Kinkmate13 is really into "forced" transformation. He has dabbled with having his hair cut in bondage. I've dyed his hair while he was tied up. For his birthday this year, I even made him change into an outfit I had ready for him, tied him up, and played with him before he had a chance to look at himself in the outfit. This in-and-of-itself can be it's own blog post and story. But at Camp Knotty this year, I planned to do fx makeup on him that made him look beat up while he was tied up to add a mob gangster/action movie element to our bondage play.
The Inspiration
I've always liked the bondage scene in Reservoir Dogs. This whole movie checks several of my boxes: men in suits, bondage, uniforms, different expressions of dominance and masculinity, campy entertainment value, etc. When I was 19, I had a poster of Mr. Blonde in my room because I absolutely wanted him to spit in my mouth. I loved how I had the poster for completely queer and fetishy reasons, but it passed as like a badass dude kind of thing to have considering how it's a violent Tarantino movie.
I didn't put the pieces together at the time, but I loved Blonde's brand of dominance. The way he peels a strip of duct tape makes me weak at the knees. Even though he was more chaotic than his partners, he was always cool and in control by making jokes and pop culture references; casually grabbing fast food after a botched bank heist with a kidnapped cop in the trunk; not seeming concerned about "the loot" or who the guy that ratted them out was, but liking the thought of torturing his captive just cuz. He talks to the hostage calmly, dances to taunt him, just having a good ole time when he's alone with the cop. He's definitely evil, but has such a confident and powerful swagger, as well as relished in being bad, embracing the knowledge that he was the villain in the movie in his head.
After playing in group settings with other kinksters, I couldn't help but relate to this scene on a different level. Like, Mr. Blonde presents the captive cop as a gift, to entertain the guys while they wait for their boss, as a tied up guy in a cop uniform would be understood as a gift to most kinksters. When attending a group bondage session, it's not uncommon for a man to be tied up when you arrive, like the friend group's hostage. Even though what we do is consensual and legal, it still has to be kept private, as something deviant, because we don't want to call attention to ourselves or set off any alarms when we play. We break norms together, cover our tracks, and generally understand each other. I think I like how Mr. Blonde just embraces being bad and not quite like the other guys. He just has fun.
I've always wanted to recreate this scene in a way that focuses more on the bondage and less on the violence. As a horror fan, I'm pretty desensitized to violent scenes in movies and the sight of blood, but they don't necessarily turn me on. Since bondage involves physical helplessness, it is usually accompanied with things like violence, crime, peril, hints of danger, etc. Even though I don't seek out bondage scenes that involve a captive man being hurt or killed, I guess I tolerate these scenes because they emphasize the bondage:
The captive is bound and gagged to prevent his escape, fighting back, or calling attention to himself,
There's a story, character, and context behind the bondage, as well as clear stakes to make the captive make noise in his gag, struggle, etc,
Even though I don't necessarily need captives to escape to enjoy a bondage scene, there's hope that the captive can get away or you can at least enjoy the utter helplessness and desperation to get free.
A Little Injury Doesn't Hurt
Even though I ignore the extreme violence and just focus on the bondage, a little injury in a scene never hurts. Like, I don't find men being in complete pain or agony arousing, but bondage scenes don't always have to be neat, clean, and honky dory either. Just like how it's appealing to see a submissive man's clothing dirty and ripped open, revealing body hair and bare skin that might be coated in dirt and sweat, it's also appealing to see some bruising, a black eye, a small bit of blood, etc. All of these things are rugged and indicate that a fight and struggle have occured.
The grit from a struggle is appealing because it's masculine. Men are typically expected to show resilience and not worry as much about how they look. Scenarios like the one in Reservoir Dogs or any other Tarantino movie are very masculine because they're usually full of men doing dangerous and powerful things, showing brutality, toughness, endurance, defiance of rules and laws, etc. Since typical standards of masculinity value traits like strength, dominance, assertiveness, etc, there's something appealing about men who can physically overpower another person, whether it's to apprehend them out of defense or for sex. Men be doing what society and culture likes them to do. It isn't what they ought to do or the only way for them to be, but it's an acceptable option, especially when we're talking about men in fiction and fantasy.
