Gay sex columnist Dan Savage has issued some surprising advice to a married, straight-identifying man obsessed with kink.
“I’m extremely kinky, with an emphasis on extreme,” the reader, identified as “Brooding Over Unmet Needs Daily” writes. “To give an example, I love long-term and extremely restrictive bondage. Think full-body casts or getting locked up for an entire weekend. I’m a 32-year-old straight male who has been married for five years. In the last year, we opened up our marriage because my sexual desires were putting too much of a strain on the marriage.”
“Since then,” BOUND continues, “I’ve seen some other women but looking around I came to the realization that gay men have all the fun! I often see these incredibly intense sexual experiences that I so desire in amateur gay adult films or on various gay men’s fetish profiles. I think men have a higher propensity to pursue these kinds of things. I’ve been talking to a guy who shares a very similar set of kinks, and it’s been great. He showed me Recon, which has opened a whole new world up to me.”
“I’m struggling right now,” BOUND claims. “It’s like a battle between my identity as a kinkster/fetishist and my identity as straight. I think the former is going to win, but certain things concern me. I don’t know if I’ll feel repulsed to have, say, a d*ck in my mouth. And I don’t want the poor guy that I play with to have to deal with my own internal psychological drama. I grew up in a very rural area that was extremely homophobic. I was bullied and called a f*ggot constantly. I’ve just recently been feeling less shame about being kinky and now there’s this whole other level of shame that I am scared to contend with.”
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“Am I silly for considering doing stuff with men even though I’m a lot more attracted to women, just in order to fulfill these kinks?” BOUND wonders.
Savage, ever the sexual pragmatist, takes a bit of advice from adult film performer James “Heavy” Woelfel. Woelfel has made a career out of appearing in fetish videos.
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“Just like you, BOUND, Heavy was always turned on by extremely heavy bondage scenarios,” Savage notes. “That was the reason he chose ‘Heavy Bondage For Life’ as his porn name. And just like you, BOUND, Heavy once felt conflicted about getting tied by other men because he didn’t identify as gay or bisexual at the time.”
“Heavy’s identity ultimately did change,” he continues, “he now identifies as queer – but he wants you to know that your identity doesn’t have to change. ‘I view bondage the same as getting together with friends for a round of golf, or shooting hoops, watching a movie or game together,’ said Heavy. ‘I’ve had many bondage encounters that involved sex, but I’ve had even more that were simply about the bondage itself.’”
“What Heavy is suggesting here, BOUND, is that you can meet up with another guy for a heavy bondage scene and enjoy the bondage – and even get off on the bondage – without having ‘sex,'” Savage explains. “You can consent to being a guy’s bondage sub for an evening or a weekend without having to consent to sucking his d*ck or letting him f*ck your *ss.”
“So, how do you know if you’re interacting and negotiating with and possibly playing with the right kind of guys?,” Savage asks rhetorically. “In addition to trusting your gut – always trust your gut – check their references. If you’re meeting bondage tops on Recon, you can send messages directly to the guys listed as friends on their profiles. Someone with a lot of friends (and a lot of original play pics) is a much safer bet than someone with no friends or pics, BOUND, but if you’re tempted to play with someone without friends listed on his profile, ask to be put in touch with other men he’s played with. If he refuses, BOUND, don’t play with him.”
“’The gay men I played with when I was still identifying as straight were generally very respectful,’ added Heavy,” Savage relates. “’I did have a few experiences where my limits weren’t respected. But thankfully I’m okay and I learned from those experiences.’”
Sounds like BOUND has a lot of exploring to do.
cliche guevara
Inevitably some folks will come along and insist this guy is something other that straight or that he is a closet case. For those folks, your insistence on rigidly conforming to sexual identity is really killing a lot of exploration and fun for a bunch of people like this guy. So what if people don’t conform to your definitions of sexuality? Who is harmed? Nobody. Pull the stick out of your back side and let people be themselves.
Prowelsh56
I agree. There is now a constant theme of hijacking the identity of folks…and the gay community in particular is rather frenzied about it: we are not all QUEER and do not identify as such. LGBTQ – seems everyone needs to be the ” Q.” I think your response is very acurrate and well stated.
cliche guevara
@ Prowelsh56
It’s funny, I use the term queer for myself because it has no set definition. I appreciate the ambiguity because I don’t owe anyone an explanation of my sexuality.
Chrisk
I’ve always thought that bdsm was more about getting off to things like humiliation and control then actual sex.
barryaksarben
I met a guy at work who was so amazingly naturally masculine and after more than a few interactions he hinted at what he was into – which was tying people up and not any sexual contact at all. I was much younger and didnt think he was telling the whole truth so after a few more meetings we made a date and he took HOURS tying me up naked and he was a master at knots. Now , after tying me up and then just looking at me for awhile untied all his work and that was it. He did ask for a second date but I felt I didnt enjoy what happened enough to repeat. HE was cool about it but he was totally honest which taught me a good lesson. HE could have been straight for all I know or for the amount it mattered.
DarkZephyr
I certainly don’t believe the guy is secretly gay or that there is anything wrong with wanting to “play” with men in that way without having actual sex. I just think its sad that things are still such with society that he feels such psychological and emotional “turmoil” over it. He’s more afraid of being seen as gay than he is being found out as a kinky submissive fetishist.
Openminded
Very good point.
