Swasss Transcript of video:
Jrubcb 2018 - The Fireside Chat Series
Context
Source: Youtube
How the video was found:
A person interested in Munroe’s work for NSPCC googled “Monroe Bergdorf, NSPCC” and the results included James Makings’ LinkedIn profile.
On the profile was a direct link to James Makings’ blog and Instagram account, containing images and details of his rubber fetish.
Surprised at what she’d found, this person googled his name and a video came up on the first page of the Google results. The video has now been deleted but this document contains a transcript of it.
Why does this matter?
James Makings has chosen to make his private life public and easily findable form his work profile, linking his fetish to his work at NSPCC. The steps above could easily be taken by a child interested in a public figure such as Bergdorf. This shows a distinct lack of understanding of safeguarding on behalf of James and also lack of due diligence by NSPCC.
This video had no password protection. It was posted in public, searchable on his name.
From information given in the video, it was easy to find another video (also now deleted) that shows James wanking while in the toilet, at work at the NSPCC, while wearing his rubber outfits under his work clothes. In addition to the obvious issues relating to an employee masturbating at work, filming it and uploading it, and making it clear he was at a children’s charity while doing it, it’s important to be aware that this wasn’t hidden away - it would have been easy enough for a curious child/teen to find. And there’s plenty more content made by James online.
Anyone working for a children’s charity has a duty of care to safeguard children but in fact he has done the opposite.
Please notice also from the transcript below, how James likes pushing boundaries - on working at Anne Summers: “So some women liked me serving them, some women hated it. I quite liked it when the women didn’t like it. They should open their horizons”
Notes from the transcriber:
There is A LOT of waffling from James. I have bolded the pertinent points for easy reading. There also appears to be some repetition around the questions/answers on p.3.
Welcome to ‘Inside Leather History, A Fireside Chat’. I’m Doug O’Keefe, the host of this programme. I produce ‘Inside Leather History, A Fireside Chat’ with Mistress Joanne Gadding.
Today, I’m in London, England and I’m doing interviews here. Today I will be interviewing James Makings. I extend a special thanks to Carl Haydon who is filming this, he’s come all the way from Dublin to do that. And special thanks to Matt Spike for the use of his studios in Soho. We have a beautiful Sunday afternoon here in London on October 21st 2018.
James Makings, the President of Rubbermen of London
James – Yep
Doug – Thank you for joining ‘Inside Leather History, A Fireside Chat’, here in Soho.
James – Thank you for having me.
Doug – It’s a beautiful sunny afternoon.
James – It’s a beautiful day.
Doug – So tell us a little bit about your early life and your family.
James – The early life of my family? I grew up in a little, tiny village in Essex called Stock. Essex is just east of London and famous for a reality show called ‘The Only Way is Essex’, which is full of disgusting people so don’t watch that. It’s crap, don’t watch it. I lived with my parents and my older sister, a very regular, normal, middle-class upbringing, really. A very easy and normal life, I think.
Doug – But don’t I recall that when we were preparing for your interview that you told me your family was a little more outgoing?
James – Yeah, I mean my mum in particular is very liberal, very open-minded. My dad is a bit more on the conservative side, although still relatively open-minded. It was a very open household. My parents divorced when I was ten years old. My mum effectively raised us, and raised us in a very open-minded, open household so sex was always a topic of conversation, it was never something to be shied away from or to be taboo. It was a nice environment to grow up in.
Doug – How so?
James – I never really felt I had to worry about anything like that. With some of my friends, you know, the very idea that they could have a conversation about anything to do with sex or sexuality, or anything like that, with their family, was the most preposterous idea. And that was never the case for me. It was very much a topic of conversation, from everything, from sex to when my sister got her period, and things like that. It was talked about. My mum gave us a book about growing up and sex and all that kind of thing, when I was about 12 or 13, maybe even younger actually. I remember reading that and talking to her about it and having those conversations. It wasn’t like sitting down and having the ‘Birds and Bees’ conversation, it was very much there, it wasn’t this big thing like in a lot of households. I never had to be repressed, I wasn’t repressed, I guess that’s what I’m trying to say.