Fight Club was another source of inspiration for this set. It has scenes that show the characters in tuxedos, bruised and bloody. I generally find the juxtaposition between formal wear and dishevelment appealing because both things are masculine, but in different ways: one is more proper and civilized, the other is primal and rugged. As much as I like the pristine nature of suiting, I also like seeing vulnerability and the fallibility of men. They can be dressed up, looking powerful and dignified, but all it takes is a stain on a white dress shirt and a few buttons ripped off to completely deconstruct that esteemed visual. The same goes for injuries as well. A guy can seem ultra strong and composed one minute, then look like an absolute victim the next when he has a broken nose and black eye. It's similar to how perceptions of executive realness can build someone up, then bondage and sexualization can knock him down.
When the deviance of gay kink is involved, the idea of a man overpowering another guy, lifting and carrying one over his shoulder, grabbing him and covering his mouth, slapping his face, etc, it's arousing because it's dominant and hopefully things we only see and experience in safe and controlled settings where everyone is consenting to that behavior. Not to mention, even though what I did for this set and what I'm talking about is kind of off to the side from what seems to be usual kink practices, acts of sadomasochism and other things that are recognized in the realm of dungeons also involve pain, bruising, scars, etc.
Bondage kinksters like dominance, so we find it attractive when men can take charge and overpower. To go a step further, it's also attractive to see men get overpowered and assume a submissive role. I'd even go as far to say that it's kind of attractive when a man can endure injury. The sheer endurance indicates strength, experience, pain tolerance, etc, which also align with typical standards of masculinity. However, injury also indicates fallibility, the realty that a man can be hurt, bleed, etc. Like with submission and gear drag, injury is masculine and vulnerable. I even find it kind of cute to see men living their regular lives while recovering from some kind of injury, wearing an arm sling or maybe a cast on his leg while carrying on to work, getting groceries, or walking his dog.
This might be from my recent wrist fracture, but I feel like injury adds a level of reality to play. A person's injury shows real physical limitations that people experience. Injuries remind everyone that accidents happen and that everyone is susceptible to getting hurt. Nobody is safe because nobody's body is infallible. Bondage does a similar thing because everyone is capable of having their bodies restrained and their mouths gagged. I feel like the most objectifying thing about bondage, whether it's a hostage scenario or getting arrested, is the fact that people are reminded that they are essentially just a body that's limited by physical nature. Since most people are generally built similarly, there are systematized ways of restraining and gagging someone without them ever considering it. So, I guess it's natural for a bondage kinkster to like playing with ideas of physical human limitations and capabilities.
At Camp Knotty, my wrist was still injured, so I wore a splint with my army and baseball uniforms, which attendees said added authenticity to those looks since athletes and soldiers do such physical and dangerous work, which makes injury common. I feel like a lot my kink surrounds fetishizing what seems to be real, which is probably why doing this set with Kinkmate made me realize and unpack the rhetoric of injury. What I did with makeup was obviously fake, but there also seems to be something fake about bondage where subjects are clean, with pristine hair and outfits. There's nothing wrong with neatness, and I absolutely love in-tact clothing and have even jacked off to neat hairstyles on men, but that seems to lose some reality as well.
I also fetishize vulnerability, which aligns with my fetish for realness. When bondage seems more real, danger feels possible. When danger seems possible, a restrained subject appears even more helpless and vulnerable than if he's just chilling some place in ropes. Like with rollercoasters, you're completely safe and things are under control, but you get to have fun with the perceived danger. If a subject seems hurt, he could be physically limited by weakness, pain, or even mobility, which makes him even more vulnerable and in greater danger. If the subject was injured by his captor, it makes that captor seem more dangerous and powerful. And the cycle continues.
