was the editor of Drummer magazine, but I was told not to expect a crowd. “No one wants to think about things like that,” I was told. In fact, it went wonderfully and the crowd was huge. Since then, things have come to the point that everyone who is producing a leather event is expected to accommodate some discussion of the spiritual and dungeons are full of people ritualizing scenes. I didn’t invent anything, I just kicked off the public discussion within the leather communities. I believe that I have made other contributions that will survive in the way that a teacher’s work does, out in waves from mind to mind and life to life.

Once, several years ago, someone else was asked who that Joseph Bean is, and the inquirer didn’t know that I was sitting right there at the table. So, the person who was asked gave an answer that went something like this, “Joseph Bean is the guy who puts things in perspective: Spirituality, edge play, leather history, community involvement and mentoring. Listening to him, people get permission to be themselves, and more. If you get a chance to meet him, he’ll know how to fix what’s wrong with you, too.” The guy who asked the question said, “I don’t want to meet a guy who thinks of himself that way.” Of course, as he walked away, we all got a good laugh, and I made it my business not to meet him. I don’t think of myself in the way portrayed in the answer, but I didn’t want to meet a guy who thinks of anyone that way.

TDV: You’ve written for, and edited, many of the most important BDSM-themed magazines, as well as written books, both BDSM- and non-BDSM-related. What drives you to write so prolifically?
JB: Interesting question. Writing has been my passion since I was old enough to figure out which end of the pen the writing comes from. I didn’t intend to write about leather. I felt, when Larry Townsend’s Leatherman’s Handbook came out, that did it. No need for other books. That left news writing which didn’t include leather stuff and porn which other people were handling very nicely. But when I started teaching, it didn’t take me long to realize that people always wanted more information, more answers and, most important, they wanted the information to be directed specifically to them and to address their specific situation.

I kept the letters—mostly snail mail back then, some faxes, even a couple of telegrams—and they became the basis for my first book. That was put together first as columns for the S.F. Sentinel (a newspaper where I worked at the time as an editor). Then a book publisher wanted the information put together in book form. She didn’t end up publishing the book, but once it was written, largely as a way to stay awake at the bedside of my dying slave boy, why not publish it.

While none of my leather and BDSM writing has made actual money for me, I discovered that the need for information, or at least the appetite for it, was pretty much endless. The leather nonfiction all flows from that beginning. The fiction started when I converted a story I had written for an arts magazine into a gay-leather romance literally because it was faster to do that than to dig through the slush piles and find a good story for Drummer. That was “Shadow Across Time,” a story sort of about the driving of the Golden Spike.

Everyone likes to be liked, no? Well, cranking out news and features, reviews of books and the arts is nice. People like you for doing it. But, if you’re circulating among leatherfolk, why not write for them too and be liked by them.

I confess. That’s not an answer. But it is what your question inspired.

TDV: You were the founding Executive Director of the Leather Archives and Museum (LA&M). What is the importance of LA&M?
JB: Any community that does not maintain its history is not much of a community, maybe isn’t a community at all. I think that having the history available is what is essential. That, and a willingness on the part of the public figures in the community to tell the truth about the past. There is no requirement for everyone to actually know the history. If it is saved and safe, all will be well when it is needed. That’s not all that a community needs, of course. It needs the history for which the LA&M is the central repository. It needs current defenders like the various task forces and advocacy groups. And it needs some preparation for the future to always be in progress. That is what the teaching and demonstrating and lecturing is about. Past, present and future all have their places in defining the community each has its “consumers,” too.

TDV: Given the devastation of the Leather community by AIDS, the important of LA&M for that community is clear. But does the non-leather community have an equal reason for supporting the LA&M?
JB: It is my opinion that all the special-interest histories and museums benefit everyone. The truth about the past has more and more importance as we discover more and more ways to be who we are, to be ourselves. There may be no personal impact on me if the last Bengal tiger in the world dies, or none that I am aware of, but I believe that I share with everyone a responsibility to see that nothing human-sourced causes that tiger breed’s extinction.

It might take thousands of words to weave that philosophy into a fully and easily understood position, but I think the people most ready to understand it will get it. Others may get it from some other signal at a later time.

Everything that matters to anyone is of value to everyone because the essence of being human is the sum total of all we are. If something is true for a community as large as the world leather/BDSM community, then that argument should be easy to rasp.

On a less philosophical level, the world should be interested in the LA&M because we keep discovering kinkiness in the lives of important historical figures. While that information is often flushed out of collections at major universities and general interest museums, the LA&M preserves it. The same can be said of American Indians, Holocaust survivors, Gypsies…

TDV: What ways can members of the BDSM, Kink and Leather communities support LA&M?
JB: Obviously, money is never a mistake, starting with the purchase of a simple, annual membership. I believe the institution is safe, but it is certainly not over-endowed. On the other hand, it is even more important for people to collect what is worth saving and deliver it to the LA&M. Remember that what is currently of interest, however new, will be historic one day. The best way to handle that is to send speeches, souvenirs, books, magazines, event programs, photographs and whatever else comes to mind that is in any way leather/BDSM related to the museum and to do it with no strings attached. If the trained collection managers there determine that an item need not be preserved or should only be preserved as a copy or photograph, so be it. No strings attached. And, to make the donation perfect, send along some money to offset the cost of handling, managing and preserving the donated items.

