Masked and Anonymous

Found this passage interesting in light of what I'm forever going on about here:

It is curious, the term that [musicians in Rio in the early 1960s] used to designate one who didn't do drugs: "careta." Apparently this word, which traditionally had mean "mask" or "masked person," emerged among criminals as a jocose diminutive of cara, which means both "face" and "person." So if one abstained from taking a mind-altering substance, it was said that he had a "cara limpa," a clean face. And many times I heard musicians say that they had to deal with this or that awful situation "totalmente de cara," by which they meant "completely clean," not high. In this roundabout way, through the outlaw slang of musicians, careta came to mean the opposite of masked or disguised. But even this "pejorative" use, referring to those who did not do drugs, ended up bringing back something of the old meaning, since to do drugs was understood as opening up to God and to music--an unmasking of oneself.

That's from careta musician Caetano Veloso's book Tropical Truth, and I'm struck by the whole connection between removing a mask and "opening up to God"--and to the role that drugs play in both. Of course, you can't really take a mask off till you put one on, and that, for me, is where batplay comes in. Now that the Monk has deprived me of mine, the question is: to what am I opening myself? And what will my new face look like?

Knightfall 7: Death of a Mauve Bat

There haven't been many "Knightfall" updates here lately because both the Monk and I were otherwise engaged for much of the last month and a half. We resumed sparring in earnest a week or two ago, the Monk convinced that he would ultimately succeed in destroying the Batman and replacing him with Ratman.

And damned if he hasn't gotten away with it--or so it seems for now. All I can say is, in one of many moments of weakness a couple of days ago I finally did as I was told and replaced my cowl with a new mask constructed from the "flag" of yellow cumstained undies he ordered me to create back when he first broke me. I did so offline--not under his direct instructions but of my own volition, more or less--and then logged on and found him waiting to see the end result of his handiwork. All along I'd been expecting some huge, titanic confrontation, but it never really happened. I just felt my bat-self start to slip away and a new one take hold.

So I guess the unthinkable has happened: The Bat in me is--or at least damn well appears to be--dead. Long live the Rat. (Amazingly, it didn't dawn on me that I was actually born in the Year of the Rat until just a few weeks ago.) I can't believe that's completely true, but I'm willing to play this out and see where it takes me. For starters, he's now the one in the bat-mask, playing the part of The Evil Bat. And I presume he intends me to become a villain, or at least his henchman. But I can't say for sure--and I'm certainly not the one in charge now.

By coincidence (or divine providence), last night and tonight I watched the movie The Five Obstructions, in which crazy Danish director Lars Von Trier convinces his mentor Jørgen Leth to remake one of Leth's earlier films 5 times, in 5 different ways, adhering to a series of preposterous rules (examples from 3 separate "obstructions": no shot can last more than 30 seconds; it must be remade as a cartoon; it has to be shot in the most miserable place on earth). The relationship between the two men is surprisingly similar to that between the Monk and me: there is a root friendship and mutual admiration, but the surface interactions are straight out of s/m, with Von Trier as the Top determined to humiliate his victim (and convinced that he knows Leth better than Leth knows himself), and Leth as the humble bottom gamely agreeing to one demented rule after another (using each as an opportunity to further his own craft).

For the last few weeks I've also been driving around listening to Don Delillo's book Cosmopolis on tape, read by ultra-cutie Will Patton, and I just finished it the same day as my downfall. Here, too, there is a Top/bottom dynamic, though I won't say too much about it for fear of revealing too many late-chapter plot developments. (Another coincidence: rats serve as a recurring motif throughout the novel.) If you're interested in the deeper ramifications of s/m-style interactions, I recommend both works to you. I'm not totally crazy about either one, but both have their interesting qualities.

Now that my bat-self appears to be dead, I've been toying with the idea of ending this "Knightfall" series of blog entries and beginning a new one, with the working title "Diary of a Bottom" or something like that. (Maybe the title will focus on my new role as villain instead... if that's what the Monk has in mind for me.) But who knows what the future will bring? The last time I thought I'd been beaten for good proved to be only temporary--I donned the batsuit many times in the intervening weeks, as soon as I had the opportunity to spend a few glorious hours by myself once again. Something tells me (okay, the MONK tells me) this time will be different.

But we'll see. The bat within me is too strong a driving force, for too many years, to be exorcised in a few months of online roleplay. He's bound to return sooner or later, in some brand-new state. Or so I hope.

The politics of ... ooo, feelin' good

Must admit I got a little nervous when I visited GlovdCopSF's beautiful website for the first time in a while, and discovered this prefatory text:

"Forget about advancements of technology, social progress... We have entered into a forced regression to uber-Christianity rule, rivaled only by the Dark Ages. Galileo - hide yourself, and your ideas. This is the new Amercian Theocracy."
--Anonymous

Was it a warning, or a boast, this talk of a New Theocracy? I assumed/hoped for the former, but I've always been a little wary of the webMaster's politics--even if he is a permanent resident of my Top Ten Top Men list--based in part on his "disclaimer for PC shitheads" accompanying his description of the rather rigid qualities he looks for in a sex partner. (I mean, I've been known to find both Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly disturbingly hot under the proper lights, but in reality I don't particularly want to share a room with either of them.) Granted, GlovdCopSF has always been quite clear that his site is entirely about sex and NOT about his own personal politics or any other aspect of his life, but even so, I tend to be put off by other people's brushes with authoritarianism (just as I am by my own attraction to jackbooted thugs).

