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THE MISSING LINK
Correspondence from ‘Letters From the Fetters Files’
MY INTRODUCTION
Real life is never like the movies - and the following text, although it
started out five years ago as a very woolly, intimate correspondence -came
together when the man we shall call DON, having found a lot of his own
solutions, sent me a well-thought out compilation. I would love to publish more
of the original correspondence which includes letters from and to some of this
contact ... but, for the moment, this is his story told in his own words.
THE MISSING LINK
I’m a man who has always played rough games. That includes
rough sex - and I mean really rough. Got me into a lot of trouble in the early
days. Word soon got around the neighbourhood. Most intelligent girls never went
out with me twice. Now, 25 years later I am a typical middle American working
man except that I get to play rough games with other men ... including some
sex. Don’t switch off because you disapprove or can’t relate to that. We’re
talking sexual stereotypes and the damage done when you can’t identify yourself
comfortably with any of them. My “MISSING LINK” title comes from lack of role
models I could relate to when I was growing up. I spent too many fucked-up
years trying to fit in.
So-called “normal” men who get a kick out of rough-housing
with other men are, generally speaking, a recognisable breed. The fact that
such horseplay sometimes produces complicated seem-erotic reactions is
something that not often gets talked about - but for me it’s always been an
uncomfortable fact of life. I think an awful lot of players of violent body
contact-sports and those real life “Action Men” who get their kicks from
competing or suffering hardship secretly get-off on it. Discomfort, pain or
danger at either work or play seems to attract a breed of man and these are (in
fiction at least) hero archetypes (If that’s the term I’m looking for). For
many of them the role also demands regular demonstration of their sexual power
over women. All too often, ultra rough sex and off-hand treatment of female
partners is a necessary part of their self-image.
Since developments in the Women’s Movement brought popular
admired ideas about the macho male chauvinist super-stud into question, perhaps
it’s time for me to push my “MISSING LINK” theory - that there’s this gap in
the gallery of American sexual role models.
In the Sixties when I was 15 my favourite jack-off
literature was the REAL MEN type adventure fiction where macho types risked
everything for buddies in mountains and jungles and behind Enemy Lines. If
there were women in the stories they were usually the cause of the trouble in
the first place or the prize when the challenges had all been overcome. My life
at that time was just starting out on the college jock, army grunt, red-neck
work and play route which any red-blooded
Early sexplay experiments with backwoods buddies was plain
old manly horseplay because the girls too often wouldn’t put out - and if they
did, we weren’t sure enough of the finer points of the game - so we needed to
practice (You know that old excuse!). In ordinary locker room grab-ass
horseplay ... humiliation, pain and sexual harassment was the penalty for
losing out - usually against unequal odds. My well-developed macho ego didn’t
allow me to go down without a struggle - but memories of times I got jumped and
roundly “degraded” disturbed me enough to stay with me as something to beat off
on later. Same applied to those fraternity party nights which ended in hot
rough-and-tumble crude sexual horseplay. The “Oh God, I was so drunk I don’t
remember what happened” morning-after excuses were a necessary defence on a lot
of occasions.
Bondage and S/M weren’t part of my everyday vocabulary then
(not like now - I’ve got an electronic one) - but from way back before my
teens, Cowboys and Indians and Jungle Warfare games for me had always included
tying up, capture and torture scenarios. Through High School wrestling team
days the grab and restrain (and tease) impulse was strong - and sometimes
embarrassing because they made me very horny. Even in the military, on combat
training exercises, I think I unconsciously looked to get myself into some
physical disadvantage situation as early as possible. But, however stiff my
dick got in the heat of the inevitable grappling, no way did I think of myself
as being in any way Queer. I screwed around with girls just like all the
would-be studs. Good buddies compared notes, swapped “good lays” and kept
score. Many’s the gal I left aching and sore - sometimes it worried me more
than it did them - but other times there were complaints - and word soon gets
around in a small community. “Neanderthal Man”; “The Hulk”; “The Missing Link”
...!
Along with my reputation for being too rough, I certainly
developed my sexual kinks. Being thought of as being kinky was kind of
acceptable among the people I hung out with. Both rope and handcuffs turned me
on - and for some gals it was a safety defence. A couple of early relationships
lasted only because those ladies learned to tie me down real well. When I could
struggle and swear and get angry without actually hurting them and being forced
to make-nice before I could get loose. I really got off on it in a big way.