Doug – Why do you think your mother was so progressive? Isn’t that a little different?
James – I don’t know why she was so progressive. Her mum was very liberal and my grandad was very liberal. It’s just the way they are. I don’t know why, I’ll need to talk to her about that more, or talk to my grandad more about why they were so open-minded when I guess so many people weren’t. Mum’s whole side of the family is like that. It’s really hard to explain. My grandad, for example, for his 65th birthday and my step-gran’s 60th birthday, they both got tattoos and climbed Kilimanjaro. So it’s not normal, necessarily, they’re not typical old people. They’ll go on holiday and you’ll be looking through their holiday pictures and there’ll be pictures of them stark naked on a nudist beach. And we’ll just roll our eyes and find it funny as a family, it’s not like “Oh my god, that’s gross, how could you?” type of environment. It’s a lot more open than most families, I suppose.
Doug – But as progressive as was your family and your homelife, school was a miserable time for you. Tell us about that.
James – Yes, school. I would never say I was the most bullied child, I didn’t come home and cry and want to change schools. But I got picked on for being the chubby kid, and then, thanks to a hair-dying incident, the ginger kid. I got picked on for those kind of things. But what I noticed as well was, as I went through school and became more comfortable with who I was, that stopped a bit. I became friends with some of the people that picked on me in the earlier years. But it was a rough ride. I think it probably did some damage I had to work through in my late teens and early twenties, for sure. But I don’t think there’s that many kids out there that don’t have that experience. Especially young, gay kids.
Doug – What damage do you mean?
James – Being picked on for my sexuality was never an issue for me. But being picked on for being the fat kid, that was always something that definitely left a scar. Growing up as a little kid, I was insanely skinny so it was as I hit teenage years that I pounded on the puppy fat. Some kids are always chubby and they deal with it in a different way. Whereas I went from being stick thin to being fat, in what felt like overnight, looking back. I never had that “Oh wait, this is all new to me, what’s going?” So I think it was dealing with those issues, but that has been a theme throughout my life, dealing with my body confidence issues.
Doug – Why did you suddenly grow bigger and heavier?
James – I think it was a typical teenage thing, hormones, puppy fat. I was also an incredibly fussy eater so around the same time that I started high school, I discovered how much I loved cheese and fatty food so that probably didn’t help.
Doug – When you were young, wetsuits were a particular fascination for you. Why is that? Tell us about that.
James – As young as I can remember, going on holiday to Cornwall or to the coast, whenever I saw particularly a guy in a wetsuit, I was always like “Oh my gosh!” I had some fascination, I didn’t know what it was but I was absolutely fascinated. I wanted to see it, I wanted to look. I remember a couple of family friends that I used to go to their house when my sister was horse riding, and their mum would look after me. The parents were both scuba divers and there was always wetsuits hanging up in their bathroom. I was absolutely fascinated by it. I’m talking about when I was nine or ten years old, if that. Obviously, I had no idea why I was so fascinated by them then. They were my gateway drug. Then when I discovered the internet, it seemed like a logical thing to google. And the next thing I know, that hooked me onto rubber. Wetsuits have always been an early fascination for me.
Doug – When we prepared for this interview, you told me that wetsuits were of particular interest to you when you were growing up. How was that? Why was that?
James – From as young as I remember, I remember being obsessed with seeing particularly guys in wetsuits. We’d go to Cornwall or the coast, and we’d see them on the beach or around the campsite and I was absolutely fascinated by that. It’s really hard to explain. I was probably 8, 9, 10 years old so you don’t have that concept of sex at that age necessarily, or that something could be a sexual fetish. I just remember being in awe of it, something about it made me excited. It’s hard to put your finger on what. I think I obviously know now what it was but at that age, you don’t have that knowledge so I was confusing, I didn’t really understand why I was so obsessed with it but it excited me for some reason. Obviously, as I got older, I understood what that reason was.
Doug – What did you do with that fascination? Were you able to handle these items, did you try them on?
