The SLAP Newsletter, Issue 001
September 2025
Welcome to the Sadomasochist and Leather Assembly of Pittsburgh newsletter! Our goal is to expand avenues of engagement so anyone can stay in touch with our community as long as they have access to internet.
What you can expect:
- Monthly issues featuring writing, art, upcoming events, the Ask Your Queer Auntie advice column, personal ads, business ads, and more!
- Periodic event reminders and announcements.
You can check out our About page as we continue to expand our website. Keep us bookmarked for future reference!
Call for Submissions
We want your poetry, stories, and art! Submit to 412cumSLAP@proton.me to get started.
Book Club
The Sadomasochist and Leather Readers of Pittsburgh (SLRP) will have its first virtual Signal meeting on Thursday, September 18th at 7:30pm! Meetings are slated to happen on the third Thursday of every month (the same week as the SLAP parties).
Our first book is the Lesbian S/M Safety Manual (1988) edited by Patrick Califia - available for free online! Email us at 412cumSLAP@proton.me if you'd like the full PDF. No need to have finished it by the first meeting, just hop on the call, talk about how it’s going, (optionally) read aloud a bit, and scheme what else we may want to read!
SLAP Events
Local Events
SLAP Fundraiser Breakdowns
July 21st @ Mary's
Cash: $443 | Venmo: $225 | Total Donations: $668
$501 went to Bukit Bail Fund | $167 went to SLAP
August 18th @ Mary's
Cash: $298 | Venmo: $110 | Total Donations: $408
$306 went to Lill Prosperino Scholarship Memorial Fund | $102 went to SLAP
August 18th @ Low Blows
Raised: $490 - $66 (Food + Drink) - $50 (Bathtenders tip) = $374 total
$93.50 went to Bukin Bail Fund | $280.50 went to SLAP
Ask Your Queer Auntie Advice Column
Hi folks - welcome to Ask Your Queer Auntie. I'm a queer NB femme with 30 years of kink experience. Not a therapist and have no formal medical or psychological training. Responses are my opinion and shouldn't be taken as gospel.
Hi Queer Auntie!
I've been wondering about your experiences in community around responding to non-consent or foul play. What ways have you seen communities promote accountability and healing for these situations? What responses have you seen that felt like they didn't work or could have gone differently? Have you been in communities with structured responses to non-consent? What did that look like?
Your insights on this would be great as we continue to build safer spaces for both new and experienced players <3
Signed,
Spicy Prepper
Dear Spicy Prepper,
Disclaimer: I'm talking here about violations of consent in a BDSM context, not physical violence or sexual assault, which cannot be tolerated, and which even transformative justice is not asking us to tolerate.
Lesson Number One: Get a Reference
I had one experience of blatant non-consent. Play was interrupted and the person was asked to leave. If they apologized, I don't remember. Later, that person reached out to the person who intervened and asked for a kink reference. They told them there was no way they would after what they did. The person who did the consent violation is no longer active in kink by their own choice.
So get a reference from a couple people.
Lesson Number Two: Take What You Like & Leave the Rest
Kink brings strange bedfellows. You might now cringe at the thought of certain kinks or demographics. However, these people are our kin. They might be 3rd cousins twice removed but still related to us. Some of these groups have excellent resources and procedures that can be adapted to fit.
For instance, Pittsburgh Bridge has implemented a comprehensive consent violation policy and process. When a group has forged a path, we should consider adapting their resources.
Adapt what you can from the people who came before you.
Lesson Number Three: You Gotta Talk About It
No one can fix something if they don't know about how you're feeling and what your experience was. This is not an easy conversation; However, you owe it to yourself and them to have it.
Tell people but give the person you played with the benefit of honesty and a swift discussion. Take someone with you who can be neutral, if you like.
Lesson Number Four: "The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House" - Audre Lorde
We need revolutionary structures to ensure our survival. Abolitionary goals, transformative justice, and mutual aid should be our hallmarks, because shunning and canceling replicate patriarchal models and don't keep us strong. Consent violations need to be talked about openly between the individuals, and the community needs to make this possible through structured mutual aid and resources.