On another level altogether, including the LA&M in your will can be very, very important. At that point things you want to keep near you to the end can be preserved. The LA&M can help you do that the right way, to be sure your life and artifacts are understood correctly. And, naturally, a will is another time to send money or significant saleable items that can be turned into money.

TDV: You’ve seen a lot of change in BDSM over the course of your involvement – from Old Guard leather to the contemporary BDSM community. What do you think the biggest changes in BDSM have been?
JB: Well, I’d nit-pick about that Old Guard reference in some settings, but I’ll take it as a generic reference to “once upon a time.” That said, there is no doubt at all about the biggest change. Most people might say the Internet or the spiritual content, but no. Nothing compares with the effect of the massive population increase in the publicly assessable community. It has made super-events possible, kept publishers and equipment makers and clothing manufacturers and retail stores in business. It is the huge population that has made legal reforms possible and has also invited some of the nasty attacks, the primary effects of which have been a stronger bond within the community.

TDV: You are an admired, even famous, figure in the BDSM community. What do you think of your “fame”?
JB: My first thought on that is that I would never have been such a solitary and “famous” figure if not for the devastation of the gay leather community by AIDS. Beyond that, the attention has made it possible for me to get things done. That matters. I couldn’t have started some of the magazines I did if I were not “a name” in the community, and they were needed at the time. I couldn’t have put the LA&M “on the map.” I couldn’t have done a lot of things—some of them important only to various clubs and organizations, some of them known, others intentionally not known. So, being “famous” in this way—as silly as it is—has been useful.

My most recent thought is quite different. I have noticed that these few years of reduced circulation since I moved to Maui in the October 2001 to January 2002 period (it takes a while to move to the middle of the ocean), have been enough for huge portions of the active community to be completely unaware of me. I like that, a lot.

TDV: Being a ‘celebrity’ many people in the BDSM, Kink and Leather communities, look up to you. What kinky-folk do you admire?
JB: Tony DeBlase (publisher of Drummer when I was there) was a hero for me in many ways, and Larry Townsend (author of so many great books, starting with The Leatherman’s Handbook in 1972) is one of the greatest human beings I’ve ever known. Taking that down a notch, I find myself inclined to start listing artists and writers before teachers and demonstrators. A couple of the defendants in the Spanner Case in England go down in history for me as endlessly admirable.

On the broader historic front, Lawrence of Arabia and King Edward VIII, Verlaine and Rimbaud all make the grade.

On the most personal level, my three most-admired men are Paul Martin, scott Smitherum and warren west. They earned my admiration by putting up with me.

TDV: Many of the lectures you have given have explored the links between BDSM and spirituality. What is the link between BDSM and spirituality?
JB: The link is simple. We are human. One way of describing us involves our being spiritual, mental, emotional and physical creatures. If we start with that version of what a person is, then we have to accept that the WHOLE definition is always true. So, we are always spiritual, just as we are always physical. And, to make the connection from there, all we have to do is recall that spirituality is most experienced in the most intense moments of our lives. BDSM is, for some, an opportunity for intensity.

TDV: Do you think BDSM itself is inherently spiritual, or is it just that humans are spiritual beings and therefore all that we do has a spiritual aspect to it?
JB: Everything done by a creature described as spiritual, mental, emotional and physical also has inherent effects, contents and elements that are spiritual, mental, emotional and physical. BDSM is no more inherently spiritual than tea drinking or tango dancing. But, when we speak of spirituality, we most commonly speak of “spiritual experience” or “spiritual progress” of some sort, or “spiritual vision/insight.” Some activities are more likely than others to inspire or make way for these experiences, instances of progress or insight. That’s where the intensity comes into it.

TDV: The current political atmosphere in the States is very conservative. What affect do you think this atmosphere will have on BDSM? How do you think kinky folk should respond?
JB: Well, perhaps surprisingly, as long as you don’t think of the un-careful circulation of pornography kinky people have actually done better under conservative governments than liberal ones. Whether conservative governments and the officials who serve in them despise the expression of kinkiness or don’t, I can’t say. However, conservatives in general tend to have Big Issues. In the areas of private acts and privacy rights, the only thing they usually focus on is pornography. Once upon a time—at least 15 years ago—Harper’s Index ran some items matching liberal/conservative political views with lifestyles and activities. In that list, asked whether SM was an acceptable alternative lifestyle, three times as many conservatives (a majority) as liberals said “yes.”

Mind you, the conservative government in the U.S. will eventually be very bad for all alternative lifestyles. When the debt is huge and the reputation of the country in the world is weak, scapegoating and distracting is called for—idiotic things like the war on drugs, the protection of marriage, increased criminalization of already “illegal” acts, etc.

More liberal governments make daily life more livable, but they seldom have very beneficial effects (on a large scale) for people who are considered different. The wins of blacks, Jews, gays and others have consistently been irresistible and unstoppable creations of the leaders within those communities, not gifts or effects of government.

TDV: Any final thoughts?
JB: One. Recently, the most common question I am getting is about when and how kinky people will gain “acceptance” or be “mainstreamed.” I think this is a dangerous dream. Instead of acceptance or mainstreaming, what we should all be praying for and working with authorities to arrange is to be left alone. There is no higher liberty than to be left alone, effectively ignored. And it is a kind of liberty that comes with a lot fewer restrictions, backlashes and losses than apparent acceptance. What’s more, people who are left alone, become nearly invisible, no one cares to know more about them. They don’t pry. Kids continue to poke, but for adults, it’s live and let live.

TDV: Thank you for your time and your dedication to kink and kink education.