I don't know how else to explain a group of queer kinksters spending a weekend together while wearing various types of butch menswear, engaging in rough housing, having labido-filled energy, and Bon Jovi blaring from a Bose minispeaker other than a shared desire to reclaim and perform masculinity. Even though some of us had experience with typically masculine environments, like college fraternities, sports teams, or serving in some branch of the military, a lot of us probably haven't been exposed to those environments because we've distanced ourselves from typically heterosexual male pursuits in interest of our own survival and social safety. It's likely that many who have been in fraternities or the military had to either be in the closet, because of Don't Ask, Don't Tell for the armed forces, or at least pass in some way to make surrounding straights feel more comfortable with having a gay in their circles.
Even if typically masculine environments can be fun to a queer person, I feel as if having a guard up if you're not part of the majority group is necessary. People who are prejudiced against you aren't always going to overtly reveal themselves. Impostor syndrome, not feeling like you belong and don't deserve to be where you are, is also very much a thing for queer men in masculine spaces. So, even if your crew of straight people say that they're okay with the gays, it might be hard to fully believe or trust them. It's similar for racial minorities who wind up in groups of mostly white people or women who are surrounded by straight men. As a kinkster, it's even hard to be entirely comfortable when you're surrounded by vanilla gays. Like, I'll take them over straight people, but it's still difficult to comfortably be myself around a lot of them.
In settings like Camp Knotty, on the other hand, it's not only a lot easier for me to be myself but it's also an opportunity for a group of kinky queer men to engage in typically masculine behaviors on our own terms, in a safe environment. Instead of trying to pass as straight or trying to make straight people comfortable, we got to act on our sexual urges, within boundaries of consent and other limits, while embodying personas that reflect bullies, drill sergeants, frat brothers, movie villains, or other kinds of doms. Since everybody had different fantasies they wanted to enact, and many of us already knew each other fairly well, it wasn't a complete free-for-all for anyone to receive harsh treatment that they didn't ask for. At the beginning of camp, we were even asked to fill out forms that outline our interests and limits. Unfortunately, since my wrist was still recovering from an injury, I had to ask that little strain be put on that wrist, which also meant that I couldn't be tickled or handled too roughly if I got tied up, and everybody obliged.
A Little About Camp Knotty
Three years ago, Shibari Shawn thought of the idea to get several kinksters together in a cabin for some secluded bondage fun. He and Tieguywyo Shawn put their heads together to make the first event and future events happen. I didn't attend the first one, but from what I hear, it was a skeleton of what the event has evolved into just a year later because people showed up and left at different times, which made it kind of transient.
I was invited to the second Camp Knotty in 2023, which seemed fairly organized. The crew was assembled early in the year. There was a group chat for all of us to get to know each other better and forms were shared to gauge our commitment and gather funds for room and board. Later, there were forms that asked for our arrival and departure flights if we were flying, as well as who was driving since the cabin is a few hours from the Denver Airport. Aside from being secluded from a city, this Camp Knotty was a lot like other air bnb group bondage weekends without any real structure. We were free to play with each other as we wished as long as people were up for it.
The majority of the guys from the second Camp Knotty were invited to the third one, plus a few new guys. For this one, planning began earlier, towards the end of 2023. Most of the planning things were the same as the previous event; however, the entire weekend was arranged around particular bondage fantasies that attendees submitted in advanced. Last year, we submitted fantasies, but they were left up to us to fulfill them. This year, each of us were put into teams and made responsible for making another attendee's fantasy a reality. For example, several people wanted to be caught by surprise and ambushed into bondage, some people wanted to experience hazing or have certain pictures or videos taken, etc.
We also had suggested dress codes for certain times of day, which aligned with when some fantasies were timed to take place. For example, our first dress code included cowboy gear, so if someone's fantasy involved tied up cowboys or something, their fantasy was assigned to be executed that evening. They were also timed for appropriate times of day, so if someone wanted to be dragged out of bed for a kidnap fantasy, that scenario would be timed for night time or early morning. Other dress codes involved leather gear, military uniforms, and jock/sporty looks. There were also fantasies that didn't involve these kinds of gear that were scheduled to happen in-between designated dress code times.
