The Unauthorized History of the Old Guard

by Ambrosio

Dedicated to Sinassist

Introduction

For decades, certain experts and community leaders have tried to erase the Old Guard, dismissing it as an abstraction rather than a continuous lineage of Masters and followers. Whether acting under the Old Guard's direction or out of self-satisfied ignorance, these so-called leaders have suppressed true history of an organized group with immutable protocol, a rigid hierarchy, elaborate rituals, and absolute leadership over the Leather community. Instead of a myth, the Old Guard is the ultimate source of our received wisdom.

I have been assured of the veracity of this truth by authentically informed men and women in the Leather community who have imparted the truth to me. This article is based on over 30 years of interviews with dozens of Leather experts including title holders and community leaders of high standing. (Surprisingly, it was the heterosexual Leather folk who went into the most detail and spoke with the most certainty.)

Critics will point to my lack of primary source documents, but that only provides evidence of the Old Guard's reach and power. Hoaxes always have detailed documentation, while the truth can never be entirely verified.

Early History

While the accepted story is that the old guard began with Gay American service members returning after World War II, the truth is the old guard started as the senior members of the consular guard in Napoleonic France.

(Some community historians suggest that history began with the Praetorian Guard during the Roman Empire. But I find that a bit far-fetched.)

After Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, the core of his Old Guard emigrated to an island on the American Gulf Coast. Eventually they secretly joined the ranks of the United States military where they formed their own "deep state" to preserve their Napoleonic ideals and pass them on to new recruits to their cause.

After World War II, the Department of Defense (DoD) discharged gay and lesbian veterans for moral reasons. As a concession to their service, DoD issued surplus motorcycles to all Gay and Lesbian veterans. In addition, the DoD issued Army surplus leather clothing including chaps, jackets, and Muir caps specifically to the Old Guard veterans.

The majority of the Old Guard settled in New York City where they continued their practices and rituals in their new headquarters beneath the metropolis.

The Sanctum

The headquarters of the Old Guard was (and still is) located hundreds of feet beneath the Mine Shaft, a leather bar in New York City. It was accessed through the mine shaft for which the bar was named. In the early years, the elevator was powered by an inexhaustible number of slaves running on a treadmill. Later, the power source changed to electricity, allowing slaves to focus on more rewarding tasks.

This elaborate sprawling underground complex incorporates an abandoned subway station, vaults, catacombs, military bunkers, and prohibition era smuggling tunnels. It is an eclectic mix of old and new, featuring remnants of the subway infrastructure, such as tiled walls, iron beams, and underground tunnels. The rooms are adorned with stylish furniture, luxurious carpets, art pieces, chandeliers, American flags, and opulent leather furnishings. It is equipped with technology, including wall maps, monitors, control panels, and wi-fi.

In the large central room, the floor consists of a tile map of North America. The ceiling is adorned with a homoerotic fresco originally painted by Tom of Finland. Regrettably, the Committee for Sanctum Decoration and Design decided the work was not revealing enough and commissioned another artist to paint exposed flesh over the leather clothing. (I have not had the privilege of viewing the fresco myself, but the consensus is that the revised version is inferior to the original. It always is.)

Other rooms in the sprawling underground complex are dedicated to various activities and amenities, such as play spaces, a motorcycle repair shop, meeting rooms, offices, cigar room, a bar with pool tables, a handball court, a vault, a coat room, an archive, a library, a chapel, multiple restrooms (including a woman's room), a tea room (presumably for High Tea), guest quarters for visiting dignitaries, a neo-gothic theatre (with a 56-by-101-foot stage), a ballroom, a clinic, changing rooms, a gym, a telephone and telegraph room, a gallery, a trophy room, an Internet café and business center, and baths (consisting of a large indoor swimming pool, a steam room, and a jacuzzi.)

After the central room, the next most impressive room is the dining room. (To call it the "formal dining room" would be redundant.) The room is elegantly adorned with the original statue of David by Michelangelo displayed behind the dais. (To protect the statue from the ravages of war, the Old Guard had secretly liberated it from Fascist Italy in the early 1940s and replaced it with a forgery. The original intention had been to return it after the defeat of the Axis powers, but it looks too good in its present home, and the Old Guard has recognized that they are the best stewards of this priceless masterpiece.)

Sometimes, the Master will invite honored guests from outside the Leather community to dine in the Sanctum's dining room. Masters from European houses (most notably the Château Roissy in France) will visit en bas. The Homintern (the conspiracy of homosexual elites who control the art world) has also sent representatives to the Sanctum on matters of diplomacy. The uneasy truce and strategic cooperation between the virile Old Guard and the effete Homintern had been marked by subtle derision from both sides. When the Homintern ambassadors first attended Sanctum Dinners, their hosts would hang tennis shoes from the ceiling and gleefully serve their guest beef wellington accompanied by white wine.