James – We had some family friends while growing up, they were both divers so they often had wetsuits hanging up in their bathrooms. I used to touch and feel them, and wanted to be tactile with it. I remember being at school and having a neoprint pencil case, and even that was so nice to touch. And discovering the internet and the power of Google, it’s a slippery slope. There was a particular website about guys in wetsuits which I discovered at age 13, and I discovered that this was a “thing” that other people were into as well. And the rest is history, so they say.
Doug – You mentioned being 13 years old and being excited by this, did you realise you were gay at that time?
James – Not really. People used to tell me I was gay. One of my mum’s friends when I was about two years old, made a prediction that I was going to be gay. And that ended up coming true so it’s obviously something I was exuding as a baby. But it wasn’t really something that I worried about. The wetsuit thing was earlier than that. I knew I was kinky before I knew I was gay, for sure. I came out when I was 15 but I think I came to the realisation late 13/14 but by then I was already googling shit and working out what I liked on the internet. It just so happened to have men in it. And then I realised that was the key – men. That’s quite important.
Doug – So you were correlating a fetish?
James – The fetish helped me realise my own sexuality, for sure. And then I came out to my mum when I was 16 on holiday in Cuba. She got me drunk and said she’d heard a rumour that I might be gay. I told her I thought I was just bisexual. I’d never bought a woman home and had talked quite openly about being gay, so it was the easiest coming out story ever. There was no drama, she was absolutely fine with it. The only concern she had was that she thought I’d make a wonderful father one day. I said I still can be. And that was the whole conversation, it was out in the open and it was easy. She told the rest of my family and it was done.
Doug – Where was she hearing rumours? From whom was she hearing that?
James – I grew up in a very small village. I came out to a couple of my friends who then told their parents, who knew my mum. Everyone gossips and talks. But it didn’t bother me at all. It made it easier for me, I didn’t have to have a conversation that I didn’t want to have. She bought it up, so simple. Then once she knew, she told me sister, my aunts, my gran and it was very easy for me.
Doug – What prompted you to tell your friends?
James – I felt it was part of me so it made sense to share that part of me with them. I was never scared that I was going to lose friends from coming out. I was always an effeminate kid, I liked fashion, I had no interest in sport, all those kind of typical gay boy attributes. It wasn’t a surprise to anybody and I got no backlash from it, not a single person. Which I know is unusual, from the experiences of my own friends, that did lose their friends and family members. So I hold myself very lucky. It just felt like the right time and the right thing to do. Then two weeks later, my best friend came out. It was like we’d already found our little network without even realising it.
Doug – You mentioned the internet and Google. This is obviously a different generation than a lot of us. You were on Recon and World Rubber Men at the age of 15. How were you able to do that?
James – I discovered World Rubber Men at the time and lied about my age. Sorry, Recon. At the time, I didn’t think I looked 15, I thought I looked 18. I look back now at those pictures and think that I look like a child and I shouldn’t have been on there. It was a baptism of fire. Learning things that a 15 year old doesn’t necessarily need to know about.
Doug – Such as?
James – The harder side to the fetish scene. Extreme bondage, fisting. When you’re 15 and you’ve not even had sex yet, you’re thinking “What the fuck is this? Is this normal? Is this what I’m getting into?” It’s quite an intense thing to discover all in one go. At the same time, I found this tribe of people that are into similar sorts of things and have that similar mindset towards things that are maybe not the norm. When you’re 15 and you’re still working out your sex and your sexuality, it’s incredibly liberating.
Doug – So seeing some of these extreme fetishes, did that shape your journey a little bit?
James – I’ve always been quite resolute and strongminded about what I’m into. As I got older, I didn’t play with anybody until I turned 16 because I didn’t want to put anybody in that illegal position. The age of consent here is 16. I played with a couple of guys when I was 16 and one of them gave me some rubber, which was amazing. But I wanted to explore that. I’d seen all this other stuff but there was this thing that I knew I really liked – rubber, in particular. I wanted to explore that without getting it mixed and confused with everything else. I wanted to explore that and see what it was and where it would lead me. Rubber is my focus, it always has been. It’s my main fetish. It’s only in the last couple of years that I have got a handle on that and tried some new things, some other stuff that has interested me and turned my head. It’s so easy when you get started in the fetish scene to get completely bowled over by the choice out there and to do everything. You see these guys that are 19, 20 years old and they can already take two fists. I’m like “Woah, slow down, calm down. There’s a long time to do all this stuff hopefully. You don’t have to run into the buffet headfirst!”
