Since both hard and softcore bondage involve making people into inanimate objects to an extent, another common scenario in softcore male bondage is when men are bound and gagged simply for the purpose of getting them out of the way. The objectification in more hardcore bondage seems to be literal in the sense that indicators of a submissive’s individuality is stripped away and replaced with leather and rubber gear that cover his body and face, but emphasize his genitals and orifices. This makes a submissive’s body more of an object because when a person is naked, they essentially become a blank canvas since artifacts like clothing often convey personality and character, which leaves them only with what nature has given them. When the submissive is mummified, hooded, or put into some kind of leather or rubber suit, their unique skin markings like birth marks, tattoos, or scars are covered up while their genitals and orifices may still be accessible, which emphasizes that they are only meant to let their bodies function as the dom does what he pleases to them. Any sort of struggle or protest from the subs in this kind of bondage doesn’t really seem to be in anyone’s interest because I think that hardcore bondage is more about escaping the world where you’re expected to be an individual who has to fight for autonomy by just completely giving in and letting another person take the wheel for an amount of time. Therefore, instead of basically turning men into sex toys in hardcore bondage, or abducting them out of lust, men in the scenarios I’d like to discuss in this section are potential foils to another person’s plan that need to be restrained and kept quiet to make executing an intended plan go smoother.
Typically, these men are found in action movies where a grand heist or great escape is taking place, but there are extraneous people who are bound to get in the way. So, a lot of the men in these scenarios are cops or security guards, but they can also be homeowners who are being robbed, hostages who are being used as bait or leverage, or anybody who can and will add bumps in the captor’s road by calling the cops or putting up a fight if they aren’t restrained. Even though this scenario is distinctly different from the objectification involved with hardcore bondage because hardcore bondage isn’t really scenario-driven, men who are tied up to be taken out of commission are still objectified to an extent. Since these men aren’t kidnapped for personal or sexual reasons, they are essentially reduced to being objects because the person who ties them up doesn’t have distinct intentions to harm these men and only see them as obstacles that need to be dealt with. Instead of tying these guys up out of vengeance or because you want them or their bodies, you just need them to be quiet, immobile, and possibly even hidden away to buy you enough time to complete your task and get away. Even though these men aren’t necessarily in danger, they don’t always know that and are usually unhappy with being restrained, which drives them to put up a struggle and call for help as best as they can.
One of these scenarios that I have found particularly amusing is when a guy is being held hostage, but isn’t bound and gagged until the “bad guy” has to leave for a bit. Therefore, the hostage is “taken care of” so he won’t be able to run away, call the cops, or call out for help. I think I find this so appealing because the hostage might take the bad guy’s show of respect from not initially tying him up as a sign of friendship, making the hostage think that he is establishing trust with his captor, which might make an opportunity to escape possible with either emotional manipulation or just general leverage. However, when the captor has to unexpectedly assert his dominance by tying his hostage up, the rug is kind of swept out from under him when the captor has to leave the hostage alone for a few hours. The captor has to ensure that his hostage won’t flee or call attention to himself by neighbors or pedestrians, so he’ll likely leave the hostage in a strict, immobilizing position, away from any doors or windows, with an especially muffling gag and the TV left on high. If the hostage thought he was gaining leverage to escape, the look of surprise and awkwardness in the hostage’s face when he’s firmly manhandled by the captor he was starting to underestimate, not to mention his look of disgust and humiliation if the captor stuffs something gross like a dirty rag, underwear, or socks into his mouth, is extremely arousing to me. Then a cherry on top of that would be getting to see the hostage’s look of frustration and exhaustion when his captor returns long after he said he was going to return to find his hostage in the exact same place he was left in.
