About Rough Riders
"We’d throw the tent on the back, throw the trick on the back, and get on the motorcycle and ride away."
- John Laird
In this chapter, we have chosen to explore the history and tradition of gay motorcycle clubs, one of which is the oldest still-running gay organization in the country. The Satyrs, who take their name from the mythical creature known for both woodsiness and an insatiable sexual appetite, began in 1954, four years after the Mattachine society was founded. Here we address the club as a gay subcultural formation, seeking to theorize and understand how the gathering of people from across the city participate in events and create a subculture based on aesthetic belonging. In short, we investigate every way a community is bound, whether that is through casual participation, official membership, or rope.This section explore the importance and use of space, from the road to the woods into which the motorcycle clubs rode and still ride, the relationship between authority outside the club and within the club itself, and the nature of gay camp and camping. We also seek, on a broader scale, to investigate who archives what, and why certain things are chosen over others. As the gay leather motorcycle man becomes more a stereotype than a fetish, and motorcycle club membership declines, we are forced to ask if archiving this history is simply collecting the last few specimens of a dying breed.
Our main sections follow the trajectory of the Satyrs from the 1950s to the present. Within each section one can go "off the beaten path" by following the Detour icon that Scalar affords for further historical context and interesting diversions from our primary focus. The first section, "Pitching a Tent," focuses on space. Leading with a theoretical framework provided by French theorist Michel Foucault, we analyze spaces historically claimed by, and denied to, gay MCs in Los Angeles. We will also interrogate notions of “straight invasion” and “gay flight” to better understand the complex interactions of criminality and legality with regards to gay expression in urban or rural environments. Our detour for the section, "The Passive Partner," situates gay MCs in the iconic motorcycle masculinity of post WW2 United States culture. The second section, "Tricking the Fuzz," will focus on how queerness becomes regulated through laws, ordinances, socioeconomic access, and more. If our first section is an explication of the “motif of mobility,” this section will speak to how such freedoms become curtailed over time. The detour "Fuck The Police" describes the rocky give and take of the queer community's relationship with the police on a conceptual and on a physical level--from "Uniform Days" and fetishization to raids and parades.
Last, we finish with "Welcome to Bondage Camp," an analysis of queer escapes and the changing landscape of sexual expression in Los Angeles. How can we interpret the connection between serious sexual fetishization and intentional camp? Are such distinctions even useful when speaking about the confluence of bondage, leather, and gay motorcycle aesthetics? This section, guided by two important works from Leo Bersani, seeks to shed light on these questions and others. We continue off the beaten path with "Media In Tension," an inquiry into Drummer Magazine and the troubling confluence of queer subculture and authoritarian masculinity. Our section, "In the Rearview Mirror," reflects on our experience interacting with the Satyrs archive and using Scalar to tell the story of this remarkable journey of the gay MCs.