Thankfully, the frosty relationship between the two groups has warmed up starting in the 1980s. On occasion, Sanctum hosts will even play select Broadway show tunes after the dessert course.

The library is next. It is organized into three distinct levels. On the highest level is the handbook room (which strangely consists entirely of fiction.) Below that is the non-fiction level which contains books on etiquette, military history, psychology, philosophy, ethics, and S&M techniques as well as periodicals. On the lowest level is a collection of suppressed books including a complete manuscript of the Gospel of Judas, De Vermis Mysteriis, Book of Azathoth, the minutes of the trials against the Knights Templar, the Aramaic Enoch scroll, and the greatest number of authentic copies of the first edition of The Leatherman's Handbook in the world.

This is because the original first edition of The Leatherman's Handbook exposed forbidden knowledge about the Old Guard. Consequently, the Guard promptly recalled all copies of the book, regardless of their purchase status, and replaced them with revised "first editions" where every mention of the Old Guard was substituted with misdirection. For example, the explanation of the Old Guard's authorship of the hanky code was substituted with the fiction that it "resulted from a couple of guys sitting down and trying to tag every conceivable activity with the most outlandish hue imaginable.")

On occasion, you might hear someone expounding about what Larry Townsend wrote about the Old Guard in The Leatherman's Handbook. Don't dismiss them. The speaker is not being ignorant or inventive. Obviously, they are referring to something they read in one of the authentic copies in the Sanctum library. It indicates their deep knowledge of Leather. To challenge them on the facts will only expose your own ignorance.

Other Activities

The Sanctum's meeting rooms host committees doing vital work. Topics include approving Covering Ceremonies, deciding protocols, defining the nomenclature, assigning Eagle franchises, vetting patch designs, and maintaining the hankie code.

In 1979, an Old Guard Council of Leather Masters from all over North America met in the Sanctum to decide definitively and permanently on which side to display keys to indicate whether the wearer was a sadist or masochist. The debate continued for most of the year. But now we have the Old Guard to thank for conclusively settling the controversy.
(How the Old Guard delivers its judgments remains unclear, but the telephone and telegraph room may play a role.)

Covering Ceremonies

As vital as the committee meetings are, the most important functions performed at the Sanctum are the Covering Ceremonies.

There is a lack of clarity on what constitutes a legitimate Covering Ceremony. But the census of those of us who know is that covering is always proceeded by five established Old Guard Masters delivering speeches on the Five Cardinal Virtues of Leather.

(In recent decades, in a move toward more inclusion, the Masters at the Sanctum have invited Femdoms and European Masters to speak at the Sanctum Cover Ceremonies.)

The individual speeches can last anywhere between ten minutes to two hours. Everyone in attendance will stand at attention until all five speeches are finished. Then they can sit briefly before the actual covering occurs. The new Master will sit on a leather throne on a dais as a Muir cap is lowered from the ceiling onto his head while an organist plays Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D minor."

It is important to note that to be acknowledged as legitimate, either the Covering Ceremony must strictly adhere to the prescribed formula, or the Old Guard must issue a formal dispensation for deviating from the established pattern.
Please note that the above ceremony is specific to a level one master. However, thirty-six levels of mastery exist (e.g., Sargent Master, Grand Master, Emcee) and each one has its own progressively elaborate ceremony.

There exists only one thirty-sixth level Master at any one time, but no one knows who the current one is because no one is permitted to look at him. When the thirty-sixth level Master visits the Sanctuary, he announces his presence by the sound of tiny silver bells he always wears. When he enters a room, all the conversation stops, and all the other Masters and their attendance look at the floor until he leaves the room. At one time the silence lasted for two hours until a disobedient slave looked in the direction of the sound and saw that a cat wearing a collar adorned with bells had somehow found its way into the Sanctum. An ambassador from the Homintern allegedly brought the cat to the Sanctum as revenge for an unspecified slight. But this was never proven.

The disobedient slave was punished appropriately.

Conclusion

Why does the Old Guard maintain its secrecy? To preserve the traditional values of the Leather lifestyle. The Guard maintains authority not through overt actions but by cultivating the perception of its power as an intangible, almost metaphysical force. This makes its protocols unchallengeable. They are woven into the Leather and BDSM communities as unassailable, enduring wisdom rather than the creation of flawed individuals "making it up as they go along." Ambiguity is Leather's existential threat, and the Old Guard protects us from it.

Their Leather protocol is not an improvised construct-it is the One True Way.

Ambrosio
April 1, 2025

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