L.A. Leather Pride Q&A with Mr. Regiment Leather, Colin MacDougal

March 20, 2023
MEATY PANDA

Photo by Ziv Safe. THE FIGHT.

Colin MacDougall (also known as Handler Vult) is the current title holder of Mr. Regiment 2023 and will be competing for the title of Mr. LA Leather this Saturday, March 25th. The winner will go on to the International Mr. Leather contest in Chicago this May. He is a bartender at The Bullet Bar in North Hollywood, California, who hosts Sing Bitch! Karaoke every Monday and started a new party dedicated to the Furry Community called FUZZ.

Colin went through a near-death experience that changed what he valued in life and it became part of the trajectory to him winning Mr. Regiment along his leather and life journey. His love of community and philanthropy can be deeply felt through his interview below.

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Tell me about Mr. Regiment and your involvement from the start to now representing them in the Mr. LA Leather Contest.

The Regiment of the Black & Tans is one of the longest-running social clubs for gay men, especially leathermen. In Los Angeles, they are a uniform enthusiast club, so it's not always leather. Cotton also works depending on what your kink is. They hosted one of the very first play parties in Los Angeles. It was called “Maneuvers”, and you had to pass “muster”, which means that you have to make your uniform ship-shape before they would even give you the coordinates to attend the party. It was super old school and really, really cool.

And so my involvement with them started specifically through Mr. Regiment. I'd met a lot of them in passing and at parties, things like that. But they kind of embraced me a lot more when I was a competitor. I ended up becoming friends with my first runner-up, and we got really close.

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Tell me about your journey from first entering the leather community to where you are now as a Title Holder going on to compete in Mr. LA Leather.

It's kind of a whirlwind actually. I was married to a man and lots of people ask if it was a woman whenever I told them I was married. I was married for seven years in a monogamous relationship and I was traveling back and forth from Los Angeles to Italy in between shows since I was a TV and podcast producer by trade. And so whenever I had downtime, I would fly back and forth. I was crazy busy, working 22-hour days and I actually got hospitalized making a TV show in Norway ‘cause I almost worked myself to death.

That crazy situation ended up leading to my divorce and my entire world. I was like scared to work, life was going to complete and total ashes. I came back to L.A. and started hanging out with a few people. Thank you, Scruff, and the first person who brought me to a warehouse party! They put me in the pair of chaps that I had randomly had with me from when I was in high school show choir.

I went on my high school senior trip to London from Alabama and saw a show choir that did this leather number and I was obsessed with it. They were all in leather, like motorcycle people. I became obsessed. I broke away from my class members and I ran through the streets until I got to the leather district. I tried on a pair of boots and a pair of leather pants. I didn't even have socks with me, so I ran through the streets and bled so much!

So I guess I've always been a leather man. I just didn't know it until my whole life fell apart. It's just like, “shit, I almost died.” Community has become the most important thing for me now. Whenever you start to realize what is important sometimes it scares you. I gave up being a TV film producer to be a bartender back at The Bullet. It just wasn't what I wanted to do for the rest of my life anymore.

Being a producer was my big dream. I got kicked out of my home when I was 15 for being gay in small-town Arkansas and I was homeless for that. I met some incredible people who helped me, but I the biggest driving factor for me to not completely fall into the darkness then was this big dream that I had to make TV and film.

But nobody tells you when you're younger that your dreams aren't who you are. They tell you to go for it, get to that mountain. But like, I literally collapsed on a mountain in Norway. So, don't make your dream who you are. Make you who you are, the people you hang out with, who you are, the people who love you and support you. That should be who you are. A big platform I'm getting to stand behind is anti-bullying. I have a project that's coming out soon called “Project Bully Button”.

Used to working 22-hour work days and now I don't means I also don't have a ton of money for gear. So thank you to everyone that let me borrow your leathers.

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What are your plans beyond the Mr. LA Leather Contest?

Philanthropy is like the biggest thing that I want to get out there. I want to leave the world a better place than I found it. And I think that takes a lot of planning and connecting with the right people. And this little soapbox that I've been given with the amazing title of Mr. Regiment gives me the chance to meet more people and hopefully help the community and the world a little bit.