Interview: Thicc Radio.

These are the notes I prepared for my recent interview with the ThiccRadio Podcast. Stannum (James), who co-hosts ThiccRadio with ThickeyMouse (Tim) reached out to me after my interview with The Bondage Gaze from last year. (Nat, one of the hosts of The Bondage Gaze, is our other interlocutor.) I was hesitant at first: I'm not a gainer, but I'm certainly a twinkish bear-chaser who loves the look of a well-fed belly filling out the buttons of a fine dress shirt and waistcoat. (Or popping them.) And, while I've had some frustrations with my own body image (never bearing quite as "masculine" as the hairy musclebears I lusted for online), I've also inhabited a body that moves through the world with a great deal of skinny privilege. So I wanted to be mindful of my own space in such a podcast.

In sum, I feel as though I learned more fro James and Tim than I had to offer on my end. Long-time readers (or listeners) will recognize perennial themes of mind: the need to be mindful of politics and history; the influence of region (particularly rural) on accessibility to kink. Nat elaborates on the themes of drag and camp, bringing his own expertise in those areas. And Tim low-key reads me at some point. Enjoy.

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Topic

• How do you define the suit and tie fetish?

- I use the term “suit and tie guy” to refer to queer, most often cis male (or male-identifying folks) who are into suits and ties as a specific fetish. (It should be noted that there are plenty of suit fetishists who occupy other stripes of the queer flag.) I use the term “menswear guy” to refer to cis, straight guys who are only into suits and ties as an aesthetic or fashion. Unfortunately, there is overlap between these two groups of people, so there are plenty of cases where a perfectly innocent menswear influencer will find himself bombarded by unwanted messages from fetish guys. Some menswear guys are aware of our community and actively try to avoid posting any content that might stimulate us. Other members of our community enjoy posing as innocent menswear accounts, while giving plenty of winks and nods to those who know.

· Tells & signals:

· § The tie. The chief “tell” of a suit and tie fetish guy is the tie knot. Most of us favor the big, well-formed double Windsor. The tie is already a phallic object, so we place a great deal of emphasis on the tie knot as the crowning achievement of the tie itself. We want our tie knots large, bloated, erect, suggestive. (The straight menswear bros, on the other hand, prefer the smaller four-in-hand knot, or prefer to avoid wearing ties altogether.)

· § Sheer socks. These add an air of effeminacy, and call back to vintage Leyendecker drawings featuring svelt models in fine 1920s garb and garters.

· § Executive drag: suit & tie guys tend to go for patterns and cuts associated with conventional narratives of power. Lots of emphasis on pinstripes, bold lapels, cufflinks, and other such glittery accessories.

- Suit & tie “community:” I’m using the term “community” in a very loose sense here. The number of folks who are specifically dedicated to suit and tie fetishism is fairly small, possibly fewer than a thousand of us from what I can see. We’re scattered among several platforms: Twitter and Instagram, Discord. Recon has a specific suit fetish tag, though most folks include suits in conjunction with other gear.

- MenAtPlay.com is the chief pornographic site. This site was started by a pair of well-known fellows in our community, but they sold the site to a different company years ago. Most suit & tie fetish guys actually don’t care much for MenAtPlay, since the site has taken a more mainstream direction. (As in, the suits don’t even stay on during their videos.)

Suit Fetishism & Other Kinks:

- Suits & Bears (or other queer animals): suits and werewolves are a thing for a small group of folks. The werewolf hulking out of his suit and tie calls to mind suit destruction and wet and messy. There’s also an interest in bearded, hairy, older gentlemen in suits and ties, since this body type carries an air of distinction.

- Suits & bondage: this is one of the largest kinks in the suit community. Since the suit and tie outfit is already popularly considered restricting and uncomfortable, adding the bondage on top of this leads to all kinds of fun. There’s also lots of popular culture iconography associating suits and ties with bondage: detectives, James Bond, superheroes—all of these genres feature well-dressed protagonists in naughty (knotty) situations. Also, implements of the suit and tie (the tie, or the laces of dress shoes) can be repurposed.

- Kink in the Gym / Muscle Growth: a handful of suit & tie guys are into muscling up. The idea here is not really to reveal their bodies (though some certainly enjoy that), but rather to make their bodies an ideal mannequin onto which the impeccably tailored suit fits like a glove. (Fantasy of mine: forcing a suit guy to work out in his tailored duds.)

- Kink without gear: since suits read as mainstream clothing, folks can get away with wearing gear in public. To the casual observer, the suit fetishist simply looks well-dressed. But to the knowing crowd, there are tells and signals.

- Head shaving & haircuts: there are a handful of MenAtPlay videos that specifically involve well-coiffed suited gentlemen getting haircuts. Much of the vintage-inspired iconography of the barber shop intersects with suits.

