Blog : expectations, molds and preconceived notions

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7/22/2020 1:55 am

expectations, molds and preconceived notions

Growing up, I remember the band “Helmet’ sporting short hair, yet playing some seriously loud, aggressive rock / metal music. The length of their hair was notable because up to that point there wasn’t a single band that played the kind of music they did, that didn’t sport some form of long “metal hair”. Their music was actually much more intense than most of the “hair bands” so it wasn’t just their appearance that set them apart, but it was a detail that left an impression on me.

When I was in junior high school I remember still trying to follow trends when it came to things like clothing, shoes and even hairstyles but by the time I reached high school I was doing my best to care very little. It wasn’t necessarily a conscious decision, I just wasn’t interested in being like everybody else. When you are an antisocial introvert loner you typically don’t like the people around you, so the last thing you try to do is emulate them. I wasn’t interested in drawing attention to myself either. I didn’t want to stand out, I mostly just wanted to be left alone.

And so it has been, that while others around me have piled onto bandwagons, I have resisted. While living in Portland, Oregon I never once wore a shirt with a basketball or college football logo emblazoned all over the front of it, and when people asked me if I’d “seen the game the night before?” or asked me if I liked the Ducks or the Beavers better (the two Oregon college football teams) I had to admit I had zero interest in the entire thing. Looking at my long hair, people typically assumed I was a hippy or a stoner, but my clothing choices usually said something completely different. While my co-workers at the porn shop wore band t-shirts and ripped jeans I wore slacks and a long-sleeve shirt for my shifts. And when I went to fetish and kink-related parties and events I always felt like I was in a costume when I dressed like everyone else seemed to dress. Without really trying, it seems like I’ve never quite meshed or fit in, and because I am not aching for acceptance I don’t make attempts to.

This attitude definitely extends far beyond my clothing and hairstyle choices. When I very first dipped my toes into the BDSM community I found an adherence to “rules” that seemed mindless and automatic. When people kept trying to tell me I couldn’t do things (when I so obviously was) I knew the community wasn’t for me. Was it just about not following the rules or was it something deeper that turned me off? I feel like it’s that same unnamed, contradictory part of me that drives it. Rules are worth establishing, following and even enforcing at times but to blindly do so like a sheep bothers me. To parrot rules and say you are “supposed to” do this and “not supposed” to do that is genuinely the opposite of who I am. So I have remained on the outskirts of the community, mocking it at times but mostly just telling people they don’t “have to” follow any of the rules if they don’t want to. They can create their own community, or simply choose to stand apart from it. It’s amazing how many people think that because they are kinky they “have to” join a group, follow some rules, etc. Did people forget they have free will?

When I’ve gone to adult video arcades as a customer, looking for someone to suck my cock through a glory hole, approaching the strange men lurking in the shadows has never been an issue for me, yet almost every single guy has reacted with surprise when I did. Walking up to them in the darkness and just asking if they are a Top or bottom blows their minds. What they are used to is a ludicrous dance where you sort of have to guess at what each person in the arcade is there for. Is that guy leaning against the wall by the drinking fountain here to suck cock, or maybe get fucked? You won’t know until you approach him (which nobody seems to do) or you disappear into a room and then… sometimes if you leave the door unlocked a guy will follow you into the booth… sometimes you’ll go to stick your dick through the hole in the wall only to find the guy on the other side has already done that… sometimes you’ll put your dick through the hole and if you’re not paying attention the person on the other side will back their ass up to it instead of taking you into their mouth. I preferred to skip most of the “maybes” and just walk up to a dude and ask him if he wanted to suck my cock. No secret hand signals, no body language to decipher, just a direct question.

Which leads me to something semi-related: the hanky code. For those who don’t know, gay men used to wear colored handkerchiefs (usually in the back pocket) to quietly communicate what they were into. Yellow was for a guy who liked<b> water sports </font></b>and red was for fisting, just to name a couple of them. I think the pocket you wore it in had significance too; if the left back pocket, you were the Top/giver and if right back pocket, you were the bottom/receiver or something like that. The establishment of this code helped gay men communicate back when it was flat out dangerous for them to do so, but times they have a-changed, yet there is apparently still an adherence to it in a much more widespread form. I guess if you wear a mask or knee pads that are specific colors you are still quietly telling certain people things about yourself. In other words, I could go to a gay club wearing red and people there would likely think I was into fisting, when in fact I am not. Nobody can say whether or not someone would approach me to verify this, but it might cause some to avoid me the whole night, based on that false assumption. This sort of thing infuriates me - or at least it brings forth that kind of reaction in me.

And as if to bolster my point, I had a recent communication breakdown with someone about this very thing. He was trying to purchase a hood and some colored sports tape, to help conceal his identity. The sports tape was for covering tattoos, in case you were wondering, and when the guy said he was thinking of getting a hood with yellow trim I offhandedly mentioned they probably made yellow sports tape as well, so he could coordinate if he wanted to. We exchanged a couple more messages, and during one of them I told him which colors I thought would look good or bad on film. That’s when I finally found out he was worried about wearing a hood with red trim because of what it might “say” about him. As a gay man, it seems like he’s made adherence to the hanky code an integral part of his communication process, whereas for me, it is not even a consideration. While he saw yellow trim on a hood as a unspoken statement of his desire to be pissed on, I just saw a piece of clothing, or an accessory. In other words, while I was “speaking plainly” he was speaking in code, and I was unaware of the fact.

This act of purchasing a hood is something quite simple, so it makes me wonder; under what other pre-conceived notions does he operate? Will I do or say something that is code for something else, when I am completely unaware of the fact? Will I have to constantly explain that I am not the stereotype, not typical, not going to fit into a familiar mold or configuration? While he might expect a Dom to act a certain way, even talk a certain way, I remain myself at all times. I don’t turn on the Dom when I scene and then turn it off when I go to the grocery store. I am always myself, everywhere I go, not playing a role sometimes and “acting” natural the rest of the time. Which means I am probably not going to fit into molds or generally meet expectations very often. I don’t like playing pretend, while it seems others thrive on it. I ache for authenticity, not escape, and it is that sort of thing that makes me want to be as real, true, genuine, authentic as possible with people so there is little room for confusion.

When I wear my hair long, I don’t want people to assume I am a hippy or a metal head, but they often do so without ever speaking to me. When I paint my fingernails I don’t want people to assume I am a cross dresser, even if I am. And if I stuff a hanky in my back pocket I don’t want people to assume anything about me based on the color of it, or what pocket it is in. These are not things I am worried about, but it sure is silly to think about having to deal with them. What kind of mixed signals am I unwittingly giving off by simply wearing a certain color, tipping my hat a certain way, doing something with my hands…?


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