The Leather Daddy and the Femme by Carol Queen

The Leather Daddy and the Femme Reviews

• 
  Lily

  I keep this in my guest room.
• 
  Tobi

  This incredibly hot and sexy book includes a wide variety of genderfucking, a few trans characters, and explores identity and political issues within queer communities. All that on top of the expected hot queer sex that Carol writes so well.
  
  This remains to be my number one recommendation to kinky genderqueers, though it does get intense enough with the BDSM to warrant a warning to the uninitiated. It explores what happens when queers fall in love with folks outside of their normal gender preferences, how our communities self-police in inappropriate ways, and pokes fun at the inadequacy of most gender exclusive policies.
  
  I loved every minute of it, and have re-read it a lot.
  
  Oh, and if you find an old copy of the first edition, be aware that they removed a lot of the discussion of identity and relationships. If you just want smut, the first version is fine. Personally, it's the thinking smut of the second edition that I prefer.
• 
  Pamela Langhorne

  Carol Queen's erotica, like the woman herself (in this reviewer's limited personal experience), seems to wear a perpetual smile. This is the queerest of queer porn, including hot scenes of queenly males and butch dykes getting it on with femmy vamps and macho men in every conceivable combination. This is an erotic version of the Peaceable Kingdom in which the lion lies down with the lamb (who has a strap-on for special occasions). Queen's stories could also be described as SM adventures with a full quota of leather but no emotional sting. Hugging and laughing seem like logical conclusions to her scenes, even if the friendly aftermath is not explicitly described.
  
  Queen, who has a Ph.D. from the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality, describes herself as a formerly politically-correct dyke who "came out" as a bisexual leather activist, sex worker and sex educator. She has written prolifically on sexual politics; in the anthology
  PoMoSexuals: Challenging Assumptions About Gender and Sexuality, she borrows the word "postmodern" from art and literary criticism to describe the art of playing outside of traditional sexual categories.
  
  This art is demonstrated in her fiction. In The Leather Daddy and the Femme, a gay "leather daddy" who resembles a
  Tom of Finland icon is seduced by a young woman in boy drag who surprises him by changing outfits in the bathroom and emerging as a chic chick. He finds her delightful, both as"Randy" and as "Miranda." Their adventures continue as Miranda recounts her "lesbian" affair with a male-to-female transsexual as well as her butch-femme one with a dyke who "comes out" as a female-to-male. The "leather daddy" is revealed to have a "daddy" of his own who is still on friendly terms with his ex-wife as well as the female pro domme who "brought him out" ⁠—as a gay man. The sexual energy that links all the characters in these interrelated stories is promiscuous in the best sense. It is fluid, infectious, and not focused on differences in plumbing, race or culture, loosely speaking.
  
  Despite the disapproval of a lesbian separatist co-worker, Miranda continues her sexual odyssey amongst the gender-bent. Ironically, the grand finale is a session in "women's space" with a professional Mistress to whom she is sent by her two daddies. Mistress Georgia's effect on Miranda is described thus:

  "Today, for me, her gender seemed a null, a promise, a projection screen; neither masculine nor feminine, or perhaps both at once⁠—but no less erotically powerful or compelling for the confusion I felt when I looked at her."

  This description sums up the appeal of this quirky book, which is not exactly a novel but which flows more gracefully from scene to scene than a collection of separate stories.
  
  This book is a tribute to a certain psychic space which seems to be Carol Queen's special domain, as well as to the leather community of San Francisco, an actual neighborhood which the author claims has changed since its heyday in the early 1990s.
  
  One of the charms of literature is that it can preserve a moment forever, and Dr. Queen's vision of "South of Market" as she recreates it is likely to have a long shelf-life. You'll enjoy an imaginary visit to the city where the earth really moves.
• 
  Elizabeth

  All right, now I am making reading a dirty book public but this one is so great it is worth it. It is smart and hot and a completely queer, even for "gay" erotica. Yes, Virginia, there are other queer femmes that like a roll in the hay with a gay boy or at least get off on the idea.
• 
  John

  she is the queen of hot gay sex with men
• 
  ♡✧⁠*the waterlily fairy⁠✧⁠*⁠♡

  I would give this a million stars if I could, I want to live in this book.
• 
  Anastasia

  Thank you to the sexy librarian at the Oakland Public Library who maintains their phenomenal erotica ebook collection🎄🐈
• 
  Gretchen

  I want more of this book. I want ten thousand of this book and all its queer siblings. I'm appalled that I hadn't read it before and sad that it was so slim that I burned through it in two sittings.
  
