Interview: The Bondage Gaze Podcast.
- Southern Suitor
- Jan 30, 2023
- 14 min read
Updated: Jul 21, 2023
@ThoughtfulFetishist and @SubStandardSammy may nor may not have interviewed me for a certain kinky podcast recently. They wrote the questions. These are the notes I prepared.
Origin Story.
One of the questions I most often ask of fellows in the suit & tie fetish community is where this all came from, when this all started for you. So here's mine.
As for clothing: my earliest memories were me being fascinated with my father's military dress uniforms. I would sneak into his closet and try them on. I got caught once, and was scared shitless, so I had to get cleverer about hiding my interests. I would secretly look forward to days in which we had to "dress professionally" for presentations or awards ceremonies at school. I went to college in an urban campus, I began noticing all of the beautifully dressed businessmen and lawyers. I started hanging out in the menswear stores where they got all of their fine attire, and building my collection. I was "making a professional wardrobe," after all, so that was my excuse. My first job after college was an administrative job—professional dress required—so I ended up spending irresponsible amounts of money at the Brooks Brothers outlet. It felt like I could explore my fetish in plain sight, and get away with it
Many suit and tie fetish guys will point to school uniforms (which leads to a later fascination with enforced dress codes), or teachers, coaches, priests, relatives, or father-figures who would regularly wear suits and ties (which led to a later fascination with authority and power exchange). For me, the first inklings began with movies. There really weren’t that many guys who suited up in my daily life, so the fantasy of film gave shape to those early desires. Indiana Jones and James Bond movies always featured well-dressed protagonists getting into compromising situations. Think of Harrison Ford wading through the catacombs in his three-piece tweed suit.
I also remembered early fantasies of suited businessmen or finely dressed archaeologists getting stranded in jungles or on desert islands, their civilized attire slowly shredding as they scrapped for survival. My "Walk in the Park" series explores this trope in greater detail.
Onlilne, my first step into the suit and tie fetish community was the old MenAtPlay website and Recon, back in 2005. Back then, MenAtPlay was owned by a fellow who went by the pseudonym of Matt. His original version of MenAtPlay was centered around suits and ties and the wet and messy fetish, and it was closely associated with several Yahoo groups dedicated to those themes. Matt now runs an online shop for ties, braces, and silk scarves with his husband Neil. But they both still keep that hint of wet-and-messy kink in their content, with Neil occasionally dunking himself in a swimming pool in his expensive suits and ties.
On Recon, I started connecting with my first suit and tie fetish guys. One of them was Tim, who has also started his own brand of ties that are designed to form very large, double-windsor knots. (They're also great for bondage, by the way.) Tim was very open and friendly to me, and my early conversations with him really opened up the suit and tie community to me. I also kept up conversations with guys on the Yahoo groups, though increasingly it was Recon that occupied my attention, since that was a social media space dedicated to kinksters.
Matt's old MenAtPlay website had a forum section, where I began writing suit and tie fetish fiction back in I think 2006 or 2007. That was where I began my stories "A Walk in the Park" and "The Dandy and the Cub," both of which I'm rebooting.
Later on, there was a social media site for suit and tie guys through the platform of Ning, which was something like a flea market Facebook. I met my husband through that one. We had to stay long distance, due to my living situation. When I moved to go to graduate school, we still kept it long distance. Eventually, guys started flirting with him and with me on Recon, so we decided it was best for us to deactivate our profiles.
During the 2010s, I kept wanting to write suit and tie erotica. And I started noticing that I fixated on muscular, hairy guys. I perceived this as a contrast between the "bestiality" of the guy's body and the refinement of his attire, and I grew obsessed with the fantasy of a muscular guy ripping out of his suit and tie. That fantasy brought me to MuscleGrowth.org, where I wrote some muscle-growth themed stories that involved guys suddenly hulking out of their attire. Comic book kind of stuff. Even though most of the guys at MuscleGrowth were gym bros who disdained any form of clothing, the stories I wrote there really resonated with a lot of guys. That got me thinking about how suits and ties register as sexual for many gay men, even if those men don't have a specific fetish for them.