Fortunately, any misgivings I might have had about the true meaning of the "New Theocracy" quote were immediately cleared up when I visited the site's November 2004 "Fetish of the Month" photo gallery. I make a point of checking this one out every 30 days or so, because 9 times out of 10 GlovdCop's taste resembles mine. (Damn, not only is he a hot number, but he's got a good eye for beauty in others, too!) This time around, the images themselves don't excite me as much as the explanatory text, which begins

So what does the Bush Administration have in common with this month's gallery? A bunch of assholes...

From there you get a staggeringly vast collection of pictures of "leather breeches with a zipper down the ass." Highly specific, and not exactly my cuppa drool, but I applaud the man for providing "105 assholes for you, but the kind you actually like" in response to our countrymen's recent regrettable reappointment of one of the biggest buttholes around to the highest office in the land.

GlovdCop may claim his site is politics-free, and the blog you're currently reading tends to focus on sex over the other issues that matter most in my life, but sometimes the cold light of reality falls on even the deepest, darkest places.

Come out, come out, wherever you are, Galileo. Don't let the theocrats and assholes get you down. We need you, dude--and that goes double for you, GlovdCopSF.

Four More Years... of kinky fantasy! (Shhh.... Don't anybody tell the Red States)

Fantasy is mighty tempting these days, given the rather dreary state of reality following Tuesday's election results. I could go on and on about that, and I certainly have in my Bruce Wayne self. But real-life Heroes & Villains are not my focus here.

Nope, this site exists mainly to alert my fellow perverts to kinky bat-images like these, which I learned about from my budding blogbuddy (say that 3 times fast), Teresa at InSequence.org. She came across them indirectly, thanks to an article on the photographer, Terry Richardson.

As all batfans know, there are plenty of folks creating this kind of thing on the internet; they're just not art-world provocateurs, and their work doesn't end up in L. A. Weekly. On the other hand, to be honest, a lot of the truly underground slashpic stuff is not as fun--or as appealing--as Richardson's. Give me a bat in a tight black top and leather chaps over a photoshopped porn star any day! (The young Robin is another story; I directed a friend to Richardson's pix and he said they almost looked like kiddie porn, something I hadn't noticed, which just goes to show that I'm more of a Bat-man than a Robin-lover.)

Needless to say, my favorite fine-art/fetish crossover remains Mark I. Chester's stunning portraits of Robert Chesley as Superman, KS scars and all. I'm pretty sure I've already written about those here long ago, but if you haven't seen them, you've gotta check them out.

Speaking of the overlap of art and fetish, I've only just begun to explore the treasures at this tribute site devoted to the gloriously lurid work of pulp/men's mag/comic book artist Norman Saunders, which appears to be maintained by his son. While his biggest claim to cult stardom is probably his Mars Attacks! bubblegum card series, immortalized by Tim Burton, all kink-minded batfans owe Saunders a tip of the sweat-drenched cowl for his legendary bubblegum card portraits of Our Hero, which are by far the most fetishistic of officially sanctioned bat-art (and just plain beautiful, too). The site is packed with images and informative text; whether you find the bat-pix as hot as I do or not, if you have any interest at all in fantastical pop imagery, Saunders is your man. (Bonus: from the gallery of men's mag covers, I learned where Franz Zappa got the inspiration for 90% of the title "Weasels Ripped My Flesh.")

LEGO My Bat, Man

Just watched Jonathan Markiewitz's Batman LEGO Film, "Batman: Revenge", which (of course) I found out about through the ever-useful BatmanFanFilms.com site.

You heard me right: it's an (almost-)all-LEGO version of the Caped Crusader, a silent animation that isn't as weird--or campy-- as it might sound. (Watching it, I thought a little of Todd Haynes' Superstar, which tells the story of Karen Carpenter entirely with Barbie dolls, and the films of the Brothers Quay and various other dark animator types.) While it relies a bit too heavily on Danny Elfman's music from the Tim Burton films to establish its mood (a common tendency in batfan films, I've noticed), the amount of detail is pretty impressive.

The use of Legos is particularly interesting because it calls attention to the childlike nature of the bat-legend, and gives it a surreal edge at the same time. I've been thinking a lot lately about Franklin Rosemont's book Surrealism and Its Popular Accomplices (City Lights, 1980), a terrific compendium of pop-culture artifacts which either influenced or were inspired by the Surrealist movement, drawing connections between Andre Breton, Dali, & company and comic books, pulp heroes, the Three Stooges, Tex Avery, & so on. I read the book about 20 years ago but it's been on my mind in recent months, as I've thought just how bizarre the bat-saga is: man puts on strange clothes (which don't really look that much like a bat) to fight criminals in the middle of the night. As a kid, it never seemed the least bit odd to me; I just kind of took the premise for granted. Now, however, it feels like a waking dream, a mass hallucination shared by millions of fans.