  This is a series of connected stories/moments in the life of a queer kinkster in SF in probably the 90's. The protagonist starts out in boy drag as Randy and picks up a leather daddy, Jack, at a gay leather bar. Unlike many of the gay men she's taken home before, Jack accepts Randy's gender fluidity and doesn't skip a beat when she transforms herself into her femme self, Miranda. A couple of chapters later, Jack's longtime lover, a Black man named Demetrius, comes home from his travels and they embark on a sexy, fun, caring, intentional journey to knitting themselves and others into a family of choice.
  
  This is unabashed queer leather erotica. My favorite thing about it is that the characters spend just as much time discussing gender, sexual identity, queerness, sex work, the experiences of genderqueers and trans women, roleplay, BDSM, leather, alt sex cultures as they do having inventive hot sex. It makes the sex incredibly hot and it feeds a deepseated need in my soul for fiction that reflects my experiences building intentional relationships and being open to experiences beyond those circumscribed by their cultures or apparent sexualities. Miranda may be a woman much of the time, and a woman with a cunt all the time, but her attraction to gay leathermen over straight men really resonated for me, and Jack and Demetrius's willingness to see her as the complicated sexy fuckable genderfluid slutty bottom that she is was marvelous.
  
  We need more erotica like this, that explores relationships in a low-drama way, that doesn't privilege romance over self-discovery and long-term close friendships, that reflects the diversity of queer communities on many axes, and that sees the heart of why people do the BDSM they do, and how identity labels can work for and against people. I loved the moments when Miranda or Jack come up against the censure and expectations of their own alt communities, who view their decisions as something of traitorous to their own queer selves by taking up with an ostensibly het relationship. I loved that the story didn't shy away from that, but dealt with it head-on while showing that this relationship helped each person involved grow into their queerness and explore beyond the constraints of identity politics. I like that it also didn't wholly trash or ask the characters to reject the more structured or separatist communities and community histories that they have been a part of, but rather showed the characters moving between spaces and roles with all the complexity and realism that I have seen in my own life.
  
  This was a really fun book and I'm proud to have it on my shelf. I liked it even better than Macho Sluts, it had way fewer instances of dubious consent. I think this book's realistic depiction of a life lived, with all the context that that entails, rather than heightening that life with a layer of fantasy, gives it a stronger footing. This book isn't perfect but it's really really excellent and I recommend it. It's also fabulously sexy in a way I so rarely see in fiction--a way that resonated with my own relatively complex approach to BDSM, queer identity and gender fluidity, while not being about me in specifics, it was about me in spirit. A+ would rec again.
• 
  Jeanne

  This book is not for the mildly curious reader. This is for someone who is open minded and adventurous. The sex scenes are mind-blowingly hot, but they also challenge everything you think you know about gender, sexual orientation and female sexuality.
  
  We're in a time where women are becoming increasingly open and fascinated with with gay male sexuality, and I think this book is about to come into it's own.
• 
  Alex

  When I say this book changed my life, I am not kidding. It sounds weird, but this book helped me understand my own masculinity as a queer transmasculine dude like nothing else has. It helped me find my place with the other leathermen and it made me much more comfortable with my own desires.
  
  Super hot stuff.
• 
  Lex

  I made the HUGE mistake of reading this trapped on an 8 hour car ride with a group of people I didn't know well. I had to spend some serious quality time with myself afterwards. Torture.
• 
  Sonya

  Awesome.
• 
  Grace

  some of this is hot, but a lot of it is 90s queerer-than-thou white bougie assholes talking about how radical they are .... what a snooze
• 
  Lee

  Classic!
  
  The author Carol Queen is a sexologist and feminist with a lifetime of involvement as a sex positive advocate and author.
  
  I hadn't known that much about her research and advocacy. I had enjoyed a chapter from this book that had appeared in another anthology so sought this one out. It was published in the late 90s so be aware it doesn't reflect 2019 sensibilities (how could it?).
  
  It's my favorite queer erotica of the year so far!!
• 
  Erica

  Hot kinky queer erotica with plenty of gender fuckery and 90s San Francisco. I don't know why I hadn't read this given it's been on my to-read shelf for a while.
  
  Some of the language around trans people is outdated given when it was written, but only one story was a complete no, which is a much better track record than most.
  
  All the characters felt fully realized, which is so interesting considering this is really about self-exploration through sex and the sex is the point.
• 
  Allyson Hoffman

  This is sex, sex, and more sex, but tucked in between all that is a lot of important conversation about queerness and gender. M/R is a person who exists with both boy and girl energy tucked up inside, neither completely gone even when presenting the other. I loved this book.
• 
  Katie

  Review coming soon.
• 
  Pan Ellington

  felt at times i was reading lgbtq history, at other times straight-up porn. profoundly challenged my own ideas of gender & sex. so incredibly glad that i read this...
• 
  Sandy

  I stopped reading after 50 pages.
  
