Question of the week 1/10/11

Hey all, I've decided since I've started getting feedback on recon and here from people about my blog that I'll start a new thing where I'll answer questions I may get. Leave a question and I'll try to respond via post, if it's good! Liam from Australia had a good question, so I'll bring it up here.

Got a question, which was triggered from something you said on your blog, if you don't mind!

I'm a pretty kinky guy, but I'm really not open at all about it, and have yet to have the guts to go out to one of Melbourne's fetish bars in my rubber gear. Part of the reason of that is that I don't think my love of rubber is entirely a defining element of who I am as a person, whereas for most of the guys who frequent those places, rubber and leather are their lives.

For me Rubber is something I absolutely love getting into, and gets me harder than pretty much anything else, but I don't feel that it defines who I am as a person. For you, Rubber seems to be a much more integral part of who you are, so maybe you're not going to relate to this so much, but I thought maybe I'd ask.

Sorry if this is a bit rambly, it's late. Appreciate any advice or reassurance or anything really. Just like need talk to kinky guys my age I suppose!

-Liam

Well, first I'd like to reference something really clearly spoken by Johnny Gear, here:

And in this society, we have a significant uphill battle to express our sexuality. We have to look out for each other's well being, even reaching across gender and fetish boundaries, whether we like it or not we are inextricably linked.... It's far more important than any particular gender, or fetish. I consider my fellow kinks to be brothers and sisters, people worthy of respect and dignity. We've all struggled to be who we are, and we're all struggling to figure out how best to express it. These are the things that make us a community.

I feel that being a kinky gay automatically puts you in a subculture inside the gay community, and that is something that you seem to have come to terms with. In a lot of ways, coming out kinky is very much like coming out gay and you can display this in different ways: keep it nebulous, keep it hidden, talk about it openly, be proud of it and display your sexual agency, or a mix of these. Personally I mix it all. I wouldn't ever say that kink is my life. My job is my passion in life, and always will be, but kink is something I think is an important part of me no matter what and I think it's important for me to express it, just like being gay is something I express. Claiming my sexual agency via these avenues is crucial for me, personally, to develop as a sexual being. Kink is not my life, but it is a part of it, and I'm not going to deny myself the opportunity to explore this avenue to its fullest. Just as you would say that being gay is part of your life, kink is part of your sexuality so it's a part of your life. It's easy to think that people online that have kink blogs or are really kinky have only kink as their life, but really the majority of us have lives, quite active lives where kink is just part of it.

With that comes becoming part of the community, and wearing gear in public at a bar is part of it. I find that there are two parts to wearing gear out in public. Firstly, it's extremely liberating. I was really worried when I wore rubber out to the leather bar for the first time. MAL was great and I enjoyed that, but I was really concerned the first time I did it. I was meeting a friend at the bar, and I didn't wear rubber in, I had it in a bag. We went to the lockable bathroom and I changed with his help into my rubber. I was worried. Really worried. But in the end, I got more attention at the bar, I had much more of a blast at the bar, ended up meeting some cool people and really enjoyed being in gear in public. It really bolstered my self-confidence as a person that I wasn't delimited to only wear this in private, that I was fully expressing my kink in a community that embraced it. It definitely was great. Nowadays I do it almost every time I go to the leather bar just because it's really easy to do, it's a great conversation starter as rubber isn't that big in philly and I'm exposing a lot of people to it, and it's just plain fun.

The other thing is that it is kind of a pay-it-forward thing to wear gear in public. I kind of reference that here, but it's really true. By us wearing gear out, we're developing the community better and really making a great atmosphere for kink. The basement in the bike stop in philadelphia in the summer is laden with flip-flops and cargo shorts. This makes the mood of the bar somewhat spoil at times, so it's much better when people just take the plunge and go for it. But also, the great thing is that it shows the curious, the worried, the kink-confused a good face for the community. I've seen a lot of people in the leather bar that are worried and concerned but really kinky walk in. Having a face in gear that is normal, not creepy and just another person really helps them out. I have had a lot of friends confide in me that they are closet kinky just from seeing me in gear or me talking about kinky to them. It really lets them let go and exclaim something that has been deeply suppressed in them. So for a selfless reason, it's great to go out in gear to get a community open and developed.

And the purely selfish non-mental reason: I get phone numbers of the hotter guys when I'm in gear. Just saying.

-Bo