For that matter, I'd love to watch Georges Franju's film version of Judex again sometime, too--another conscious meditation on the overlap of Surrealism and the masked heroes of comicdom that I saw almost 25 years ago, before I could really appreciate it. No Legos in that one, but a similarly dreamlike quality.

Knightfall 6: Edgeplay

Apologies for not writing more often lately (either here or in the "Beginnings" story), but as I noted last time, my Bruce Wayne life is pretty damn full these days.

Which has interesting ramifications for my extended roleplaying with The Monk. I'm so overwhelmed with mundane (and not-so-mundane) matters that my appetite for erotic/spiritual/psychological exploration is lower than usual, at least for the time being. (Should ease up a little next month.) But deep down I still feel the strong pull of the bat-self; after all, it's been the driving force of my life for more than thirty years.

Sometimes the break from nightly encounters with The Monk helps me regain my strength as a masked manhunter (even though he's long ago stripped me of my mask, and I'm pretty much the hunted man rather than the one doing the hunting these days). In those moods I feel reconnected with this central metaphor of my life, and I am convinced I will somehow find a way out of his clutches, or at least that this chapter of my saga will end sooner or later and I'll be able to resume my secret life on my own terms again.

Other times, however, I sense that all really is lost on the bat-front, that my story will not have a happy ending like in the movies and the TV show and the comic books, after all, that I'm destined to be broken for real and end my days doing his beck and call (in our mutual fantasy, that is). This latter thought is, I dread to say, intensely exciting to me. I hate to admit it, but the prospect of absolute failure is a tremendous turn-on to me. (And, of course, The Monk knows this and exploits it to his full advantage.)

So this is what M meant by "edging"--Batman's dance out on the edge between self-control and utter collapse. Something has to happen sooner or later: a breakthrough, a breakdown (of the bat-self), or both. My schedule notwithstanding, I'm hoping it's soon rather than later. The longer it takes, the more likely I'll come out on the losing end of the deal.

Knightfall 5: Two Faces have I

As I wrote in my last entry on the subject, I truly thought The Monk had broken me (or my bat-character, that is--this can get mighty confusing from time to time, which is part of the thrill for me). And we had exactly one encounter in my new fully-compliant role before I started to resist again. Guess the bat-self is just too much a part of me to purge so easily.

That's kind of disappointing on one level, because I'm fascinated by the notion of utter defeat/complete surrender (on the path to something ... Other, something as yet unknown) and I want to reach that state sooner or later. But I feel a real loss when I think about abandoning my batself, potentially for good (or, uh, eeeeeeevil). So I find myself divided once again, 90% of me ready to take the plunge and fall prey to whatever The Monk has in store for me, a stubborn 10% still resisting.

Meanwhile, my real life, beneath all the masks and all the roleplay, is as full as it can possibly be for the next several days/weeks, if not the entire month. It will be interesting to see how I can balance such a rich fantasy life with an equally full (if less erotically/spiritually/intellectually charged) reality.

BTW, I promised a second reason I've christened The Monk with that particular nickname (besides a character's appearance as an early and brutal nemesis of Batman in the comics). Sappy as this may sound, I visited a "spiritualist" a few weeks ago, who almost immediately started visualizing a man in monk's garb standing behind me. This hypothetical man--currently alive, but barely known to me at the time--would allegedly become my soulmate (as in a fellow traveller in matters of the soul, nothing more and nothing less), and teach me much about myself. This guy would be well versed in techniques of mind control (though MY Monk's techniques are probably not what the spiritualist had in mind) and various Eastern religions and spiritual practices (again, the Monk I have has other tricks up his sleeve... though I don't doubt they're related). We would become very close friends for a very long time. And so on. Sounds like my unseen online nemesis is a Monk if there ever was one.

Tonight I suited up (donning the batsuit for the first time in weeks, in direct defiance of his orders) for a final confrontation--perhaps. (I wanted to be wearing the suit if and when I reached a point when I'd truly have to put it behind me.) (All this provides me with a beautiful metaphor for the fear of facing my own death-more on that later, I'm sure.) But, damn the luck, I was just too tired in real life to get into the Monk-vs-Bat scene to the extent necessary. (Tip to anyone else trying this at home: like cooking,therapy, and offline batsex, it don't work if you don't have the mental energy. Best not to even try.) So I remain 10% free of his evil, and 90% in its sway. And that divide, while titillating in theory, is not a pleasant state to remain in.

Perhaps it's like I'm on a diving board, contemplating the water and trying to get myself ready to jump in. Once I do, there's no turning back.

And I've always been one of those guys who sits at the shallow end of the pool, getting my feet wet one toe at a time. So, like everything else in this little game, is a whole new experience.

Here we go again...

