Male Submission Art

While wearing a head harness and a ball gag, a man rests his head in his partner’s hand.

This photograph was taken and suggested by Vode, who also sent this lovely description of the image:

I would like to share a picture I have made with my boyfriend. We both are into BDSM, he was a switch, I submissive. But he longed to be dominated and I liked the idea although I never dominated anyone before. But with him, it was like we were made for each other, and it went so easy. He loves it when I make him wear gags, it’s almost insta-submisson for him and you can see it from the look of his face.

This picture was taken when I wanted to have a little photoshoot and while taking pictures trying to dominate him a bit and let his submission shine through in his pictures. I think it did. I love this picture especially because of my hand holding his face and his facial expression. I hope you like it too.

I do like it, too. The delicateness with which his head is held, evident through the position and gentleness of the thumb, guides my eyes to his. This is in sharp contrast to what we often see in erotica, and I’ve written before about how distasteful I find porn that covers up mens’ faces to be, and how beautiful and joyous shamelessness can be.

Vode also wrote me an encouraging note:

Thank you for the website, it made me more attracted to male submission, and keep up the lovely work.

Particularly as it came from a self-described submissive, her note reminds me why MaleSubmissionArt.com exists: We cannot be what we cannot see.

-maymay

Chains wrap a young man’s wrists as he holds his hands together, bowing his head.

I love the way the lighting in this photograph almost seems to drape itself over the model’s hands and the chain around his wrists. The limited view we get lends itself to many possible narratives. Psychoadept, who sent this picture in, had this to say about the image:

Hard to tell what the subject is wearing, but it’s not hard to imagine he could be in a religious setting, maybe even a young monk. And yet there’s nothing explicitly religious about it, and it makes me think about how many parallels there are between sexual submission and religious “submission,” right down to the control of sexual urges and sexual behavior.

As this picture suggests, constraints often foster creativity. Strict rules of meter inspired some of the world’s most powerful poetry, just as Twitter’s 140-character rule made it a breeding ground for innovation. In an ideal world, I’d only face restrictions (religious or otherwise) I chose to challenge myself with. But in the real world, influence is too often sought via imposition or intimidation, turning constraints that could be opportunities if you were to choose them for yourself into obstacles because they were chosen for you.

Equally horrifying, I think, is the hypocrisy spawned by self-righteous sanctimony. It’s amusing (to say the least) that devout Catholics appear to be the group most easily stimulated by Donna M. Hughes and Margaret Brooks to bandy baseless accusations of child molestation at me, especially when the media is afire with evidence of decades-long coverups by the Catholic Church of that exact crime. Just as the Catholic Church continues to conflate homosexuality with pedophilia, so-called prominent feminist Donna M. Hughes and Margaret Brooks are conflating speaking about sex with child sex trafficking.

As Thomas has suggested on numerous occasions, I think [Donna M. Hughes and Margaret Brooks are] not really interested in protecting children. I think they’re interested in shutting down the conferences and silencing kinksters. Is it any wonder, then, that those who try to impose their own sexual morality on others find such fertile ground for their disingenuous crusades among the religiously zealous?

Among all the parallels between sexual submission and religious “submission” is this one, as well: consent is moral, oppression is not.

-maymay

A couple embraces in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral as part of the New York City Pride Parade in 2005. The shirtless man shows welts on his back as he hugs his partner, a woman wearing renaissance fair garb.

This picture is of Eileen and I when we marched in the NYC Pride Parade 2005, blurred and published with her permission. I remember the experience vividly. It’s one of the most self-empowering memories I have: “I am not afraid to be seen here,” I thought to myself. I don’t show, or even get, marks like these often but, having had them, and having the opportunity to march, I thought it important to be visibly proud of them.

By being visibly proud of who I am, I fight against stigmas that people like Donna M. Hughes and Margaret Brooks would use to intimidate me, and which contribute to the shaming and suicides of innocent youth like Hope Witsell. I am not afraid to be different, to showcase the diversity of people’s differences, or to support others’ rights to be, to live, to learn, and to love differently from me. In their “bulletin,” Donna M. Hughes and Margaret Brooks refer to MaleSubmissionArt.com as a pornographic web site on the humiliation and sexual abuse of men, blatantly ignoring how strongly I write against abuse and against humiliation, which this entire website was founded to reject.