In 2013 and 2014, I branched out into Tumblr, where I reconnected with many of the old suit and tie guys. During that time, the Ning site had been disbanded—an early instance of the now predictable trope of social media websites policing queer content. So the suit and tie fetish community was scattered on several platforms. I started rebuilding a following among the suit and tie fetish guys on Tumblr, until Tumblr went all puritan and decided that adult content was not allowed. So that was when I started arrived at Instagram, which is where I am most active.
After so much deplatforming, some of the suit guys got together and started a platform of their own called SuitedMen.rf.gd. It, too, has gone defunct. There is a suit and tie Discord server, but that one grew toxic when folks found out that one of the suit and tie fetishists is a Trump supporter. Folks started blocking him—because he genuinely was an awful person—and the admin of the server, instead of banning this person, just sat back and let this person harangue people. It was the usual "I'm a conservative so I get to pretend that I feel like a victim so that I can accuse you of being intolerant" bullshit that we've seen among many gay conservatives. The suit and tie fetish Discord is a case study for how one person can really spoil a whole community. It doesn’t take a majority of fascists to destroy a society—all it takes is enough.
So I withdrew from Discord. I stayed on Twitter for a while, but then deactivated my account after the Musk let fascists run free(er). As for Instagram, but I have a feeling it's only a matter of time before Instagram goes the way of Tumblr. The puritans really are taking over. And I know that Tumblr claims that they'll accept "nudity" now, but I'm skeptical. If Tumblr turned its back on the queer community once, they'll do it again. I'm increasingly convinced that the only safe spaces for queer kinksters are ones made for us, by us. The rest are subject to the whims of wealthy straight dudebros who have given us no reason to trust them.
After the Twitterverse, I restarted Recon recently, where I've gotten a chance to talk to guys from other fetish communities who express an interest in suits and ties. I suppose I've become something of an ambassador for our little niche community? I've certainly endeavored to collect as much information about it as I can, chatting with hundreds of suit and tie fetish guys over the years. I've begun keeping notes on my various conversations, just to try to understand all of the different permutations of the kink. My blog here on Wix allows me to post and control my stories and posts in their own little bubble. As yet, Wix hasn't tried banning me, so let's hope I can stay there. I have all of my stories and posts backed up just in case.
What are your fetishes? What specific clothing fetishes do you have?
Suits and ties. As in, if a suit and a tie isn't involved, then I have a really hard time staying interested. Casual wear doesn't do it. Jeans, t-shirts, and flip flops will kill my libido. All of my libido centers on suits, ties, formalwear.
However, I also find myself branching out. It was my father's military dress uniforms that first sparked my interest in the suit and tie fetish, after all, and I can still see the appeal of those. Leather gear is something I'm getting into, as well. Gloves, leather jackets. These impart that same tone of structure and discipline that makes the suit and tie appealing.
I've mentioned muscle growth, though I find myself stepping away from that these days. Part of the problem with muscle growth is that you end up fixating on a body type that simply isn't realistic or feasible for most people. Any guy is going to look sexy in a suit and tie. And I think that's worth celebrating.
Wet and messy is big for me. I enjoy the idea of guys starting off fully suited and messing up their clothes. Mud, sand, water—the idea of a suited guy in a setting where a suit and tie feels out of context, where this fine clothing is inadequate to protect the guy's body. Rain, humidity, sweat. A sweaty dress shirt really gets me going. If the suit and tie represents "civilization," then I love the idea of the guy's body somehow ruining the garment. Piss and watersports, as well. Ripping the suit or getting cum stains on it.
Shoes and socks are an enormous turn-on for me, as well. I find it interesting that many of the suit and tie guys fixate on just the tie itself, and pay very little mind to the shoes and socks. My best conversations are with suit and tie guys who get the appeal of both. The shoe and sock part of it relates to sweat and scents, of course. There's also shoe polishing, which traces over into the leather side of things, too. Curiously, there are suit and tie guys who are into socks, but not into feet. I think the look of the suited guy stripped of his shoes and socks is particularly hot—humiliating, erotic.
As far as my actual sexual experiences go, most of what I have is online experiences. Fiction and conversations with other guys are really the way that I explore a lot of these things. My husband is into a different range of fetishes than me, so we've had an ongoing conversation about how to explore those different themes.
As for this podcast, bondage is actually a more recent development for me. There are plenty of MenAtPlay videos that use bondage as a motif, but it's never the main event. There are some videos from StraightMenInTrouble or CapturedGuys that involve guys in suits and ties, and those are certainly hot, too. I think it's about toying with the power and authority that the suit and tie represents, turning the tables against that power, humiliating the guy.
