In a former life, I studied drag in hopes of becoming a drag scholar. That didn't happen, but I learned a lot about gender performance and queerness from my studies. I chose to study drag because drag and general gender nonconformity always resonated with me. I found the gendered symbolism that people assign to artifacts (clothing, colors, etc) and behaviors (mannerisms, social roles, etc) fascinating and never felt 100% cis and male. The idea that being born as something you have no control over, then having to enact that identity to be a part of society and/or be read by society as such will always be interesting to me.
I love how with a few tweaks and particular outfits, I could either appear as a dapper gentleman or a pretty lady, as well as how dressing in particular ways influence a person's behavior and the ways that others look at and treat you. Some looks connote power and demand respect, and others influence things like invisibility, objectification, humiliation, etc. I believe that my fetish for clothing is an integral root for both my fascination with drag and my kinky desire for menswear.
I've always seen drag as an exercise in feminine power with queer men who can't prove themselves as powerful men because they fail at masculine heteronormativity, but use the masculinity that they were born with to operate as powerful women. They essentially subvert traditional, heteronormative gendered expectations by refusing to try succeeding at masculinity and instead succeed at their version of femininity, a queer femininity. When drag queens feminize their male bodies with corsets, padding, gaffs, makeup, wigs, etc, I see it as them queering their naturally masculine bodies by adding layers that don't convert them into women, but create a new idea of woman. Then, the performative behavior that comes with the look, as well as how a queen is treated and read, contribute to the layers of queerness. When people accept a queen's performance, either by trickery or just allowing a queen to be what she is, the world that surrounds her becomes a little more queer, which is what I think conservatives are scared of.
When I began to apply what I've learned about drag to my clothing fetish and male bondage, the actual queerness that's involved with male bondage really started to seep into me. The connection between drag and my clothing fetish was always obvious. While one puts femininity on a pedestal, the other one does the same thing with masculinity. However, I've never been sexually attracted to feminine clothing, only masculine clothing. So, while I love how much bandwidth femininity has for conveying sexuality, beauty, power, etc on an intellectual level, my sexual desire is wrapped up in the idea of masculine figures being sexually objectified and submissive. Since men are typically the ones in power and masculine figures typically represent authority, strength, and control, a preference for men in submissive positions is also a subversion of traditional gender norms.
This subversion works in both my clothing and bondage fetishes, especially when the two are combined. A man's outfit constructs his masculinity and power while bondage challenges that power. In other words, a man's masculine,"straight coded," sports gear, law enforcement uniform, Marlboro man cowboy wardrobe, executive realness suit, etc conveys traditional ideas of men and masculinity. Any of these looks can connote authority, privilege, physical superiority, wealth, respect, ruggedness, dignity, and/or command. The perceived masculine power of a suit can come with assumptions of intellectual, financial, or technical superiority that people attribute to doctors, lawyers, professors, businessmen, etc. The masculine power of athletic wear seems to be rooted in a more primitive form of masculinity that prioritizes physical superiority and agility, with an appreciation for muscular physiques and the uniforms that frame them. Then, there is the masculine power of law enforcement uniforms, which can also involve a liking for physical superiority, but the main appeal seems to come from conveying discipline and authority, as well as accessories that come with that (armor, handcuffs, weapons, etc). The masculinity of cowboys comes from ideas of the rugged, Old West, which connotes a time when society was essentially lawless and men had to grow their own crops, herd their own cattle, and fend for themselves.
However, when a man is bound and gagged, that constructed power gets subverted because the man has visibly lost power and control. When a man in any of the archetypically masculine looks I described gets tied up, the subversion is heightened because these men have been constructed as ultimately powerful and in control, but maybe he got outsmarted, physically overpowered, or coerced into submission. The restriction from bondage itself shows a lack of physical autonomy. A gag shows a lack of agency, since the subject can't speak for himself or call attention to others with ease or dignity. Struggling against restraints to no avail shows an obligation to remain helpless, while completely resigning to the predicament shows forfeit. A bound and gagged man is still masculine, but he either becomes a different type of masculine or his masculine appeal changes with the predicament now that he isn't in control. The man becomes vulnerable and with vulnerability, his body can be touched and objectified, he might become scared, compliant, and/or humiliated, and he's ultimately in a position of submission when he's expected to be dominant or prefer dominance by societal standards.
Getting back to what I said about drag involving layering feminine things over a masculine body, a tied up masculine figure pretty much does the same kind of layering. Like with drag, the base layer is still usually a male body; however, a man's masculine outfit is also part of the base layer. A hairy bear body under a lumberjack outfit, a taught figure under a baseball uniform, etc is all masculine and not constructing a feminine look. Therefore, the bondage that's added on top of that is the top layer. This layer doesn't necessarily feminize the masculine figure the way that drag does, but it nonetheless complicates the masculine body, as well as the socially constructed masculinity that his outfit conveys. Like drag, bondage can be physically uncomfortable, painful, and restrict movement. Like with how men who do drag seem to fail at masculinity in some way, but can excel at high femininity, male bondage allows the untrained, unathletic, and unwealthy to embody a version of these kinds of men when they're helpless and vulnerable. I can't play baseball, afford an Armani suit, engage in combat, or rob a bank, but I sure can pass as one of those men after an unfortunate circumstance that left them bound and gagged. On a social level, people act differently when they're tied up and others tend to treat tied up people differently. When people get restrained, they usually act more subdued, quiet down, pay closer attention, follow instructions, etc. When people are with a tied up person, they either laugh at them, take advantage of their loss of physical autonomy, feel more comfortable with objectifying them, get to physically silence them, ignore them without consequence, etc.
On a gendered level, this can seem like a form of feminization. Unlike drag where the feminization is more literal, bondage's feminization is implicit and symbolic because while masculinity is traditionally understood as powerful, femininity is understood as the opposite. This is obviously rooted in dichotomous ways of thinking that don't factor in things like the complications of queerness or feminine power. Even though modern concepts of gender have moved passed this dichotomous way of thinking, the idea of traditional gender dynamics, where women are subservient to men, still have a lasting impact and queerness exists somewhere in the middle.
Beyond the same-sex desire for full sexual reign over another man's body, it's queer to enjoy tied up men because the appeal is inherently subversive and taboo. Like with how drag's queerness comes from working against the desire to enact and embody a normative version of the sex one was born as, male bondage's queerness comes from the sexual desire for submissive men. While it's gender-conforming for men to embody and enact stereotypically masculine figures via roleplay, it's queer to desire those figures when they're helpless instead of powerful. It's also queer to want to be a helpless masculine figure. Whether or not the roleplay itself is sexual, the element of play and fantasy is queer in the sense that it's unusual for adults to engage in such endeavors. There's even a level of queerness to all of kink because it's an alternative to normative vanilla sexuality that comes with alienation and perceived perversion from common people not being able to understand it even though it's natural.
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