Photos Courtesy of Harold Ivey
Harold Ivey is a kindly old man who runs leatheroaks.org, a website dedicated to his massive, decades-long love affair with leather. Obviously being into leather is about the most mundane fetish out there, but what sets Harold apart from the rest of the jamokes on Folsom Street is the sheer quantity of leatherwear he owns and the fact that he tailored a large amount of it himself. He’s also the inventor of JockUps, homemade jockstraps with gargantuan, stackable cups that can morph your middling mound into a mighty massif of mountainous manhood.
Vice: I like the navigation on your site. To go forward or back you click a photo of a jockstrap with the bulge facing either right or left. Is that your dong up there or a stock dong?
Harold Ivey: Well, I wouldn’t use the word dong. Actually, it was one of my favorite leather jocks. It was one of the first that I made. What are you wearing right now?
I’m wearing a Squirm suit. It was made for the guy who runs rubberzone.com. His nickname is Squirm because he’s always in rubber and usually in bondage. Basically it’s just a triathlon wetsuit. It’s a neck-to-ankle one-piece suit, it’s just very, very comfortable. You’re constantly feeling the rubber—the close contact all over your body. I’m also happy to be wearing hip waders. They make this nice sound when you move in them. Oh yeah, there’s a video on your site in which two or three men are swatting waders all over your body while you lie on a waterbed in a wetsuit. What is it that you like so much about waders?
Waders are a very visceral thing for me. I really can’t find anything I don’t like about them. They just feel good almost anyplace on your body if the situation is right. Where else would you wear them besides your feet?
The boot heel feels great on your armpit. You just have to make sure there’s no grit or anything on them. Some of those heels are so neat. They just fit right up there, you know? I guess. You also make your own leather outfits, right?
A lot of them, yes. If there’s something commercially available that I really like, it’s much easier to buy it. But if I have an idea for something that hasn’t been made, then I can usually make it myself. What is the most interesting piece of clothing that you’ve made?
It depends on who’s asking. Probably the biggest project I ever undertook was making an officer flight suit. I was in the Air Force for 42 years, and a young female co-op somehow got hold of a very worn officer flight suit. She loaned it to me and I created my own version of it in purple and green leather. It took six months of my spare time to make that thing. It still fits. What do you wear in the summer?
Well, in the summer I’m not wearing much more than a leather bikini. You know what a do-rag is? Yes.
Those are available in leather. I wear that and maybe a lifting belt or some kind of a linesman tool belt. That’s my summer uniform unless I have to go somewhere where that would be below the minimum acceptable attire. I know you’re a churchgoing man. What do you wear on Sundays?
A leather riding suit, most of the time. What do people at church think of the way you dress?
Well, I did get kicked out of one Episcopal church because my priest told me I bulged too much. Actually, I wasn’t so much kicked out as opted out. Wow. How much were you bulging?
Well, I make and use JockUps. I’ve always taken the line that women have boobs and men have a basket. It should not be hidden, it should be prominent—tastefully so. I don’t like an explicit show of genitalia. I think that’s tacky. JockUps are those gigantic cups that you sell on your site, right?
Yes. They’re meant to be stacked. The thing that drew me to them was if you start with one—sized correctly so that it fits exactly over your mound—the inside of the cup is in intimate contact with all of you. And the cup is being held in place with a jockstrap, so anyplace you touch on the outside of the jockstrap is just like touching yourself. When you add more of them, you still have that sense of touch all the way around. So you wear more than one JockUp at a time?
I’m wearing two right now, I think. I have worn as many as four. It seems like that would desensitize you.
That’s true. And with the thicker ones I make, the “knuckle foam,” you can take a leather paddle and really whack into your basket. It feels great. It doesn’t throw you onto the ground prostrate. It’s a wonderful feeling. On your site you describe the classic JockUp as a “compact bulge” where your “cock is folded over your balls with the tip resting between them.” That doesn’t sound very comfortable. Also, what happens if you get hard?
Well, if you’re folded that way you just about can’t get hard. I won’t say it’s impossible, but it’s unlikely and it tends to be self-limiting. I try to sleep that way and I can’t. You don’t really get totally hard, but you certainly don’t ever relax either. You make a lot of different JockUps. Your website says that you sleep in one called the “Curved Uplifter”?
Yeah, the Curved Uplifter. See, I can’t sleep with it folded over, but the Curved Uplifter… I don’t know if you know this about male physiology, but most of us go through multiple erections a night while we’re asleep. The Curved Uplifter, as you start trying to get an erection, prevents it from going all the way. But those ups and downs… I’m at a loss for words right now. Anyway, anytime you get aroused in deep sleep it’s such a wonderful feeling of possession down there. Do you make all of these yourself?
Yeah. The original ones were scraps of neoprene from discarded wetsuits, but it’s so hard to find those now. Now I use what I call “melon foam,” which is really Swiss Army camping pads. I also use knuckle foam, and with that you have to hit harder to make it feel good. Both keep things nice and warm and moist, though. You just feel good about yourself. I think my favorite suit on your site is the green one with the harness straps and the funny hat. Can you tell me what’s going on with that thing?
Oh! That’s the melon foam. The material was 30" x 72" pads for use under a sleeping bag, and I just cut them to my imagination. If you’re familiar with kids’ cartoons from the 80s, He-Man wore a suit that looked just like that. That particular photo is up on [icanhas]Cheezburger[.com], the internet lampoon site. Everyone was trying to guess what the emblem on the shield is. Can you guess? Is it two snakes?