I think what I find so arousing about this kind of scenario is not only the somewhat cocky hostage getting unexpectedly restrained after thinking that the worst part of his captivity has already happened, but the thought that the captor probably always had this trick up his sleeve, but didn’t feel the need to alert his hostage of it until the time was right. This illustrates a dominant’s strategic thinking to prevent any unneeded panic in his submissive until he’s being restrained, as well as the dom’s quiet confidence that the hostage is still under his control even when he isn’t restrained, then remains under his control when he’s no longer with his sub because of his new restraints. The captive might have thought that he was seen as an equal to his captor or maybe even had a secret upper hand on him, then realizes that he was painfully mistaken when his captor calmly subdues him with little effort or regard for his comfort or pleas.
When these scenarios play out in media, the hostage always insists that binding and gagging him isn’t necessary because he would still be cooperative without his captor’s supervision, but the captors usually know it’s best to not trust the people they are holding against their will and to tie up and gag them anyways. Then, the subs usually try to get out from their restraints and/or alert someone of their captivity. Sometimes it works and the captives get away, but I of course prefer the times when they don’t, so the dom can return to a still tied up sub who is fatigued from struggling and frustrated that all the struggling got him nowhere, leaving him in the exact position he was left in hours earlier. Here, the dom’s intention to tie up and gag his sub at some point, confidence that his restraints will keep his hostage in place, and ability to keep his sub successfully restrained for a period of time shows a level of control that is very appealing to a bondage fetishist. Not only might the captor be completely capable of effectively preventing a grown man from escaping his clutches without much thought or effort, but his ability to see men as expendable objects that should and will be taken out of commission is somewhat terrifying in the real world, yet tantalizing in the bondage world.
As someone who is human, our captor most likely isn’t immune to being hurt, overpowered, or manipulated (even though their depictions in movies often suggest otherwise), but he seems to understand that other men can be. Regardless of how physically capable, brave, or intelligent a man can be, he is still susceptible to fearing for his life, being manipulated, and being rendered physically incapable with restraints. So, doms in these scenarios seem to have a clear understanding of these human limitations in others, which makes it easier for them to take advantage of the fact that a man is likely to comply with someone who is threatening him with a weapon or somebody he is comfortable with, then restrain him in a way that he won’t be able to get loose without any help. Regardless of who the captive is, he is likely to try fighting for his life or freedom when put into a dangerous position, so it is protocol to prevent him from being able to do that or get in the captor’s way. Regardless of how rugged or cool a guy is, any man who is helpless or desperate is liable to call out for help, so strictly gagging him should also be protocol. This sort of universal view of men obviously contradicts traditional views and depictions of men and masculinity because it renders any kind of man (whether he is gentle or rough, young or old, smart or dumb, charming or unlikable) vulnerable to being in this kind of situation, while most movies and TV shows usually only make certain types of male characters susceptible to these kinds of perilous situations as a way of preserving the audience’s masculinist respect for these characters. The universality and objectification also makes the captor’s domination over a submissive captive intrinsically sexless because the reason for the bondage is just to keep somebody out of the way without any implicit desires for the captive.
Granted, this is based in a “Hollywood-ization” of reality, but I’ve found movie and TV bondage more appealing than bondage porn because it’s illusion to reality is more believable compared to porn that centers around bondage. As stated above, men can just be in a criminal’s way, which makes them have to be contained. I think that part of that connection to reality is appealing because it ignores the fact that people like me fetishize tied up men, which leads me to think that some attractive guys just happen to find themselves bound and gagged for being in the wrong place at the wrong time instead of being sexualized. Therefore, instead of getting turned on by the the thought of a guy getting tied up because someone else likes for him to be tied up, I find it more arousing if a guy gets tied up for a platonic reason: he just needed to be kept from running away or calling the cops. Put simply, even though there is more danger involved with more ambiguous outcomes, I am more drawn to bondage scenarios that appear to be more “authentic” than bondage that is obviously premeditated between people who have a bondage fetish.