Before moving onto the next section, I want to emphasize that Camp Knotty is invite only. It's not something open admission that anyone can just buy tickets for or something. When I was first invited, I knew about half of the guys on the guest list and really knew about half of those guys personally, so they knew that I was experienced with group kink weekends and were able to vouch for me. If somebody knows me and would like to join, the best I can do is suggest you to the group and organizers, but my say alone probably wouldn't have much pull. This is also the kind of event that any group of kinksters that really know each other can pull off. It just takes a bit of organizing, planning, creativity, and financial contributions.
The Realness and Masculine Drag at Camp
If the mention of themed gear and enacted hazing fantasies didn't allude to it sooner, there was a fair amount of masculine performativity at camp. The performative aspect of drag involves a combination of playing up an exaggerated character, as well as authentically embodying a different persona. Even though female impersonation plays with over-the-top ideas of women and femininity, there has to be a level of grounded authenticity to make the performance believable, which is where the idea of realness comes from. This performance can also play into ideas of passing, not necessarily as straight, but as a queer anomaly that manages to fit into the straight world.
The play that we did at Camp Knotty was what I'd consider masculine drag because cowboys, soldiers, leathermen, and jocks are probably the most exaggerated and idealized kinds of masculine figures in western culture. Standards of realness vary widely because there are standard ways to wear a specific sports or military uniforms, but standards for leather and cowboy gear might be a bit looser even though they have their respective conventions. However, just like there are right and wrong ways of tying someone up, there is such a thing as correct clothing gear and ways to wear them, while what would be considered a Halloween costume isn't really acceptable for achieving realness.
Not only does authenticity add plausibility to kink personas and scenarios, it also shows knowledge about different, conventionally masculine worlds, not unlike when queer people try to pass as straight, as well as an attention to detail and the effort to be detailed. For example, when discussions about doing a frat party at camp emerged, the few campers who have been in fraternities were appointed for advice regarding hazing practices and general decisions to be made for such a party. When we needed guidance for how to wear our military uniforms, we sought it from members who've served in the military. Even though all of this was playful, kinky, and just for our group, the authenticity was important.
People could argue that "this is just drag" when a queen's look or performance isn't up to snuff, but anyone who has seen RuPaul's Drag Race knows that it's a bit more complicated than simply having fun playing dress up. In this respect, advice and guidance for putting looks together and tying people up was provided at Camp Knotty. There was also a bit of reading and shade when missteps were made. Even though it ranged from catty comments to mere side-eye, this wasn't exactly disrespect or bullying. In the spirit of realness, reading and shade are basically ways of coaching standards of realness to other queer people. It could just be banter for laughs, but it ultimately has a constructive purpose, using a bit of playful shame to demonstrate how some might judge them in hopes of correcting missteps. It is also better to be read by friends and people who know you and seem to genuinely have your best interests at heart compared to randoms in the wild.
So, when one throws shade about choices that are made about one's themed outfit or way of restraining somebody, it's usually calling out the lack of authenticity. For example, if someone is in dark green, Vietnam-era camo gear with beige, desert storm boots, the incongruity of combining dark camo with light boots loses realness and authenticity not only because they're from different time periods and the colors totally contrast, but also because the point of camo is to blend into an environment and dark camo in a desert or light boots in a jungle would obviously stick out. Or if ropework or a gag are impractical for properly restraining or silencing a person, it loses realness points because the bondage isn't doing its job of restraining or silencing. Reading almost functions as a way of guiding a new colleague to not make mistakes on the job again or showing a young queer what to do to survive in the heteronormative world. The only difference is losing a bit of the veil of decorum by being more direct, yet making it playful and entertaining.
