Hi, Matisse.
I enjoy reading your column in The Stranger each week. I especially like the recent one on “fetish etiquette,” all-lowercase names, and so on. While I do my best to respect the stated desires of others in such arenas — if Joe wants to be referred to as “boy joe”, I’ll try to comply — I find that it’s easy to cross the line from submissive into pretentious.
That said, a question for you which perhaps you could address in your column.
My boyfriend’s imagination has been captured by the (gay) “leatherboy” movement of late, and as part of that, he wants me to “collar” him. While I’m perfectly willing to — I love him dearly, and the thought makes me hot — I also want to take this idea slowly enough that we are both sure of what we are doing, what it will mean to us, and what it will mean to others.
When I go online for some research, as you observed in the earlier column, I find a whole bunch of stuff dealing with kinky het slave relationships, elaborate rituals for collaring (some including blood exchange; thank you, but no), “collar of consideration,” and so on. In other words, not a lot of info on the meaning of collars in a daddy/boy (or equivalent) relationship and a lot of pretentious crap (although perhaps quite important to some couples, I’m sure; I despise some elaborate wedding vows, too).
I’m hoping you can devote a column to some discussion of this topic, as I suspect it would be both interesting and enlightening, especially if you could include something about how collaring
differs along the straight/gay and slave/boy axes. Hmm, and maybe goth vs. leather?
I’m sure that he and I will wend our way through on our own just fine, of course. But if your thoughts help enlighten and guide us, so much the better.
In the December 11 issue, she largely replied to the general parts of my query. I still haven’t formally collared my boy, but I think we both have come to understand a lot more about the matter in the intervening months.
[Weblog title reference: From a song by Elvis, of course…]
Comment from Troy (of Seattle, WA) / received December 16, 2003:
[When I saw Troy last night, he held up his hand and pointed to his wedding ring.]Updated on October 28, 2010
“Silly leathermen. That’s what this is for.”
