Get your claws into Cleveland

Report by Jared Erickson

Since the turn of the century, Cleveland Ohio has been home to the Cleveland Leather Annual Weekend, or CLAW, a four-day convention covering the wide-ranging world of kink and fetish. Make no mistake though, this is not your usual sex-fuelled party time with a vendor mart. No, CLAW is so much more than that. In addition to its charitable contributions through fundraising during the convention, CLAW also offers seminars on every aspect of kink and fetish you can imagine. This year’s topics covered a spectrum including fisting basics, puppy handling, hypnosis, sounding, and so forth. In addition, there were how-to sessions – so you could learn skills like how to care for your leather, discussions on topics like the poorly written FOSTA/SESTA laws in the USA, and, for super-social people, numerous speed-dating events. The multitude of seminars and discussions offered sets CLAW apart from virtually every other event of its type. As a returning CLAW attendee, I decided to serve on the volunteer committee this year.

For those wondering, well What about the guys? What about the parties? What about the sex? Don’t worry, CLAW has all that, too. In fact, there is so much, like going to Disney World, it’s impossible to do it all. I should also add that CLAW is open to all, gays of both genders as well as trans. So, with over 2,000 guys attending from around the world, let’s dive in to what a trip to CLAW looks like.

I arrived Wednesday, a full day early, since I was assigned to put my muscles to use with event set up. This involved equipment for a smoking and an outdoor “scene” venue in part of the Westin hotel’s parking garage, as well as hauling hundreds of rectangular metal merchandise racks and the vendor stock from the basement loading dock to the 6th floor ballroom. The event’s official kick-off was Thursday afternoon, and by that time we had nearly all the vendor’s supplies in the ballroom where they were busily setting up shop for Friday’s grand opening.

In between saying “hi” to many friends and internet acquaintances I was finally meeting in person, I took time to change into my removable codpiece jockstrap and leather harness to help sell raffle tickets for a variety of prizes to be awarded on Sunday. Much of this sales process involved my face buried in the crotch of various guys, while I measured out the boots-to-balls length ticket purchase like Mr. Humphries taking an unseemly inseam: “Yes, I’m free!”

CLAW offers an inventive ice breaker called Speed Dating. I did it last year and came out knowing ten guys I didn’t know when I arrived. I also acquired a couple emails and phone numbers and wound up at dinner with several of them after the hour session was over. I highly recommend this if you are a first-timer or are shy about meeting people. Besides the speed dating, many of the guys went to the Dick Off Party or the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame while I was doing my porn star best to whore myself for raffle ticket sales in the name of charity.

Friday began the first full day of CLAW. The vendor mart opened and the two-hour seminar sessions began. I missed the morning sessions as I was doing a lengthy porn shoot with a fellow pup. If you want the details – we filmed in our pup hoods, and he used a couple of large k9 toys on me (one having a cum tube in it), before fisting and then double fisting me. The scenes will be out on my JustFor.Fans as soon as I get the editing finished.

Whether you’re a newbie or experienced kink player, there are seminars for you. CLAW offers seminars on water sports, bondage, spirituality and kink, dungeon protocols, puppy psychology, and self-defense. And even that list still does not cover it all.

I attended the afternoon session on sounding. A registered nurse facilitated the class. He took the first hour to go into the specifics of anatomy and how you clean and care for your sounds and maintain a sterile environment while you play. The second hour involved live demonstrations using volunteers from the audience. Spoiler alert – I was one of them.

Of the three volunteers, I was the only one with sounding experience. The other two had their first time being sounded accomplished with an audience. They clearly loved it and made a beeline for the vendor mart to buy their own set. Meanwhile, I enjoyed the chance to get naked in front of an audience and have my thick cock on display. The sound slid easily into my urethra and the pleasure sensations started. The facilitator then pulled out a small vibrator and began applying it to the top of the sound and the shaft of my cock where the sound was. The pleasure sensations were off the chart and I was reduced to a beefy heap of happy animal noises.

The evening’s festivities were many, and this is another place where the you-can’t-do-it-all factor comes in. Events to choose from included a dungeon play space called The Academy, the Flex Spa bathhouse, a sex party hosted in the Nasty Kink Pigs suite, a theme party at Stella’s Music Hall, and socialising at the Raging Stallion bar. Friday night also included a pup mosh at one of the CLAW hotels – the event takes up three others besides the host hotel. My pup name is Canyon – for all the reasons that you’re thinking. Being a social and horny pup, I chose the mosh.