Looking Beat, Feeling Fine: FX Makeup and Male Bondage
Since I've done drag and know a thing or two about makeup, I've liked the idea of doing someone's makeup while they're tied up. I've always liked the scene in Bride of Chucky when the titular Chucky and Tiffany hold a young couple hostage and Tiffany has the girlfriend tied up and does her makeup. I didn’t find this scene particularly arousing, but it was fun. It scratches a particular queer and horror itch for me. Perhaps I like how these monstrous figures, talking killer dolls, looked at these young attractive people and wanted to possess their bodies, even going as far as to say that these people's bodies would be like apartments to them because they planned to move onto different human bodies. It's almost like queer people wanting to embody straight, conventional personas that don't have to pass as innocuous dolls to get by. I've toyed with the idea of tying someone up and doing some kind of makeup on him, but I'm hesitant about doing drag makeup because that would fall into sissification territory, which I'm just not into.
Even though makeup is generally seen as feminine, its use can be for masculine purposes as well. Of course, drag kings use makeup to masculinize a feminine face, like how drag queens use makeup to feminize a masculine face. FX makeup to make somebody look injured is another way to masculinize both makeup and the subject who wears the makeup because of the role that injury can play. It can fit into macho scenarios, butch somebody up by making them look tough, add realism and peril to restraint, etc.
At Camp Knotty, Kinkmate and I agreed that I will tie him up in a common area of the cabin we stayed in and do his makeup. When campers weren't resting or having private sessions, they'd typically do things out in the open where everyone else in the house can see and interact. I felt like this would give somewhat of a show that's different from what others at camp would do. This setting was really an environment where we were all encouraged to do our own things and invite others in. Doing his makeup out there is how we got pictures of the process, which I really wanted captured. After that, we took things to the garage for the actual shoot because the atmosphere was gritty and more appropriate for what I had in mind.
After doing the shoot with Kinkmate, I joked that there were guys at Camp Knotty who were doing extreme impact play, so doing this makeup was my way of showing that I can be a bad bitch too. It's almost like showing other inmates that you aren’t to be fucked with in prison. I'm not that physically strong and I don't even know the first thing about fighting someone or even flogging, but I can at least make it seem that way in pictures through my own channels. When I reflect on what we did, I realize that I essentially used makeup to meet particular masculine standards. Cuts and bruises indicate toughness, but making them with face paint is a subversion. Beyond the queerness of what we do for gay kink or the sheer act of putting makeup on a tied up man, adding up to movie-like masculine ideals that I sexualize through artificial means is probably the queerest thing about this whole session.
Conclusion
Aside from the visuals, Fight Club also presents a critique of masculinity and how men who live in the comfort of modern consumerism can lead to apathy, then apathy ultimately influences rage-filled desires to reclaim masculinity and power by fighting and committing other violent acts to escape emasculating dosility. This all seems to be rooted in the uneventful boredom of America in the 90s, mixed with generation x's collective cynicism and feelings of meaninglessness, and a white masculine anxiety that women, among other types of people, and computers were going to take over. In patriarchal cultures, masculinity gets gatekept from queer people, as well as straight men because there's usually some man higher up who's in charge that exploits anyone who's under him.
I feel like queer men can probably channel our disenfranchisement from masculinity a little better because we have a particular culture and community of people with similar experiences and interests, as well as the fact that a lot of us seem aware and comfortable with the fact that we can't live up to heteronormative ideals. Straight men, on the other hand, have masculine ideals pretty much set and enforced by layers of tradition and expectations that get mixed and muddled with modernism. So, they have their dads and grandpas telling them how masculinity was defined in their day, which didn't include modern technology or cultural customs on one side, and more social progress (ie women's rights, civil rights, gay liberation, etc) and progressive influences that get scoffed at by older generations on the other.
Aside from kinksters having possibly violent sexual fantasies that involve abduction, hostage scenarios, or anything else we see in movies that might lead to being tied up, I feel like we also fantasize about being men who fit masculine ideals and wind up subdued. This probably comes from queers understanding heterosexuality and masculinity through an artificial, pop culture lens since most of us didn't have access to it as welcomed insiders combined with the fantasy of more exciting, perilous, and sexy things happening to us. This is not too far off from how drag presents its queer interpretations of heteronormative gender expressions. It's all using the bits and pieces of normative culture that interest us, and turning it into something queer that belongs to us. So, instead of somehow trying to convince others that I actually beat Kinkmate's face or even that I'm good at and experienced with impact play, I found my own way to create these images and fit a masculine mold.
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