August 30, 2005. "Hey," I said to a family member, "do you know anything about a hurricane in New Orleans?"

EDITORIAL: Hidden in the Dark: Leather Bars, Disabilities, and the Life and Death of Erotic Photography. Facing the danger that we may be thrust back into the erotic closet.

I'd been reading about gay leather for three months when I first visited a leather bar. I didn't expect to be surprised by the obvious.

FEATURE: Leather and Disabilities: A Links Directory. Links related to the contributions to this issue.

FICTION: Other Bodies. By Michael Agreve. The erotic secret that gay men keep from each other, brought out into the open.

For years he sat in his wheelchair, his right hand supplying the closet thing he would ever come to a love life. Then, one day, somebody looked at him. Somebody looked at him real strange.

NONFICTION: Historical Note to "Other Bodies". By Michael Agreve.

POETRY: The Deformity Lover. By Felice Picano. A man searches for what others pass over.

For him a chiselled profile is fine, but handsomer with a speech defect.

NONFICTION: Historical Note to "The Deformity Lover". By Felice Picano.

NONFICTION: Maimed Beauty. By Mark I. Chester. What can you do when you stand out from the crowd? . . . An updated version of the author's erotic narrative.

Others stand out no matter what they do. Brilliant flames against a darkened sky. It's not a matter of desire. They simply have no choice.

They are uncompromising explorations into the heart of homoeroticism – portraits of black men brimming over with sensuality; images of physically different men, seen through the eyes of love.

NONFICTION: Drummer Readers on the Eroticism of Disabled Men. The "Maimed Beauty" issue prompted a "torrent of letters," according to the Drummer staff. Here are excerpts from the letters.

"Even [among leathermen], there often exists a belief that there is some sort of line you do not cross."

Robert Davolt and I were arguing again.

Daddy Alan Selby told me that one of the most important people I had to meet was Robert Davolt.

"No one knew a man was going to get branded.

"No one knew there was a sling behind the black tarp.

"No one – not even San Diego's gay newspaper, Update, which always knows what's going on with its readers – knew that once the branding started and the rules of this conservative, cop-sailor-sex-tinged city were broken, the men of San Diego would turn into unleashed dick-groping, pit-tonguing, tit-torturing animals. Acting just like they were in San Francisco and not a place that elected Ku Klux Klan officials to government posts."