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For lots of kinky people, we knew we were kinky before we knew we were gay. “If some people want to have their matching knitwear and a cocker spaniel, then I’m happy for them,” says Nigel Whitfield, director of the Breeches and Leather Uniform Fanclub, “but some of us don’t. Aficionados fear its decline is another milestone in the gay scene’s slow descent into homogeneity. Rising rents, competitor fetishes and competition from online dating apps have all been a turn of the screw. Bars such as the Coleherne, the Anvil, Bloc, Substation and, most recently, the Hoist, have all disappeared into the annals of gay history, replaced with gastropubs, luxe apartments and identikit offices. “They want to build another high-rise.” Opposition from Tower Hamlets council and community activists has granted the club a brief reprieve, according to the staff, who all work under the assumption that any day could be the venue’s last.Ī string of closures has caused concern for those interested in a variety of fetishes, but the leather scene seems to have been hardest hit, particularly in London. “The developers have been sniffing around us for years,” says Aaron the barman. But after a 33-year run serving London’s kinksters, its days might be numbered. This is the Backstreet, London’s only remaining gay leather bar. A gregarious barman greets regulars while hairy-chested musclemen appear on a small screen next to an ice bucket. Men kitted out in chaps and overcoats prowl the corridors, while others sip Foster’s, waiting for a nod and a wink.
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Knee-high leather boots hang from iron chains looped through ceiling hooks like fetish bunting. Inside, past three sets of doors and a changing room cordoned off with an old tarpaulin, is a shadowy warren of alcoves, cages and dark corners. A CCTV camera perched above the door signals it probably isn’t a squat, but there is no signage. I n a dimly lit sidestreet in London’s East End there is a black box of a building scrawled with graffiti.