This sort of fascination is not to indicate that I don’t like the intersection between regular sex and bondage like in bondage porn where captives are taken advantage of sexually, because I do. However, I think that I enjoy idealizing the fact that bondage can be on the table for some situations without being about sex until I or another fetishist makes it about sex. For some reason, I adore that most bondage fetishists can get off to scenes from terrible movies or TV shows that nobody else remembers except for us because they have a sexy bondage scene that was featured on a website like Guys in Trouble. So, our culture immortalizes those scenes for that “wrong” reason. Therefore, recognizing bondage as a fetish, as in something that is sexualized without being inherently sexual, I like the idea of keeping bondage as far from normative sexuality as it can be by getting off to fully clothed men who were bound and gagged for reasons that don’t have to do with lust or sex. However, this preference of mine might be rooted in some kind of internalized homophobia or homonormativity. Since gayness, or queerness to be exact, is structured as the antithesis to heterosexuality and the idea of normalcy that’s tied to heterosexuality, internalized homophobia and homonormativity is kind of a way of “reducing the queer” and emphasizing the normal and heterosexual. Therefore, maybe I don’t like more sexually aware, hardcore bondage because it’s instantly read as queer and sexual, so I prefer bondage that can appear normal even though it’s probably weirder since the sex appeal is kind of hidden.
I say this because gay culture seems to really revolve around the shaming of themselves and other queer people, and fetishizing the heterosexual. I know, I’ve fallen prey to this too, but we tend to crush on straight guys more than we do gay guys, and I don’t know if the appeal we attribute to them is the thought that they are better than us, if there’s just something we like about the unsexualized dynamic we have with them that makes us want to sexualize it, if we see it as some kind of obstacle or hurdle we can deconstruct with the right amount of finessing, or some combination of all of these. We see a lot of this “deconstructing” in regular gay porn, and a shit load of it in our porn too, and what these scenarios usually share is our placement of straight guys on pedestals, then some kind of sexual break down where we kind of make them one of us or maybe even lesser than us because we “broke” them. What I think I like about non-sexual bondage porn, which we “construct” as bondage porn, is that it doesn’t really matter if the captive is hetero or queer.
The invader just wants you wrapped up, nice and neat, and out of his way regardless of how cute you are or your sexuality, which seems like an added loss of control to the captive.
Since we are talking about sexual stimuli, I think that particular moments are essential. For example, more elaborate pornos have general story lines behind sex scenes and the sex scenes are obvious focal points of a porno. Even though sex scenes are often exaggeratedly drawn out compared to times when we actually have sex, they are capturing and emphasizing moments that we particularly enjoy before sex, like the flirtatious interactions we have with someone that lead to sex, or the little things we like to do during sex, like taking our partner’s clothes off for them. Although I don’t believe that anybody watches porn for their captivating premises, story lines and context are usually what keep people hooked because they explain who characters generally are, why characters are where they are, and what the sex is “accomplishing.” Therefore, even though these stories don’t need to be all that Oscar-worthy or elaborate, audiences seem to need to make sense of the fantasies that are playing out. And, the better the quality of a general concept and/or acting in pornos, the more real the fantasy feels to us. Furthermore, as the old saying goes, “a picture is worth a thousand words,” basic visual things like an actor’s costume and their nonverbal communication (such as posture, facial expressions, moaning, body movements, etc.) can add loads of context and characterization without a whole lot of story.
So, seeing a man dressed the way that you do getting sexually pursued in a type of setting that you’re familiar with, you’d be able to put some pieces together and relate to a fantasy scenario without that much story being involved. After all, we are primarily concerned with emphasizing particular moments without having to know novel-length plot points to understand what is happening. As for bondage porn, the same principle should apply, but instead of capturing moments of sex, the moments are geared towards situations where a man would be tied up. Thus, establishing a general connection to who a guy is, why he’s being tied up, and how he’ll act when he’s tied up makes these tailored bondage fantasies feel more authentic, which makes the fantasy more arousing because it’s easier for audiences to imagine themselves or people they know in it.
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