Leather

Leather can have various references:

Leather subculture is about BDSM, or that part of it that associates closer to S&M and fetish or to Homosexual BDSM.
Leather fetishism describes an attraction to people wearing leather, or to items made from leather.
Old Guard leather (also Old Guard but not to be confused with fascist movements of that same name) is the gay leather subculture from which much of BDSM originally derived.
New leather (also New Guard leather or just New Guard) is a more sexually-liberated and less protocol- driven version of the Leather subculture.
Leather Family describes a family or family-sized-group living in an alternate lifestyle often based on the leather subculture or on BDSM.
Leather Community is used to loosely associate people living in the leather subculture or even into the wider BDSM. Roughly equivalent to "BDSM Lifestyle"
Started in the USA and now including leatherfolk as far away as Canada, there is the National Leather Association: International
There is a Leather Pride Flag.
Leather is a common material for making various equipment including blindfold s, handcuffs, whips and clothing. It is made by treating (tanning) the skin or hide of animals, usually cattle. Leather is very strong, and may have a characteristic odour that some people like. Some, such as those into animal transformation fantasy, may like the fact that it is animal skin rather than artificial like PVC.
Rawhide: Leather that has not been fully tanned is called rawhide. Rawhide has the property that if soaked in water it can be stretched, and will then shrink as it dries out. It can thus be used to make bonds or corsets that keep tightening, or ropes that will eventually lift someone off the ground.

(This entry in the BDSM Dictionary incorporates text from the Leather article in Wipipedia.)

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