In Pop Culture Detective’s YouTube video “Abduction as Romance,” the narrator explains how a particular trope typically plays out in mainstream movies where men kidnap women. Typically, the kidnappers in these movies are the protagonists, or at least redeemable in some way, which makes it acceptable that the captive women usually fall in love with their captors by the end of the movie. Obviously, this trope reinforces traditional masculinity because even the average and not very rugged kidnappers in these movies get to assert their dominance over the otherwise strong, independent, fiesty women that they subdue. So, even though they might not be that rich, handsome, or masculine compared to other men, they can still overpower a strong woman who puts up a fight. This, along with the fact that these male characters are framed as redeemable enough for the captured women to fall in love with them, reinforces traditional femininity as well. Even though the women who are captured in these movies are usually independent, these kidnappings appear to put them in their place and teach them that they need to be protected and that they should want what “most” women want — a relationship. So as these stories go, the otherwise nice guy who initially kidnapped her begins to look like the best candidate for the position.
Thus, I see “punishment for being handsome/desirable” as a male counterpart to the “abduction as romance” trope because even though a lot of men get kidnapped by women in movies and TV shows, they usually never fall in love with their kidnappers, which makes their captivity a form of punishment that doesn’t lead to any kind of reward other than the freedom that comes after captivity. Furthermore, the women who abduct men in media are usually framed as unattractive and/or irredeemable, possibly because women aren’t supposed to break the law or be powerful enough to subdue a man. Traditionally, it also doesn’t seem to be in a “normal” powerful women’s best interest to be attracted to a man that she can subdue. If she can subdue a man and still find him attractive, she is too masculine and even crazy in mainstream standards. If you’d consider the possibility of abduction as romance happening between two men, that is much less common outside from male bondage porn, which is why I’m sticking with the idea that handsome men get punished for being appealing in the mainstream and pornographic male bondage world.
Oftentimes in movies or TV shows, attractive men wind up bound and gagged because some crazed woman who developed an obsession with him, and since our handsome protagonist is typically sane, he is unable to reciprocate the antagonists’ intense feelings, which naturally prompts the antagonist to kidnap and hold him captive with hopes that Stockholm syndrome will set in. Traditionally, the motivation behind kidnappings in this trope involves a sexual attraction to the captive man, so they can have full access to his helpless body, but the motivation could also just come from a man’s successes because most attractions to men aren’t solely based on physical appearance. Either way, the attraction to the captured men in this trope is usually intense and predatory, which makes being kidnapped and held captive in this trope an ultimate punishment for being desirable prey to these crazed predators. Since the captured men in these tropes aren’t happy with their captivity for obvious reasons like being held against their will, fear of helplessness, and being forced to be with someone they aren’t attracted to in these stories, they are being punished instead of romanced.
Although, being intensely desired by someone might be flattering to a twisted extent, the kind of infatuation that could influence someone to kidnap another person is dangerous, making the captive’s desirability a liability that subjects him to being subdued, sexualized, overly romanticized, and susceptible to other kinds of harm. Therefore, aside from his captivity just being seen as a result of crazy people not being capable of expressing their attraction and facing rejection in a normal way, it could also be a consequence from his ability to attract these types of predatory people. Maybe, just like your friend who keeps going back to his crazy ex-girlfriend, the captive men in this trope are somehow drawn to these types of women or ways of being pursued. Or, maybe these men are so desperate to be liked and considered attractive that they put a lot of effort into their appearance and likability, which makes it easy to draw crazy people in and make them hungry for more. Either way, it seems to be part of our grotesque nature to blame the victim in these kinds of scenarios most likely because we like to believe that we’re immune to receiving this kind of attention as perfectly secure and humble people, and that those who are aggressively pursued are merely being punished for their own vanity and attention-seeking.