I also want to reiterate that personal boundaries are not the same as community boundaries. Personal boundaries do not equal community shunning.
So let's do something new that fits our politics.
Nice to meet all of you and I can be reached @sassomatic on Fet.
Personal & Local Ads
Seeking 4-5 bottoms for a music class. Are you musically (un)inclined and fond of the ridiculous? Do you have access to a harmonica? If you can stay on key and stoic, no cane for you. The person who wins can ask for a prize (negotiated prior). This will be a semi public scene at a kink party and you can wear whatever you like. @sassomatic on Fet
PS Harmonica non-negotiable.
A SLAP Manifesto
SLAP [noun / verb / adverb]
/ a sharp blow or smack, especially with the open hand or with something flat
/ to strike sharply, especially with the open hand or with something flat; to subdue, especially by a blow or by force; to reject, oppose, or criticize
/ suddenly and directly, especially with great force; exactly; right
SLAP is a Pittsburgh-based assembly of leatherfolk and sadomasochists. We are a group of dykes, fags, queers, and freaks of all genders who share common values, ambitions, practices, and pleasures. We are an assembly, as in the process of putting parts together. We are one link in the growing chain of bonds connecting us to our past and leatherfuture.
We are leather as in legacy.
Leather is our identity as sexual outlaws and our compass for engaging with the world. Leather is an ethic of care, an embodied politic, and a value system that prioritizes fellowship, stewardship, and comradeship. Leather is historically radical and explicitly queer. Leathersex is what we do to seek and achieve transcendence. We do it to connect to ourselves, to each other, and to our ancestors.
We are sadomasochists in that we eroticize power exchange. We contemplate our power both in and outside of our sex, take responsibility and accountability for our actions, and embrace complexity of experience. We are sadomasochist in that we learn to practice surrender, control, and mindfulness of our influence and agency.
We gather together for the purpose of indulging in those things we share in common. We follow in the traditions of leatherfolk before us, whose organizations were critical for the visibility, enrichment, actualization, and protection of their own and allied communities. As SLAP, we commit to action towards these four aims:
VISIBILITY // Being a freak in this world is an isolating experience and leather is our call to join together as family. It is critical to our emotional, physical, psychological wellbeing that we spend time with people like us. Community spaces and events provide opportunities for us to meet and gather, to celebrate each other and the pleasures of being alive, to enjoy and exercise our bodily autonomy, and to remember that we are not alone. We aim to protect spaces and produce events that align with our vision, mission, and values as an assembly.
ENRICHMENT // Leather encourages our imagination and learning, prompts us to explore our passions, and demands that we relate to our pleasure as an intentional practice. We aim to produce events and support initiatives that help us develop self-awareness, hone the precision and safety of our skills, and learn to better care for/about others and ourselves.
ACTUALIZATION // Leather is a path towards personal development, spiritual connection, and a life of meaning, purpose, and interdependence. It teaches us to dream beyond what we thought was possible. Through sadomasochism, we are stewards of each other's undoing and becoming. We aim to reach beyond the boundaries of our assembly to stay in conversation and stand in comradeship with other collectives of leatherfolk across the nation.
PROTECTION // Leather and sadomasochism are exquisite and rigorous practices of bodily autonomy. Protection of our sexual freedom is inextricably tied to protection form all other forms of oppression and persecution. SLAP aims to support organizations, initiatives, and mutual aid efforts towards sexual freedom and trans liberation, antiracism, disability justice, anti-carceral mental health care, sex worker's rights, reproductive justice, and prison abolition.
Above all, SLAP is dedicated to protecting the lives and futures of leatherfolk, and we welcome you to join us. SLAP will make a mark that's here to stay.
Sadomasochist and Leather Assembly of Pittsburgh
June 2025
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Banner image by absenceovart.