Doug – Where are you in your journey with that? Are you exploring new things and doing different things?
James – Yes, I’m always exploring new things. Sex is really exciting and interesting to explore. There’s stuff out there that I said I would never do, that I’ve tried. A couple of summers ago, I decided I would try fisting. Generally, as a ‘bottom’. Not for me. ‘Top’ fisting was fine, ‘bottom’ fisting was not for me. I parked that. Maybe I’ll come back to it in the future. At the moment, I’m exploring BDSM and sub/dom relationships and seeing where I fit into that. It’s never really interested me that much, I’m not a particularly dominant person and I’m not particularly submissive. I’m getting there, it’s a nice thing to be exploring and trying. It’s about finding the right people to do it with.
Doug – When we were preparing for this interview, you depicted yourself as a very matter-of-fact kid. What do you mean by that?
James – The fact that I discovered I had a fetish. I wasn’t sitting there in emotional turmoil for a year thinking I was a freak and wondering what was happening to me. I thought “Okay, this is a thing, this is what I have. It’s cool. Let’s see what’s there”. That is a testament to my upbringing, that even something as out of the box as a fetish, I still didn’t look at myself as a freak for enjoying that. Which I think a lot of fetishists do when they discover that. I know people that went through cycles of buying gear, wearing it, and then feeling disgusted with themselves and throwing it away. And that would go on for years until they eventually told themselves to get a grip. I never had any of that, it was never an obstacle that I felt I had to overcome and accept in myself. I just accepted it straight away. A similar thing to my sexuality. It was never something I struggled with particularly. It was a thought in the back of my mind and then one day I realised that was what it was, and talked about it.
Doug – Do you feel that the matter-of-factness applies to other aspects of your life?
James – Yes, I’m very black and white in how I see the world. I see it my way, I see it the wrong way. That does over-run into everything. If I can see something clearly, then it’s clear. If somebody else can’t, then they’re just not getting it. I’m quite opinionated. I can be quite stubborn at times, and I think I’m right. I trust my gut instinct and that leads in with that, the two go hand in hand. If my gut’s telling me it’s righ t, then that’s what it is and I’ll be honest with people. I don’t stand for bullshit.
Doug – You said that growing up, you learned how to have adult conversations. How does that ability impact you today?
James – It’s one of the things that I’m most grateful to my parents for. Growing up, they would have big Sunday roasts, and people over. As kids, we would have to sit at the table for the whole thing and converse with the adults until our parents told us we could get down from the table. And even then, we had to stay in the room. If we wanted to play, we had to play in the room and be quiet because the adults were drinking their wine and having their conversations. As kids, we got pulled into those conversations and ended up being asked our opinion. So many parents think their kids opinion doesn’t matter, but all of my parent’s friends and family wanted to hear a kids opinion sometimes. And kids do sometimes come out with insightful things. It’s pulled through into my everyday life now, it means I can walk into a meeting or an interview with anyone of any age, race, gender, status and have a conversation with them. I treat everybody equally when it comes to conversation. In previous jobs, I’ve worked with celebrities and talent. I can talk to an A-list comedian in the same way that I would talk to her assistant. It’s been a massive benefit for me in my life. It also means that doing stuff with Rubbermen of London, I can talk to the people that come, whether they’re a newbie or whether they’ve been in the fetish scene for 50 years. I can have a conversation with both in the same way, and learn and get insight from both. As much as I said I’m stubborn and opinionated, I do like hearing other people’s opinions. And my opinion can be changed. I like having conversations, I like finding out about people.
Doug – What interesting things have you learned about people?
