You're not from around here, are you?

Detail from an image from SuitBusters.

Immaculate in his suit and tie, every detail in place, a suited man walks into, say, an overgrown forest. A grungy dive bar. A muddy roadside. A rusty warehouse. A urine-soaked alleyway. Instantly the scenario creates tension: the disparity between the crisp elegance of the man's attire and the threatening filth of the surroundings. What will happen to him? What kind of attention will his corporate uniform attract here? And how much does he want that attention? Will his tailored finery survive the encounter?

The wet and messy fetish is a tricky one to explain. Many of the suit and tie kinksters prefer to keep their bespoke attire in top shape—understandable, considering the cost and maintenance. But for many of us, there is a thrill in watching the attire get messed up. A well-attired luncheon turns into a food fight. A dapper beau gets drenched in the rain. A CEO gets thrown in the mud.

In many cases, the appeal stems from a sense of humiliation: the prissiness of the suit and tie ruined by the filth, the sense that this wealthy and powerful man has been taken down a notch. There is also taboo, a transgression of socioeconomic class boundaries: wearing a suit and tie in a sleazy setting, reveling in the attention that the corporate uniform commands, inviting someone to mess it up. An outfit that belongs to a different income bracket, lording it over the mirror polish of a boardroom table or lounging in decadent leisure in a chic cocktail bar, has no place in a grimy setting like this. It seems déclassé for a moneyed hot-shot to show up in his peacockish attire in a place that is meant for blue-collar guys. It's only a matter of time before some rough and burly fellow uses that double-windsored tie as an expensive cum rag, or marks those broad lapels as his territory.

It is notable that MenAtPlay, the premier site for porn in the suit and tie theme, still lists wet and messy as one of its categories. Long-time members will often complain that the site used to have better material, that the suits stayed on longer, that the site used to be run by a member of our community instead of a more mainstream porn agency. Perhaps this shift points to the tacit assumption that the wet and messy suit and tie are a niche fetish, a subcategory of a subcategory.

Or perhaps, with the prominence in the last decade of such shows as Trash The Dress, our culture is implying that suits and ties are on their way out. There does seem to be an undercurrent of interest in seeing such fine attire meet its demise, even if the reasons for doing so are not explicitly sexual. In this capacity, the suit and tie functions less as a uniform for a formal occasion and more as a relic of a formal age, fit only to be destroyed by some iconoclastic impulse.

Even as such codes of dress erode, folks in the U. S. still have a sense of what is dressed up, however vague. Wearing a suit and tie seems like an invitation for questions: what are you so dressed up for? do you have a job interview or something? Underlying these question is the assumption that suits and ties are only for certain occasions, and that all other occasions are out of context. If suits and ties belong nowhere, then maybe they belong everywhere.