Urban Aboriginals

Urban Aboriginals: A Celebration of Leathersexuality

Author:	Geoff Mains
Country	United States
Subject	Sexuality
Publisher	Daedalus Publishing
Pages	200p
Dimensions	8.5 x 5.5
Weight	9oz
ISBN-10	1881943186
ISBN-13	978-1881943181

Review

In Urban Aboriginals, Geoff Mains pioneered our understanding of the connection between the neurochemistry of pleasure-seeking and radical sexuality. -- Guy Baldwin, M.S., psychotherapist, and author

It is a unique cultural study and a priceless document of a now-vanished time. -- Gayle, Ph.D., author and anthropologist

Urban Aboriginals was way ahead of its time for clearly defining a significant transformation in Western Culture. -- Fakir Musafar, Father of the Modern Primitive Movement

From the Author

This is a journey into the aboriginal soul. It is not a voyage into forests that reverberate with drums, but into an abyss upon which, precariously, western civilization balances. It is a journey marked by fetish and mana, shaman, ritual, and trance. Here, men partake of a very real magic. They are men among whom danger, fear, and new hope have broken many of the misconceptions upon which western civilization falters. These are men not apart from but of the very blood of that civilization. Urbane and savage in the same breath, they are animal and human in the same stroke. Of the Caliban, Prospero admits: "This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine."

From the Publisher

Urban Aboriginals was an instant classic the moment it appeared in the spring of 1984. Published by the always daring Gay Sunshine Press, its author was a little-known Canadian writer, Geoff Mains, who wove an audacious mix of theory and lived experience to explain the gay male leather scene. Mains introduced the notion of endorphins, recently discovered opium-like chemicals in the central nervous system, as a critical component of S/M sexuality. He furthered his insight by linking the social behaviors of this little understood subculture to the tribal rites of indigenous societies around the world. parts biochemistry lesson, anthropological study, and candid journalism, the book opened a gateway of revelation that is still being felt to this day....

Mains settled in San Francisco upon completing his book. He spent the last few years of his life among a community he had boundless regard for, providing witness in a novel, Gentle Warriors. Soon after that work was done, Mains died of complications due to AIDS on June 21, 1989. Well over a decade later, Mains' writing continues to be cited by influential sources, including The New York TImes, which quoted from his diary these poignant words about the plague's impact on the world he loved: "I stand, uncertain....The pst that I believed in, the times I lived for, are gone."

Urban Aboriginals lived on, however, through a second edition and a whole new generation of appreciative readers. Main's message, enhanced by photographer Robert Pruzan's powerful images, continued to enlighten and affirm an ever-loving tribe of "modern primitives." Now some years out of print, the book is being circulated again.

The original plates and negatives are long gone, piecing the book back to its original form has entailed an act of literary archeology. Appropriately enough; proceeds from this new edition will help preserve the life work of Mains and Pruzan (who also died of AIDS), now permanently archived at the San Francisco Bay Area Gay & Lesbian Historical Society. A sincere word of thanks is also due to the book's original publisher, Winston Leyland, who graciously consented to its revival.

Many urban aboriginals everywhere continue to value and learn from these brave and visionary pages. -Mark Thompson