James – I like hearing other people’s perspective on stuff. Growing up, for example, I didn’t care about politics. And I think what’s happening in the world over the past couple of years, especially where I work, it’s a very young team and everybody I work with seems to be quite politically minded. They’ve educated me and we have a joke in the office about “educating James”. One of my colleagues, Jenny, will try and teach me about what’s going on in Israel and Palestine. I have no idea what’s happening, I’ll ask questions. I like learning from other people and expanding my own horizons and not being stuck in my own ignorance. I like talking to people and finding out their stories, which I assume is a similar thing for you? In my blog, I do a ‘Twenty Questions’, it’s the same questions for every person that does it. I put their answers up and I love it, I find it really fascinating to learn stuff about the people I am around. What their history and their story is, and their outlook on life.
Doug – Tell us about your blog. How can someone seeing this interview access it?
James – It’s A Rubber Perspective.wordpress.com. https://arubberperspective.wordpress.com/ I’m terrible at updating it, I’m not a blogger so I don’t write down every thought. I don’t write articles about mundane shit. If I want to write something, I’ll write it. If that’s a couple of articles in a month or whether that’s one in a year, I don’t force myself to write stuff. It has to be something that means something to me. I have two blogs, a fetish one and a non-fetish one. Both of them are like public diaries. If there’s something on my mind, I’ll write it down. It’s my way of putting it out there and releasing that thought from me. I’m not particularly open with my emotions and feelings, especially in that way. It’s quite nice to suck the poison out. I think it’s really important to talk about your own experiences, and hopefully, other people can learn from them. The fetish blog is really good for that, it has interviews on it. I want to put some more stuff on it as well. I want to do more content. But for me, it’s a place where I can vent and get my opinion out. When I was competing for Mr Rubber Europe in Antwerp in February, I built the entire thing around body confidence and the lack of body representation in the fetish scene, and how this particular type of person is lauded, you only ever see them on marketing stuff. In that entire cycle of campaigning for votes, the blog was really helpful because it was a place that I can put down exactly what I wanted to say and then share that. As opposed to doing desperate Facebook statuses or tweets that could get misconstrued. It has also got me in trouble…
Doug – How so?
James – I wrote a blog post about a title for a contest that was happening here in London, and how I didn’t think it was fair, I thought it was a fix. I was quite honest about it. I wasn’t necessarily putting anybody on blast but it was taken that way. It got me in trouble with some people. Especially as I then decided to run for Mr Rubber Europe, it put some backs up. I’ll stand by my opinion and the article. It wasn’t meant as a slander on anyone but if you’re going to take it that way, I can’t stop you. I’ll carry on doing that. I said things during Mr Rubber Europe that were potentially controversial or not toeing the party line. I’m sure that went against me but it was authentic and I did it my way. I’m not going to mould myself into being someone else just because of doing shit on the fetish scene.
Doug – How do you see the subject of sex?
James – I love it as a subject. Even taking my sex out of it, as an actual subject I find it absolutely fascinating. From the age of 20 – 22, I worked in a sex shop chain called ‘Anne Summers’ that sells women’s lingerie and women’s sex toys. I loved it, selling vibrators to 60 year old women. I find it fascinating why people have fetishes, why people want to do what they want to do, and you can’t necessarily control it. Everything from a very soft point of view to a slightly more hardcore or macabre point of view. I find the whole thing really, really fascinating. And then I put my own sex into that, it’s also interesting to expand and learn. I read studies and books about it. My dream job would to be a sex therapist. I’m nosy and I love talking about sex, so it would be the perfect job for me.
Doug – I can’t help but think that a male working in a women’s sex shop would have been a bit unusual. How did that go over?
James – In the whole London and Essex region that I worked in, there were 15 – 20 stores and I was one out of two men. And the other man was an Area Manager. It is unusual. A lot of people thought that Anne Summers had a female-only staff policy. I would quite often get women come in, they would see me and then run a mile. Like “How can you tell me anything about sex or vibrators, or my clitoris”. They would get quite irate about it. Some women absolutely loved the fact that there was a man working there, and would ask for me. They would wait to have me serve them. I remember a woman who came in really early when there was nobody in the shop. She asked me if I was gay, and I said yes. She said she was looking for clothes for a dirty weekend away. I picked out some crotchless lingerie and some real smutty shit. She went into the fitting room to try it on, then stuck her head out to ask if there was anybody else in the shop. Then she came out wearing the crotchless body – fanny out, tits out, everything. She asked me how it looked. I told her that her husband would love it. She said it wasn’t for her husband and started telling me all about her dirty weekend away with her bit on the side. I loved it. Salacious gossip. So some women liked me serving them, some women hated it. I quite liked it when the women didn’t like it. They should open their horizons.