I've seen two episodes so far of The Batman, The WB's latest attempt to relaunch/reinvent their cash cow in animated form. Can't say I'm that impressed: the animation is kind of interesting, the opening credits are nice, and the theme song is a nice break from the School of Danny Elfman, but everything else about the show is ... well...

The premise is simple, if not exactly original: early adventures of our hero, who is beginning his vigilante career in the new century. And he appears to be, uh, some kind of 20something multi-millionaire hipster dude, the sort that was just littering the streets of Manhattan and San Francisco during the internet boom years. Bruce Wayne is forever hosting rave-inspired fundraisers, which I guess is okay, but even his Bat persona is prone to expressions like (I'm paraphrasing here because I didn't take the time to transcribe actual episode banter) "dude" and "awesome." (Reminds me of B-Man's adventures in the Swingin' 70s, when he'd occasionally blurt out something like "We dig" when a writer decided to make him more "relevant" to America's youth.)

The problem here, if I even have to spell it out, is that Batman is a man outside time; he's completely out of step with his surroundings. His moral code comes from the late 1930s, which is probably why the art direction in both the Tim Burton movies and the Bruce Timm animated series is so deliberately difficult to place chronologically: a lot of the distant past, a little bit of the near future, not much of the immediate present.

I'm all for a Batman who is still finding his way, but this ain't workin' for me so far. The Batman feels less like a retelling of BM's early days than a relaunch of Batman Beyond with Bruce himself in the Terry McGuiness role.

Political pundits love the 10-dollar word "gravitas," but if there's ever been a character to whom it applies--other than, say, Oedipus--it's Bats. This latest incarnation belongs on The O.C., not The W.B.

PS. What the hell is Bane doing in Episode Three, let alone Season One? It made sense -- and was emotionally loaded -- for a character in the comics to come out of nowhere and nearly destroy years and years of the Batman's work (which paves the way for BM's extended family to pick up the slack), but to introduce this guy as the third villain in a young crimefighter's career is crazy talk.

Knightfall 4: Broken Bat

Walking around in public and going to work wearing the same crusty pair of undies day after day is not my idea of sexy. But--and The Monk was absolutely right to predict this--doing so as a reminder of my submission to another man (one who by this point knew ten times more about me than I did about him) was an enormous turn-on, if I may borrow the favorite word of Playmates everywhere.

When I finally got the go-ahead to remove this cruel mockery of my old crimefighting attire, I felt a huge wave of relief. Freedom--of a sort. But now the "canvas" (as The Monk called it, referring to the "painting" I was doing on the inside of the briefs day after day) became a "flag" I was ordered to display prominently in my cage.

What all of this dipping back and forth into fantasy and reality taught me was that there has to be what I call a Level of Acceptable Risk in s/m-themed roleplay. In solo batplay, that has sometimes meant a small amount of some illegal, mind-altering substance. The risk is obvious (within the story, it means that Batman is committing a crime--and in my real life, it means the same thing about me), but it's an acceptable one for me. No risk means little or no incentive to transcend day-to-day experience; too much risk means you go off the deep end.

And if you did not know better, you would surely assume after finding all these messages on my voicemail and seeing the nonstop lump in my pants that The Monk was a stalker and/or I was an obsessive nutcase. Risky indeed, especially since I honestly did not know much about the guy at all (in real life, as well as within the story). But that was by my own design, a way for me to experience genuine vulnerability in a very visceral way. (I've since asked The Monk to feed me clues about his own "real" identity now and then, just as a little assurance that he's not going to go all Fatal Attraction on me at some point.)

The day the undies came off was also The Monk's last day online for a week and a half, and I didn't want this chapter of our collaborative story to end without some kind of breakthrough. And I got one, on a huge scale indeed: later that day, I realized he'd done exactly what he threatened he would do. He had broken me (ie, Batman) "mind, body, and soul." I was no longer Batman. I was Ratman.

I've read and heard about bottoms being broken, but never really knew what the sensation would feel like until it happened to me. (I'll vow to write more about all this in a future entry... mainly trying to get the plot out for now, before it progresses much further.) As of that afternoon, I've abandoned the Batman role--packed up the costume and equipment, moved it out of the Cave (which I've now rechristened "The Rat's Nest"), and tried to come to terms with the fact that the organizing metaphor of my life has been taken away from me (uh, metaphorically speaking, of course... jope you're still with me on this). Evidently I'll be "allowed" to play that role again someday, but only on The Monk's terms. For now, I'm embracing my new transitional role as Ratman, devising a new costume for myself (which is appropriately unpleasant to wear, by the way), and replacing the many bat-related images and figures in my cave/cage/nest with rat equivalents. I'm even reading Robert Sullivan's much hyped recent book, Rats: Observations on the History & Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants," learning as much as I can about these wingless rodents.

Why? Because I want to see where all of this takes me. Back when he was still dismantling my Batman-self, The Monk threatened that he'd either destroy me or make me stronger. (Thanks, Nietzsche... and Conan.) He's accomplished the first of those ends; now, with his help, I want to strive for the latter. So the man who was my greatest enemy has become my mentor. I thought before it happened that "breaking" Batman would be like brainwashing him. But I'm fully aware of what I've gone through, who I used to be, and who did it to me--and that knowledge is even more devastating than amnesia would be.