The willful ignorance of so-called “feminists” like Donna M. Hughes to acknowledge the validity of consensual sexual behavior terrifies me (as it should you—regardless of your sexual predilections) because by actively conflating adults’ consensual behavior, sexuality education, and public discussion about sexuality with human trafficking, Donna M. Hughes, Margaret Brooks, and their mob strengthen the abuse they claim to fight. When people like Donna M. Hughes and Margaret Brooks use fear tactics to incite moral panic, whether it was about interracial marriage in the 1930’s, about homophobia in the 1950’s, or about sex education more recently, ask yourself if they are really fighting to change the status quo, or fighting to keep it.

As Clarisse Thorn rightfully asks:

[W]hat’s with this assumption that sex-positive activists have no clue about social issues of sexuality, or matters of the heart? Working to destigmatize sexuality is in no way incompatible with working towards better, more consensual, more meaningful relationships; in fact, I’ll be bound that sex-positive activists do a much better job of this than these “anti-trafficking” folks do.

No matter the outcome of my current tribulations, I am not going to be the hero in this story. You are. Heroism is not the adherence to conformity but the courage to deviate from it; unity cannot be achieved through homogeneity but diversity; bravery is not the absence of fear but the ability to stand tall in spite of it, for what the fear-mongers and the fearful surely know is that fear and intimidation have the power to halt action. In Clarisse’s words, We can’t erase Hughes’ and Brooks’ harmful accusations, but we can damn well expose them for the absurdities they are.

Yes, we can.

-maymay

A shirtless man with a bloodied back kneels in front of a standing woman who’s holding his hair in one hand and his cheek with the other.

This photograph is an old picture of me and Eileen. I love it because it reminds me of the loving relationship I had with her. I’m proud of it because it (and the response it got on my blog) was an early spotlight on the need for a more equitable representation of and focus on submissive men in erotic imagery, rather than a myopic view of women.

This picture was also re-published by Donna M. Hughes and Margaret Brooks in a bulletin inciting several bloggers to name me a “pedophile” and “sexual predator.” They cite my work on KinkForAll as cause, which I’ve written about before, and they make references to this blog, Male Submission Art. These are both places where I consistently speak up in defense of a fundamental human right to access free educational resources, including sexuality-related ones.

It’s hard to stand tall when mean, angry, or frightened people like Margaret Brooks and Donna M. Hughes, the same person who conflated Megan Andelloux’s non-profit sexuality education center with human trafficking, misquote you seemingly on purpose and paint you as a creature of (their) nightmares. It’s greatly offensive and fucking terrifying to be likened to things you revile.

Donna M. Hughes, Margaret Brooks, and other fear-mongering alarmists scare me because their vitriolic ignorance hampers the very thing we all want: a generation free of sexual abuse. When they conflate adults’ consensual behaviors with humanity’s worst, they aren’t just attacking me personally, they damage the possibility for everyone on Earth to live free of sexual coercion, whether the abuser is an individual, consumerist culture, or religion.

Standing up for what you believe in isn’t mutually exclusive with being scared or angry. That’s why it’s partly because of people like Margaret Brooks, Donna M. Hughes, and others who baselessly equate evil intent with whatever their personal sexual mores don’t allow, that I am standing tall, speaking up, and writing all this in the first place.

If I can stand up and empower others to break free of intimidation or coercion about what they should or should not do, want, or think, then you can do it, too. So speak up and help one person make something better for themselves than was done for you.

-maymay

Crouching in darkness, a man with long hair perches on his fists and the balls of his feet, his hair thrown over his face, covering much of his naked body.

I don’t typically like photographs whose levels have been altered for “artistic effect,” but for some reason this red-toned picture, sent in by John Pickman, appeals to me. John noted that the photograph is by S. E. Rider, and wrote:

This photo was part of an exploration of D/s themes and ideas between my partner at the time (the photographer) and I. I like this one in particular because it seems archetypal, removed from the constraints of any one person or place. Submission isn’t something you do, it’s something you are, and we tried to capture that.

