The annual International Mr. Leather event took place this month. The “IML” is the Mecca of pelt mania. This is where the faithful make their pilgrimage, where suede is salvation, where clothing makes community.

The worshipping of what is essentially a fabric brings up an impertinent question: Why is there a “community” surrounding leather?

In fact, why do gay people have a penchant for “communitizing” everything? “Community” has to be the most over-used word in the English language.

At first it was used to describe towns or ethnic or religious groups. Then we started applying it to interest groups. And now we apply it to fetishes.

Gay people aren’t the only ones using “community” like a gang-banged bottom. The U.S. Department of Fish & Game recently called people who fished illegally the “poaching community.”

Can you imagine? I can hardly wait to hear John Ashcroft go after petty theft and call it a warning to the “purse-snatching community.”

Of course, wearing leather isn’t a crime (although maybe it should be. Have you seen the outfits on some of these guys?).

Fashion mistakes on the scale of industrial accidents aside, leather lovers have an amusing calculus to their self-definition: “We’re not fanatical about fabric. We’re not compulsive about cloth. We’re simply members of a ‘community.’”

Of course, some are pillars of the community; others are merely tied to them.

Our need to rationalize our obsessions, to legitimize what turns us on by calling it a “community” is about as ridiculous as some of the outfits that paraded on the IML stage this month.

Are leather lovers so ashamed of their fetish that they need to legitimize it by “building community” around it?

I’m obsessed with tennis. I play on a team, I watch the tournaments on TV, I check the rankings, I check out the cute players. But I don’t feel the need to belong to a tennis “community” just because I’m gripped by the thought of a stick and dangling balls. Wait. Different obsession, different community.

A better example might be jewelry. Ever notice the alarming attraction that gay men have toward rings, necklaces, bracelets, trinkets and charms? We “ring” all our body parts from thumb to toe, from ear to tongue, from nipple to penis. So why isn’t there a “Jewelry community?” It could be a place where like-minded people get together and feel like they belong. Van Cleef & Arpel’s would be more than happy to provide the meeting space.

Near as I can figure it, the reason we don’t have a “community of jewelry enthusiasts” is that most people don’t have a need to define themselves by what they’re wearing. Why do leather guys?

If we’re going to build mini-societies around textiles, then why don’t we have a “Spandex Community?” Are we that limited in our vision?

Perhaps the lycra-likers could take a cue from the leather-lovers. They could make their own version of the leather community’s culture.

For example, they could have their own hanky codes. Blue: J-Lo fly-girl. Green: former Solid Gold dancer. Or like their leather brethren, the Spandex Community could establish rules of conduct. For example, the establishment of a “safe” word to honor when doing a Hot Wax Scene. My vote: “Catsuit.”

By building a spandex community we could promote a killer look without killing animals. This could be an important breakthrough in animal rights. Though admittedly, the suffering we’d spare animals would simply be shifted to humans. Namely the ones witnessing plump, middle-aged men bending over in buttless spandex chaps.

On second thought, if cows have to die to spare us that vision, so be it.

My point, and I do have one, is that people who confuse shared fetishes with collective societies are diminishing the value of the word “community.” If this keeps up it’ll just be a matter of time before we who fight traffic every day will soon be called “the commuter community.”