JamesBDallas
I am very much into BDSM and by far more of my experiences do not involve sex than actually do. Typically if the Dom is interested in sex as part of the scene it is negotiated up front. I am much more frustrated with guys who are only into vanilla sex not wanting to play because I am into BDSM and their thoughts that I am going to expect it when we have sex.
Donston
I’ve had experiences with a few guys who seemed more into being domination/punishment/fetishes than seemed genuinely into guys. Two of them I knew longterm. One continued to be “straight presenting”. The other eventually went the “I don’t believe in labels” route. I did notice that both began to get gay-panic-y and insecure and became a bit uncomfortable to be around, as they felt the need to constantly assert just how “not gay” and how into chicks they are.
Fetishes, paraphiliacs, fluidity, hyper-sensitive sexuality are all fairly common, and they can frequently affect sexual behaviors, identities and how people present themselves. As I’ve said tons of times here, sexuality is a very individual thing and it contains a lot of different elements (types and rates of attraction, arousal, desire, pleasure, indulged behaviors, fetishes, paraphiliacs, extent of sex drive). Everyone has their own dimensions, struggles, insecurities and psychology. And the gender, sexual, affection, affirmation, romantic, emotional investment, relationship comfort, commitment spectrum is wide and varied. As long as folks are being real with themselves and their partner/partners and also not out here being “problematic” or leech-like then they don’t really owe anyone else anything. But people also have to remember that being a guy who’s into his sex or being a male “queer” or having overall “gay” preferences, it isn’t just about if you really like sucking dick. It’s not even mostly about getting off or sexual acts. But because of the sensationalism of sex and sexual behaviors and because of phobias, insecurities, politics, sociology and the obsession with categories, we don’t truly break down the nuances of human nature and human connections.
Den
Bondage IS a sexual interaction whether or not there is penetration involved. Willing submission of one man to another in a bondage scene IS sexual submission even if nobody comes. You may be certain there are erections involved. This guy, and a surprising number of the men posting here are deluding themselves. If kink sites like Motherless.com or DarkFetishNet,com are any indication there is no shortage of woman who want to put men into bondage and appear quite skilled at it. This guy simply does not want to admit to a broader sexual identity and Savage is aiding his denial.
That is rather queer, in the original sense of the word.
Donston
If you’re really into BDSM then you’re probably “queer”, but that’s especially the case if you indulge a decent amount of BDSM with people who are not the opposite cis gender. That is not something this dude nor Dan wanted to admit. Instead, Dan mostly focused on re-affirming the guy’s desired sense of self.
So much of today’s queer media has become about affirming everyone’s sense of self or self-identity and not mostly focused on the nuances/dimensions/individuality of sexuality, pleasure, preferences, love, motivations, psychology, the gender, sexual, affection, romantic, emotion, commitment spectrum. However, at the end of the day, you can’t control what identities people embrace or don’t and can’t control how people present themselves. While sex and identities are so attached to ego and sociology. No matter how you answer, it’s frequently gonna be a lose-lose situation. I personally don’t have a big problem with this dude still wanting to be “straight presenting”. Identities are a mess. Many folks are embracing gay, queer, bi/pan identities all at the same time. Many people see these identities (or choose to use these identities) as more about preferences or behaviors or love/commitment ambitions. While apps and social media have made this stuff almost entirely about how you wish to promote yourself to the world. You got guys who have never been in a legit hetero relationship and spend so much time on shit like Grindr and gay forums, but they say they’re “straight” in their bio’s.
People and their dimensions, their identities, their journeys and why they do what they do is incredibly messy and individual. I just push that people don’t lie to themselves, try not to actively manipulate folks, don’t lie to their significant other. But this is where identity, sexual politics, identity politics have become a barrier to honesty and self-actualization and to understanding each other.
Consider This
Cannot figure out why this guy is married…
cliche guevara
You really don’t need to. Marriage is between two individuals and their marriage is something they get to define. Defining a marriage based on societal expectations is goofy.
Bosch
How about we stop defaulting everyone to straight? It’s inaccurate and it perpetuates socially enforced heterosexuality. Am I the only one who sees this as a manifestation of internalised homophobia? If labels are superfluous, then ALL labels are superfluous, not just the queer ones.
Donston
I pretty much agree with this perspective. The fact that everyone is filtered through hetero-normalcy and gender normalcy is the biggest problem. “Straight” is still used as a default when likely at least 30% of the population does not fit perfectly into hetero-normalcy throughout their entire lives. The “everyone is presumed ‘straight’ until they express otherwise” view of things is incredibly dated and just further asserts “straight”/hetero dominance. While a lot of the “I don’t believe in labels” people are less against labels and more about attacking “gay” and wanting to make sure they’re not viewed as “gay”. Anything not completely hetero and gender “normal” is made to look like something different when perhaps that represents almost half of the population. Not being completely hetero and gender normal needs to be treated as pedestrian as it actually is. But it takes almost all of society viewing each other’s sexuality, preferences, psychology as individual and accepting how varied the gender, sexual, affection, romantic, emotion, commitment spectrum is. And it takes folks not being full of insecurities and indulging a lot of manipulation. We’re clearly not there yet.
scrough
Not my body. Not my fetish. Not my business.
I hope he finds out what he feels comfortable identifying himself as. I don’t have an opinion on it.
Joshua333
It’s not queer but also Straight Men don’t deserve fun so they shouldn’t do it.