My avatar is an image I made myself, as a variation on Tony DeBlase's Leather Pride flag. The image was one that stuck in my head for a long time, and I spent a while working out how to generate it.
The design is built around a "broken heart" motif. The top of the flag has the rounded bumps of the top of the heart, against a field of the Pantone colour "Vanilla". A white horizontal stripe takes a jagged path through the heart, forming what looks like a more angular smaller heart below it. The jagged heart-piece is then surrounded by four black-and-blue stripes.
The heart, the white stripe, and the black-and-blue stripes were all borrowed from the Leather Pride flag, which has become a symbol for the latex and BDSM community as well. My addition was the replacement of the top four stripes with the field of "Vanilla", the resizing and repositioning of the heart, and the fracturing of the heart by redirecting the white stripe into a jagged path for part of it.
I hope that after explaining the elements so pedanically here, the reasoning behind them becomes clear. The top represents a loving relationship with a Vanilla partner. The surface of the heart presents the round and safe parts, and rests up top where the viewer spots it first. The white stripe could represent any number of forces, but it cracks the heart in two. The lower piece resembles a complete heart, but without any soft curves. The bottom half represents a BDSM or Kink identity kept "inside the closet", or at least kept entirely separate from the Vanilla relationship.
Sometimes when hearts break, both pieces continue beating independently. I will not stop loving my Gospodzha, but she will never approach that white stripe to meet who I am below. In addition, I dare not let my Kinky identity ever stray up into my Vanilla world, for fear of everything I could lose up there. And so for me that white band across the middle is a closet door, shut tight and locked. For others it could simply be the veil between a Vanilla partner and the BDSM play-partners this person permits but never wants to hear about.
I hope this symbol speaks to others, and that they find it helpful to illustrate their own situations. I intended it in the tradition of the Pride Flags, but this doesn't really fit because it is inherently about staying closeted.
If anyone would like the vector (SVG) file for this, I'd be happy to pass it on.