In many cases, if a queer person doesn't know how to pass in environments that are hostile towards queers, the consequences can be dire. On a lesser extreme, knowing how to serve realness, by having a cultured understanding of different discourse communities and making the effort to pay attention to details is a way of earning respect within the community. Like showing that you're cultured, it demonstrates that you're knowledgeable and that you care. When you apply other people's feedback to what you do, it shows that you have thick skin and that you listen. The ability to acquire certain gear, as well as an openness to other people's input and willingness to learn from others in the community seem to be key for achieving realness.
In with Queer Masculinity, Out with Toxic Masculinity
Beyond correctly looking the part, "walking the walk" also played a role in the masculine performance at Camp Knotty. Many of the fantasies fulfilled at camp involved some sort of hazing and degradation:
On cowboy night, one attendee submitted a fantasy that involved being tied up, stripped, and degraded around a bunch of cowboys that would make him lick their boots.
A different fantasy involved a mechanic getting ambushed by several guys who tie him up, get dirt on him, and degrade him in the process: first, teasing him for being so clean and looking like "he hasn't worked a day in his life," then for being dirty and disgusting.
When we all wore our military gear, we hazed one camper by taping him to a spine board and carrying him outside, where we got him muddy and, of course, said degrading things to him.
These roles had layers of realness, but weren't what I'd call reading. The realness in hazing came from 1) the leads that the rest of the group had to go off of from those who've engaged with hazing in the past, and 2) confidently serving and selling the degradation. Like with the female illusions in drag, where there's some level of believably that the performer is female until she does something to remind audiences that things aren't what they seem, a major part of being a good dom in most forms of kink play involves convincing their sub that they're in complete control. Doms must serve their role naturally and with confidence, which feels especially important when being verbal in a scene. Doms are expected to sound convincing because they need to seem stern and a little intimidating. Signs of doubt or hesitation from a dom will shatter the constructed illusion and lose realness because it reminds other participants that the play that's happening is fake. Even though everything in kink play is relatively fake, the point of role-playing a scene is to escape from reality for a moment and essentially "lose yourself" in a frame of mind for an immersively erotic experience.
I say that degradation is different from reading because it only takes place while participants are in character during a scene. Degrading words aren't meant to help anyone, but simply be mean and hurtful in a safe and erotic way. I like to describe degradation as 'mental impact play' because it intentionally inflicts pain onto a sub who wants it for sexual pleasure. Physical and mental impact play are both stimuli that hurt in a good and fun way. Degradation let's people sit with certain words and disrespectful treatment that feels novel because most people usually don't have to face that in their everyday lives. Like with anything else in kink role-play, you get to experience the real sensation of hurtful words, but in settings where it isn't real and those who degrade you don't actually mean it. In fact, they are doing it to satisfy you. The fun here seems to come from tricking your brain into believing that you're actually being dressed down and verbally torn apart, maybe to the extent that you start thinking that you are a worthless sex slave, when everything is actually fine.
During the jock morning/early afternoon, an attendee's fantasy of being ambushed while domming two other campers and "forced" to watch his two subs get tortured was fulfilled. One of his subs is really into physical impact play and took various intense beatings throughout the weekend. I don't recall what exactly was done to him during this fantasy because I was sexually handling the tied up dom, but I recall hearing the sub scream behind me while the dom chuckled out of pure delight over what he saw. Watching the torture really aroused him. The next day, when we were all outside and in our military gear, this sub was strung up and flogged. The lashings themselves seemed to echo throughout the entire mountain we were staying, which was only rivaled by the pained screams that responded to the beatings. This felt like a legit war prisoner scenario.
These examples of physical and mental impact play are even more overt examples of the masculine performativity at camp. However, instead of simply serving looks and influencing others to do the same, this version of performance involved endurance. In most masculine settings, a way to demonstrate masculinity and earn respect from the guys is to show how tough you are and what you can endure. Perceived toughness can either come from simply convincing other people that you can kick ass or that you're able to take a beating. The former works by making people scared of fucking with you while the latter shows that if people fuck with you, you can handle it.