What's your favorite kind of kink content?
I like it when a guy starts off dressed to the nines, and ends up disheveled or taken down a peg in some way. Perhaps his tie gets loosened, shirt untucked or sweaty, cum stains on his lapel. Perhaps he ends up at a seedy bar and knocks back one drink too many. Perhaps he ends up in a muddy setting where his suit gets messed up. Perhaps he stays too late at the wedding reception, catches the eye of another suited guy, and ends up lowering his inhibitions, letting loose. I think for me the central theme is one about control. I want to watch the powerful guy let go, and lose control. It doesn't even matter if I'm physically there: I'll be the well-attired fly on the wall, watching it happen. I suppose this means that most of my sexual experiences happen in the forms of fantasy, online, or in my head.
As far as medium goes, I love stories best. I really love being able to inhabit someone else's suited fantasy, and figuring out what makes them tick. I enjoy pictures for the same reason: it's a static image, so I get to imagine a story about how this person got into this situation, why their suit and tie happens to be in the state of undress that it is. I also really love drawings and artwork for the same reason: this image represents someone else's fantasy, someone else's idealization, so it's really hot for me to see that spark, that hint that someone else actually "gets it" and understands that a partially clothed character is more arousing than a naked one.
I also enjoy illustrations, comics, and cartoons for the same reason: when you're seeing a human artist attempting to visualize the fantasy, you're inhabiting their mind in a way. You're getting a glimpse into what the fantasy means for them, and that glimpse is really hot. (A. I. "art" and text generators will never approximate that, by the way. These "tools" represent the latest attempt of capitalists—in this case, tech dudebros—who refuse to recognize that writing and creating art are forms of labor, and who refuse to pay human beings for labor. You really should think twice before using such engines.) BearlyDanny, Etienne, Valcoviac, Gengoroh Tagame, and D_Oxman are my favorites.
Porn videos, not so much. I end up scrolling past most of them, just because the suits come off too quickly. For some reason, though, when it's a movie that happens to involve characters in a suit and tie, I get really turned on. Somehow, it's hotter knowing that this isn't intended to be porn, but it still arouses me. I think that's because my own gateway into the suit and tie fetish was really indirect, and I had to seek it out for myself either in the dark corners of the internet, or through the rare glimpses revealed to me in movies.
What are your most dominant traits? What do you like most about dominance in you or other people?
I enjoy watching the other suited guy get turned on by his own clothing. I've been getting into dictating suited guys' outfits recently, telling him to send me pictures of his wardrobe, choosing his outfit down to the last detail, asking him how does it feel. This has led to some fun online exchanges. I think there are many suit and tie guys who really enjoy giving that level of control to someone else.
For much of my life, I assumed I was a sub. This is because, in my 20s, I associated "dom" with a body type. A "dom" guy had to be the hairy musclebear whom I thought was at the top of this imaginary pyramid of masculinity, who would dictate orders to some lowly twink like me. Porn taught me many things that I had to unlearn.
It was actually a hot conversation with a fellow suit kinkster that helped me unlearn these assumptions about my own masculinity and body image. He told me he was really turned on by my voice, and we both talked about the movie True Lies, in which Arnold Schwarzenegger left voice recordings making Jamie Lee Curtis get undressed. So the fellow suited up for me, did a bit of self-bondage at my direction, and—well—I really enjoyed it, getting to tell this hot, masculine, bearish guy what to do.
What are your most submissive traits? What do you like most about submission in you or other people?
I think my most submissive trait is that I aim to please. There was one suited guy who told me that I was "too polite sometimes." I suppose this is because most of my sexual exchanges happen via DM, meaning that there's no way for me to figure out the other person's tone. So I'm constantly asking them, "Is this okay? May I do this? Is it alright if I talk about this?" I'm trying so hard to establish consent that it comes across as nagging or submissive.
There have been a handful of times when I've let some other suited guys give me directions, but only after I've really established a rapport with them. There are too many suited guys who just aggressively throw their Dom-ness around and expect me to comply for whatever imaginary reason they have in their heads, and I find that to be really annoying.
Is it better when other guys wear the clothing you like or when you wear it?
