One evening I found myself once again sitting on the big red couch that belonged to good friends of mine. we were eating dinner, chatting and waiting for the beginning of a mediocre film that some other friends picked out. Since we spoke about the last kink party, they both had attended I wished that we would just skip the film and keep talking. Suddenly one of them asked me what kinks I was into and since I had hardly any experience back then, I answered with what I was most familiar with: „Pet play“.
Judging by their looks, both were surprised… before I made a fool put of myself by trying to gather coherent arguments one of them said: „Wait, I think I have something that you could like…“ and walked out of the room. A few seconds later, a black neoprene puppy mask. Not the original brand, but still the classic black model.
„You can borrow it if you want.“, she shrugged.
I smiled, „Sure, thanks a lot!“
I wasn’t so sure after all, but you must start somewhere and getting a hood for free for a few days seemed a pretty good one to me.
A few weeks later I had my own, which fitted more my vibe. A few months later I sat in a dark cellar in the south of Germany barking, growling, and cuddling other puppies, predatory cats and kittens. Lucky me, I finally found a place, which gave the impression of something worthwhile pursuing. Of course, these are just a few snapshots but for the moment the people that I have met feel less judgmental and more welcoming than folks that are just strict into power dynamics…
I am probably not the only person who noticed that although BDSM is always mentioned in the same acronym, the communities vary. Like Sadomasochism and power play are often combined, but if you are just into one of them it gets very hard to find a partner who is willing to just be the top, a sadist on the lesser extreme end, or if I want to tip my big toe into power play impersonates a more caring dome. This gives rise to the following problem: How to have completely deranged and very queer sex without any committed partner that fits one’s own current needs? Right, you can find the answer in the paragraphs above.
Despite that, no it is possibly not the most deranged sex that someone could have, but it is the most deranged sex that is accessible for now to me.
The “other”
Pet play has several advantages for me. One of the biggest would be that it is not dependent on the gender aspect. The role models of pet players are not Christian Greys in suits, private helicopters and millions in bank accounts, but pets, usually in the form of dogs and cats. Those who insist on an upgrade call it animal play and sneak through the dungeon as a tiger, fox, wolf or snow leopard. Unlike humans, animals only have genitals and reproductive organs but no gender. Quite apart from that, there are plenty of animals that change their gender during their lifetime, without any psychological expertise, letters of indication or everyday tests. You would have to be a clownfish or a ray-finned fish… or not. I have no desire for scales, gills or fins, but the feeling that my reality is not completely trans male, but rather remains trans male and something else.
This ‘something else’ is the crucial sticking point, because as a teenager I realised above all that I was many things, just not female. But I wasn’t male back then either and so I was forced to make myself comfortable somewhere between these two poles and far beyond. But there was no room for ‘in between and beyond’ in my social circles and so I remained emotionally and physically resistant. Try as I might, I didn’t fit in anywhere and everywhere I went, sooner or later I was exposed as a ‘weirdo’ and either merely tolerated or actively ridiculed. At some point, I decided that it was all too stupid for me and stopped trying to fit in. Instead, I mentally sought refuge in the animal kingdom, because animals cared very little what others thought of them, they were wild and free. For me, all of this was reason enough to fill the hole inside me that I knew existed, but didn’t know how deep it really was, with these animal characteristics, because the human ones didn’t do anything for me, nor did they seem to be valued by others. Being or trying to mimic normal human beviour made me feel bad and not myself, so it seemed very easy to just disregard the human aspects that I needed to keep holding up for pleasantry.
Admittedly, feral, menacing, entertaining an affinity for morbid things, prefers to communicate in hellish screeches, would love to be able to manipulate my own skeletal structure as a means of combat aren’t necessary the average needs of a human being or a pet, they are simple my needs. But to close the circle, my own mask, which I bought myself, is not a baby dog mask, but that of a hellhound. Ein otherworldly being with several heads and sometimes a huge appetite for blood. When I am fussy, my Pet Play unites less me being a pet and more me exploring transcending my gender into different realms of possibility for example mythology.
Ah yes, the non-toxic masculinty
It is not just about my gender identity but also about the performance. I won’t stop being adamant about the fact that not every dom has to desire being Christian Grey. Yes, „50 Shades of Grey“ fulfilled a lot of women’s fantasies and empowered them to pursue the start of their BDSM journey. But how many Christian Greys are there outside? Maybe even way too many, especially if you look at Christian Grey’s abusive behavior. Nevertheless, I personally don’t strive to be one.
I will never be a millionaire, I hope I will never turn abusive, and especially, I despise suits and the aesthetic of BDSM. Don’t get me wrong, black and red are fine, but not everything. Suits are, for me, the epitome of „professionalism,“ but a professionalism that is rooted in racism and ableism and denies people the right to wear their cultural equivalents of professional dress and denies neurodivergent and chronically ill people access to workplaces or higher positions. Anyway… back to the topic of „pet play.“
The pet play community is not without its faults or free from the stereotypical idea of the ‘manly man evil dom’. It exists here too, just usually in the form of the big bad wolf, the dealer in unimaginative GEAR Berlin get-up, the leather daddy à la Tom of Finland, the leather/latex dominatrix or the conniving cat lady. However, and perhaps this is due to my kink circles, the practice here is far less anchored in the norms of fixed cliché thinking of roles and positions and hard rules. The fun aspect tends to take centre stage, service tops are more accepted and things are generally more playful. For me, this means that if I ever top or domme, there is no pressure to fulfil an expectation or stereotype, which in turn makes it easier to get started.
The last (plus) point is that Pet Play leaves more room for fashionable ‘deviance’. The two-coloured Mister S masks still dominate the community, but even these are not necessarily black and red. More and more often I see homemade masks made of neoprene or an attempt to find a middle ground between the grim, dark cliché and the exact opposite of the rainbow-coloured unicorn.