His ten-day absence is almost up, and The Monk will soon be back. Progress reports will follow here. If I sound like I have jumped into deep water, that's because I have--or, I should say, I've allowed a fantasy to pass dangerously close into my daily existence. Fortunately, I have several reliable lifeguards on call, and I do know how to swim.

I don't know where my future encounters with The Monk will leave me yet, but I do know they've already and irreversibly changed me--both my Bat-self and the one under the mask--and I have faith that the final destination will be well worth the trip.

Knightfall 3: Knightsend

Apologies if the narrative and language in this story is a little too elusive; I realize as I try to talk about my adventure that it requires all sorts of background info I don't have the energy to provide. But hopefully you'll get the basic idea, which is that I've been willingly surrendering more and more power to a really impressive Top in an ongoing roleplaying game that continues to blur the boundaries between "fantasy" and "reality."

(When we last left our hero, he was enduring a 24-hour cum ban imposed by his unseen online archenemy...)

The special guest villain turned out to be a no-show, which was a mild relief. But the Hub was still ready for some bat action himself, and, thinking quickly, I realized I had a one-hour window during which to meet The Monk and get some real relief from my torments. In my weakened condition, he attempted to learn my real name--I gave him a pseudonym, of course--and then he presented me with a choice: either surrender my mask forever, or, er, relieve myself (in that most special way) inside it and wear it the rest of the evening with the Hub.

I went with Option A, but just as I was about to do the deed, the Hub walked in on me, not in any sort of character, and forcing me out of the one I was in. I blocked the monitor and webcam with my cape until he left the room. In the interim, I suddenly sensed I had yet another option: opting out of Monk's control altogether. (He had planted this seed in my mind the night before, by pointing out that I never said "no" to any of his demands. So I wondered what a "no" might mean, within the storyline.) I turned off the webcam, shut down the chat, and walked away.

But once I did, I felt ... like I was missing something. While my character might have been trying everything in his power to escape The Monk's clutches, the me underneath him was not so eager to leave. Complicating matters further, the scene with the Hub was merely so-so: a thousand shades lighter and campier than what I'd just been through, for starters, and what was supposed to be ambiguous (was he a good guy or a bad guy?) proved merely confusing. I broke the cum ban with H (knowing that if I ever returned to The Monk's cage, I'd be punished one way or the other), and even that was kind of a letdown. That night, some final fragments of our online chat told me that my unseen adversary had taken my actions in a completely unintended way--as a personal brushoff. A long discussion with M followed the next day, and once we finally had things hashed out on the real-world level, I found myself in that awkward position of a prisoner crawling back to his jailer. The Monk took full advantage of the situation, and a new punishment was indeed levied: stripped of my batsuit, I had to produce just the right pair of undies (which happened to be dirty to begin with, since I didn't know what was ... coming) and then wear them nonstop for the next three and a half days as they served as a reservoir for certain vital fluids which have a tendency to leak out of me when I least want them to.

The night before, as The Monk began to call me by the name he assumed to be my real one, I felt left out. I could tell what he was trying to do, but it just wasn't working. (Saying, "I know all your secrets, Bill" to someone whose name isn't Bill doesn't leave non-Bill feeling much of anything.) And the thing was, I wanted to experience the mindfuck he was cooking up for me, so during the followup encounter, I told him the name my parents gave me, something I've never done before. Which made me feel .... really, really vulnerable. Definitely another unmasking.

My fake-real and real-real names having been revealed, I was stripped of the last shreds of my Bat-identity and rechristened "Ratman." Over the next several days, I received taunting phone calls from The Monk on a regular basis during the course of the morning or afternoon, each of which I replayed over and over again, even as my increasingly filthy underwear reminded me of his mastery over me.

Knightfall 2: Who Rules the (K)night?

One night, as I gazed up into a webcam at a man somewhere who could see me but not be seen by me, the Monk began referring to my (bat)Cave as a Cage. And a new scenario began: I was his virtual prisoner, dutifully reporting to him every night, sometimes masked, sometimes not (what did it matter anymore?), eagerly anticipating another encounter.

During some of these sessions, or more often after they were officially over for the evening, we shared our own perspectives on the Batman myth. Here was a man who took his fantasy role as Villain as seriously as I take mine as Hero. I'd boast (as heroes do) that he'd never win in the end, that I would never be defeated, and he'd reply (as villains do) that I was dead wrong. He pointed out once that heroes can always be undone because they must adhere to a moral code, and all a good villain--who is bound by no such thing--has to do is to subvert that code and force his opponent into an impossible situation. (Sort of like what I recently heard described as Karl Rove's strategy as architect of Bush's campaigns: don't just attack an opponent's weaknesses, but find a way to exploit and attack his strengths, too.)