- Piss, Wet and Messy, and Gunge: these are big parts of the suit fetish scene, and they all involve the rush that comes with ruining an expensive piece of clothing, or subverting the respectability represented by the suit and tie. Some forms of this play simply require a trip to the dry cleaner and a few well-placed excuses, whereas other forms of this play involve completely destroying the garment. (It’s an expensive fetish.) Either way, there’s a rush that comes with taking this uniform of corporate respectability and putting it to the naughtiest possible use, leaving it with some stain that acts as a badge of what the suited gentleman has been up to after hours. There are also several MenAtPlay videos that involve food fights in suits and ties.

- Slavery: there are suit and tie fetish guys who fantasize about being butlers. And there are many suit and tie fetish guys for whom the suit represents a uniform of conformity and submission. This association runs counter to the popular narrative of the suited CEO, so there’s lots of possibility for subversion there.

- Suits & puppy play: yes. There are plenty of suit guys who are also leather folk or puppies. And I’ve seen some particularly hot pictures of suit guys wearing their pup hoods with their suits. It’s all about juxtaposition.

- Kink and work: most folks don’t work in fields where suits and ties are required anymore, so there’s a great deal of anxiety among the suit and tie fetish guys about casual Friday, and the casual dress code of the workplace. Twenty years ago, the older suit fetish guys would be able to get away with wearing their gear on a daily basis. Nowadays, we have to make up excuses to do so. And some folks get off on that, on being the conspicuously overdressed peacock in the room. For others, it’s a problem to outdress the boss. Either way, it’s actually a bit easier to get away with incorporating elements of the suit & tie uniform as gear into one’s everyday wear, since it just reads as ordinary clothing to most folks.

- Suits & gaining: I’m going to be interviewed by the fine folks at the ThiccRadio podcast about this very thing, so I don’t want to give too much away. Let’s just say that the fat cat Monopoly Man is a thing.

- Suits & findom: unfortunately, this has been a thing on Twitter lately. I say “unfortunately” because there are some toxic and highly prominent suit and tie fetish guys who use their good looks to get subs to bankroll their fancy wardrobes. As y’all point out in the findom episode, there are forms of findom that are practiced safely and consensually, and I don’t want to rule that out. But I do have concerns about the folks who are asking us to pay for their egos, and I especially have concerns for straight “alpha cash masters” who monetize their status, leeching income from queer people.

- Suits & hypnosis: see “suit as uniform of submission” above. I’ve recently written a story on this theme. It’s the idea that the clothes become such a deep influence on a person’s psyche that they assist in inducing the trance state. Psychologists have identified the phenomenon of “enclothed cognition,” in which wearing a certain style of clothes (e. g., “business clothes”) encourages us into a particular headspace: “I’m wearing this, therefore I’m at work.” Suits can crosspollinate with hypnosis in all kinds of fun ways.

- Dungeons & play spaces: since suits are not the common uniform of the workplace anymore, there’s a rush that comes with wearing suits in environments where suits don’t belong. The suited gent in the seedy bar, or the suited gent in the muddy woods, or the suited gent in the sleazy sex club. He sticks out like a sore thumb, and immediately becomes the object of attention.

- Suits & spanking: you’ve been a naughty boy. See “subverting the power represented by the suit” above.

- Suits & musk: oh, this is one of my all time favorite things. I suit up in a warm climate, after all. I could go on for ages about this one.

- Suits & masks: Eyes Wide Shut and The Phantom were revelatory for many of us. Tuxedo Mask from Sailor Moon; The Phantom of the Opera. There are plenty of popular culture reference points for the well-attired man of mystery.

- Suits & leather: both draw their inspiration from military uniforms. Many suit men are also leathermen, since they’re both really the same fetish. There’s a thing for dress codes, after all.

- Suits & cigars. Luxury on luxury. If the suit is already a symbol of financial power, connoisseurship, and accomplishment, then the phallic addition of the cigar only heightens the effect.

- Suits & bootblacking: I do love the aroma of shoe polish. Since shoes are often the most expensive part of the suit and tie outfit, then I think there is a natural overlap between bootblacking and the polishing of dress shoes. Think of the image of the CEO with his gleaming laceups crossed on his mahogany desk, beckoning his corporate drone to polish the cordovan with his tongue.

- Suits & exhibitionism: there’s a small subset of suit guys who enjoy the striptease. (That’s a favorite narrative of mine.) This particularly plays into the clothed male/nude male trope in which the suited male is perceived to be at the height of dress, and therefore the height of power, whereas the nude male is reduced to a minimum of clothing. However, there is also the eroticism of partial undress: the suit and tie is such a regimented uniform with so many little details and parts that removing any part of the outfit--the tie especially--creates a sense of undress and potential for humiliation.

Listen to ThiccRadio Episode 24: "Dinner Table Talk: Suits & Pie."

A picture of one of our podcast hosts, looking dapper & rotund in his three-piece suit. Used with his permission , given in muffled syllables between well-stuffed bites at the reception table.