Kneeling
A white guy in his early twenties kneels on the floor in front of an industrial gray wall. He wears a black leather band around his right bicep, a bulldog harness, and a black leather jockstrap. He sits on his heels. His hair is cut in a conservative fashion and parted to the right, in a style not unlike what you might expect of a used car salesman in Mississippi. His arms are drawn behind his back and we cannot tell if they are bound. The light in this black and white photo comes from one side. His left pectoral stands out as if at attention, in stark contrast with the harness. The left side of his face is lit, the right is in the shadows. He neither smiles nor frowns. He looks directly, seriously, intently into the camera. He waits for instructions.
The boy in this image is hot. The image is sexualized. He is mostly naked, and the little he wears is black leather. The harness accents his just-built-enough chest, the band around his bicep points out he’s spent a little time (but not too much) in the gym. The jock (or is it briefs? we cannot tell from this angle) accents his svelte midriff, and the barely visible treasure trail teasingly disappears into leather. He is highly sexual and an object of desire.
But the point of this image is not that he is to be lusted after. The point of this image is that he presents himself as ready to serve. In addition to being an object of desire he is an acting subject. The look on his face is not ‘come hither,’ but rather ‘yes, Sir.’ The posture isn’t ‘come do me,’ but rather ‘what can I do for you, Sir?’ He doesn’t offer a flogger or an erection, he offers himself. The monochromatic nature of the photograph speaks to this. It says ‘here I am in black and white – this is who I am.’ Yes he wants us to lust after him, he wants us to want him. But more than that, he clearly wants to give something of himself.
What I find compelling about this photo is its emphasis on the submissive desire to give. This image says ‘I am serious about subsuming my will to yours.’ It is packaged in the body of a hot young man wearing leather, but you can tell from the look on his face he means business. You get the feeling he is just as ready to give sexual service as to go wash your car. He’s just as ready to give up his body to your touch as he is to put on some boots and move boxes from the attic to the basement. He may want a reward for a job well done, but you get the genuine feeling he’d be as completely happy with a ‘good boy’ as with any form of sexual gratification.
I like this image because it gives voice to a deep desire of my heart.
Doing The Dishes
(This is the first of what I hope to be a series here on The Hitching Post. I’m going to take an image I have in my “collection,” describe it -but not post it – and ruminate on what it means to me.)
A white guy is standing at the sink. We see him from behind. He’s wearing a black jock strap, a full-chest harness, and from the back what appears to be a muzzle. He has standard brown hair. His right ear sticks out from the straps of the muzzle. We can see the outline of a leather restraint on his right wrist. A chain runs from a point at the back of the muzzle at his neck and is attached to something outside the shot. He’s doing the dishes.
The kitchen is nondescript. The floor has foot-square white tiles; the sink has two basins. Dishes are piled up to our boy’s left. A pot is on the stove, and we see a blue dish rag (a drying towel?) on the counter. The cupboard above the sink has a see-through door and we view some dishes neatly stacked and put away.
What I love about this image is its fusion of a sense of normality with bdsm; it is completely domestic. We’re not viewing a dungeon setup, we’re not seeing adventurous sexcapades. We’re seeing a boy doing the dishes, maybe after a dinner party, or maybe after a nice Sunday dinner with his partner. Maybe his partner made dinner and our boy’s regular chore is cleaning up; maybe boy made a special dinner for Sir and boy is now doing the dishes. All we really know is he’s doing a chore. Put him in jeans and a t-shirt and he could be any boyfriend in any relationship on any block in the country.
I like we cannot see where the chain is anchored, just as we cannot see his dominant. It doesn’t matter so much where it is anchored, just that it is – like he to his dominant. The chain isn’t taught, but also not slack; he could probably not walk much father than his current position. He can probably reach all the dishes on the counter, but probably not all the way to the stove. Thus there is restraint. If the photo weren’t being taken by someone we could easily imagine he’s alone in the kitchen, cleaning up while his partner is watching TV in the next room, relaxing and enjoying the benefits of his boy’s service.
In my head bdsm has a feeling of ‘other.’ It feels like something not normal. Which means *I* feel I am something “not normal.” I would like to make it (me) normal for me. I’ve done dishes like this, geared-up, in my own apartment, with nobody there to actually serve. It just felt, well, *right*. This is what I tried to get at in a post earlier about trying to be “submissive” without having someone to serve. If I’m not submitting to someone, what does it mean to wear leather gear while doing the dishes? That I am into gear? Something more?
I want to both be him and do him at the same time. It makes me thinking having a submissive bf wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, if we could both “be submissive together.” Or would that just be two dudes into gear?
