"Bonding": Who Knew BDSM was So Boring?

The "Bonding" in Boomer's Beefcake and Bonding refers to "male bonding," intimate emotional connections between men that can be read as homoromantic.

But the new Netflix short-series Bonding (2019) is about BDSM.  Or something like it.

Pete, a ridiculously straightlaced, conservative Richie Cunningham type (Brendan Scannell), wants to become a stand-up comedian, but is too shy to get on stage.  Desperate for money, he takes a job assisting free spirit Tiff (Zoe Levin), who works as a dominatrix.

I can't imagine a worse job for someone who is: a. ridiculously straightlaced; b. ridiculously shy; and c. gay  (well,he says he's gay, and he dates men, but the way he and Tiff gaze longingly at each other, I'm not sure).

But at least the subs (straight word for bottoms) are all men, so he can see some penises, and work on his stand-up routine.

I've been in BDSM scenes.  They're nothing like this.  Flintstones fetishes.  Penguin wrestling.  Tickling house calls orchestrated by the wife. And aggressively pansexual: the subs, who signed on for a heterosexual scene, don't seem to mind at all when a guy helps out.  When Tiff doesn't show up for a scene at all, the sub insists that Pete take over.

The BDSM job makes for some "coming out" sequences, as Pete struggles to tell his roommate (who, in a subplot, is upset because his girlfriend won't try ass-play, so he asks Pete to do it), and Tiff decides to tell her whole psychology class through show-and-tell.

About that -- psychiatrists go to medical school.  This is like an undergrad psych class. There's a lecture on Freud. And it appears to be the only class any of the students are taking.

You would think that a show about a dominatrix's assistant would be more...um...interesting.  But it's mostly sight gags playing with Pete's discomfort with nearly everything ("You want me to rub what on what?") followed by long, boring conversations.

Both Pete and Tiff are ridulously broken, using BDSM as a barrier to keep from making real emotional connections.

Wait -- which one am I supposed to identify with?

And what am I supposed to make of the last scene, when they go on a housecall and meet a killer?  In a comedy.  Changes the whole vibe.

By the way, guess who they end up with:

The jaded, done-everything, whipping-your-genitals-before-breakfast Tiff hooks up with Doug (Micah Stock), the most redonkulously naive, conservative, corn-fed country boy who ever ended up in grad school in psychology in New York. Their first date is to a video game arcade.  What is he, twelve?

Micah Stock, by the way, is by far the most attractive cast member.  But I couldn't find any beefcake photos.  Figures.

The redonkulously naive, conservative, ultra-skittish, "but people might see us!" Pete hooks up with the jaded, done-everything-twice Josh (Theo Stockman).  Their first date is to a gay strip club, where they drink real alcoholic beverages while go-go boys gyrate over them.

Gay characters:  They're all pansexual.

Gay Sex: Just kissing.  We do see two heterosexual sex scenes (no nudity).  The BDSM scenes don't appear to involve genital contact.

Beefcake:  Not as much as you might think.  Apparently you keep your clothes on for BDSM.  We get to see some of Pete, if you're into skinny androgynous types.

I'll give it a C, if you're not into BDSM.  If you are, you'll find it so horribly inaccurate that it's unwatchable.

Keanu Reeves Bottoms for Drake

When I was living in West Hollywood in the 1980s and 1990s, everybody "knew" that Keanu Reeves, star of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, My Own Private Idaho, Little Buddha, and Speed,  was gay, and a BDSM top.

Will the Bondage Boy said that his first BDSM experience was a role-playing scene with Keanu and his friend Scott.

Marshall claims to have seen him at a bear party, wearing fetish gear.  He didn't do anything, but he left with a Cute Young Thing.

A guest at one of Will's parties claimed to have bottomed for him in a scene in Silverlake.

But this is the only story I heard about Keanu Reeves as a BDSM bottom.

Silverlake, July 1990

Call me Drake.  We lived in California at the same time.  It's a pity we never met -- we would have had a lot in common.  I'm five years older than you, from Illinois, I grew up in a fundamentalist household, and I'm a gym rat, working out three or four hours a day even in my 60s.    I think I also knew Will the Bondage Boy, if you're describing who I think you are.

