Maybe Maimed but Never Harmed

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  A very old man closes his eyes as a tag and padlock are affixed to a wavy metal collar encircling his neck.

  Today, I turned 27, and I am afraid. When I look to the future, I feel capable of seeing only the single stereotype of older submissive men that exists: alone, disgusting, and desperate. I like this picture because it offers an escape, however fleeting, from that catastrophizing.

  Today, I turned 27, and I am angry. Everywhere I look in public, there are different discussions happening than everywhere I look in private. When I try to articulate this difference, it rarely receives public acknowledgement. So I lash out in barely-restrained anger at people I ought not. These comments are another good illustration:

  Before I ever wore a collar, I read about other submissives being collared on blogs, and I thought it sounded nice, but in a ritualistic way that seemed a little hokey to me.  Still, it seemed meaningful for them.

  I like to imagine the man in this picture has been a submissive all his life, but only now he’s been able to act on that and find a dominant lover.  And here he is, being collared at last, when he’s 84.  That seems very romantic….

  Think, for a moment, how 84 years of unrequited submissive desire might feel. Only in as sick a world as ours could this be called “romantic.” It should be called epistemic abuse.

  Today, I turned 27, and I am diffident. Ironically, my reputation as the author of this website could be turned into more opportunities to play and fuck the way I want than I ever imagined. But in that reality I can no longer honestly count myself among the men for whom I want my writings to speak.

  Please understand that I feel as though I was the creepy old guy before he was either creepy or old. I was hurting because the community where I felt most at home was the same one that made me feel the most unattractive.

  So as my youth—that other stereotype of sexual desirability—inevitably slips further away, I grow more afraid. And the more I’m told to “count my blessings,” the angrier I get, not because I’ve got nothing going for me, but because I cannot abide a world in which some of us are so love- and touch-starved that getting something back from sharing really personal fears with the Internet is considered a “blessing” in the first place.

  I think we can do better. What’s stopping us?

  -maymay

  
  

  07/06/11