Stop Agism and Shapism - Tie up an older man/a chubby now (or create a blog about it) !

I've just been on a tour of what the internet has to offer as far as men tied up, men in bondage, captured men and whatever. And guess what - the men (or should I say "boys"?) all have something in common (that is, besides being tied up). They are all young. Young and slim. Or young and buff. But believe me, no one over the age of 35 ever seems to get tied up on the internet. At least on commercial sites. And even for the under-35 set, some conditions do apply, i.e. no fat boys. Yup, as far as the internet is concerned, when gay bondage pops up, it's pretty boys all the way. And believe me, it ain't pretty.

If I sound angry when writing this, it's because I am. The pernicious effect of that overflow of cute is to make men who aren't cute by those narrow standards feel ugly and undesirable. Recently, an absolutely yummy chubby tattooed papa wrote to me that he felt older men in the leather/SM lifestyle looked pathetic and that he didn't want to be a part of that - and since he'd just turned 70, he was giving up on taking part in the scene. Now, where can he have picked such an idea, I wonder?

It is true that many men express their preference for younger/slim partners, often in pretty insulting terms. But there are also those, like me, who profess a liking for older/heavier partners. Why are we always overlooked? Could it be because we are supposed to be a "minority", not even supposed to exist, certainly not in our right minds ("How could you fuck a man who looks like THAT?" To which I'd reply : "With great pleasure.") But nobody has ever taken count, have they? When was the last time you saw a survey of gay men about their sexual preferences regarding age and body shape? Who knows what people might actually like when left to their own devices, without being dictated what they have to like?

Because don't be fooled by the attitude that says "we are only giving the consumer what he wants". The consumer doesn't get what he wants, he gets what he can get. Would the "bound twinks" sites really go bankrupt overnight if they were to feature one chubby model out of, say, ten? I don't believe it for one moment. And nobody can prove they would, for no site has ever tried.

For a number of years, a good friend of mine was editor of a magazine covering gay porn video. He made a conscious effort to include movies with Black and Asian actors in his coverage. Nobody complained. So what shall we call the attitude of the editors before him, the ones who never included anybody but white actors? It was racism, pure and simple. And when a site purports to show bound young men or tied up bodybuilders but deliberately excludes chubby young men or older bodybuilders, then said site is agist or shapist.

The lack of images of older men in bondage on the web has been the main reason for me creating this blog and reviving a neat Yahoo group called OlderMenBoundAndGagged under the new name MatureMenBoundAndGagged (look it up!) This last one has been a huge success and there would probably be even more members if some people weren't too dumb to understand that when I ask an age statement for admittance in the group, I mean it.

Empowerment is not something you can buy. This is a call to arms. If you feel there's nothing for you on the net, create something. If you agree with what I wrote, do something about it. Create your blog, your website. Stop relying on the half-assed products on the internet. Use the internet to make it more friendly to people with similar tastes. Or just to show that you're there and you count.

Stop Agism and Shapism - Tie up an older man/a chubby now (or create a blog about it) !

I've just been on a tour of what the internet has to offer as far as men tied up, men in bondage, captured men and whatever. And guess what - the men (or should I say "boys"?) all have something in common (that is, besides being tied up). They are all young. Young and slim. Or young and buff. But believe me, no one over the age of 35 ever seems to get tied up on the internet. At least on commercial sites. And even for the under-35 set, some conditions do apply, i.e. no fat boys. Yup, as far as the internet is concerned, when gay bondage pops up, it's pretty boys all the way. And believe me, it ain't pretty.

If I sound angry when writing this, it's because I am. The pernicious effect of that overflow of cute is to make men who aren't cute by those narrow standards feel ugly and undesirable. Recently, an absolutely yummy chubby tattooed papa wrote to me that he felt older men in the leather/SM lifestyle looked pathetic and that he didn't want to be a part of that - and since he'd just turned 70, he was giving up on taking part in the scene. Now, where can he have picked such an idea, I wonder?

It is true that many men express their preference for younger/slim partners, often in pretty insulting terms. But there are also those, like me, who profess a liking for older/heavier partners. Why are we always overlooked? Could it be because we are supposed to be a "minority", not even supposed to exist, certainly not in our right minds ("How could you fuck a man who looks like THAT?" To which I'd reply : "With great pleasure.") But nobody has ever taken count, have they? When was the last time you saw a survey of gay men about their sexual preferences regarding age and body shape? Who knows what people might actually like when left to their own devices, without being dictated what they have to like?

Because don't be fooled by the attitude that says "we are only giving the consumer what he wants". The consumer doesn't get what he wants, he gets what he can get. Would the "bound twinks" sites really go bankrupt overnight if they were to feature one chubby model out of, say, ten? I don't believe it for one moment. And nobody can prove they would, for no site has ever tried.

For a number of years, a good friend of mine was editor of a magazine covering gay porn video. He made a conscious effort to include movies with Black and Asian actors in his coverage. Nobody complained. So what shall we call the attitude of the editors before him, the ones who never included anybody but white actors? It was racism, pure and simple. And when a site purports to show bound young men or tied up bodybuilders but deliberately excludes chubby young men or older bodybuilders, then said site is agist or shapist.

The lack of images of older men in bondage on the web has been the main reason for me creating this blog and reviving a neat Yahoo group called OlderMenBoundAndGagged under the new name MatureMenBoundAndGagged (look it up!) This last one has been a huge success and there would probably be even more members if some people weren't too dumb to understand that when I ask an age statement for admittance in the group, I mean it.

