One of the most fun vendors to visit at the 2026 DomCon in New Orleans was a booth full of colorful leather gear run the ebullient and enthusiastic “Irish Scott.” He had help selling his handmade floggers from his charming father, “The Old Man.” The pair seemed to never stop laughing and could be seen dancing in the vendor area aisles during slow periods.
A U.S. Navy veteran like his father, the Irish Scott graduated college with a degree in mechanical engineering. One of his passions was attending the Highland Games—“Scots like to throw heavy things, accurately”—and he turned to leathermaking in order to make his own sporran (the Gaelic word for the pouch men typically wear with kilts). “There’s no pockets in kilts!”
He was himself at that moment wearing a kilt. “Most comfortable piece of clothing you could ever wear. I wear them all the time. If it’s Thursday and I don’t know what pants to put on, I’ll put on my kilt.” (As it turns out, kinksters love kilts as well.) When friends saw the sporran he’d made, they asked him if he could make one for them, too, and soon he was whipping them up in his living room to sell at games.
It wasn’t until his younger brother, who is big into kinky pursuits, turned to him for help in “solving a problem,” that he found himself a maker of kink gear as well. The brother wanted a pair of cuffs that he couldn’t break. “But no one makes cuffs for guys that don’t fall apart,” said his brother, “Can you help?” So, the Irish Scott started designing and creating cuffs that could hold the weight of a full-grown man all day if it had to.
From there, his brother griped that many of the floggers sold on BDSM gear sites were made in other countries and he was having a difficult time finding “a flogger that doesn’t fall apart.” The Irish Scott set about trying to figure out why floggers so often break and realized mass-produced floggers relied on cheap fasteners to attach the falls to the handle. And so, the leathermaker began making floggers with fasteners that would not fail.
He says safety and durability are always his primary concern when designing new cuffs and floggers. He makes a unique flogger with braided falls that he insists will never wear out. He installs metal mechanisms on them that allow the falls to pivot freely and thus relieve the user of torque pressure on their wrists. “I just had one Domme here today with a medical condition that gave her the inability to turn her wrists and she nearly broke down crying, because she was so happy to find a flogger she could use.”
To Each His Own
Today, the Irish Scott operates on the philosophy of listening to his customers, finding out what they need and then solving their problems. He knows that some impact enthusiasts like stingy sensations, others like thuddy, and others like somewhere in between. He encourages customers to try out his products there in his booth so they can find something that suits them to a tee. No matter their particular need, he will try to make it work.
“One Dom told me they had three subs, and he wanted to be able to use one flogger for all three. I figured, just change out the tips. For one who wasn’t into pain, you can use a fluffy teddy bear; for another who loved heavy pain, you can change it out with barbed wire.” It was a creative solution.
He furthermore guarantees his floggers will never break. “I always say, if you can find a way to break it, I’d like to know how. You tell me the story, and I’ll make you another that won’t break.”
Besides floggers and sturdy cuffs, he also manufactures molded blindfolds, collapsible spreader bars, arm binder purses, and much more. For awhile, his leather business consumed all his time, and he found himself traveling with his wife throughout the Southeast U.S. from his home in St. Augustine, Florida, to sell his wares at both Highland Games and kink conferences. He has since gone back to a day job but still likes to set up at kink conferences when he gets the chance. He often brings his father, a retired middle school teacher, to lend a hand.
The Old Man said he admires his son’s engineering acumen and is happy to explain the gear to potential customers at the booth. “My son is extremely innovative, a real problem solver.” He said he raised his kids “to be open” and he wasn’t about to judge how they conducted their private lives, or how they made their money.
While the Old Man admitted to being mystified by the attraction to pain, he finds the BDSM community to be made up of “loving and caring people who listen to one another.” He said he enjoys talking to them and thinks that because they are used to having to hide who they are, “when they finally open up, they really open up.”
An Admiration for the Kink Community
While a portion of the Irish Scott’s sales come from online orders, he prefers selling them in person so he can interact with the community he serves, which he calls, “The most open and friendly group of people you’ll ever meet.” It’s also the most thought-provoking group, he adds. “I’ve had so many great conversations about things that matter over there in that booth.” He has a pragmatic approach to sales, believing that listening to his customers and guiding them to what they want and need, even if it isn’t available in his booth, is more important than pushing for a sale.
Yet one of his favorites parts of being a vendor, he says, is being able to bond with other vendors, many who he regularly sees on the kink circuit. “It’s not a capitalist system where we feel like we have to compete. We support each other. We share information, such as the best sources for some of the same materials we might use.”
While he is in a marriage that he describes as not too kinky, thanks to his customers he is drawn to kink. “You can’t help but absorb the stuff,” he said and mentioned his appreciation for the graphic BDSM romance novel, Sunstone. It was through that book that he said he gained an understanding that BDSM is, at its heart, “about trust. You have to build a lot of trust with someone to put yourself in their hands, and trust is the ultimate aphrodisiac.”
Although he creates items meant for impact play, he doesn’t think he’d be into impact himself. Bondage, however, grabs his attention. “Take away a couple of my senses, like with a blindfold, and I’m all over that.”
His father, The Old Man, agreed that bondage is “interesting,” and said the idea also appeals to him. “But,” he said with a laugh, “I don’t think I’d ever get my wife into handcuffs.”
To learn more about the Irish Scott and his high-quality leather gear, visit: https://the-irish-scott.square.site/
