The Dungeon Wild

When we enter a dungeon space, we voluntarily leave the rational mind at the door. We enter the Wild, a dark jungle where instinct and pack dynamics reign. When we retreat, we often can be left with fear and confusion.

"I looked at my back and I could not believe what I did last night," wrote my boy after an intense impact/flogging/single tail scene. In the dungeon space, he had given himself to me with abandon. "I want to do this for you," he said in deference to my Dominance. And baring his back in the bar hours later, he beamed with pride beside me. However, at home before the mirror before going to bed, he contemplated the welts on his back and his logical mind countered the remnants of our scene. His mind puzzled over the darkness of his instinctual self.

Understanding that logic does not exist in the dark wild, we try to balance the experience with a discourse of consensuality. We often reason why we do these activities using psychology or spirituality to validate our involvement. These are but feeble attempts to understand the animal inside, the instinct that encourages us over and over again to play in the dungeon.

In the last ten years we have witnessed the acknowledgment of puppy play, and of animal play in general. Using fetish, we conjure up the animal within to enact power dynamics that are as real as our cultural interactions from day to day. As Leathermen we revel in animal play, delving further and further into its depths. Rather than basing the success of our play on technical prowess, arguing kink into the cultural discourse, we continue to invent new forms of play that probe the instinctual depths.

"- and entertain guests tonight."

When I was younger I recall a TV advertisement that depicted a housewife. Dressed in stiletto heels, a pinched waist dress, a perfect bob hairdo, and a big smile, the effervescent woman walked around the tiled floor squeezing out floor wax. Effortlessly she squeezed out liquid cleaner on the floor and spread it around with a shiny mop. Silent and always happy, she was the icon of the early 60s wife. Such advertisements were common.

During the last two decades in the community, I have observed Sirs who seem to believe in a similar paradigm relative to boys. They chastize their boys openly if they are not always pleasant, well-scrubbed, silent, and busy. They reason that boys exist only relative to Sirs, icons of service in the community. Always ready to drop to their knees or to lay back with legs in the air.

A number of years ago during a lecture at the release of his latest book, Armestad Maupin suggested that older Gay men display a form of displaced misogny when they treat young men as objects. A feminization of young men, always passively sexy and ready for action. I would extend that observation to include men in positions of power.

In Leather we talk about the EXCHANGE of power in our play, a dialogue between Top and bottom, Dom and sub, Master and slave, or Sir and boy. Understanding this, the majority of experienced Sirs work with negotiated protocols that provide security to their boys and facilitate this exchange. Their boys are free to express themselves next to their Sirs within these parameters, even to "misbehave" at times. Otherwise, without an active exchange, boys become nothing more than parodies of the perfect, pre-liberated wife.