I told The Monk my theory that Batman is really a Bottom at heart, because why else would he keep getting himself into one deathtrap after another? I've long suspected that the Caped Crusader's true motive is not to avenge the death of his parents, but to punish himself for allowing it to happen in the first place (the typical "logic" of a child who encounters destructive forces he doesn't understand and can't control).

I've never been comfortable with that age-old dichotomy of Top/Bottom (or Butch/Femme, etc) in the first place; I firmly believe that people are way more complicated than such simple oppositions would suggest. Sure, you can prefer being the fuck-er or the fuck-ee, but I refuse to see those as inflexible, life-defining categories. I do tend to feel Bottom-y 90% of the time, but I have my Top days now and then, and to be honest, neither role totally suits what I really do in bed anyway.

But maybe my claims of versatility are just an evasion, since, as a close friend of mine pointed out two decades ago, there's a real taboo against declaring yourself a Bottom, as if you're surrendering an essential part of your masculinity. (And yes, gay men tend to buy into myths of masculine identity every bit as much as straight men do.)

In any case, The Monk insists he's a born Top, and I'll be damned if he isn't right. More than anyone else I know, he seems to embody the essence of the role, creating inescapable traps for me, learning what turns me on and then using it to lure me into further traps, and so on.

And I love it, which explains why, night after night, I've been reporting to my unseen opponent and allowing him to peel away at my defenses (and my various identities) with delicious skill. Sometimes I'd feel like succumbing, sometimes I'd feel like fighting back. In my role as Batman, I'm basically obliged to resist, of course, and that inner tension was driving me nuts. One night I resisted one of his demands, and to "punish" me he forbade me from cumming until he gave me his permission.

Now, it's human nature that the minute you're told you can't do something, it's the only thing you want to do. The next 24 hours were sheer hell, as I walked around Gotham with the biggest permanent boner I've had since I was a horny teenager nearly 30 years ago. I've read about these kinds of games before, but I'd never played them, and I'm here to tell you that it was an amazingly intense experience. Hardly pleasant, but eye-opening to say the least. (I hoped the eyes of my coworkers weren't directed to the bulge in my pants, and my job seemed next to impossible to contentrate on.) At one point I was hurting so much I could barely walk. My lives as Batman and Bruce Wayne were intersecting with painful passion, and that thought turned me on even more. (Hmm, that metaphor of "turning on" gives me a good way to explain this: it's like I had a lamp that was turned on even when I wanted/needed it off, and its light kept shining in my eyes, blinding me.)

And, as chance would have it, when our next rendezvous neared and I was about to be granted freedom at last, I ran into a pretty major snag. Two, to be precise: another virtual villain I'd been wanting to combat was suddenly available for the first time in weeks (that is, he IM'd me to say he'd be online that night), and the Hub told me he was coming home from work early, and suggested we plan on a little duo Batplay.

Holy cliffhangers!

Knightfall 1: Meet The Monk

When I first started this blog back in mid-2003, it wasn't with the sole intention of logging interesting manifestations of the Batman myth in pop culture. That's mostly what I've done here lately, and it's still a lot of fun, but I always meant to use this site as a place to think and write about (and encourage fellow travellers to think and write about) the deeper psychological, political, and spiritual dimensions of what I call "batplay"--ie, what happens when I suit up and proudly indulge the fetish I once harbored in secrecy and shame.

I've been engaging in batplay for about nine years now: putting on one of several "batsuits" and masks, in the process honoring a childhood fascination with a certain obsessive costumed crimefighter. It feels good, and it turns me on, but it's never been simply "fun" for me; like the comic book character before me, I've turned to these nocturnal pursuits and disguises as a way of working through childhood trauma. It's not about jerking off, it's about breaking through.

Well, that's the theory, at least. But the last few years of batplay, either solo or with my partner, haven't usually been as transcendent as I'd have liked. More often than not, I felt like I'd hit a dead end, like I was just going through the motions. The storylines I'd created in solo play had become so complicated and so layered that they just didn't go anywhere meaningful anymore. There's only so far you can lead yourself when a path leads entirely through your own imagination. Moreover, my opportunities to suit up in private have been more and more limited in recent years for various real-world reasons, and I've learned the hard way that there's no point in trying when I'm tired or in the wrong mood. Meanwhile, batplay with the Hub, while rewarding in its own way, has never been primarily about the quest for transcendence, because the saga doesn't carry the same emotional weight for him as it does for me. For him, it's a little light kink every now and then, which probably reminds him of Adam West's campy tv show and little more. That's not a complaint at all; there are plenty of other interests and experiences we don't share, too, and we're both fine with that. Duo batplay really is more about having fun, and if I learn things in the process--which I often have, like about how to communicate my sexual desires to my partner, or how to share my most private fantasies with him--then all the better.

The dead end came to an end a month and a half ago when, through one of those accidents that feels more purposeful in retrospect, I decided to install Yahoo Messenger on my computer and chat with a few fellow batfans, as I wrote here in early August. I'm still as unimpressed with the chat mode as ever (probably because so much of the dialogue it encourages really is just "chat"--i.e., idle blather that I wouldn't want to engage in offline, either). But the best thing to come of it by far has been my encounters with The Monk.