Upon arriving at the Aloft hotel, where most pups and handlers were staying, I was greeted by a front desk that had a big bowl of Scooby Snacks and was told that the bar had developed a drink for pups that came in a small dog bowl. Yes, pup Canyon was feeling right at home already. The mosh was heavily attended, taking up a huge space in one of the ballrooms. Pups were everywhere playing as only pups can, while others stood around chatting and enjoying drinks and handlers made sure pups played safe. The night ended with a giant group pup photo and for me, some private clothes-free pup play in one of the rooms. Awooooo, indeed!

Saturday contained many of the components found on Friday’s agenda – seminars, discussions, vendor mart, night time events – with a couple of additions. First, the pups offer coffee and tea service if you sign up for it. I hosted the service for my hotel. The hot beverages are delivered to your room while pups bonce on your bed, snuggle and get puppy scratches from you. Occasionally, a pup even finds a bone to bury. I found several and dutifully buried them in my front, since there was insufficient time to explore my large back-yard.

The second difference appeared as I was walking the half-block to the host hotel in my pup hood, shirt, and gym shorts – which I would remove in favour of my jock and leather gear once inside. The protesters had arrived. All six of them. With a mega phone. And a Bible they apparently read with the same selectivity as they read the Constitution. As we stood across the street from each other, I cocked my pup head to one side in confusion, raised my paw and waved. The police eventually arrested them.

This was a day that I spent a good deal of time in the vendor mart, featuring businesses from all over the United States. Big companies like Mr. S out of San Francisco operated alongside smaller companies like Barking Leather out of Atlanta. The area included space to socialise, boot blacks to clean your leather and, for those needing some restraint when getting their haircut, a bondage barber. Drinks were available. If you’re a non-drinker, like me, CLAW offers several Recovery meetings during the event, for those needing a little extra support or wanting to socialise in an alcohol-free environment.

Like the topics of CLAW itself, the over 2,000 attendees cover a broad spectrum of body types and interests. Everyone is friendly and many greetings involve a hug and crotch grab – yet another reason to wear a jock with removable codpiece. I had several hookups that came out of such greetings.

Title holders, including current and past Mr. IML’s and Mr. Friendly’s and current Mr. Gay Days Leather, were in attendance along with several fellow porn stars, all milling about and chatting with other attendees. I found myself a great pair of bulge-emphasising neoprene short shorts, which gave me the chance to strip down from my jock and try them on. I just can’t resist the chance to be naked. I also purchased a great pair of leather knee length shorts that nicely showed both my bulge and my beefy ass. The greatest find, however, was a black and blue wolf style pup mask made by Stray Toys that perfectly matched the black and blue of my harness and jock.

The socialising gave way to the evening’s multiple events. For me, it was trip to the second night’s Nasty Kink Pigs Party where I really got my pig on in full display. I barely had my clothes off and bagged before I was pulled onto a bed by a fellow volunteer I had played with throughout the first evening. As I was on top of him sucking him off, I felt a hand sliding into my ass that belonged to a fellow porn star. After he got his drink and left my hole and the room, the guy I was sucking proceeded to fist me.

From there, the action moved to the sling in the main area of the suite. I was fisted and fucked by multiple guys before swapping with one and, after a little work, sliding my own extra thick cock into him. That led to me fucking three or four more guys before winding back up in the sling for still more multi-partner fucking and fisting. After several hours of play, I went back to my hotel where one of the guys continued to fist me for another hour and a half. I fell asleep around 3 AM with a mile wide smile to match my mile-wide hole.

Sunday came early with more pup coffee and tea service, educational seminars, vendor mart and play time. After my pup beverage duties, I attended a two hour discussion on the SESTA/FOSTA sex trafficking act, which, as is so often the case with well-meaning laws, has not only hurt legitimate sex workers and sent online platforms from Craigslist to Asspig running in fear, but has had the opposite effect on real sex trafficking, which has returned to its previous pre-internet procedures and is now even harder to track. Essentially everybody loses so politicians can grandstand and mislead voters to believe they have done something beneficial that deserves their re-election.

The session ended and I wandered back down to the vendor mart, only to wind up in the room of a Sir who spent the next two and a half hours stuffing me with very large toys and his hands. Our session ended with him fucking what was left of my sloppy, gaping hole.

After a half-hour power nap and a shower, I pulled out my formal leather wear to go to the closing show, the Kinky Kabaret. I wore my new black and blue pup hood along with my collar and name-tag to complete the look.

The Kabaret featured performers singing and dancing, with comic interludes from the show’s two co-hosts. I sat with a couple other pups when I wasn’t socialising. After the show concluded, everyone headed to the parking garage area for the closing party, complete with drinks, cigars, music, bootblacks, some bondage scenes, and guys indulging in some sex play here and there. I drifted to sleep that night totally spent from four non-stop days of seminars and sex, socialising, and shopping.

If you haven’t been to CLAW, gear up in your favourite leather, rubber, jock gear, pup hood, and make plans for next year’s event. I’ll see you there!

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