The Mask's Balance

I am often asked why Leather masks have become such a primary focus of my Leather. The answer, each mask is a microcosm of the human experience, a dialogue between form and emptiness, the seen and the unseen. The exterior, a protrusion into space, the form. And the internal , the void into which the wearer must enter, the emptiness. The presentational surface invites the viewer to enter into dialogue with the masked. And the masked vivifies the surface that is presented. Together, both give life to the mask object.

The mask both disguises and exposes the wearer. As a disguise, it hides the literal skin in order to construct an other. But the mask also forces its wearer into action, forcing him to expose his phenomenal aspect. The mask constricts the senses so that extraneous movement is minimalized. Action is reduced to the essential, the critical.

The tools of Leatherplay operate in much the same way as the mask. No longer able to operate outside of the context established by the Dominant, the submissive is forced to express himself relative to the play object. The limitation of physical and emotional response in the Dominant's hand provokes the submissive to focus all his reactive energy on a single point. The point where a single tail strikes the skin. The constricting point of a rope that defines the limitation of the bound submissive.

Returning to masking, the mask object has no true back. Rather, the mask posits itself as a hollow relative to the wearer. A vacuum. An invitation to intimacy. Complementary to the public side, the side facing the wearer becomes private, experienced by one person.

The astute Dominant understands the intimate position of the submissive. He understands that the mask or play object is a portal to the senses, that its operation forces the submissive into a solitary space. As a result, experienced Dominants encourage kinesthetic responses from the submissive, vocalizations or gestures with the hands or limbs. And the experienced submissive understands that succumbing to the trance of privacy is selfish and denies the power exchange that defines Leatherplay. Because of its negligence in facilitating an exchange of power, surrender to privacy behind the mask object is nothing less than dysfunctional in the context of Gay Leather. In fact, the surrender to self in Leatherplay characterizes the biggest trap of Leatherplay.

In his essay “What Happened?” the author John Preston made this observation in the early nineties relative to sub-centric play:

If you want an anti-sexual experience, take a man, tie him up, whip his ass, and then listen to him lecture to you afterwards that you paid more attention to his right buttock than his left. He wasn't after an anarchistic S/M experience, he didn't want someone to show him his own shadows, he wanted an act executed as he directed it. Forgetting the experience, the how-to S/Mer falls back on the rule book. “And where did you get your training? What workshops have you gone to?” he asks, with all the social-status consciousness of a Boston banker asking where you went to college.

Preston, John. (1991). What Happened? In Mark Thompson (Ed.), Leatherfolk: Radical Sex, People, Politics, and Practice. (pp. 210-220). Boston: Allyson.

As a Dominant, I do not want to make my submissive comfortable when I play. Nor do I solely want to facilitate a state of ecstasy in the submissive brought about by endorphin release. Rather, I want to illicit an exchange between my self and my submissive. This creates a unique bond between us. Some men call this bond “trust” for lack of a better term. Private states of ecstasy are best left to religious rites and extreme masturbation. This is not the Leather that I practice.

Play objects operate like masks in my hands. My single tail connects my public position with the intimacy of the man on the receiving end. The bite of the cracker draws his sharp cry of pain and a rush of blood to the immediate area. I encourage both by striking that same spot again and again until I am satisfied with the submissive's response. This is the exchange of power that characterizes my Leatherplay. And it is the operation that characterizes the mask, my ultimate fetish.