“The developers have been sniffing around us for years,” says Aaron the barman. But after a 33-year run serving London’s kinksters, its days might be numbered. This is the Backstreet, London’s only remaining gay leather bar. A gregarious barman greets regulars while hairy-chested musclemen appear on a small screen next to an ice bucket. Men kitted out in chaps and overcoats prowl the corridors, while others sip Foster’s, waiting for a nod and a wink. Knee-high leather boots hang from iron chains looped through ceiling hooks like fetish bunting. Inside, past three sets of doors and a changing room cordoned off with an old tarpaulin, is a shadowy warren of alcoves, cages and dark corners.
A CCTV camera perched above the door signals it probably isn’t a squat, but there is no signage. I n a dimly lit sidestreet in London’s East End there is a black box of a building scrawled with graffiti.