The Consequences of Male Vanity
In traditional standards of heterosexual masculinity, not only are men not supposed to be in the submissive role, they are also not supposed to be feminine by showing vanity, which can be recognized when a man shows any kind of effort to look sexy, handsome, or even just neatly dressed. So, it seems to be the case that if men break this rule of masculinity, they’d attract too much unwanted attention from monstrous women and gay men, which makes it their fault when they are abducted by lustful predators. Like the blame that is placed onto sexually harassed women for “sexually tempting men” with their approachable nature or subtly suggestive appearance that excuses male sexual aggression, even though society pressures women to look a certain way, pretty boys who dress well seem to “deserve” the unwanted sexual attention and submissiveness that they receive in the male bondage world. This seems to be the case for scenarios where men are subdued by lustful women, as well as scenarios where a more rugged, primitively masculine man ties up a pretty boy.
For the last job interview I went to, the Uber driver that took me to the interview also picked me up from it. On the way to the interview, he was very chatty and friendly in a platonic, straight man sort of way, and even wished me good luck as he was dropping me off. When he picked me up, my Uber driver asked about the interview and was congratulatory after I told him that it seemed to go well. During this ride, however, he addressed the fact that I was wearing a suit several times. Some of my driver’s remarks had something to do with how sharp I looked, and one was about how eager he thought I was to take this suit off when I got home, so I can relax. Since I have a fetish for dress clothes and generally like male attention, the casual way that this guy complimented me and his emphasis on the dress clothes I was wearing really turned me on. Because I don’t know a lot of straight men, it is difficult for me to tell if this was appropriate guy talk, but the Uber driver’s confidence seemed to indicate that he was stroking my ego in a “safe” sort of way. However, I found it fun to imagine if the praise and attention I got from this driver wasn’t as platonic as I thought and he actually had intentions of kidnapping me and looking out for my suit to keep me looking pristine.
Considering how this guy’s subtle stroking of my ego got me so hot and bothered, I realized how vulnerable that would have made me if my driver was just buttering me up to kidnap me. His pleasantness could have been a distraction to get my mind focused on how I look and what I’ve accomplished, instead of any red flags about this guy potentially being a danger to me. Even though confidence and cockiness are typically male traits, it is considered feminine, therefore weak, for men to be vane. Thus, vane men are assumed to be easy to take advantage of because they have a weakness that is easy to exploit since physical appearance is feeble and ever-changing and it is assumed that an obsession with appearance likely stands in for more masculine traits that would keep a man safe, like vigilance and the ability to fight. In other words, being fixated on how you look is probably thought of as pointless in a pragmatically masculine sense because popular styles always change, everyone is getting older instead of younger, and things like health issues and car accidents could severely alter your appearance out of nowhere. Furthermore, it is expected that men who are considered “pretty boys” or “wussies” likely swap out their primitively masculine qualities like being able to fight and desiring an alpha role for feminine qualities like fashion sense and being sensitive to others. Therefore, my own vanity could have made it easier for me to be tricked into getting kidnapped.
Getting back to the abduction as romance trope, my Uber driver’s reinforcing of the idea that he was only interested in distracting me to later subdue me and have unlimited access to my body is a way of feminizing me. I’d not only be feminized by having my own vanity used against me to be made submissive, but also by showing me that my accomplishments aren’t as interesting to him as he led on, meaning that my physical appearance was the only thing he found valuable about me. Therefore, like how the abducted women in these movies are usually conventionally attractive and independent, but it is implied that they still need to rely on a man and whatever they were doing independently doesn’t matter because they are pretty and still vulnerable to men, regardless of what I have accomplished, my looks make me subject for objectification. However, as a man, I wouldn’t be as familiar with being objectified because of my appearance. Not to mention, I would be even less familiar with the feeling of vulnerability that a strange man could do anything he wanted to me without me being able to stop him, which is an unfortunate level of vulnerability that more women have had to face with or without restraints and controlled substances. I think it’s this kind of distance from any real vulnerability and objectification that makes male bondage appealing.
