Essay: What is a Leather Pony

So what is a leather pony? Well, I cant tell you that for all ponies, as being a pony is different for everyone who does pony play. I can try to explain what a leather pony is to me, but Im also low-ego enough to say Im still working it out.

You ever hear something and just think, wow, thats exactly how I feel? Thats how I felt the first time I saw a leather pony headstall. Ok, my first thought was, "omg those ears are fucking adorable," but then as I took another look my brain said, "oh, we need to think about THIS more."

More people are familiar with the leather community. I read somewhere that kink/BDSM is something you do where leather is something you feel. I like that. Leather has its protocols, its uniforms and its culture and community. Kink can play a part in the leather community, but kink is more like a shopping market you visit and pick from where leather is the life you live.

D/s is a big part of that. Ive been in D/s relationships since I was 22; I knew D/s was for me before that. Im a submissive and I don't switch in my D/s relationship (of which I only have one). This doesn't mean the wild has left me. I grew up in Alaska, an unbridled place. Im an unbridled person, unfettered by how I should be and wholly as I am. I want to be a "good submissive" and I can be. But my nature as a wild woman doesn't wholly match the idea of the traditional submissive. I don't think most do really, just some are better at bending their own will to that of another. Being submissive you do, submission you feel.

I was raised to be stridently independent. I don't like that about myself. I don't feel badly about that, but I wish I were more gentle. More demure. More "submissive". Is submission then not in my nature because I am a wild creature? I think not. A pony is wild, is broken by a Handler to know whats expected of it, but its still, always, a wild animal. I am that pony. I am not bratty or willful for the sake of being so, I just am what I am. A pony. I still follow the protocols, I still affirm the pecking order, I wear all my leather accoutrements that make me me (whether being pony or person), I tend to the community and have a place in the herd.

Im still discovering the pony I am, as being a pony lets me be my most natural me, the me unfettered by the world. The pony I get. The bridle gentles me, reminds me powerfully how to be, to tame, to be tamed, something one can only do to themselves. BDSM is a thing you do, being a submissive is a thing you do, a scene is a thing you do. Leather is a thing you feel, pony play is a thing you feel, submission is a thing you feel. I can be wild by nature and be submissive, I can be broken in the best of ways but still retain that animus. There is no good or bad; your feelings are relevant. A pony can bask in the comfort of submission and be wild, its a pony after all. It doesn't play by person rules, person expectations.

And the ears are really fucking cute.