This masculine posturing can obviously overlap with toxic masculinity and the homophobia and femphobia that comes with it. However, I think that the performative and kinky aspect of this type of play helps us avoid that. As kinksters, we all understand and respect each other's limits and encourage each other to communicate their limits to keep play consensual. So, nobody gets flogged, tied up, degraded, or tickled if they didn't ask for it, and there's no disrespect or retaliation when someone opts out of a session or certain kind of treatment. Everybody is wired differently and likes and can handle different things, which is something that most people who are experienced with kink play understand and honor.
On the other hand, I think that these kinds of groups enjoy painting these scenes with a performatively toxic masculine brush to add to the authenticity, as well as maybe re-live the scenarios that we assume that straight men in uniforms, fraternities, sports teams, or even gentleman's clubs experience. Based on what we hear from other people's accounts, movies, and the recorded shenanigans of uniformed soldiers hazing each other for birthdays or what-have-you, we enact similar kinds of behaviors somewhat ironically. As people who have been around straight men and in straight environments, most of us can reasonably imagine how these settings operate with sexually repressed energy, goofy horseplay, playful banter, dick measuring, etc, so we might do some of that with a wink and a nudge.
Even though we balk at the sexual repression and peacocking that straight men do to assert their dominance and protect their masculinity, we ultimately recreate these kinds of settings because we find them arousing. After all, we're gay men and extremely macho settings are gold mines for unadulterated masculine posturing. Then, when horsing around turns into guys duct-taping their buddies or making them do humiliating things, we find our in as bondage kinksters. Even though straight male tomfoolery isn't meant to be sexy, it's sexy to us because it's exotic and masculine. Straight men being comfortable enough with each other and fooling around is a world that many queer men haven't experienced firsthand because many straight men aren't as comfortable around queer people and those environments typically aren't understood as hospitable to queer people. It's appealing to us because we like men and there's something real about these settings, yet most of us have been excluded from them. So, we essentially imitate these environments while also adding kink, sex, affection, and all kinds of other queer qualities.
Conclusion
Unlike straight men who just stumble into settings that suit them with little to no effort, queer kinksters have to deliberately create settings that make us feel safe and welcomed with other like-minded individuals. Kinksters that really see eye-to-eye on things often live in different parts of the country, even sometimes different parts of the world. We often have to vet each other through mutual friends, insights we can get from social media, and/or meet each other casually before playing just to gauge safety and mutual interests. Since what we like and like to do isn't simple, there isn't a way that gathering and connecting with each other can be simpler because we can't let just anyone in and we want very particular, peculiar things.
There were cherishable moments that felt ridiculous at camp -- having someone hang from the ceiling, over the dinner table, as we ate and fed him; two guys having their cocks and balls tied to the same hanging pot that contained chains for more weight; having nonchalant chatter while someone in the room was screaming from an orgasm or being beaten -- where we'd turn to each other and say something like "I love being gay!" Moments like these allowed us to acknowledge the absurdity of what we're doing while also celebrating it because regardless of the lives we live outside of camp, these aren't moments we can normally live in. It really is a weekend where fantasies can come to life and we can safely do insane, hyper sexual things without being judged, and even be encouraged to fulfill our strange desires that other campers could help with.
Even though we are all men with various backgrounds and levels of experience, we essentially did masculine cosplay because it contributed to realizing our sexual fantasies, as well as gave us an opportunity to engage with idealized forms of masculinity that are foreign to us. Nobody in this group was trying to pass as anything else because we got to be comfortable with being our absolute selves before returning to the reality of our everyday lives. Even though we weren't trying to pass, the Camp Knotty environment gave us opportunities to perform. We got to look and act like the kinds of men we idealize and serve realness, or be read, instead of persecuted, when we didn't. What we got from combining masculine looks with physical endurance, degradation, sexual dominance, male bonding, hair metal and country music, fetishism, sexual openness, and intimacy was one extremely queer experience. An experience that was our own.
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