leather

A wallet.

- american underworld dictionary - 1950

So you want to chemically treat an animal skin to make it near-impervious to decay? Try this:

1. Get a cow. Or a calf. Or sheep. A goat, lamb, kid, horse, pig, kangaroo, deer, reptile, seal, or walrus will also do, just make sure you're not violating the Endangered Species Act.
2. Skin it.
3. Cure the skin with wet salt or brine.
4. Soak in water to remove salt, dirt, blood, bits of muscle and sinew, etc.
5. Separate the skin from any inner surface.
6. Scrape hair off, either mechanically or with a dull knife (You may wish to make this process easier by soaking the skin in a solution of lime and water containing a small amount of sodium sulfide for a few days).
7. Delime the skins, if necessary, with a weak acid bath.
8. Treat with a bating material if you wish your skin to be supple and flexible.
9. Tan the skin, either with tannin, in a series of increasingly concentrated solutions, or with a chromium-sulfate solution (pickle the bated skin first in a salt and acid mixture) by immersion.
10. Infuse with oil, grease, wax, and/or dye.
11. Let dry.
12. Brush, sand, or varnish to your desired finish.

You've got leather!

---

And this, from the lame joke department:

Useful word for this punchline: "Leather? Leather? I don't even know her!"

Repeat until you get a laugh. Especially if you're the kind of person who is desperate for attention.

Somebody slap me please.

An essential part of Leathersex

Leather is the material which can evoke a raw sensuality, it can encase the wearers body either in protection or offering sensually enhanced access.

Built into a corset leather can be the armor which a top uses to promise a glimpse of tight, hard bliss, and emphasize her austere authority. Alternately, with suitable rings added to the construction, it can be the top's tool, first constricting her bottom into an appealing form and then to perhaps bind her to bed or post for play or to simply wait, anticipating attention.

In a whip or flogger, it can be several kilos of massive, dense impact, alternately caressing the body and assaulting in full body blows, shaking the very bones and guaranteeing bruises that may be felt for a week.

In the form of a bullwhip, leather can deliver kisses as of butterflies, barely impacting, although accompanied by loud cracks as the the cracker doubles the speed of sound, a bare millimeter within the interface of air and skin. Or tiny beestings, flying over the body, building in power until they deliver white hot searing lines of pain.

Wearing thigh high kid leather boots, a thong, garter belt and bra all made of leather, the girl or boy at the Folsom Street Fair could be a top, bottom, switch or a tourist who knows how to craft the look.

Traditionally, the wearing of a (usually leather) collar signifies the wearer as owned or spoken for and courtesy dictates that as (s)he may not be allowed to speak; permission should sought from the owner of the collar. A leather cap, on the other hand is the traditional mark of a top; this probably should not be worn by someone who hasn't earned the privilege.

These images could be invoked using the same leather that upholsters a Jaguar or Mercedes, and the desired effect could even be similar. More often, as the Author intended, the images of fetish leather are closer to the use of a bare, unpadded patch of leather on the seat of a minimal or chopped motorcycle.

(NB: leathersex in no way requires the use or presence of leather, this node is intended to illuminate the context of how the material has become an integral part of the leather mindset)

Leath"er (le&thlig;"ər), n. [OE. lether, AS. leðer; akin to D. leder, leer, G. leder, OHG. ledar, Icel. leðr, Sw. läder, Dan. læder.]

1.

The skin of an animal, or some part of such skin, tanned, tawed, or otherwise dressed for use; also, dressed hides, collectively.

2.

The skin. [Ironical or Sportive]

⇒ Leather is much used adjectively in the sense of made of, relating to, or like, leather.

Leather board, an imitation of sole leather, made of leather scraps, rags, paper, etc. --
Leather carp (Zoöl.) , a variety of carp in which the scales are all, or nearly all, absent. See Illust. under Carp. --
Leather jacket. (Zoöl.)
(a) A California carangoid fish (Oligoplites saurus).
(b) A trigger fish (Balistes Carolinensis). --
Leather flower (Bot.), a climbing plant (Clematis Viorna) of the Middle and Southern States having thick, leathery sepals of a purplish color. --
Leather leaf (Bot.), a low shrub (Cassandra calyculata), growing in Northern swamps, and having evergreen, coriaceous, scurfy leaves. --
Leather plant (Bot.), one or more New Zealand plants of the composite genus Celmisia, which have white or buff tomentose leaves. --
Leather turtle. (Zoöl.) See Leatherback. --
Vegetable leather.
(a) An imitation of leather made of cotton waste.
(b) Linen cloth coated with India rubber. Ure.

 

© Webster 1913

---

Leath"er, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Leathered (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Leathering.]

To beat, as with a thong of leather. [Obs. or Colloq.] G. Eliot.

 

© Webster 1913