Doug – When we were preparing for this interview, and in a previous conversation we had when I visited London, you made mention of body image. You’ve struggled with your body image. Tell us about that, and what’s going on with that.
James – Body image, for me, has been a big story line in my life. Like I said earlier, I got bullied for it when I was at school. Discovering the fetish scene and the gay scene at such a young age, you see this body standard ideal that just did not remotely fit with me. I remember the first time I ever went to a fetish club. I was 18, chubby, didn’t really have any facial hair, barely had any body hair. I didn’t see anybody who looked like me, especially at my age. There were all these guys there in their 40’s, muscular and hairy, with big beards and shaved heads, and septum rings. I felt like I didn’t fit into that world at all. It was always the guys that were big, that I couldn’t wait to be one of those guys. It dawned on me a couple of months ago that I have turned into one, just a fat version! It is difficult, it really tore me up for a long time. I never felt comfortable. I would go somewhere like The Hoist and I’d stand in the corner and be all closed up. I’d get really drunk. Once I got so drunk, I don’t remember going home. I didn’t play with anybody, I was so nervous and self-conscious. One day I thought that if I went to The Hoist and pretended I was the hottest piece of shit in there, what would happen? So I did. I had a few drinks and walked around like nobody could touch me. And guys came to talk to me, and wanted to play with me. It was interesting, a social experiment. I’d do that again the next time I went. I eventually realised I wasn’t putting it on anymore. I felt more comfortable and more confident. I stillo have body confidence issues even now but they are a lot less and I know how to manage them. I know a lot more of it is in my head and not necessarily what other people think. Becoming more confident in that sort of thing helped my personality expand in world as well, and I got to know a lot more people and make more friends and good playmates. It’s almost like a rolling ball down a hill that gathers up speed, and the next thing you know, you run a rubber group. It's like “Ooopsie daisy, how did that happen?” It’s definitely been a journey for me, and I think now that I am a lot more comfortable in my body. I still have my days, and my moments, like everybody. I’d rather use the perceived platform I have to encourage other guys that are coming into the scene that are bigger, that aren’t seeing that representation, that actually you can be like that. I find it amazing, I get messages on Instagram more than anywhere else, from guys who say they have followed my profile for ages and have been inspired by me to get some rubber. They send me a picture and ask me what I think. I tell them they look amazing and to get out there, we need more bigger guys showing that rubber and leather are hot on big guys. You don’t have to be some skinny little waif. That means more to me now, getting other people to appreciate their own body size. It’s okay if you don’t feel 100% all of the time, you don’t have to love yourself constantly, it’s a work in progress. It does also help me work on my body confidence. If I see a guy that’s bigger than me and absolutely owning it on Instagram or Facebook, and I’m having a bad day, I think “Yes, I can do this”. It’s almost like a secret strength in numbers.
Doug – Tell me about competing in Mr Rubber Europe.
James – On the body confidence thing, Mr Rubber Europe felt like the last jigsaw piece in me accepting my position in the fetish scene, that I was okay in the fetish scene. I was always anti-title, I didn’t really see the point in them, and we don’t really have the same title culture over here that there is in the U.S. Then Mr Rubber Europe started this year, in February. The applications opened at the end of last year. I thought I’d enter as a joke, fuck it, why not. It was a pretty good prize pot, it would be nice to win. I ummed and ahhed about it, and talked to friends about it. They told me to do it, what did I have to lose? So I entered, and got through the shortlist to be one of the finalists. I was like “What the fuck am I doing?” I knew what I wanted to say, and I didn’t really care if anybody else liked how I was going to say it. I wanted people to know exactly what my position was, and I centred it around body confidence and inclusivity in the scene in general. I do marketing for a living, and it was fun to market myself for a while. I did enjoy the process, but I also got sick of seeing myself in social media. It became a joke. People were saying they saw my face on Facebook all the fucking time. I was sick of it too.