I'm nicknaming this guy The Monk out of respect for his anonymity (and as you'll soon see, I don't have much more to call him at this point beyond another pseudonym anyway). I've picked "The Monk" as a name for two reasons: first, because that's the name of one of Batman's earliest and most dangerous adversaries in the comics. The first story in the excellent 1988 DC compilation The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told recounts their one and (I think) only adventure, from a 1939 two-parter (back in those pre-Comics Code days when Batman packed heat, as the final page reveals). The opening tease reads: "The Batman--weird menace to all crime--at last meets an opponent worthy of his mettle. A strange creature, cowled like a monk, but possessing the powers of a Satan! A man whose powers are uncanny, whose brain is the product of years of intense study and seclusion!" The comic-book Monk's abilities are mighty indeed, twice nearly killing our hero and seizing control of his brain.

And that description is fairly accurate for my Monk, too. (You want the second reason for that particular pseudonym? All things in time...) Our earliest online encounters were fairly routine--if still hot--roleplaying scenarios, text-only and full of the stuff of every batperv's fantasies: he'd lure me to his hideout, overpower me, trap me, threaten to unmask me, yadda yadda yadda. One of the biggest limitations of textplay is that when I get into it, I tend to forget and then violate various fictional groundrules (can't hit somebody because my arm is shackled, that sort of thing), which of course works for me but not for my storytelling collaborator. Aside from a rather complicated three-parter, these nightly bouts were self-contained (if I got unmasked one night, we'd start from scratch the next night, the slate magically cleared).

After I'd developed a certain trust for The Monk, and an equal respect for his imagination (finally! somebody who played the game well enough that I didn't have to do all the work!), we added photos, then the phone, and finally a webcam to our sessions. And for the first time, a stranger saw my unmasked face. For real (though that word "real" is rather slippery, as we shall see...) My one stipulation was that once The Monk knew what I really look like beneath the disguise, we could never again pretend that he didn't.

And that's when things started to get really, really interesting.

Hero? Villain? Your call

I have the new Yahoo group DCComicsM4M to thank for first telling me about the guy dressed as Batman who scaled the ledge of Buckingham Palace during a protest. Since then, of course, the story has been everywhere, including a funny segment at the top of The Daily Show (Jon Stewart acknowledged the guy was probably crazy, but gave him props for resurrecting the Old School Adam West outfit instead of the more fashionable Kilmer/Keaton/Clooney variation).

I keep wondering if this is the same guy who dresed up as Spider-Man earlier in the summer as part of a similar-sounding U.K. campaign for fathers' rights to see their children, which I found out about through a segment on NPR that I don't have the energy to track down right now.

On a related note, THE BEAT has been tracking sightings of superheroes (or at least men dressed like them) doing villainous things for quite a while, in an amusing running tally. Oh, and I just checked for the first time in a while, and they not only have a piece on the Buckingham Palace story but confirm its connection to the Spider-Man incident.

What a wondrous world we live in, with costumed vigilantes flooding in from all directions. At last!

Madam, I'm Adam

Holy, makeover, Batman! I hadn't checked out The Official Adam West Web Site in ages--at least a year--so when a new Yahoo Group alerted me to it, I thought I'd pay a visit. (To be honest, the message subject line--"Adam West lives"--made me think that maybe he didn't any more... I mean, he's not exactly the youngest crimefighter on the block these days... but fortunately he seems to still be fit as a fiddle.)

Talk about your major site improvements: in addition to a design overhaul, there are now enough photos to keep you busy for ages (oh, if only I'd been able to lay my hands on some of these when I was a young closeted batfetishist) and the promise of more to come, plus news clippings, trivia games, and (of course) stuff to buy.

I see Adam is now referred to as "Classic Batman," which reminds me of "Classic Coke" for some reason. But hey, he'll always be a classic in my book, right alongside Homer and Ovid.

Oscillations

At last--someone has made a batfanflick to rival THE DEATH OF BATMAN in terms of darkness, violence, and all that good stuff. Leave it to the French to turn the Very Dark Knight's saga into an NC-17 (or so) leap into the existential abyss. OSCILLATIONS features all the jump cuts, weird sci-fi gadgetry, and ultra-heavy dialogue that Americans love to giggle at in French experimental film, along with a really interesting costume variation for our hero (the familiar mask plus trenchcoat, sometimes business attire), awkward subtitles, and plenty o' gore and bat-on-cat action. The climactic torture scene is so hot that I wish it had gone on way longer, but I'll take what I can get.

To be honest, I wanted to like this more than I really did, but it's still well worth checking out. (ADULTS ONLY--but then, if you're a kid, you really shouldn't be checking out my blog, either.) Many thanks to the folks at Batman Fan Films for spreading the word about it.

