Is male chastity a case of women getting their own back?

Reflections on the true meaning of male chastity during the month of “LOctober”

Male chastity is a topic that comes up a lot these days.  Not just because the month of October has now become “Locktober” a month where dominant women lock up their men in chastity cages.  No, I think it runs deeper than that.  There are now entire businesses that exist to manufacture a vast array of male chastity devices…I mean, it is such a big business now that there are even more “Chinese knockoffs” than there are originals.

So, what gives?  Is it because men can’t cope with the rise of female power, and so many are just giving up trying to be men?  The classic beta male scenario?  [I write about what I consider to be this nonsense here].  Is it just some kinky fetish?  I don’t think so.  So what is it then?  It is something completely different.  Here’s my theory.

Female chastity in history

Chastity devices have a very long history.  But back in the day, they were all about locking up women.  To protect their virtue.  With men they had a different solution.  It was called castration.  That was the only sure-fire way for a Lord or Princeling or a King to ensure that his lady was rolling in the hay with one of his underlings.  It was safe, after all, if all the underlings had been de-sexed.  Right?  Generally true, although there are some apocryphal stories of eunuchs still being able to get it on…

But the fact is, that throughout history, it was the female whose genitals got locked up.  The reasoning might have touched on any of these themes:

• Male shame at being cuckolded—for some men, there is no greater dishonour;
• The very real thought that you might raise someone else’s kids…cuckolding at its worst (from the cuckoo bird, who made it a biological imperative to cuckold other species’ males.  At least they had the decency to stray out of species!);
• That women were “weak” and would succumb to their desires very easily;
• That women were “weak” and would be overpowered by a male on the loose in the boudoir;
• That at the root, all men were potential rapists.

Take your pick.  Not one of these scenarios is appealing.  The fetish community has embraced the narrative around the first one, but I think it is BS—just like with so many other aspects of BDSM that get mischaracterised…and I think that even many of the participants don’t understand their true motivations.

Just think about it.  Most of the pop-culture narrative around BDSM chastity and cuckolding is just fantasy.  That should be the first spoiler alert.  But more fundamentally, how many self-proclaimed cuckolds (and I will bet the vast majority are actually self-proclaimed) that are out there are truly willing to follow through on their fantasy, truly willing to watch their partner couple with another man, and more importantly, to couple with the express purpose of producing a child…and how many men would then fulfil their true obligations of the word “cuckold” by being good surrogate fathers to these children?

No, something else is going on.

Not one of the reasons in the list above is what is driving this phenomenon.  Not one.

Female virtue in the hands of the patriarch

It is impossible to be alive today and living in a socially progressive society and to not know at least that in theory women’s virtue is used to police her.  To police her sexuality, to police her social freedom, to police her freedom of action.  “Slut-shaming”, the “whore” idea of a woman who sleeps around, simply the words “slut” and “whore”…These words by their very existence say to a woman that it is wrong to be sexual, to think sexually.  There is no equivalent for men.

In other words, in relation to chastity, “if she’s a whore, let’s lock her up,” and indeed, that is what happens with prostitutes, whose trade is still illegal in most of the world.  And physically, well, therein lies the birth of the chastity device.  But what is a whore?  At least in this sense, a whore is someone who “sleeps around”.  The male equivalent should be “he can’t keep his dick in his pants”…which usually gets pushed aside as “boys will be boys”, but I think is more like the Mac-coat brigade, those pervy old men who are flashers…a total inability to self-regulate the genital sphere.

But going back to this idea of the answer to a whore is to lock her up, literally and figuratively, is this what is going on with a male who is being locked up?  Are we locking them up because they can’t control themselves?  Are we locking them up because a male who can’t control himself has no virtue?  Are we appropriating the narrative of female virtue and applying it to men?

Well?  Now we’re on to something.

My view is that there is truth in this.  That the male who is accepting or seeking to have his cock locked in a cage, and to have the key handed over to a woman (and I would really like to hear from gay men on this topic, because at that point, there is obviously something else going on, but what?)

A man who accepts to have his cock locked in a cage is aware of the destructive power of penis-centred thinking.  Penis-centred thinking has dominated both the social sphere and the bedroom for centuries, and we are finally shaking it loose.  Such a man is acknowledging that such thinking is wrong.  And indeed, avid practitioners of the art of cock-caging lay this out as one of the prime benefits—he becomes more attentive, more docile, more attuned to her needs, more concerned with her pleasure.  Is there anyone at all in the world that doesn’t think that is a good thing?  Even a self-identifying alpha male should surely recognise that pleasing a woman makes him even more alpha—and only an idiot thinks that his penis is what is going to please her—it takes a lot more than that to fulfil a woman.

What I am getting at is that chastity is a form of respect.  It is a form of apology from someone who carries the privilege of the patriarchy to those who have been victimized by it.  It is to say to a woman, I know that this social pressure and system exists, and I don’t like it either, and I will say f$@%@$ the world, I will worship you and serve you, and think of you before me at all times.  If that isn’t BD power, what is?

Okay, I know that there is all this sissy and cuckold and wimp and semi-abusive language and fetishization of this process going on, but that is understandable.  There is a lot of pushback from the patriarchal thought processes on matters such as these, and the pushback comes from both men and women…It is “shameful” after all, for a man to willingly concede power.  We see a micro-version of this in the derision with which submissive males are regarded—it is so “weird” it has to be degrading.  But I think we have it all wrong.

By definition, a man who willingly submits to the cage is showing his strength.  He is willingly showing that he is bigger than society, can withstand the pressure, is a man that is a true man.  It is not the beta who wears the cage, it is the alpha. [The betas run the show, folks].

I have my own reasons for not wanting to wear a cage, which have to do with what I think about my own anatomy…and this is something I am thinking I don’t even want to mess with through therapy—I am happy to look at my dick as an unwelcome intruder.  [I have written about this here].

Plus, on a practical level, I find cages quite painful.  I don’t mind them so much (ahem, I have tried) during the day, but at night, they are uncommonly painful.  Mistress has informed me that good ones are not.  Part of me wanted to say, “how on earth could you know that?!” but in truth, she is probably more experienced than me.  And so, I find myself suddenly thinking about this, about feeling her lock me up, and being locked up, and staying that way.  Don’t get me wrong, I am already chaste for her.  I don’t need a cage to be attentive, or to think of her first…and I have never been dick-centric in my life…but I kind of want to feel that alpha energy that can only come when a man willingly enslaves himself to a woman—and there are few symbols more potent than a locked cock.

Long live Locktober!