Welcome to my lair! A brief introduction: I'm (among other things) an out gay man in my 40s, and I'm happy with both my work and my love life. When I say I'm "out," I mean (among other things) that after the usual long and painful struggle, I'm reasonably comfortable with my sexual identity and that my family and friends and a fair number of strangers know I'm attracted to other men.

What many of those folks, even the ones who are also gay, DON'T know is that the men I'm most attracted to tend to be either fictional characters (masked and spandex-clad superheroes) or their real-life equivalents (cops, who are the closest thing reality has to offer in terms of both occupation and outfits), and that my fantasies revolve around bondage, entrapment, humiliation, punishment, and the like. Comic book stores are for me what porn shops are for people with more mainstream tastes; I pore through the racks in seach of some previously unseen panel depicting Batman bound to a torture device, his costume shredded and his mask about to be removed by a nefarious lycra-clad bad guy.

For many years, from adolescence through my 30s, I was ashamed of this particular fetish (the superhero one, that is; everybody knows gay guys are hot for men in uniform, so the cop business is much easier to talk about). I went through at least three years of therapy, dredging up every other conceivable nook and cranny of my psyche with my only trusted confidant, before I felt comfortable enough to broach the subject.

And once I did bring it up, my life began to change: I sought out leather bars (particularly those with uniform nights), I checked out S/M videos (many of which still didn't float my boat), and above all I turned to the internet (where I soon discovered that every conceivable kink has long ago spawned two dozen websites and Yahoo groups). At the same time, I started creating and spending my nights in outfits of my own: a basic batsuit and variations, cop uniforms of various kinds, etc. I also found a life partner (a cop, by amazing coincidence) who doesn't share my fantasies with quite the same intensity but who is more than happy to explore them with me from time to time.

In short, I know now that I'm not alone in my minority tastes. But I've also seen that, amidst the scores of sites and groups devoted to exchanging JPEGs and erotic fiction about cops and caped crusaders, there aren't many places where like-minded fetishists can really talk about how their desire has affected other aspects of their lives. I'm interested in talking about this stuff semi-publicly now, partly because it makes me hot, and partly because I want to compare notes with other folks on their own life journeys. (You'll note that I'm using a pseudonym, which suggests that I don't particularly want to reveal EVERYTHING about myself here -- and besides, every superhero worth his salt has an alter ego, and one thing I've learned from my own explorations is that secrecy is a big part of the turn-on.)

I'll have more to say about what I have in mind here in a future entry. Once I learn my way around this "blog" business, I'll make sure it's possible for readers to post here themselves (or at least e-mail me)--but hey, if it's really just me talking to myself, that's okay, too. Cynics claim most online journals are masturbatory, and believe me, I've got nothing against solo sex -- in the proper disguise, of course.

See you here again soon--same bat-time, same bat-blog.

--batfan 60 (aka Bruce Wayne) (aka ****** ******* *****)