A man in crotchless leather pants leans back as his top pulls on chained nipple clamps leashed to the first man’s penis cage.
In this photograph suggested by psychoadept, it’s interesting to me to note how much influence the penis and, more generally, phallic power has over the notions of dominance and submission. Sometimes it’s difficult to tease apart the many interwoven strands in our understanding of sexuality; where does anatomy end and psychosexual influence begin?
I spend a lot of time comparing and contrasting the ways in which “straight” (often heterosexual) fetish culture de-sexualizes the male genitalia in bizarre and absurd ways, while the hyper-masculinized gay culture focuses much of its iconography on the penis in very objectifying, sexual ways. Never is this radical difference more apparent to me when looking at male chastity play. In both gay and straight cultures, chastised submissive men are kept under lock and key, but it’s almost exclusively in the heterosexually-focused chastity communities where the penis is derided or viewed in a negative, repulsive light. The iconography of male gay chastity play, on the other hand, often involves penile decoration more reminiscent of jewelry, which I’m much more partial to.