Interestingly, this image doesn’t seem to evoke submissiveness to me, but rather strength, possibly even anger. The curled, almost gorilla-like crouched pose along with the hot red and white coloring brings rebellious, not docile, thoughts to mind. Although it might seem an inappropriate thing to put on a site called “Male Submission Art,” I think it’s crucial for “submissive people” like me to acknowledge when we’re not feeling submissive.

I’m often annoyed by inappropriate expectations of docility many have of me when the only thing they know is that I use the label “submissive” to refer to my sexuality, and I find any formulation of submission that denies me agency repugnant. Articulating sexually submissive desires becomes even more challenging when the language available to discuss them fumbles so gracelessly and without distinction between fantasy and reality. It’s one thing to experience pleasure from a position of “meekness” (one of many synonyms for “submission” by Thesaurus.com), it is quite another to live meekly.

-maymay

A promotional image from the International Women’s Health Coalition Young Visionaries contest, encouraging young people to create lasting change in the world by advocating for the sexual health and reproductive rights of women and other youth.

Regular readers know that I have many projects. I try not to interrupt the flow of masculine submission imagery often, but when my other projects pull me strongly, this blog takes a back seat. Most recently, I entered the International Women’s Health Coalition (IWHC) Young Visionaries contest along with my Kink On Tap co-host, Emma, with a new media project called SexEdEverywhere (“SEE”):

The core of the project is a sexual health education and empowerment video campaign highlighting the reality that we learn about sex from disparate sources in many locations. I believe that the time has come for people to realize that “sex education” is not, has never been, and never should be confined to health class. I believe that young people, sexuality minorities, and certain other disenfranchised groups (still including, sadly, women) have an enormously important role to play in reforming the empty-vessel, top-down model of education and turning it into a peer-to-peer meritocracy where accurate information wins out over misinformation because it saves lives rather than being politically expedient.

That’s why Emma and I have put together a proposal for the project and submitted it to the IWHC Young Visionaries contest, a contest that, if we win, would seed our project with $1000 USD of necessary funding to get it off the ground. Part of the criteria for winning the contest is based on popular vote, which means I need your votes to win.

If SexEdEverywhere sounds like a project worth supporting, please go to the IWHC voting page and click on “Vote” next to our picture. There’s no sign-up or login necessary to vote, and the more people vote the better our chances of winning the grant for this ambitious campaign, so another way to help is by spreading the word. Thanks so much for your support.

-maymay

Kneeling in total blackness, a naked man in a rope harness and headdress leans back and faces upwards.

I like this entrancing photograph by LarsNYC on Flickr for its obvious and overt strength. The man is holding himself up with closed fists right along with the open and vulnerable pose. That combination creates an appealing composite because it hints at some significant substance from the model himself.

One of my favorite things about this picture, though, is the total solitude in which the man is shown; there are only minimal accoutrement to indicate a possibly submissive orientation other than his pose. This is remarkable because in my eyes it highlights the fact that submission does not come about through someone else’s control. That’s mere restriction in the best case and abuse in the worst. Instead, it comes about through a submissive person’s active desire to submit.

Consensual sexual submission is not about how someone else controls me, it’s about the opportunities I create for myself to be vulnerable to another person. A desire for sexual submission itself is a valid motivation for healthy sex, despite being a desire that’s often pathologized or invalidated by cultural pressures, levied particularly harshly on men. That’s why I so strongly advocate for empowering every individual to choose exactly what they do or do not want—a power that’s required to make healthy sexual choices for one’s self, even “as a submissive.”

-maymay

ireensarrows:

male:self march # 4 (via lars nyc)

The penis of a lean man is leashed loosely with cord and pulled to one side.

It’s rare that I come across any penis photographs that I like because they’re so often preposterously garish. Frequently, people’s fixation on the phallus trumps too many other considerations, replacing any opportunity I might have found for reverence with scorn. The model in this picture, however, actually seems honorable to me. Perhaps it’s because, while his cock is an obvious centerpiece, there is so much else to enjoy about him, like the moisture dripping down his abdomen, the rough texture of his pubic hair, or the finely sculpted shape of his arms.