And then during the contest, the entire time I didn’t know whether I wanted to win or not. I didn’t know how I felt about it. On the night, I completely tanked my five minute performance. I’d decided it would be a good idea to do a talk on body confidence. Was not the right audience, not the right crowd, not the right place for it. I absolutely blew it, and I knew it. I was halfway through, I could read the room and see it wasn’t going well. So I made a couple of jokes, wrapped it up and got the fuck off the stage. I thought there was no way I was going to win after that. And then they announced third and second place, and I thought “Oh shit, what if it is me who wins, despite that tanking?” And then they announced Mishy from Switzerland as the winner. And it felt like somebody had lifted a weight off my shoulders, and my immediate reaction was to cheer and holler. If you’d been on the stage, you’d think I was his mother. I actually voted for Mishy in the online vote, I really wanted him to win. I thought he was the right person. I’d never been so relieved. Afterwards, people were commiserating for me but I was happy and told them that the right man had won. I’d watched him do his year, and I could not have done what he’d done. I did not have the time in my life to do it, it just wasn’t the right time. He is incredible, what he has done with his year. I hope whoever wins next year does the same.
I’m now on the committee for Mr Rubber Europe, helping with the organisation on the night, and the running of the night. It was a good experience, I’d never do it again. I’d never enter a title again. I’m much more happy behind the judges table, like I was at Mr Rubber UK. I’d rather do that in the future, or compering. I don’t have any interest in entering again. If you’re ever unsure of yourself, or you’ve got something to say, it’s a good way of doing that. Also, don’t take it too seriously, it’s only a bit of fun.
Doug – You were friends with the late Sly Hands. Who was he and how did he affect your journey?
James – Sly ran a Manchester Rubbermen. He was an insanely talented photographer. We got to know each other, we’d talked years ago on Recon when they still had the chat rooms. We’d talk on that, but life carried on and they got rid of the chat rooms and we didn’t really talk anymore. I’d talk to his partner, Alex, on Recon but I never really chatted to Sly much. Eventually, I got to know him and we ended up becoming quite good friends. We were in a similar social circle and would hang out a lot whenever I went to Manchester, I’d stay with him. We’d get drunk together and text a lot. We had a really nice friendship. He’s one of the reasons why I entered Mr Rubber Europe. He passed away last June and he was a previous Mr International, and the first ever UK winner. He’d always encouraged me and said I needed to go out there and do it for the fat guys. Whenever somebody posted to the Manchester Rubbermen group about being too fat to wear rubber, he’d always text me and say “James, there’s someone for you in the group”. I’d have to go in there and tell them they were fine as they were. He was always promoting that in me. It felt like he was an influence in doing it, whether he knew it or not. He was a great guy, and is sorely missed. A talent taken far too soon.
Doug – Tell us about Rubbermen of London. How did this group come about?
James – Rubbermen of London is a social group on Facebook for Rubbermen in London. There was a group in London but they died a bit of a death and the group wasn’t being used. When we lost The Hoist two years ago, the last Rubber night went with it. So we only had The BackStreet, and Rubbered, and it got to a point where I was sick of living in London where rubber fetish was basically invented, and we had one fetish club and one rubber night. Whereas Manchester has the most thriving scene ever, Cologne has an incredibly thriving scene. If they can do it, why can’t we? I’d had conversations with people, asking who was the right person to do something like that? And I came to the conclusion that maybe it was me who was the right person to do it. I know the right people, I’ve done the scene for a decade and had the knowledge.
One day, I was talking to Simon, one of the guys who helps me run it, and said I was going to start Rubbermen of London. I did all the prep work and marketing, did all the imagery, got what I wanted to say out, and then launched the group on Facebook. I invited a load of people and within three days, we had 1000 members. Brew Hunter from The Backstreet messaged me to ask if I would be interested in doing a launch night there in two weeks. I accepted, we made a poster together, with the help of Slick Rick, a great photographer from Manchester. We promoted it everywhere and did the night.
