Sometimes a few hours with a good bondage professional, expensive though he may be, can be worth several years of psychological counseling. While the therapist listens again and again in a presumably non-judgmental way to you confessing and reconfessing your embarrassing fantasies in an attempt to rid yourself of them, the good professional colludes with you to live those fantasies out and makes you feel less embarrassed for entertaining them at all. He not only shares them with you; he does so from the desired perspective. Then, after a good session where you’ve been given exactly what you desire, you can go back to living your regular life, feeling fulfilled, less alone, and confident that your secrets are as safe as you need them to be.
I’m speaking here to those of you—of us—who, even if we play at being tops or “doms” (as seems to be the word nowadays), because that way we may get some action, are in our hearts actually bottoms or “subs”: older, less desirable men, who have lost, if we ever had them, the youth, looks or bodies—not to mention the time or energy—to attract the tops or “doms” we crave. And of course I’m speaking about myself, though I never seriously considered that these particular desires of mine needed any kind of counseling which a good top could not remedy. It’s just been a question of finding the good top willing to remedy them.
Thanks to B&G and my ability to tie a square knot (as often as not out of reach of a bottom’s hands), for many years I’ve been automatically looked to as a top myself. The truth, which I’ve seldom hesitated to tell anyone who’s interested (no one’s interested anymore) is that I’ve always harbored powerful submissive bottom desires, which have in fact been growing as I’ve grown older. Not that that matters very much one way or another. It’s been years since I reached the age of total undesirability as a bottom, especially as a bottom to the type of man I continue to fantasize dominating me.
It’s long seemed to me that there is, or should be, a very important potential job growth area for hot young dominant guys who want to pursue careers as bondage professionals. The baby boomers are growing older, as no one tires of saying, and our present population is loaded with aging bottoms, or subs, men who want to be tied up and abused in safe, controlled situations, by hot men who look like they really want to tie them up and abuse them, and who have nowhere to go to satisfy their cravings. They won’t find satisfaction on sites like Recon, unless they happen to accidentally come across a professional there who reveals himself as such in coded terms in his profile. The overwhelming majority of hot young tops on sites like Recon are looking for hot young bottoms, not out-of-shape old men who wish they were hot and young. Nor can I blame the young, since I was very much like them at their age. I wouldn’t have wanted the me I am now for a bottom.
In 2005, just months before suspending publication of Bound & Gagged, we discussed creating a department in the magazine where we’d invite readers to write about and rate the professional bondage escorts they got together with. I particularly liked the idea because I knew I would certainly need such escorts myself one day, if I wasn’t there already. We held off on starting the actual department since we wanted legal advice as regarded our liabilities should we ever even seem to recommend a professional who turned out to cause a client real or perceived harm. But before we got that legal advice we halted publishing.
I did do a little personal research on the subject at the time, only to discover that the actual number of bondage professionals I could find, in New York at least, was amazingly small. At that time in the city—possibly still—there were a fair number of dungeons run by professional Mistresses who openly advertised themselves as such, but I only knew of two or three men who were actually open about being professional bondage/domination Masters, and who as such seemed truly to know what they were doing. Quite a few escorts on the major escort sites did include the words bondage and domination among their interests, but more often than not such escorts offered themselves as bottoms, and in any case the words bondage and domination usually seemed to be listed only because they might catch the attention and interest of a prospective client and the particular escort had nothing against them; certainly, those listed words were never presented as a main area of the escort’s interest, or expertise.
Truth in advertising: Though for many years I was lucky to have the top of my life in my friend Lew, (who will always and forever be the best, and who himself became a professional with a little inducement from me), in the course of my life (prior to yesterday) I’ve been to see only three professional tops in their professional capacities, one of them twice. They were all nice guys, though only one of them, who I saw only once, had anything resembling a bondage set-up, and his was barely adequate. The other two had no set-ups to speak of at all, and what equipment they had—which was next to none—they didn’t really know how to use. I left disappointed each time. I decided I would never find what I was looking for, and as the years went by concluded I’d have to be satisfied with my right hand.
And then last Thursday…
I’m not exactly sure how Sir Tony Bishop came to my attention, I think he checked me out on Recon so I checked him back. But one glance at a picture of him told me he had the look of my ideal top. I messaged him; he responded. We spoke on the phone. He told me where he was located. I told him a little about myself and what I was looking for. He said he would have no trouble giving me what I wanted, and told me his price. I started putting money aside to go see him. A week before our scheduled appointment, he asked me to send him my fantasies in detail. I told him what I liked, but gave only approximate situations, no precise scenario, since somebody following a script would turn me off. My strongest inclination as a bottom is to state absolute limits, then say to my top, or master, “You’re the boss,” and hope he does nothing I really dislike.
I was as nervous as a boy in his 20s when I rang Sir Tony’s bell last Thursday afternoon. He works out of a loft in the financial district, an easy subway ride from my Upper West Side apartment.
Our session began as soon as he opened the door, which is what I’d hoped for. From that moment on, he gave me one of the best experiences I can remember, incorporating into the scene all I had asked for, and, by virtue of the kind of top he is—which is perfect for me—much more than that: he made me feel like a boy in his 20s, without pushing me into positions that would break my over 60s body. In so doing, he seemed to read right through to the core of my desires, and make them seem to be his. A caveat here: it’s altogether possible my desires are not that complicated.
Not only did he have no problem doing any of the things I had told him I liked; he did them in what is unquestionably the best clean and sinister high-tech dungeon I’ve ever seen, anywhere. It may be rivaled by the Bound Gods Arsenal, which I’ve never been in, but I can’t think of another dungeon that would hold a candle to Sir Tony’s for equipment, or for a man who knows how to use that equipment so well. My own playroom in Pennsylvania was adequate, before water and mold soaked through the walls, ceiling and famous green carpet, but even in its best days it was nothing to compare with Sir Tony’s.
A giant custom-made steel frame runs the length of his main room, beneath a lofty ceiling, offering the most incredible suspension possibilities, and in the ample space beneath this frame, among various other pieces of custom-made equipment, is an extraordinary full-length 3’ high cage I’d be happy to live in, covered on top by what appears to be a beautiful padded bondage board I can’t wait to be tied to some day, and, in front of the cage a bondage chair that beggars belief, putting all other bondage chairs I’ve been strapped in to shame. There were probably other great pieces of bondage equipment there, too, but the ones I mention were the ones Sir Tony designated for my afternoon, so remain most vivid in my memory. Everywhere else I looked, in the beautifully ordered space, there were brilliantly designed attachment possibilities…
Sir Tony may not be to everyone’s taste. He’s no 6’2” hulk. But I prefer shorter, trimmer guys with a 6’2” attitude, and he certainly proved to be that. I spent two great hours under Sir Tony’s thumb, boots, and great feet, and every moment I was there was more than memorable. No sooner did I say good-bye to him than I was putting aside money in my mind to go back and see him again as soon as I can.
With Sir Tony’s permission, here’s information on how to contact him for those of you who are interested. To ask questions or book an appointment, email him at [email protected]. Or check out his website at www.sirtonybishop.com .
If any readers have had experiences with bondage professionals they’d care to tell about, please write me about them.
Loved the idea of a prof. review site; I think I saw one online. He's incredibly hot. Loved his videos. Shame the dungeon is no more. Great scene you wrote there: I wish him all the luck.
Posted by: B.E.A. | February 04, 2012 at 11:09 AM
Bob:
Great idea and right to the point. Us older doms do need to work with someone like Sir Tony. Mentally we still think that we are that 26 yr hulk that we use to be
Posted by: Rick | August 05, 2014 at 10:53 PM