Wherever men are involved, a dangerous, wide-spread stereotype is almost inescapable: the cock-centric notion that if you control a man’s penis, you control the man. Like many submissive men, I fetishize this idea; the stereotype can be convenient fantasy. But in reality, it’s important to distinguish fetishistic triggers from causes of desires, lest we perpetuate the myth that dominance is always coercive, and submission always unassertive.

-maymay

Standing naked, a man’s wrists are tied behind his back with red rope as he holds a red rose upright in his right hand.

This photograph was sent in by caitiff, who wrote:

I am the photographer so I am not sure I can be unbiased. However, I liked the idea because I don’t see enough of bondage as a prop of romance. Hands tied with rope are as erotic to me (if not more) than any of the stereotypical examples one can think of (nudity, the rose, ect.).

I like this simple, if perhaps somewhat cliche image, because the symbolic use of object and color is clear enough that even I (an artistic dunce) can understand it. Perhaps the only thing missing from the picture are the thorns on the rose, which seem to have been cut from the stem. Nevertheless, the association between being physically bound to being emotionally committed is a powerful one.

Romance is frequently highly prescribed; Valentine’s Day, white-dress marriages, and serenades with string quartet accompaniment are oft-referenced platonic ideals. Moreover, it’s also strictly constrained; unions not based on gender or that include more than 2 people are often mistrusted. But of course, “true” romance—like “true love”—is what you choose to make of it.

-maymay

A burly, bleeding man partially bound half-naked to a wooden chair is punched in the face by another man wearing only the skimpiest of uniform apparel and military paraphernalia. Both men’s penises are visibly erect.

When I first saw this image, it jarred me to the point of concern, but it also reminded me of a great movie I have long eroticized: Fight Club. Even before my exposure to that movie as a teenager, I fantasized about losing fights to stronger people, usually other boys. In those fantasies, and perhaps in this (likely staged) photograph as well, unrestrained but invited aggression were highly emotional and cathartic outlets for stress, celebrations of personal strength or achievement, and playful, sporty fun.

Moreover, being beaten consensually and emerging from the experience successfully can feel mind-blowingly empowering. As Zac explains in his excellent talk at KinkForAll Providence:

BDSM is a personal theatrical ritual. […] It’s a private performance, in which the participants are actor, director, writer, audience and stunt double. The successful carrying out of a scene depends on their mutual engagement in a shared fantasy, and this depends on effective and mindful negotiation and communication. I’d contend that navigating the mental and ethical twists and turns involved in this scene-setting has, at best, the potential for helping people navigate issues of consent and coercion in other venues of their lives.

[…]

Philip Zimbardo […] gave a TED Talk on evil. He lays out seven pre-conditions for good people to commit evil acts. They are:

1. Mindlessly taking the first small step.
2. Dehumanization of others.
3. De-individuation of self.
4. Diffusion of personal responsibility.
5. Blind obedience to authority.
6. Uncritical conformity to group norms.
7. Passive tolerance of evil through inaction or indifference.

So, while what we do as kinksters is sometimes compared to the institutional abuses that happened at Abu Ghraib, there’s actually no comparison between that rubric and what we do. There’s no room in there for interactions between two consenting individuals, outside the structure of social institutions, based on negotiation, discussion, communication, and empathy.

(Skip to 4:01 in the video for the start of this quote.)

Nevertheless, since consensual sadomasochistic ritual is easily mistaken for abuse by uninformed observers, those of us who engage in it have been consistently pathologized by the medical community. As a result of their ignorance, some depictions of SM have already been outlawed in the UK and a US court recently sentenced a collector of “obscene” manga to 6 months in prison. Legal decisions like these are extremely dangerous to everyone’s freedoms because their premise fails to correctly recognize the very thing on which the law is based: intent.

The sad irony is that by criminalizing healthy explorations in navigating issues of coercion through consensual sexuality, anti-porn extremists are stunting the very self-determination they so desperately want everyone to have.

-maymay

(via pornotumble)