Colour Codes

[hntnhole]

19 hours ago, PissGuzzlerLA said:

Fascinating! I'd love to know if anyone has documented how that reversal came about, and also when and by whom

The first time I attended Folsom in Berlin ... maybe 20-some years ago? I don't speak German, so at first, it was a bit ... would awkward be the right word?

[JamesL100]

29 minutes ago, hntnhole said:

The first time I attended Folsom in Berlin ... maybe 20-some years ago? I don't speak German, so at first, it was a bit ... would awkward be the right word?

Chaps, cock, chest & cum are icebreakers 😛 😉 😎

[hntnhole]

LOL ... yep ... and the very best kind !!! 

[BootmanLA]

With respect to the earring/hanky/armband left/right thing: I think there's a difference between a garment-type accessory, like a pocket hanky or an armband - which you've chosen to wear that night for whatever reason - and having a piercing in one ear, because (aside from not wearing any earring at all on a given night) there's no way to let that express your evening choices. Although I know a lot of guys are purely bottom or nearly so, and have known a handful of purely top men, most guys I know who used the hanky/armband code chose the side based on mood. Which you can't do with an earring, unless you pierce both sides and routinely go without one or the other.

I'll also note that these things were *almost* exclusive to the leather/kink community - you didn't see guys wearing hankies in their back pockets going to the dance clubs on Saturday nights, for the most part. And as one of the early posters noted, there were only a handful of colors that were considered rather universally understood: Yellow for water sports (obvious), Navy for fucking, Light Blue for oral (a lighter shade for a "lighter" action than fucking), Black for S&M, Gray for B&D, Red for fisting (perhaps as a "danger" kind of symbol, since fisting used to be considered the "most" outrageous kind of gay sex). Brown "existed" but I can't say I ever encountered it in real life - it's the sort of thing that even other hanky code users would have found problematic.

I vaguely remember the first time I saw a code list that included greens - two shades, "Hunter" (or Forest) for Daddy/son stuff, "Kelly" green for escorts and johns, and then at some point someone added Olive, which made sense for military. But then the whole thing exploded into nonsense.

 

[ErosWired]

15 hours ago, BootmanLA said:

and having a piercing in one ear, because (aside from not wearing any earring at all on a given night) there's no way to let that express your evening choices.

For some people, their “evening choices” are simply an extension of an ethos they incorporate fully into their lives. Although I gave no thought to such things at the time, had I been conscious that wearing any sort of accessory on my right side versus my left had meaning, I would have made the conscious choice to pierce my right ear rather than my left, and it wouldn’t have bothered me at all if that was interpreted a certain way in a certain context. I would absolutely be using it to express a choice in that context. As it is, I’m afraid it may very well be causing a mistaken assumption that I’m expressing a preference that I’m not, because they’re in the wrong ear.

[hntnhole]

20 hours ago, ErosWired said:

simply an extension of an ethos they incorporate fully into their lives.

^ Exactly. 

I know I've lived a better life as a Leatherman, whether in or out of the hides. 

The Leather Ethic is something we carry throughout every aspect of our lives, That "ethos" extends inexorably into the mainstream of our daily lives, and improves us as men, as members of the human race.  

[BradStevens]

On 7/5/2023 at 5:00 AM, Leather69 said:

This all started out in the early 1990's with about 12 combinations..left top, right bottom.. then as usual it exploded in combinations over the next 15 years or so.. and with all the problems recognizing the obscure one it faded into oblivion... travelling about all U see is an odd red one, very occasionally yellow/blue.

I believe this started even earlier.... the early 70s. I remember this being a thing when I first came out in the 80s.