There are a surprising number of black guys into BDSM, which is a problem because of the fetishists.

 Lots of white guys want to be with you just because you are black; they're not really into dominance, discipline, or pain at all.  Regardless of how well you prep them in advance, the moment you pull out the whip, they're squealing their safe word, and the scene is ruined.

So I was very careful in the 1980s.  I would only top guys who I knew, or who came recommended by a friend.  And none of these "bi-curious" closet types; if you get off on ladies stomping on your chest with stiletto heels, keep out of my dungeon, baby.

One night after a scene, a bottom named Steve and I were chatting.  He was telling me about some of the other guys who had topped him, and he mentioned Keanu Reeves.

"Keanu Reeves?  From Bill and Ted?" I balked. "I know he's gay, but what a nimrod!  Like, now I'm going to totally whip your most excellent penis, dude."

"He's not a nimrod, Sir, he just plays one. He's actually very intellectual -- he reads Camus and all that.  And he's a great top -- really good with role-playing scenes, I guess because he's such a good actor."

Actually, I found the other guy in Bill and Ted (Alex Winter) much hotter, but it might be fun to dominate the dopey Ted,  wipe that dazed expression off his face. "Does he ever bottom?"

The full story, with nude photos and sexual situations, is on Gay Celebrity Dating Stories

Dorno of the Herculoids, Grown Up and Tied Up

These are The Herculoids, Zandor (middle), Tara (left), and Dorno (right), protectors of the planet Amzot in a Saturday morning cartoon series that ran 18 episodes from 1967 to 1969.  A few more episodes were aired in 1981-1982.

They were barbarians with sci-fi powers and a lot of cool pets: a space dragon; a giant ape; a rhinocerous with a laser cannon for horns; and two blob-beings.

Most episodes involved one of the three getting captured by Bird Men, Mole Men, Spider Men, Bubble Men, Electrode Men, Sun People, Crystallites, Reptons, Monkey People, and so on. 

Dorno, of course, ignores the orders to "stay here where it's safe" and either initiates the action or stumbles upon a way to perform a daring rescue.

Although it's been 35 years since we saw any new episodes, the Herculoids have not been forgotten. They've appeared on Harvey Birdman and Space Ghost Coast to Coast, and in various comic books, including DC Comics' Future Quest (2016).

And there's a lot of fan art of Dorno tied and threatened.

Usually he's aged into young adulthood and buffed up a bit, to appeal to adult sensibilities.

Sometimes he is threatened by villains from the show, and sometimes by new characters.  There's a whole series of Dorno fighting Freddie Kruger.

Here Jonny Quest and Hadji gang up on the barbarian hero.

Jonny and Dorno have some romantic moments, too.

But there's not much time for romance when every monster, pirate, and villain in the galaxy wants a piece of you.

And the rule in the Villain's Code about hurting kids no longer applies.

All pictures are copyrighted by their respective owners on deviantart.com.

See also: Saturday Morning Muscle

Cops Tied Up

Many gay men into BDSM have a special interest in police officers, either getting tied up by them or tying them up.

In part because of the authority of the uniform, but not entirely -- other authorities don't have nearly as much fetish appeal.

I think it's also because of the longstanding hostility between the police and gay communities.  It's changing -- slowly -- many police departments have non-discrimination policies, and some actively recruit at gay pride events.  But still, police officers are more likely to be homophobic than members of any other profession: some 20% of LGBT crime victims report harassment from the officer taking the report.















"Cops Tied Up" can be a revenge fantasy, giving the homophobes what they "deserve."  Or a coming out fantasy: the big, macho, dominant cop discovers that he actually likes being dominated.















These aren't real cops, of course.  They are BDSM bottom in the fetish uniforms available at any leather store -- that's why they say just a generic "police."



















I've never met a real cop into BDSM, but I'm sure there are some.  They probably don't use their real uniforms for scenes.  A violation of professional ethics.

More after the break

Dream Boys in Pain

In a BDSM scene, the top and the bottom negotiate in advance about how they will exert/relinquish power and control.  What type of bondage will there be?  Will there be humiliation (name calling, slave collars, water sports)?  Will there be "forced" sex?  Will there be pain (flogging, spanking, cbt)?  