It was the first Friday in December last year. I was shitting myself the entire night. I got there at 10pm, which was the worst thing I could have done. There was nobody there, because it opened at 10. I thought nobody was going to come and it was going to be awful. Slowly, it started to fill up and by the time midnight came, it was really busy. I heard from John, he said I had about 150 guys already in. It was unheard of for The Backstreet. Then the anxiety went the other way, because I was worried it was too busy and nobody would have any fun, and nobody would want to play.
Then the next day, on Facebook, the reception was amazing. The feedback was that it was a great night, and people were glad there was something like this in London again. The Backstreet reached out to make it a regular thing, the first Friday of every month. But I said no, let’s do it every two months and give people some time to look forward to it. If you do it every month, it becomes part of the furniture. If you do it every two months, there’s two months between each one which is quite a long time. So we do it on the first Friday of every even month, and the first birthday is coming up on 7th December. It’s insane that we’ve got to a year already. It’s great. The group is thriving. I describe it as Manchester Rubbermens dirty little brother.
There is a fantastic rubber scene in Manchester, if you’ve never been, it’s amazing. The guys that run it are fantastic as well. It’s a social scene, they don’t have any sex clubs in Manchester so it’s very much like bar crawls and socials, and excluding the big weekend, they do it in April with a couple of playrooms and stuff. It’s very social. Whereas obviously, we have a sex club down here. I joke with Alex, who runs the Manchester Rubbermen, that you can go to Manchester to meet the guys that you’re then going to fuck in London. That’s how I like to look at it. I want it to be more sexual. The fetish scene sometimes runs the gauntlet of being too social in focus, let’s not forget that it is about the sex at the end of the day. So I try to promote that kind of thing in the group. But it’s going amazingly, I’m so proud of it. So much thanks to all of the guys that come, and to The Backstreet, for being amazing with us.
Doug – What advice have you for people new to the scene?
James – Take it slow. You don’t need to throw yourself into everything immediately. If you’re into rubber and you know you’re into rubber, or you’re into leather and you know you’re into leather, buy something. It doesn’t have to be expensive, just get on eBay and buy something. There’s some rubber stuff on Amazon, just get something cheap. Go to one of the more social nights if you’re nervous. Get on Recon and talk to some people. Get to meet some people for some drinks, you don’t necessarily have to throw yourself into sex, get to know some stuff that’s going on, and just explore and have fun. It’s about having fun, as far as I’m concerned. I see quite a lot of guys these days getting into fetish through the social media channels, through Twitter and Instagram. They seem to think that the entire point of it is to get as many likes as you can and to get adulation and followers. It’s not about that. I love Instagram and I am so grateful for the 4000 guys that follow me or whatever, but if my Instagram would close down tomorrow, I wouldn’t be that sad about it. It’s just a place for me to be vain, and it helps my body confidence as well but it’s frivolous. There’s so many guys coming into it and seeing that side of it, they don’t really get what the rest of the fetish scene is. It’s about bringing yourself out and making sure you enjoy what’s there, and the sex side of it. It’s not just about clothing to wear, it’s not that comfortable so why would you want to wear it if it didn’t turn you on? Go slow, and go out, that’s the most important thing. And explore the sex. You don’t have to throw yourself into everything immediately.
Doug – What’s the biggest misconception about you?
James – I have this face that I do in pictures, I have quite a heavy brow so I look through my brow when I scowl because I hate smiling. A lot of people assume that because my pictures look quite dom and quite masc, that I must be quite dom and quite masc. I don’t hold any kind of importance in being masc, I think it’s a bit of a cancer in the fetish scene that everyone has to be masc. Open yourself up and be who you want to be, don’t force yourself to be masculine. Who cares, just do your own thing, there’s something out there for everyone. I will quite happily have a conversation about sex and fetish whilst then having a conversation about drag or whatever it is. The picture’s are only half the story.
Doug – James Makings, thank you for an amazing interview and participating in ‘Inside Leather History, A Fireside Chat’
James – thank you so much for having me, it’s been a pleasure.