  I really liked this initally for the queerness and gender play. But, I'm used to fanfic for my erotica, and I like fanfic better. The reason I stopped was a scene where the main character passes out during a sex / play scene, and the other characters don't seem to take it seriously at all. In fact, they put Randy in a car trunk. Your mileage may vary, but at that point I decided to give the rest of the book a pass. I realize it's fantasy-- you may love it! I prefer things, if not tamer, at least more safe-seeming.
• 
  M.

  It was a pleasure to read this book, another in a historical canon situated in 90s gay/dyke/trans/queer San Fran scenes that I otherwise have no interaction with than reading about them in these tales people took the time & effort to pen. To date, I have felt wary towards this historical canon for its overwhelming whiteness and wonder what stories must be left out from these eras on that account. That said, The Leather Daddy & the Femme opens up super hot from the very first page, with a dyke femme daring to cruise a leather daddy that turns her on, and it just keeps going. I feel like stories that feature characters from 'opposing camps' often prefer to focus on how outer conflict tears their relationship apart, and I was worried this book might do the same as it progressed. Luckily, it's not about that. The subtitle "An erotic novel in several scenes and a few conversations" is exactly what the book is, and I SO appreciate this format over a traditional Western conflict-oriented linear narrative. The chapters oscillate between characters' memories of hot times they had, hot times they're having or planning to have, and conversations between them that play out more like gay historical exposition and not giving a fuck about the gender binary and people's need for social formality.
  
  "Maybe your problem is that you came out in an era when queer people spend more time theorizing than they do in the sack."
  
  A suggested read if you're a borderwalking pervert surrounded by too many identity politic warring sides.
• 
  Sheryl

  This book is very important to me and I tend to give it to potential lovers, if I feel like I am going to want to reveal myself to them.
  Carol Queen rules! This little book has all the humor, frankness, and hot hot action that I have come to expect from her work in various anthologies and magazines. This is the story of a young woman with a very hard to satisfy kink--she loves strong, macho leather daddies. So she disguises herself as a boy to pick up her tricks--sometimes successfully, more often resulting in disappointment when she reveals herself. Until she meets her daddy--a man who is open to the erotic possibilities of a heterosexual relationship! The true beauty of this story, though, is not the well written and titillating sex(although it is VERY well written and titillating!) but the sweet and loving relationship that develops between the girl, her daddy, and his lover. Carol's writing always explores unusual sexual couplings with a strong eye toward the emotion behind the action, and this story is one of the best examples of her art.
• 
  Oin

  taken from former gf's bookshelf. a good thing too, because the pin-up graphic design of the cover isn't doing it for me, and imagine if i hadn't picked it up?
  
  i especially liked how queen challenged my ideas of the gender/sexuality binary. educated me about leather-daddy/boy culture a little bit. reading about soma in the leather-daddy heyday was fun too (man, i guess i can't go to blow buddies now?).
  
  fun to read, too. i see carol queen at csc events today and am glad she's still active in the community; i wonder what it would have been like to forge the path back in the day: early society of janus / dungeons and such. it was probably pretty hard. mad respect.
• 
  Jarrod Scarbrough

  I read this book back in 2006, and to this day, the story has stuck with me, and comes to mind when I discuss the topic of well written and fun erotica! Here is what I wrote about the book after reading it:
  
  I got a lot more than I had bargained for in this book. It was great! Sure, it was very much erotica, but was also much more than that. Raised some very deep questions about gender identity, sexual orientation, the whole nine yards.
• 
  Sara

  kindle edition.
  Read as a naughty book club selection.
  It's a bit a product of the time it was written. But the gender politics stuff is entirely still valid at the moment. Lots of gender play and genderfuck. I liked it overall.
  And wish that the author would write me a short story all about the side character Peaches. 8)
• 
  Sarah

  i have heard about this book for so long and finally got my hands on it. it is ridiculously hot and delightfully queer. i am captivated and aching to run away towards the bay and find a leather daddy of my very own.
• 
  Sandra Bassett

  This started out as a short stoy series and was so good, Queen made a book out of it. It is a UNIQUE book on a young dyke who convinces gay men she is a gay man and gets a rare glance into their s&m world. It is a book only Queen could write.
• 
  David Beasley

  This book was mostly erotica and a very quick read...
  i love me some good genderfuckery but i was much more interested in the presentation of social contexts that is tricky to wedge into all the sexing.
  i am much more likely to read erotica in the future (provided it is this awesome).
• 
  Logan

  I loved the gender bender aspect of this book. But I just couldn't connect that deeply with the characters. A good read if you can borrow it but for the price I was disappointed.... That's just how I roll