Some scenes offer a mix of elements. Others emphasize one.

Master Kevin and and his 24/7 slave Jared emphasized pain.  The other methods were of minimal importance, often omitted altogether.  Even when they weren't in a scene, Jared would deliberately get "cocky," disobey or talk back, inviting "punishment," seeing how much he could take.

One day they got the idea that other people might enjoy seeing BDSM scenes where the power relation was distilled to a single primal scream, and Dream Boy Bondage (dreamboybondage.com) was born.

The stories are minimal: a prisoner of war is interrogated; a convicted criminal chooses a sentence of pain instead of incarceration; a guy borrows money from the wrong loan shark; two Mormon missionaries knock on the wrong door.

Whatever brought them to the dungeon, the scene varies only a little: they are stripped, whipped, punched, flogged.  They are hung from a cross.  They are bound spreadeagle for cbt, electroshock, and hot wax.

There is rarely any sex.  There is rarely any plot development or resolution to the stories.  The point is seeing the Dream Boys struggling in their bondage while the top works on them.

Master Kevin is mostly absent; we sometimes hear his voice barking orders from offstage, or see a chubby hand groping the restrained bottoms.  Jared is the top, working with few words and little emotion.  To him it's just a job, a chore that his master ordered, like mowing the lawn or washing the dishes.

Each session is 15-20 minutes long, with about six sessions per scenario.  No distillation of "best moments": what you see is what happened, in real time.

The bottoms are rarely muscular or well-hung, but they are stunningly attractive.  They are "pretty boys," used to being desired for their face rather than their physique.

Some the Dream Boys are experienced bottoms who can take anything, but most are not into BDSM at all, and many are straight, just in it for the money.  They are feeling the whip or the violet wand for the first time: that's real shock on their faces.

The full post, with nude photos, is on Tales of West Hollywood.

How Intimate is Your Sex Life?

We have sex for many reasons:

To express erotic desire.

To experience beauty

To boost our self esteem

To be polite

For recreation

To establish and maintain intimacy.

Intimacy: that feeling of intense closeness, of opening not only your body but your soul, is essential for starting and maintaining a romantic relationship, the only way to distinguish friends and roommates from lovers.

These are sexual acts rated on a scale of 1 (least intimate) to 10 (most intimate).

To determine the intimacy of your sex life, score yourself for each of these acts that you engaged in with a partner during the last week, then divide by the number of sessions.

For instance, if you had five sessions last week, twice as as an anal top, three times as an oral bottom, three times as an oral top, and and one interfemoral, your score is 6.0

But, if you had five sessions last week, all involving kissing, plus twice as an anal bottom and three times as an oral bottom, your score is 12.8.

Note:  They are rated on intimacy only, not on other ways to judge a sexual act, such as skill required, degree of erotic stimulation provided, and facility at producing an orgasm.

Anal Top.  2

Anal Bottom.  4

BDSM Bottom.  5

BDSM Top.   5

Frottage. 3

Interfemoral. 7

Kissing.  10

Oral Bottom.  2

Oral Top.  4

The full post, with nude photos and explicit descriptions, is on Tales of West Hollywood.

See also: The Ins and Outs of Oral Sex

Fantasy Kidnapping

In many BDSM scenes, the bottom pretends to be unwilling, a prisoner of war being interrogated, a spy being tortured, a hitchhiker who was abducted.

A pretense of force is a powerful way to give up control if you are a bottom, and to exert control if you are a top.  And in fact, in a hard scene, the bottom is testing himself, seeing how much pain and humiliation he can endure, so on some level he is "unwilling."

The website breederf*.com, plays on the fantasy of force by portraying straight guys being kidnapped or tricked into a scene by one or two tops.  They are tied up.  They get some light BDSM.  They are humiliated.  And they are forced into sex.

The tops, usually Adrian and David, are rather craggy, sleazy, and unattractive, which adds to the realism of the scene.  They look like the sort of perv who really might kidnap straight guys -- although they do have the enormous beneath-the-belt gifts  and incredible staying power one expects from a porn performer.

The full post, with nude photos, sexual situations, and the actual name of the website, is on Tales of West Hollywood.