Problem was ending a session like that - this vicious streak in me always drove
me to take some sort of revenge - even if it hid behind good humour.
Transfer to the Military Police soon after being drafted in
the late Sixties was like getting into heaven early. I found it easy to become
a regular sadistic bastard - and I screwed myself into psychological knots for
a year denying the inevitable. Admitting to myself that I was definitely weird
(= sadistic) was a start - and being openly “Kind of kinky” was almost natural
in the circumstances. Among army buddies my perverted sense of humour was much
appreciated - and the opportunities were all there to indulge it.
Faggot-baiting was a common sport - and the easiest way to degrade any man was
to accuse him of being a homosexual and treat him accordingly. The idea that I
enjoyed fucking men ... no way. I guess we’ve arrived at the main point ... At
that time no homosexual role model existed to even allow that possibility in my
mind.
When some “faggot-bitch” came on to me I would play with
them like a cat with a mouse. Then usually screw them rigid before working off
my disgust with them and myself through some kind of unfocused violence. No way
could I admit my enjoyment. It was only later when I realised something
strange: all through my life I’d liked to have a woman to go down on my cock
and give me a good blow-job, but I would force a man to go down on me as a sign
of my contempt for him. Was I also unconsciously degrading every woman I ever
went with? Life at that time was full of uncomfortable questions that I
rigorously refused to face up to.
An early marriage solved nothing except to give me a
smoke-screen to hide behind. I was like any regular guy wasn’t I - with two
kids to prove it. She and they paid the price for my lack of self-image - and
I’m still paying the price in hard cash and conscience. In the run-up to our
divorce even a shrink could not offer any solutions. Seems like he knew as
little as I did at that point in time. People were beginning to talk about
closet doors - but even in the late Seventies the nearest role model I could
relate to was a stereotype fucked-up rough-neck with a drink problem and an
almost irresistible tendency to beat up on women.
OK, I admit I bought a few copies of DRUMMER early on. The
men in it were at least masculine and well muscled - but all that leather and
shit. The stories sometimes took hold of me for a while - but sucking and
kissing and masters and slaves - forget it - but I couldn’t and bought more, although there was too little in them
for me to relate to - and a lot that honestly turned my stomach - and I admit
it still does. SOLDIER OF FORTUNE magazine now - the art of survival after World
War Three - me and a few buddies - but no sex with them of course - that is,
unless we got desperate and if there were no women available .... is that
different?
I won’t bore you with my “Coming Out”. It took more than one
man to teach me that even without role models you can override a life-long
conditioning; that too many natural instinctive gut feelings are systematically
ground out of us by parents, teachers and “The Church”. Family expectations and
peer group pressures frog-march us along paths that our instincts tell us are
not the way for us. But I guess most people are born to conform, fit in. Even
after I’d admitted to myself that I wasn’t “normal” - no way was I able to
identify myself with images of SM/leather lifestyles I saw in magazines in the
early-Seventies ..... although they were still useful jack-off material .....
because I used to dream up what I’d do to some of those
In spite of all the denial, eventually, I slowly began
making contact with other men with similar needs, drives and insecurities. The
process was agonisingly gradual - and dangerous - but somehow inevitable. You
may not accept inevitable - but I do. In looking back I can clearly see all the
signs - and have compared my experiences with other men who independently found
their own way out. My first real advance was to accept that rather than keep on
resisting inclinations - I should explore them deliberately.
Allowing myself to go along with these instincts took me
through some painful times. Painful for some of the men I met too. When they
brought out things in me that I’d been struggling to deny for so long, my anger
at me I took out on them. It was easy to convince myself that punishment was
what they enjoyed and was asking for. Slapping men around had always come
natural to me - getting slapped in return had always followed like day after
night since I was a boy. Looking back, I realised that for years I’d been
picking fights with men capable of beating the shit out of me. But most of all
I enjoyed a good even contest. Now it’s obvious to me that I’ve wasted a hell
of a lot of wonderful opportunities. Fights I’ve had with guys who were
probably on exactly the same wavelength as me. With me I just wouldn’t
recognise what was driving me - or didn’t know how to communicate. Until quite
recent I’ve missed out on living my life more fully in good company - but at
last I am getting somewhere. Getting this all down on paper is proof of that.