It’s a cock and balls. It’s copied from the Tom of Finland Foundation. It’s one of their emblems. No one guessed what I had in mind when I did that. It’s disappointing, really. Incidentally, that cap that I’m wearing is supposed to look like a green tree frog.
Harold Ivey: Well, I wouldn’t use the word dong. Actually, it was one of my favorite leather jocks. It was one of the first that I made. What are you wearing right now?
I’m wearing a Squirm suit. It was made for the guy who runs rubberzone.com. His nickname is Squirm because he’s always in rubber and usually in bondage. Basically it’s just a triathlon wetsuit. It’s a neck-to-ankle one-piece suit, it’s just very, very comfortable. You’re constantly feeling the rubber—the close contact all over your body. I’m also happy to be wearing hip waders. They make this nice sound when you move in them. Oh yeah, there’s a video on your site in which two or three men are swatting waders all over your body while you lie on a waterbed in a wetsuit. What is it that you like so much about waders?
Waders are a very visceral thing for me. I really can’t find anything I don’t like about them. They just feel good almost anyplace on your body if the situation is right. Where else would you wear them besides your feet?
The boot heel feels great on your armpit. You just have to make sure there’s no grit or anything on them. Some of those heels are so neat. They just fit right up there, you know? I guess. You also make your own leather outfits, right?
A lot of them, yes. If there’s something commercially available that I really like, it’s much easier to buy it. But if I have an idea for something that hasn’t been made, then I can usually make it myself. What is the most interesting piece of clothing that you’ve made?
It depends on who’s asking. Probably the biggest project I ever undertook was making an officer flight suit. I was in the Air Force for 42 years, and a young female co-op somehow got hold of a very worn officer flight suit. She loaned it to me and I created my own version of it in purple and green leather. It took six months of my spare time to make that thing. It still fits. What do you wear in the summer?
Well, in the summer I’m not wearing much more than a leather bikini. You know what a do-rag is? Yes.
Those are available in leather. I wear that and maybe a lifting belt or some kind of a linesman tool belt. That’s my summer uniform unless I have to go somewhere where that would be below the minimum acceptable attire. I know you’re a churchgoing man. What do you wear on Sundays?
A leather riding suit, most of the time. What do people at church think of the way you dress?
Well, I did get kicked out of one Episcopal church because my priest told me I bulged too much. Actually, I wasn’t so much kicked out as opted out. Wow. How much were you bulging?
Well, I make and use JockUps. I’ve always taken the line that women have boobs and men have a basket. It should not be hidden, it should be prominent—tastefully so. I don’t like an explicit show of genitalia. I think that’s tacky. JockUps are those gigantic cups that you sell on your site, right?
Yes. They’re meant to be stacked. The thing that drew me to them was if you start with one—sized correctly so that it fits exactly over your mound—the inside of the cup is in intimate contact with all of you. And the cup is being held in place with a jockstrap, so anyplace you touch on the outside of the jockstrap is just like touching yourself. When you add more of them, you still have that sense of touch all the way around. So you wear more than one JockUp at a time?
I’m wearing two right now, I think. I have worn as many as four. It seems like that would desensitize you.
That’s true. And with the thicker ones I make, the “knuckle foam,” you can take a leather paddle and really whack into your basket. It feels great. It doesn’t throw you onto the ground prostrate. It’s a wonderful feeling. On your site you describe the classic JockUp as a “compact bulge” where your “cock is folded over your balls with the tip resting between them.” That doesn’t sound very comfortable. Also, what happens if you get hard?
Well, if you’re folded that way you just about can’t get hard. I won’t say it’s impossible, but it’s unlikely and it tends to be self-limiting. I try to sleep that way and I can’t. You don’t really get totally hard, but you certainly don’t ever relax either. You make a lot of different JockUps. Your website says that you sleep in one called the “Curved Uplifter”?
Yeah, the Curved Uplifter. See, I can’t sleep with it folded over, but the Curved Uplifter… I don’t know if you know this about male physiology, but most of us go through multiple erections a night while we’re asleep. The Curved Uplifter, as you start trying to get an erection, prevents it from going all the way. But those ups and downs… I’m at a loss for words right now. Anyway, anytime you get aroused in deep sleep it’s such a wonderful feeling of possession down there. Do you make all of these yourself?
Yeah. The original ones were scraps of neoprene from discarded wetsuits, but it’s so hard to find those now. Now I use what I call “melon foam,” which is really Swiss Army camping pads. I also use knuckle foam, and with that you have to hit harder to make it feel good. Both keep things nice and warm and moist, though. You just feel good about yourself. I think my favorite suit on your site is the green one with the harness straps and the funny hat. Can you tell me what’s going on with that thing?
Oh! That’s the melon foam. The material was 30" x 72" pads for use under a sleeping bag, and I just cut them to my imagination. If you’re familiar with kids’ cartoons from the 80s, He-Man wore a suit that looked just like that. That particular photo is up on [icanhas]Cheezburger[.com], the internet lampoon site. Everyone was trying to guess what the emblem on the shield is. Can you guess? Is it two snakes?
It’s a cock and balls. It’s copied from the Tom of Finland Foundation. It’s one of their emblems. No one guessed what I had in mind when I did that. It’s disappointing, really. Incidentally, that cap that I’m wearing is supposed to look like a green tree frog.