Yes. This is erotic fantasy. I want everybody in a suit and tie. I've got a dress code, and you're going to comply. Thank you for understanding.
More seriously, I really want to throw a party someday with a dress code. None of this "smart casual" crap. Dress code is suit and tie, or tuxedo. Those are your options. And you'd better be wearing neckwear and decent shoes. The dress code is that ties have to be loosened by midnight. Shirts optional after 1:00. Let the whole event start off as a polite cocktail party, and end in debauchery and revelry.
How exposed do you feel when wearing a suit compared to other types of outfits?
I don't feel exposed at all. I feel armored, empowered. I wear a blazer and tie several times a week to work. I do it so regularly that my colleagues have come to expect it of me. Even during the pandemic, I got into that habit of suiting up. And that's because a suit and tie makes me feel "ready."
A suit and tie also makes me feel sexy and masculine, like I'm putting on a masculinity that I can adopt as my own. My high school experience was pivotal in this. I was bullied by jocks. One of them purposefully misgendered me as "she." Another one asked me whether I was gay, and, when I told him that I was, he ran across the gym and shouted it at the top of his lungs, outing me to the entire gym class. For those reasons, I avoided working out during my 20s. Gyms were where the homophobes lived, and I wasn't interested in exposing myself to their ridicule once again. (I've since begun working out again, and even seeing a personal trainer, but it took years for me to feel comfortable in a gym again.)
But, when we had to dress up for presentation days, I started noticing something. The same jocks who bullied me also had to dress up, and I saw them tugging at their collars, or fidgeting in their dress shoes, complaining about how uncomfortable they felt. And I, on the other hand, felt really masculine and sexy and empowered by wearing this clothing. (It helped that it was my dad's clothing, too.) So something about that power dynamic has always stuck with me. When I wear the suit and tie, I feel bold and empowered. And I think that's why I enjoy watching cocky guys get humiliated in their suits, taken down a peg.
What seems to be the appeal of tying up and disheveling a vain and well-dressed man?
Taking him down a peg, humiliation. Also exposure: to me, the chest, neck, shoulders, armpits—or feet, ankles, or calves—all of those parts of the body are very arousing to me. In many ways, cocks don't really excite me that much. I mean, yeah, sure, there's the eroticism of what we're supposed to think of as the "ultimate" exposure, but I find it more arousing when the guy's attire unravels from the outer edges, so to speak, towards the interior. Like unwrapping a present. Curiously, then, I lose interest when the guy's trousers come off. I enjoy it when the shirt and jacket stay on, but they're open, unraveled, vulnerable. I like it when the suit and tie is turned into a mockery of its former formality, showing that the guy once looked proper and presentable—and now he's reduced to an erotic plaything.
Does a man "putting himself on display" by dressing this way factor into it?
I think so, yes. I mean, this can get into some dodgy territory when it comes to consent. I don't like to buy into the idea that a guy is "asking for it" just by putting on a suit and tie—but, to a fetishist like me who fixates so exclusively on this piece of clothing, the effect is like catnip. The suit is so deeply linked to my sexual impulses that it almost feels as though a guy is "putting himself on display" for me, just by putting on a suit. Or it feels like he's trying to get my attention. I certainly want to fantasize about that. Reality is a bit more mundane.
I think also part of this has to do with the fact that the suit and tie is no longer a compulsory corporate uniform. It's worn for weddings and funerals, and that's it. Maybe court proceedings, maybe job interviews in certain settings. But, for the most part, the suit and tie isn't really worn because people "have to." If a guy suits up on the regular, it's because he wants to, because he craves that admiration and attention from the people around him. Sure, he's dressing for himself first and foremost—as he should—but on some level he knows he's going to command attention the moment he walks in a room. And in the twisted recesses of my mind I can't help but think of that desire for attention as a desire for something more.
I have to control myself very carefully when I'm in the presence of other suited guys. I suppose it’s easier to control, now that suits are rare.
I have also been thinking a great deal about the analogy between suits and ties and other forms of fetish gear. Leather, of course, jumps most prominently to mind: both the suit and the leather uniform rely on structure, dynamics of power and masculinity, covering and armoring the body in this sexual, empowering, alluring way. Perhaps other forms of clothing fetishism follow similar lines: you conceal to reveal.
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