“Thinking” onto the old typewriter was how I first started sorting out my
tangled mind. I have you to thank for that - and I hope I’m not boring the shit
out of you!
To put it politely, I’m still fucking isolated in a world
where the people I can relate to are not only few and far between; they’re
dangerously difficult to spot. From what I’m setting down here - I may seem
comfortably out of the closet. But, unlike a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, I
haven’t reached the point where I can stand up in public and announce with
pride that I AM GAY. That’s because not many people would know exactly what I
mean by that, because ... what I am, does not fit with any of the sexual male
images known to the general public at large ..... not in
seems most so-called “Gay” men are unwilling to accept being
anything less than a full time, card carrying homosexual. Somebody who won’t
declare himself to the world and to hell with the consequences seems to get
dismissed as a “Closet Case” or something worse. For a time I re-assured myself
by thinking of myself as bisexual - but this dumb new-found honestly I’ve
developed has forced me to face it that I no longer get pleasure from having
sex with women. I still find that hard to write ..... I even said it to a buddy
a couple of months ago ..... but I think it’s been true for longer than I like
to admit.
So, I choose to live a lie. The private person I have
succeeded in hammering out of myself allows me to fulfil all my needs. My own
self image of myself is better now than it’s been all my life - but no way am I
ever going to disrupt my life by standing up and being counted as a homosexual.
In a “GAY PRIDE” parade there is too much I can’t relate to, to associate
myself comfortably. I’m not being critical of other people. Every man and woman
should be more free to grow and develop in their own direction according to
their own needs - but are they? - even the more sexually liberated publications
(straight or gay) still keep building barriers.
For example, DRUMMER magazine often says it’s policy is
based on Thoreau’s words “If a man does not keep pace with his companions,
perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music
he hears, however measured or far away”. But too much of what I’ve read in the
Gay Press has convinced me that what I must do to be truly liberated would
totally separate me from my familiar
lifestyle. In social terms the cost of Coming Out would be too high. As
a mature man who has lived in the same neighbourhood for 35 years, I’m used to
playing poker with guys I’ve know since Grade School. I want to be able to take
my newly married son and his wife to a ball game without them being
embarrassed. I prefer to hold my own in the construction site office where I
work - not face the inevitable battles that “Coming out” publicly would invite.
OK - so I’m still a closet case. That’s not because I’m ashamed of what I do or
what turns me on - but being realistic, why do something that would separate me
from people and places I enjoy being welcome at. To tell the world-and-his-wife
that I’m “Gay” would not mean the same to them as it means to me. Even I still
have trouble with “Gay” when I look at the men I fuck with ..... so people
around here would have no pigeonhole to put me in: ..... I get horny when
wrestling into submission a man who can give as good as I can ..... I like to
tie and get tied .... sweat my balls of struggling to get free when wrapped
head to foot in rubber or canvas, caked in mud or lashed to a tree in pouring
rain ...? That isn’t “Gay”, even “Queer” doesn’t cover it. I lost too much time
trying to find a slot suitable for me - and I welcomed the suggestion this
might get published so other people could read it, because I know for certain
now that I’m not alone in my likes and dislikes.
So, you may ask (that is if you’re still reading) .....
exactly how do I manage to stay in the closet and yet still fulfil my needs? I
live alone. Oh, incidentally Jim, a great question for you ..... Why is it that
a divorced man is an acceptable neighbour but a man who never married is
immediately suspect?). For a divorced man living alone to have guys round to
the house on a regular basis to play poker or drink or watch sport on TV is
natural enough. Whether the guys who gather at my house play poker or more
physical games till four in the morning gives no problem to my neighbours. They don’t think twice
about the cop in uniform, fresh off duty who may stay at my place till
How I make contact with new people and details of the games
I like to play would double the length of this article - and are not the focus
of my “lack of Role Model” argument ...but, briefly, a lot of my initial
contacts were made through Contact Ads in both straight and gay publications.
Learning what to say and what not to say has been a matter of trial and error.
