Analyzing the Outlaws

ANALYZING THE OUTLAWS

A look at the biker psyche

IF PEOPLE WHO RIDE MOTORCYCLES ARE NON-CONformists, and if outlaw-types, with their beards, beer bellies and black leather, are fearsome and threatening in their non-conformity, why do so many people come to Daytona’s Bike Week to conform to this non-conforming look?

That’s the question I put to Dr. William Player, a clinical psychologist in Daytona Beach and a man who cruises Main Street during Bike Week observing the phenomenon.

Player noted he’s not a sociologist and further said he hasn’t conducted definitive studies on this question; but he does have some strong impressions about Main Street and those who go there during Bike Week.

The people on Main Street, he said, reminded him “More of flower children than virulent, sado-masochistic, erotic-quality gang members. There seemed to be a gentleness and a camaraderie. Outlaws give off an aura of power and potency and these people perhaps are attempting to gain an identity of power. The feeling was, ‘We’re here, we’re important, we’ve taken over the town, we’re the gladiators come to conquer.’ Additionally there’s some male bonding: the macho posturing is made legitimate for people who are in need of male bonding but who are frightened of homosexual implications. Also, there may be people who are sort of latent revolutionaries . . . who would go back to basics, people whose values would appear to focus on the freedom of the cowboy, the outlaw, the hobo; it’s a breakout from the megalopolis.

“The strongest opinion I walked away with was that the motorcycle group seems to have become the South’s Bohemian culture: in the North they’d be in New York because they’d be artists, but in the South, it’s the biker culture, where you’re not conforming to the crushing weight of the establishment. These folks come to Daytona seeking a kind of psychological glue which they provide one another and they came away feeling more whole, more valuable, with more selfesteem.’’ —Jon F Thompson