Going public (Sort of)

A quick glance at my site-visitor-tracking-doodad a couple of days ago told me that my slashblog (how's that for neologisms?) "Beginnings" was suddenly getting a whole lot of new visitors courtesy of this entry in a vanilla comics blog. (Hmmm, "slashblog" is catchy, but I need to come up with something better than "vanilla comics blog" to describe the latter... "vanilla" and "slash" don't make very good opposites. Any suggestions, anybody?)

I'm not really sure why "those with weak stomachs" are advised not to check out my tale; that phrase makes me think of violence rather than the unconsummated lust and sublimated bondage fantasy that our heroes have been facing so far. Hmmmmm...

Anyway, if you're one of the people who has found his or her way here through "The Beat: The News Blog of Comics Culture," then welcome. As you've probably figured out by now, I write from a fairly particular point of view for a fairly particular audience, and if your stomach is, uh, strong enough, please keep checking back. Drop me a line, whether you're straight or gay, boy or girl, or anything in between any of the above.

On the other hand, if you're a regular reader of THIS blog and haven't yet checked out "The Beat," I encourage you to give it a look if you love comics. I'm really happy to have discovered it myself: the writing is excellent, and it's packed with info.

As for our boys in tights over at "Beginnings," I do believe the newly active Robin is about to find a new and unintended audience of his own, too. Let's just hope he's not getting in over his head...

That's "Incredible"

It takes an annoyingly long time to load on my computer, but " The Official Movie Website of The Incredibles" bodes well for the film. I might be even happier if Craig T. Nelson and Jason Lee were live-action heroes in those suits since I find both of them incredible-ly hot, but I'll take their voices if that's all I get. (There was talk of Lee playing the Green Hornet for a while, and I do believe I would have had trouble sitting still in the theater if that had come to pass. As for Nelson, he's been floating my bat-boat ever since the first Poltergeist.) Allow me to report that Mr. Incredible's outfit is damn near perfect, and there's a tiny clip of him suiting up that rivals the beginnings of the Schumacher Bat-movies for fetishy fun.

The "countdown to opening" clock on the site tells me that (as of this very second) there are 64 days, 11 hours, 30 minutes, and 33 seconds--no, 32--no, 31--till the movie opens. Can't wait.

Are we allowed to lust after the animated stars of a kid movie? Hell, I've been doing a variation on that my entire life, so why stop now?

Everybody in the pool

Ah, the Olympics: Day after day of guys in those tights-like swimsuits, splashing away... Actually I see fewer full-body suits this time around than I was expecting, and a disturbing number of the men wearing them are just plain weird-looking, aside from the fetishy qualities of their apparel.

The Hub is a former swimmer, so he's paying more attention to the actual sport than the outfits. Me, I lose interest once the athletes hit the water. That's why I'm typing this very entry instead of watching the latest exploits of "the Thorpedo" and ... uh, those other guys.

The joys of being a truly shallow person: if you ask me, clothes really do make the man, and I like these clothes A LOT.

Bat vibes

Never mind why, but the Hub and I found ourselves in a theme park outside Gotham City last week. The only "attraction" either of us was particularly interested in was called something like "Batman: The Adventure". We'd seen a very hot Batman at a party several years ago and learned that his suit came from this same attraction, so we wanted to see it in action, ideally hugging the skin of some athletic stud.

The exterior set was appealing--an amalgam of Gotham and the Joker's hideout--but the actual show (which is simply a "show," and not a ride of any kind, which was fine by me) took place on an indoor stage, big enough to accomodate a cast of 10 or 15 plus several motorcycles. And flame-throwing devices.

Motorcycles and fire: that was pretty much the whole show. Bad guys on cycles shooting fire, Batman on his cycle shooting more fire. Back to the bad guys. Back to Batman. The main bad guy turned out to be the Joker (wearing a rubber Joker mask), and he, too, employed the m/f combo. (On second thought, he had no motorcycle--more like a customized dune buggy.) All the dialogue was prerecorded--a wise choice, since it's performed 3 times a day for months on end, and you don't want your cast (mostly athletes rather than actors) losing their minds, particularly not when wielding flame-throwers. The entire thing was over in just over 15 minutes. No deathtraps, no threatened unmaskings, no kinky bondage to warp the psyches of the pre-teen audience for life, nothing but motorcycles and fire. Even the batsuit was a letdown: sort of like one of those grade-Z Halloween outfits; nothing like the sexy one we'd seen at the party.

In short, a real bat-bummer. Nice gift shop, though--and in this world of branded "experiences" and synchronistic "attractions," is't that what's it all really about?

Barney Rocks!

I've noticed a few folks arriving at this here blog by way of another one, namely (postmodernbarney.com), so I've been checking it out off and on. Dorian's writing is really sharp and funny, particularly in this entry from August 6, 2004 on "the gayest comic of all time." Hilarious, and I now know that I really, really need a copy of the aptly named Sensation Comics #1.

Added bonus: Dorian shares my hots for the character Wildcat (or at least I think he does), and provides a very juicy, very shirtless photo of Jason Statham to make his case for the Transporter star to play the role on film. Now if only someone would make a film adaptation of one of the two Batman-forced-to-fight-Wildcat-or-else comics in my collection...