When a guy is kidnapped out of lust, his ability to attract such predatory, sexual attention is understood as his fault. However, pretty boys also seem to attract the possibly platonic attention of heterosexual, traditionally masculine men. Since the captors in these scenarios seem conventionally straight, the reason why they find joy in subduing another man isn’t entirely understood because maybe the captor is a closet homosexual or maybe his sadism really comes out when he sees the discomfort his captive is being forced to endure. The more platonic desire here most likely comes from the attraction to power and being able to subdue a grown man is a pretty good indicator of that power. It is probably assumed that any asshole can overpower a woman or child, but getting to hold a man against his will and make him your bitch is something that only certain people could do and even fewer people would get joy out of doing.
When that man being overpowered is a pretty boy, he might seem like low-hanging fruit in the primitively masculine context since pretty boys aren’t expected to be tough, but a rugged man getting to subdue a pretty boy could have some class-based symbolism like the lower class revolting against the upper class that keeps them at the bottom, anti-intellectual students getting one over on their elitist teachers, or over worked employees striking against their greedy bosses. For example, when interurban gangsters from impoverished families get to over power neatly dressed business executives who live in the suburbs, the contrast in attire would likely be telling of these different kinds of masculinities. The gangsters’ ruggedness would reflect a sense of masculinity that is more primitive because their lives involve having to actually fight for survival in urban areas. The business executives’ masculinity would reflect a more industrialized version of masculinity because they would be from a world where status is determined by the figures they make compared to other people and they all went to college, which is a place where intellectual ability was the valuable currency. Therefore, since bondage is probably one of the most primitive ways of establishing dominance over other people, the gangsters re-establish primitive dominance when they overpower the business men, making them more feminine in comparison. As more educated people, the business executives might be more socialized to solve problems through discussion, but that option would be out of the window when the more primitive gangsters are using their fists and weapons, and might even gag the suited businessman. Since people with white collar jobs either have to wear suits or some kind of business casual uniform, that can come off as submissive and conformist compared to gangsters who don’t have to dress a particular way for anyone.
It even seems to be a way of reinforcing traditional gender norms for men when pretty boys are subdued by more rugged men. Instead of overpowering handsome men as a way of teaching them that they want to submit to a more dominant force like with “abduction as romance” women, pretty boys that are forced into submission are being punished for their feminine traits. In a sense, this is a “if you’re going to be like a girl, I’m gonna treat you like one” mentality that illustrates how men who show vanity or that they put any sort of effort towards their appearance seem to be further feminized through bondage and submission. Whereas women in these kinds of abductee roles are further feminized as a way of making them eventually accept a more subservient and domesticated role, which is assumed to be a role that suits all women, abducted men are never really expected to fully embrace subservience, making their submission just added punishment as a way of enforcing masculinity. Since domestication is assumed to be a role that suits all women, aggression and fighting for dominance is assumed to be a role that suits all men. Therefore, when a handsome and presumably pompous man is abducted, it might be assumed that his masculine instincts will kick in, so he can fight his way out of the punishing restrictions of bondage to be the master of his own domain again. This symbolic reclaiming of his masculinity might better equip him to take charge of his life, which will deter him from spending too much time on his looks.
Even though bondage’s punishments are generally the same for men and women, it is assumed that each would take something different away from their experience to fit normative standards for their gender. However, this is in no way an implication that male bondage fetishists get off to the idea of men being forced into masculine normalcy. I believe that since we all live in a society that has these kinds of archaic and rigid views of gender and sexuality, male bondage, like every other medium, reinforces normative masculinity to an extent, but it also subverts it. Part of this subversion comes from how the queer men who participate in male bondage call their subs “pretty boys” and take pride in arousing “straight guys,” which seems to be a way of projecting things that have been directed at them and other gay men. This projection seems to simultaneously reinforce these normative standards of straight masculinity, as well as subvert them by directing them to an assumed straight guy. Since all straight men aren’t immune to things like vanity or giving in to certain pleasures, male bondage porn tends to emphasize how straight men aren’t necessarily as “straight and narrow” as they think they are.