It also started me putting in more toil
improving my word-power and ability to express my thoughts on paper.
Fantasising, even at my old typewriter, has helped me to sort out my mind -
writing to potential playmates and preparing the ground for “Scenes”. Having
brainstormed by correspondence with somebody - when you meet you can often
pitch right in with the action without too much eye-ball to eye-ball
discussion.
I’ve also learned a lot about reading the signs in public.
By trial and error I’ve learned how to give out signs without taking too many
risks - steering conversations and leaving openings for a man to show a little
more of his hand. It’s often a gamble - some you lose some you win - some you
get partway into a game and decide it’s not the right game for you. There are
risks - there are failures - for me there have been more than enough successes
to make it all worth while.
You asked me to describe in more detail the types of games I
like to play. Well, here goes:
..... mainly competitive, physical challenge situations
..... specially endurance, survival ..... perhaps military-type scenarios
either out doors or in my basement which is a practical workshop cum
rumpus-room (rather than some phoney dungeon). I like the term “Restraint”
rather than “Bondage”.
..... my equipment comes from local hardware and surplus
stores rather than sex toy catalogues (I already admitted that when I first
wrote to you).
..... Master/slave conventional SM action isn’t for me but
the macho stereotypes from DRUMMER turn me on if they act right as well as look
right.
..... fighting for control .....once gained, exercising
control of another man imaginatively ... and risking suddenly becoming the one
being controlled
..... wrapping, strapping, sweating, struggling, roping,
teasing, testing, goading..... inventing surprises and being able to deal with
surprises dreamed up by men perhaps with special training like police, loggers,
paramedics
.....guys more ingenious or with a sense of humour more
diabolical than mine.
Experimental joint enterprises like two men of equal
strength and physical ability agreeing to a strenuous wrestling bout each with
a fat dildo strapped up the ass, plus padded athletic crotch protectors imprisoning
heavily taped up cock and balls. First man to achieve a submission gets to do
whatever he decides to do for an agreed period or whatever time is available.
Being forced to work up a sweat encased head to foot in a
heavy rubber divers suit with the heating turned full up may be the price paid
for losing a hand at cards or at the toss of a coin.
Taking a camping trip with two or more good buddies each
prepared to test their hunting skills, physical endurance and determination to
come out on top. This may not sound to you the stuff erotic dreams are made of.
(Maybe you should let me know, Jim!) Back to my list of games:
..... Dildoes, vibrators, electro-massagers imaginatively
applied
..... Tit-clamps, clothes pins
..... improvised chastity devises locked on under jogging
clothes or work clothes in public places; on the back of a motor cycle in
leather and boots (You’re right, nobody
can see the plugged butt and the gag under the crash hat, but on a bumpy country
lane it’s quite a trip. Thanks for the suggestion.)
So now, can you describe the men who can invent and survive
such games queers or faggots? They may be masochistic, kinky perverted bastards
or just plain nut-cases but ..... I guess you’re right I’m just a pathetic
Closet Case. OK, so the fact that they
will fuck given adequate protection, will suck (perhaps only when forced), does
technically make them (me) homosexual. And the tactile sensuality and the
erotic appeal of some of our wham-bang games may be off-the-wall - but believe
me some of the most violent orgasms I’ve ever had have been when I’ve been
powerless to resist, avoid or control the action. Most of the guys who’ve
achieved these results admit they’re turned on by the erotic side of these
violent games we work out together. Would you describe them as “Gay”? Am I
splitting hairs to call them homo-sensual rather than homosexual. My main point
is - is there any established category in either straight or gay culture where
such men comfortably fit? Believe me, after seven years of correspondence and
game-playing I can tell you there are a lot of us out there. Unfortunately, too
many good men will hesitate for ever - never allow themselves to be what they
naturally are ..... never finding soul-mates or play-mates ..... maybe trapped into unfulfilled conventional
relationships. Lucky for me - I found my own way - and resolutely follow my own
path.
You asked about the risks of leading a double life. Of
course there are risks - and one day the shit may hit the fan. Somebody, out of
spite or because they’ve been tempted and chickened out, may blow the whistle
on me to neighbours, work-mates or family. I’ll deal with that when it happens.
