Pat Bond (May 24, 1926 – February 13, 2021), born Walter Allen Campbell, stands among the earliest architects of organized BDSM community in the United States. At a time when desire was criminalized, silence enforced, and isolation common, Bond helped build something radical and enduring: structure.

Not spectacle. Not rebellion for its own sake.

Structure, safety, and shared ethics.

Origins: Seeking One Another in the Dark

In 1970, Bond placed a small classified advertisement in Screw—not as provocation, but as a lantern. She sought others who shared an understanding of masochism not as pathology, but as identity and practice.

That call was answered by Fran Nowve (then known publicly as Terry Kolb). Together, they recognized a truth that would shape Leather history:

People do not need to be cured. They need community, language, and consent.

Founding The Eulenspiegel Society (1971)

In 1971, Bond and Nowve co-founded The Eulenspiegel Society (TES) in New York City—the first BDSM organization in the United States.

TES was not created as a dungeon, a club night, or a fetish spectacle.

It was founded as a support and education society.

Early TES meetings centered on:

• Shared lived experience
• Ethical frameworks for sadism and masochism
• Consent, negotiation, and aftercare (before those words were common currency)
• Privacy, discretion, and mutual responsibility

Initially focused on masochists, TES soon expanded to include sadists as well—recognizing that power exchange is relational, and that healthy practice requires both sides of the dynamic to be informed, accountable, and grounded.

The name Eulenspiegel, drawn from a European trickster archetype discussed in psychoanalytic literature, reflected a deeper insight: desire does not obey polite rules—but it can be governed by honor.

Leadership Through Stewardship, Not Celebrity

Bond’s leadership style was distinctly Old Guard:

• Quiet, not flashy
• Persistent, not performative
• Grounded in service over status

She remained deeply involved with TES operations for decades, including editorial work on its long-running newsletter, Pro-Me-Thee-Us, which served as a lifeline of education, reflection, and community connection long before the internet.

Bond believed that education was harm reduction, and that visibility without grounding was dangerous. His work helped establish TES as a model replicated by countless organizations that followed.

Recognition & Honors

Bond’s contributions were eventually recognized by the broader Leather community—not as trendsetting, but as foundation-setting.

• 1992 – Recipient of the Steve Maidhof Award from the National Leather Association International, honoring national and international impact.
• 2015 – Inducted into the Leather Hall of Fame, alongside Fran Nowve, recognizing their shared legacy as founders of organized BDSM community in America.

These honors did not mark the peak of Bond’s influence—but rather the community’s acknowledgment of a debt long owed.

Legacy: What Pat Bond Left Us

Pat Bond did not leave behind a brand.
She left behind infrastructure.

Because of her work:

• People found one another instead of suffering alone
• Consent became teachable, not assumed
• Leather community learned to organize without apology

TES endures today not because of nostalgia, but because its founding principles remain necessary.

Pat Bond taught us that freedom without responsibility collapses—and that responsibility without compassion hardens.

Her life stands as proof that quiet builders shape history as surely as loud revolutionaries.

Related Resources

Allan, Berube. Coming Out Under Fire Twentieth Anniversary Edition -- The History of Gay Men and Women in World War II. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina, 2010.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Bond
• https://archive.org/details/calavc_000014
• http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf0779n3vq/entire_text/

Authorship

• Original Biography Author, Victor Salvo
• Biography Edited By, Owen Keehnen
• Resources Coordination, Carrie Maxwell