Jan 09, 2004  |  By: Bryan Anderton  | COMMENTS     

NEXT WEEKEND, THOUSANDS of men (and some women) will gather in downtown D.C. to celebrate their mutual love for a sometimes risqué fashion: leather.

They will be attending the 20th annual Mid-Atlantic Leather Weekend, sponsored by the Centaur Motorcycle Club. This is the second-largest leather event in the United States, and each year draws as many as 3,000 people from all over the country.

The MAL weekend is eclipsed only by the International Mr. Leather competition in Chicago.

The Mid-Atlantic Leather Weekend began at a cocktail party. The year was 1975, and Glenn Pitcher of New York City’s Links Motorcycle Club rented a room at the Waldorf Astoria and invited a few friends over for the gathering, which was in honor of a friend visiting from the West Coast. At the cocktail party, everyone wore their finest leather attire.

The Leather Cocktails event became an annual tradition. At first, only those with proper invitations were admitted, but over the years the rules became more and more lax, until finally anyone who looked good in leather — or out of it, for that matter — could join the fun.

The party soon became too big for its own britches and hit the road, coming to D.C. for the first time in 1979. It made its way to Philadelphia and Baltimore before finally coming to rest in the nation’s capital once and for all in 1982.

By that point, more than 500 people were showing up at the event every year, and the Links MC announced that, for various reasons, the gathering would not be held again. But many did not want to see the tradition left behind, so the local Centaur MC began hosting it and has continued to do so.

In 1985, Tony Bachrach and Al Santora created the Mr. Mid-Atlantic Leather Contest, and Leather Weekend as we know it was born.

THOSE WHO ARE unfamiliar with the leather scene may wonder what it’s all about.

“Leather means different things to different people,” says Mike Dembski, a spokesperson for the Centaurs. “There are people who are purely into motorcycles and who are into leather, there are some who are turned on that it’s more masculine, and there are those, of course, who get into the whole leather S&M scene.”

One thing is for certain, though: Regardless of their reason for enjoying leather, there will be something for everyone over the course of the weekend.

Highlights include a “Meet the Meat Tour,” which travels from the Tool Shed, a gay gathering spot above the Green Lantern bar, to the D.C. Eagle to Titan Bar Friday night; Leather Cocktails at the Almas Temple Saturday night; the Mr. Mid-Atlantic Leather contest Sunday afternoon, also at Almas Temple; and the Reaction Dance with internationally known DJ Chris Cox Sunday night at Nation.

The Washington Plaza Hotel is the main host hotel for the event, as it has been for the last several years. But Leather Weekend is so popular that the hotel sold out of rooms for it about a year ago. Organizers are referring participants to two other hotels, the Holiday Inn Downtown and Crowne Plaza, Washington. They are nearly filled to capacity as well.

This comes as no surprise to Stephen Weber, a D.C. resident who earned the title International Mr. Leather in 2002. He says events such as MAL and IML are popular because they foster a sense of belonging.

“It’s more than just what people are wearing — it’s a community,” Weber says. “It’s a group of people that care about each other, that work together to resolve issues, and you don’t always find that at gatherings of this size.

“It’s a place where people can come and be accepted,” he adds. “They can be political, they can be social, they can be sexual, and all of that is OK.”