Until then, a very private grapevine quite regularly brings me new playmates,
often with new and way-out games they like to play. By phone, modem and good
old
Today I still read the strictly macho male homosexual
magazines where, although the Editorials state that they try to cater for all
tastes ... I still wonder how strongly they influence the tastes of people who
fail to find their ideal role models there. Recently a few stories by writers
such as Jack Fritcher and Victor Terry ring bells for me. Now I know where I’m
at - I can disregard the inevitable master/slave role playing and the
interminable slurp and suck action in most fiction and Gay male videos. What I
used to think of as my limitations, I now recognise as preferences. Most
importantly, I am no longer intimidated by the implied message that unless
you’re willing to publicly commit yourself to a DRUMMER lifestyle you fail to
qualify for full membership. A lot of very private people know that being “Gay”
need not be an all or nothing deal. There must be thousands of men like me who
have too much to loose to “Come Out” publicly. The gay “Media” fails to
recognise that - so a lot of potentially available hot men who enjoy Mansex
steer clear of the whole Gay Scene.
Maybe as a matter of Gay Politics I should let it all hang
out - but maybe the gay political activists have, in their public relations
exercises, failed men like me. The image of the homosexual male is still too
narrow - or maybe too extreme. I disagree with much written by Marshall Kirk
& Hunter Madson in their book “AFTER THE BALL” but there is some logic
behind the argument that low profile homosexuality is, for a lot of people, easier to live with. I almost titled
this article “COMING OUT or STAYING HOME?”. A tough choice. I prefer not to
declare myself at the expense of so much that I’m used to and happy with. I
don’t want to freak-out my neighbours by stomping in and out of my house in Bar
Leathers, rubber or sequins. OK, that’s my problem but also my prerogative. I
certainly don’t want to subject my kids or my friends to the trauma of what to
them would be so difficult to get their minds around. I guess they could handle
it - but why should I hit them with it unnecessarily? Many Gay Men would
condemn me for making this choice of keeping one foot firmly in the closet.
Maybe they have more commitment to The Cause than me, but perhaps they also
have less broadly based social lives. I am the missing link in the gallery of
sexual iconography (as you put it) - but I’m not as rare a breed as I at first
thought. I’ve already met lots more of my own kind - and I suspect that there
are many, many more waiting until a few more barriers are lowered. How can this
happen?
Maybe in the fetish oriented hetero magazines, more personal
case histories of a men with suppressed homosexual fantasies could be explored.
Maybe some bi-men would be exclusively gay if they could handle better the
social and psychological problems involved. That takes us back to appropriate
Role Models or even a descriptive name, for God’s sake! I know from experience
that suppressed sexual drives can take you over in socially unacceptable ways -
ask my ex-wife. It took me a lot of unhappy years to get to where I’m at - and
a source of relevant information and suitable buddy-fucking role models would
have helped me make some of the connections it took me too long to discover for
myself. Women reading what I’ve written here may react with resentment, or
sense a challenge that they could deal with me in a way I’d respond to
sexually. Maybe so. I still have women friends, but I make no concessions when
it comes to the sort of sexual horseplay I most enjoy. Maybe there are also a
lot of women who after social
expectations have funnelled them into
the narrow passage of inevitable marriage, mortgage and kids to chore for ...
decide that they don’t even like men as permanent live-in liabilities. Maybe,
like me, they may someday wake up to the fact that they’ve been conned by
Middle America and that, in spite of all the sexual indoctrination they
absorbed unconsciously, they don’t even particularly like what they’ve been
told is “normal” sex. In recent years I’ve socialised with several divorced or
separated women who are not only NOT looking for a new man, they’re no longer
looking for sex. Sometimes that’s sad because they can’t face considering the
possible alternative - sex with their own kind. That they could find more
sexual fulfilment with a woman rather than a man is sometimes an idea blocked
only by social conditioning. On the other hand ... some basically hetero
magazines (even quite raunchy ones) find lesbian scenarios more acceptable than
ones about men with erotic fantasies about other men. Why is that, I wonder?
Jim ..... to be honest, I’ve sat on this for two weeks and
changed it around a lot ..... and picked at it a bit. Here’s the disc ..... do
what you like with it.
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