An essential part of Leathersex

Leather is the material which can evoke a raw sensuality, it can encase the wearers body either in protection or offering sensually enhanced access.

Built into a corset leather can be the armor which a top uses to promise a glimpse of tight, hard bliss, and emphasize her austere authority. Alternately, with suitable rings added to the construction, it can be the top's tool, first constricting her bottom into an appealing form and then to perhaps bind her to bed or post for play or to simply wait, anticipating attention.

In a whip or flogger, it can be several kilos of massive, dense impact, alternately caressing the body and assaulting in full body blows, shaking the very bones and guaranteeing bruises that may be felt for a week.

In the form of a bullwhip, leather can deliver kisses as of butterflies, barely impacting, although accompanied by loud cracks as the the cracker doubles the speed of sound, a bare millimeter within the interface of air and skin. Or tiny beestings, flying over the body, building in power until they deliver white hot searing lines of pain.

Wearing thigh high kid leather boots, a thong, garter belt and bra all made of leather, the girl or boy at the Folsom Street Fair could be a top, bottom, switch or a tourist who knows how to craft the look.

Traditionally, the wearing of a (usually leather) collar signifies the wearer as owned or spoken for and courtesy dictates that as (s)he may not be allowed to speak; permission should sought from the owner of the collar. A leather cap, on the other hand is the traditional mark of a top; this probably should not be worn by someone who hasn't earned the privilege.

These images could be invoked using the same leather that upholsters a Jaguar or Mercedes, and the desired effect could even be similar. More often, as the Author intended, the images of fetish leather are closer to the use of a bare, unpadded patch of leather on the seat of a minimal or chopped motorcycle.

(NB: leathersex in no way requires the use or presence of leather, this node is intended to illuminate the context of how the material has become an integral part of the leather mindset)