The Leather Daddy and the Femme

It's another night in San Francisco and Randy (a.k.a. Miranda, when she's not dressed like a boy) has hit the streets looking for trouble. She has an eye for gay men in leathers, and most nights she's too much of a girl for them. But tonight Randy meets her match—Jack, who thinks she's hot no matter who she is.

This is San Francisco's notorious SOMA (South of Market), a neighborhood colonized by leatherfolk long before the dot-commers and ravers came (and left). From dark alleys to tastefully-appointed dungeons, from hotel penthouses to tranny bars, Randy/Miranda explores and embraces her desires—none of them fenced in by anyone else's idea of sex, gender, and/or sexual orientation. With Jack and other denizens of San Francisco's sexual underground, she creates her own alternative vision of family values.

Mistress of sexual storytelling Carol Queen offers a fresh look at sexual lifestyles and choices that are misinterpreted and repudiated by the mainstream. Her perceptive and knowledgeable treatment inserts a new viewpoint into the carefully developed relationships of power play, destroying stereotypes and modeling open communication.

Originally published in 1998, The Leather Daddy and The Femme won a Firecracker Alternative Book Award for Best Fiction. This is the "Author's Edition," including several chapters not included in the earlier Cleis Press edition and a new Introduction.