Maurice Deriaz: The Bodybuilder Who Submitted to the Artist

Maurice Deriaz, born in 1885 in Baulmes, Switzerland, was one of seven famous athletic brothers who performed weight lifting and gymnastic feats,

He also performed by himself.  Called le lion suisse and roi de la beauté plastique, he drew crowds all over Europe.

In 1907, he found himself in the Paris of the Belle Epoque, the Paris of  gay authors like Gide, Proust, Huysmans, and Collete.  The Paris of Impressionism, Fauvism, and Art Noveau.   And of 55-year old painter Gustave Courtois (1852-1923), who shared a studio with his roommate and partner since their art school days, Pascal Dagnan Bouveret (1852-1929).

Courtois was a painter of the "academic style": vast, grandiose,  pompous, with allegorical or historical subjects, rather old fashioned and outdated for the Belle Epoque.  Yet somehow he convinced the ultra-modern Deriaz to model for him.

One assumes that he offered more than monetary compensation.












Portrait de l'athlete Maurice Deriaz  appeared in 1907.

Deriaz returned in 1912 to model for Hercule au pied d'Omphale (Hercules at the feet of Omphale 1912), below, and Persée délivrant Andromède (Perseus rescuing Andromeda, 1913).
















Both represent myths of dominant-submissive relationships. Did Deriaz have a dominant-submissive relationship with the older Courtois that got coded into the paintings?

But these paintings were never for sale.  They were gifts to Deriaz.

When Deriaz retired from bodybuilding, he opened a factory that made reeds for musical instruments.  He died in  in 1975.

The three paintings that he modeled were hanging in his house.  He donated them to the city of Baulmes.

Why did the artist convince Deriaz to model for three paintings, and then not try to sell them?  Were they too personal, embedding, a secret language that only they could interpret?

This sketch, dating from 1913, is captioned "Se faire un chemin par la force," making a way through force, a quote from Virgil's Aeneid.

There are hints and glimmers of a gay relationship, perhaps one with BDSM as a theme.  But the details are lost to history.

How to Tie Up Twinks

I have come to the conclusion that almost all guys under age 30 are into bondage.  Maybe not in gay neighborhoods, where S&M masters are readily available, but out here on the Plains, hinting that you might like to tie them up is like dangling a carrot in front of a donkey: they'll follow you anywhere.

Of course, they're nervous.  They've never given up control before.  But they're intrigued -- and enthusiastic.  The sooner you can set up a scene, the better.

Even if you're not into bondage and domination play, a tied up twink is pleasant for "vanilla sex."

There are 8 steps to a successful BDSM scene.

1. Prepare the Bottom

I prefer my bottoms, also called "subs" or "boys," to be young and thin, but any age and size is fine.

Never suggest a scene for a first date or hookup.


All BDSM play involves dominance and force, so it's important to have a verbal contract in advance.  Agree on which acts will or might occur.  Arrange for a safe word for him to use if he wants an activity to stop.

No, there is no one who is "into everything." He has to specify what he definitely wants to happen, what he is ok with, and what he definitely doesn't want to happen.




2. Set Up the Space

If you don't have a separate room set up as a  dungeon, any room will work.  I use my regular bedroom, but remove the usual paraphernalia, put dark drapes on the windows, black sheets on the bed, and my equipment laid out on the dresser.  Some sinister-looking artwork, gargoyles and such.

Loud music is essential to drown out the other sounds. A classical symphony sounds majestic, or you can go with heavy metal:  I like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, and Marilyn Manson,


3. Shift from Regular Time to the Scene

After the preliminaries -- the small talk, the drinks, the bathroom break, some kissing and fondling -- the scene begins.

I always tell the bottom that the scene begins when I put on my leather vest, and ends when I take it off.  During that period, neither of us have names.  I will not speak to him except to issue commands, and he is not permitted to speak except his safe word, "Yes, sir," and "No, sir,"

I then go into the other room, take off my shirt, put on my leather vest, and return.  I order the bottom to strip and kneel with his hands behind his back.

Then we're ready for the scene to begin.

The full story, with nude photos and sexual content, is on Tales of West Hollywood.