Empowerment is not something you can buy. This is a call to arms. If you feel there's nothing for you on the net, create something. If you agree with what I wrote, do something about it. Create your blog, your website. Stop relying on the half-assed products on the internet. Use the internet to make it more friendly to people with similar tastes. Or just to show that you're there and you count.

Getting the Password

Now, I know, it's been a long time. Please, don't mention it. Those drawings take time, you know. And the colouring takes ages.

Actually, as you can see from the date next to the signature, this is a somewhat old drawing which I decided to colour. The title is pretty self-explanatory. I mean, why would you tie up an older man in real life? To make him helpless comes to mind. And why would you want him helpless? Maybe so you could get some information out of him. The information used to be the combination to the safe but nowadays, it's more likely to be a password on a computer. And how do you get that d--n password? It will take subtelty, of course. And patience.

And a feather.

New mature man in bondage story

I know I haven't blogged an awful lot lately. Sorry about that. The little time that I do spend drawing is on more "overground" projects. However, I've just had a bondage story published on the nifty site of erotic stories. It's my second contribution to Nifty - the first one was the first chapter of a serial and I'm still working on the second. So this time, I decided to concentrate on a short story, make it self conclusive but still leave the door open at the end for a possible sequel in case I should feel like writing one some day. You can read the new story "Teaching an Old Dog" here. And if you feel like reading the first chapter of an unfinished serial story that might take years to complete, you can find it here, it's called "Old Enough to Know Better". Most of the stories on Nifty that involve S&M or B&D are about younger men, so I'm using the "old" word as a kind of marker to indicate that this is not your run-of-the-mill episode.

Odin's feeling mighty Thor... er, sore

OMG! Has it been that long since my last entry? Sorry, folks! What can I say except "I've been busy"? But aren't we all? It's probably a sign of encroaching age that I can't find the time to put images on this 'ere fine blog.

Today's image is another such sign. I bought this comic a few months ago in London (note the cover price - yes, it's a British edition) thinking "Oh, that's one issue of Thor from the period when I was already buying American comics but not that particular series. And it's got this neat drawing of Odin barechested and in chains. Lovely!" (Yes, those are the kind of thoughts I think.) Of course, it turned out I had bought a copy of this comic back in 1973 and had quite forgotten about it... until I looked in my comic book collection. How strange! How could I forget? And how could this comic have failed to catch my attention back then, when I was starting to feel... er... how can I put it? when I was starting to feel very interested in mature and older men with moustaches or beards. In fact, it was the fascination I felt for a few panels from a comic published in 1973 or 74 which made me become aware of the fact (more on that someday).

Maybe Thor 212 was pre-awareness. And I must say that in the story proper, Odin doesn't look as good as he does on the cover. But then again, that cover was drawn by Gil Kane, who could make even a spaceship look sexy.

Tied on a Stinking Mattress

Not much to say, really. The title says it all. I'm not really into stinky things in real life, but images are another matter.

Today I had a visit from my friend JF. He is a bondage artist in his own right and some time ago, we decided to exchange drawings, each one suggesting a theme to the other. We only did that once, mostly due to laziness on my part, but JF just posted on his blog the drawing I did for him. "Bob and Bill in Jeopardy" is an homage to a French-language adventure hero, Bob Morane, and his "best friend" (ahem! ahem!) Bill Ballantine. Being adventure heroes, they always got into tight spots but never got tied up enough for my and JF's taste.

Saran Wrapped

It's been a long time since I posted a new picture. Sorry about that, my life has been rather busy these last few months, both with work (I translate for a living and I had a rather big assignment - translating a book about Osamu Tezuka) and at home. Pierre, my long time companion, has been sick with Alzheimer's disease for years, and a month ago, he had to be hospitalized. He is back home now, in much better health, so I can catch up with a lot of things, including this blog.

I must admit I've been unfaithful to this blog. I've been posting drawings on the gmba google group. It's a group for posting male-oriented fetish art. It's a bit of a mixed bag, with lots of different art styles, with fantasies ranging from the rather tame to the extreme. Not everything's in it is my cup of tea, but I like the variety of approaches and thought it would be a good place to post some art I find too explicit or too un-PC for this blog. Another reason why I didn't post a lot on Jeryn's World is that I haven't worked on material I found tame enough for the blog, I guess.

"Saran Wrapped" is a nice exception. It's got a long and convoluted story. Bear with me.

I first started making bondage and fetish drawings while in my teens, and some of the earliest fetish art I saw were comics by fetish artists from the 1950s Jim and Eneg, who depicted fair damsels in all kinds of nasty predicaments. I used some of that stuff for inspiration, only with mature men as the "victims" back then (this was the 1970s). A few years ago, I discovered the work of fetish and bondage artist Leo Ravenswood, also from the 1970s. He had been publishing drawings, short comics and illustrated stories that used many trappings from the 1950s bondage artists, with long-haired, mustachioed men as the protagonists. I found some info on Leo on the internet, especially on the Mitchmen blog's great A to Z of male fetish artists. I was struck with the fact that Mitchell, the blog owner, had hit upon an aspect of Leo's work I had somehow perceived - that his use of black leather and rubber body encasements gave his men's bodies feminine qualities. That's one way of putting it and it seems to me a perfectly valid point. If you wrap up a man's body in a black, shiny, clinging material, this will certainly make it look more like the fantasy bondage females of the 1950s. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, I find it quite exciting (and fun to draw).

So, when I came across a photo of a very hot New Yorker called Brooklyn Bull saran wrapped, I thought this was so hot that I'd use it as a basis for a drawing. So here it is, in all its black and white glory (homages to fetish drawings of long ago have to be drawn in stark black and white, of course).