Reinforcing the Non-Traditional Masculinity of Being a Man that Dresses Up
As comedian, Deon Cole, points out about strippers, female strippers pretty much just have to show their bodies, while male strippers are often expected to have themed costumes, which means that even when men are naked, women want to know that they have jobs. Specifically, female strippers primarily have to look pretty and show their bodies, which reflects how society appears to be more concerned with how attractive a woman is than her accomplishments or financial status. Likewise with male strippers, as Cole’s joke goes, female audiences seem to care more about a man’s accomplishments and financial status than his looks because male stripper costumes are often themed towards culturally masculine professions (firefighter, police officer, doctor, etc.), which reflects societal expectations for men. I don’t know if a female subject’s profession in softcore bondage porn is as superfluous as Deon’s observation of female strippers, but I can at least say that his observation of male strippers does relate to male softcore bondage subjects because bondage plays with power and power/authority can be easily conveyed with law enforcement uniforms, white lab coats, and Armani ties.
However, even though seeing a man with a traditionally masculine, high status occupation getting bound and gagged is appealing to me, I also like seeing men in more feminized positions that involve “caring for” or “attending to others” being tied up as well. Traditionally feminized positions often include things like nursing, teaching, or being a flight attendant because they have a history of mostly women filling these occupations that don’t pay very well, involve being nurturing and caring to an extent, as well as don’t have much room for job growth like becoming a doctor, school principal, or pilot, without additional training or education. In addition to these roles having a mostly female history, they have also been traditionally sexualized. Even though teachers, nurses, and flight attendants hold some authority, their roles have become sexual fantasies for the men that these women work under, as well as the men that they serve.
Granted, since the thing I focus on most is how the man is dressed, which influences his esteem and might relate to his status, and not how much he makes, I enjoy the thought of men in traditionally feminized positions getting further subdued. My thought process behind this is the assumption that a man in a position that is traditionally meant to sell sex, which has especially been the case for flight attendants, will be objectified, which can lead to a form of humiliation that not a lot of men have to experience. Although male teachers and nurses may not be in as obvious of a position for sexual objectification, the fact that their professions involve sensitivity, patience, and compassion, experiencing these qualities from a man would likely be foreign to students and patients because men aren’t typically expected to show those qualities while women are always expected to show them. Therefore, some might interpret caring qualities in a man, as well as “settling” for a traditionally feminine profession when men are culturally expected to achieve more, as signs of weakness, which can be fetishized by those who are hungry for power and ultimate dominance. Even though I don’t think of these qualities or professions as weak, I understand enough about gendered and cultural standards about masculinity to know that at least a tinge of insecurity lies beneath the surface for men in these positions and some of the people they serve might exploit that insecurity.
Since traditional masculinity is so limiting, yet extremely influential, even men who subvert the standard struggle to maintain an acceptable male identity, especially when other men aim to reinforce that standard by emphasizing how feminine and queer it is to be a man in these roles. Even though the type of man likely to exploit that insecurity would be straight and homophobic, his way of reinforcing the masculine standard could involve sexualizing his male nurse, teacher, or flight attendant, possibly out of a repressed sexual desire for ANYTHING that he sees as feminine, or maybe just as a way of asserting masculine dominance. Like how the gay male community uses labels like “top” and “bottom” not only to assess what sexual partners prefer, but to also distinguish who in the pairing is more dominant, sex in general can be used to enforce dominance and power in a way that relates to fighting. Therefore, even though it might seem gay for a straight man to direct a sexual comment towards another man, putting a man on the spot as some kind of a sexualized object is a sign of dominance. By symbolically marking a man as something pretty and sexual, it is pretty much the same as saying that he is incapable of winning a fight or any other competition of value with him because traditional male value comes from his ability to dominate and objectify, instead of being objectified. So, when this tension between traditional and non-traditional masculinities leads to a traditionally masculine guy overpowering a non-traditionally masculine guy, it really gets me going because the dom will reinforce his dominant role while the sub will reluctantly accept his submissive role. During this reluctant acceptance, the dom is likely to reinforce his sub’s submissive role by teasing him with comments about how “pretty” he is and the obvious thought that he had put into his appearance.
ความคิดเห็น