Getting Gay Men to Attend Mixed Kink Events

Attracting large numbers of gay men to attend big kink and leather events frequented mostly by a mix of genders and orientations isn’t impossible, but one should have reasonable expectations.

I get this question every so often out of the blue from leather and kink event producers, In fact, during this past Folsom Street Fair weekend I had a conversation at a bar on this exact topic.

It's sometimes a difficult conversation because it walks the inclusion versus exclusion line which is perhaps the most debated of issues right now (along with consent) in our scene, and often no one's 100% satisfied with the answer I give, which I fully understand. This question I’m often asked is:

"How do I get more gay men to my event?"

Producers and organizers see events like International Mr. Leather, Mid-Atlantic Leather, CLAW, and many others drawing thousands of gay men and they want a piece of that crowd. That's totally understandable.

My answer to them, which is echoed in conversation after conversation I have with other gay men when this issue comes up, is that if you have a primarily pansexual or heterosexual event, you're not going to see massive numbers of gay men attending. Sure, a certain subset of gay men will attend but they are that subset comfortable in such mixed erotic environments.

Thinking you're "doing something wrong" with your event organizing or promotion if you’re not attracting lots of gay men to a mixed event is misguided in my opinion. You're doing just fine. You're just trying to do something that's not as likely to happen as you might want.

I wrote about this before a few years ago and my views have changed slightly, but not too much. Let me explain how I see it.

My main change of heart is that I’m seeing the kink scene generally get far more comfortable with mixed gender and orientation socializing and even sometimes for play settings. Times are changing. Perhaps we’re moving toward an easier time of mixing that doesn’t take away the erotic hotness some need to be fully entertained and fulfilled. I’m not sure, but maybe. I’m willing to allow things to unfold and see.

But that said, when most gay men in the leather and kink scene go to a big kink weekend event somewhere, the vast majority of them are highly focused on sex, play, and the hyper-erotic environments (erotic to them) in which they can socialize, bond, and cruise while amid the crowd they find most sexy, and that's other gay men.

And while some may not want to acknowledge it, most gay men navigate within, identify with, and play amid the leather and kink scenes differently than other scene demographics. That's not a value judgment. It’s just how it is.

For example, I’ve lost count how often someone has commented when in a mixed play environment that gay men play in noticeably different ways than others. Again, not a value judgment, just my observation gained from lots of experience in every type of social and play environment.

To some extent my perspective applies to predominantly women’s space too, but for some reason I’ve seen many gay men feel more comfortable in lesbian and women’s spaces (when invited, of course) than in predominantly heterosexual or pansexual crowds. Maybe it’s the shared queerness that engenders a higher comfort level.

When attending events, many men travel from smaller towns and cities and for a few days they get to be fully accepted as gay men in a gay environment. Even for us big city urban dwellers, as our bars and other physical spaces continue to decrease in number, much of the gay men's scene has morphed to become event-based. So, these men are frequently seeking a fully immersive experience in a kinky gay atmosphere that they find it increasingly more difficult to get at home.

There is that smaller subset of leather/kink gay men such as the titleholder and contest crowd, the education and class crowd, and so on, that might attend more mixed events because their primary focus is on those things, which is great. But I contend that they are the minority of kinky gay men. The vast minority actually in my opinion.

One of my good friends uses an iceberg metaphor to describe the "visible" and "overwhelming majority" of leather and kink gay men. While you might go to a contest, education conference, or other such event and see gay men there among other demographics, they are the visible portion of the overall gay men's kink scene. The overwhelming majority of gay men are represented by the bulk of the iceberg that you can't see, but they're there and playing and socializing and learning and having fun in their own ways in their own spaces and at their own events.

Also, and here's an often-unspoken reality that few seem to want to bring up, most gay men, and I don't care how into BDSM or other kink they are, want to have sex. Lots of it. Actual, penetrative, raucous, sometimes piggish sex. A huge percentage of them have also opted for relying on treatment as prevention and PrEP as their HIV safeguards and condoms aren't part of the equation for them, which flies directly in the face of most pansexual and mixed playspace guidelines. And that doesn't even take into account that most gay men who play publicly want to have sex and play amid a crowd of mostly if not all gay men. What turns us on is not democratic and never will be, and gay men typically want to play and have sex with other gay men in a gay environment. That's just reality.

Should producers of events open their doors and even actively reach out to gay men? Sure, if they want to. I don't think all events have to be for everyone, and in fact I think we'd be better served if we didn't assume that all events cater to all. But if an event does want gay men to attend, by all means let that be known and do what you can to attract them.

If you want to create playspaces for us, great. Just don't be surprised when the mixed playspaces are swarming with people and only a handful of men use the smaller men's spaces, assuming an exclusively men’s space is even available at an event. The truth is most of the guys are probably in their hotel rooms playing, or at the local bathhouse, sex club, or at an offsite play party, because that's what’s sexiest to them at the time.

Since I’ve been asked this question recently, it’s fresh on my mind. If you’re a subscriber to my blog, I’d love to read your ideas that others can read on how they might get gay men to attend their not exclusively gay events. I bet there’s some good ideas out there. Perhaps I’m entirely wrong with my perspective. So, I’d love to read other insights and ideas.

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