ON HANDKERCHIEFS IN MEN'S CHEST POCKETS
What is it about handkerchiefs in a man's chest pocket, anyhow?
I have never known, really, and the deep "why" of these things is
always completely inexplicable. *Why* I get sexually aroused, and have
since I was a lad of eleven or so, when wearing a silk puff began to be
fashionable once more--that "why" is out of reach. I do, and there it
is.
But analyzing some of the phenomenon is possible and sometimes
enjoyable. There are then, the elements of sensuality, of contrast,
and of potential use.
Of sensuality. By this I mean the physical quality of the handkerchief
itself, the material it is made of, its color, and its pattern, if any,
and also, its placement. I am, as you know, fixated on the silk puff.
Oh, a white linen or cotton handkerchief, in certain circumstances, can
be very sexy. A thin white line does nothing for me, nor does a
points-up, extravagant display. What does sometimes turn me on, in the
way of white chest pocket handkerchiefs, is a thick pad in a man's
pocket, placed squarely and carefully, with the folded end, not the
loose edges end, up, and showing a good half or three quarters of an
inch above the lip of the pocket. Clean, very white, not stiff with
starch, but reasonably soft-looking: all of this, I think, because
such a handkerchief's ability to arouse me stems from its potential as
a gag. For me, in the case of a man in a suit, the white
handkerchief--or rather, as I have said elsewhere in these pages, several,
perhaps I should say many white handkerchiefs-- makes the ideal gag.
But more often, far more often, for me the ideal is the silk
handkerchief. In general, I like the handkerchief to be: substantial;
deeply, not loudly, colored; and richly patterned. By substantial, I
mean I like the handkerchief to be of a fairly heavy silk twill; too
light weight a silk has faint hints of the feminine, any touch of which
is to be avoided at all costs. Furthermore, although I do not usually
want the man's silk puff to be used as a part of his gag--I want him to
be hugely handkerchief gagged *and* to have his large silk puff in his
chest pocket--I want the handkerchief to have the potential to be his
gag. A heavier weight silk makes a much better gag, whether you
imagine it as the stuffing--which should be a large, thick wad--or the
cinch that holds the wad between his jaws--which should be strong and
secure. Size is also important in the realm of substantial
handkerchiefs. A large handkerchief makes for a larger and more
upthrust puff. The puff has more weight, with more handkerchief
gathered into its formation and more handkerchief stuffed into the
chest pocket as support. And of course, a large handkerchief has more
potential as a proper gag. A large handkerchief makes a bigger wad to
stuff a man's mouth with; a large handkerchief makes a thicker and
longer cinch to bind between his stuffed jaws. And there is the
inexplicable element, also: I simply find a heavier weight fabric more
sensual to the touch, and more "butch."
I prefer a decidedly colored handkerchief over a plain white, in a silk
puff, although there is an exception. With a tuxedo, although colored
and patterned silk handkerchiefs are wonderful, a plain white
handkerchief--if it is substantial and large--makes a stark contrast to
the black of the man's coat. The strong contrast thrusts the puff into
your attention, makes it impossible, almost, not to take special note
of its aggressive presence. Nonetheless, in most circumstances, I
prefer a colored silk handkerchief. But never bright colors, or gaudy
colors. No lime greens, no bright pinks. Again, this is inexplicable,
really, but for me (and for many others, I suspect) such colors connote
the feminine rather than the masculine; what is wanted is sensuality
but a male sensuality. This calls for deep colors, subdued colors,
richer colors: dark blues, greens, maroons, golds, etc. And yet I
must admit: in certain circumstances, with certain outfits, light
colors are very taking: a summer suit of blue seersucker, for
instance, can take a light blue silk puff very well indeed. Or again,
I remember vividly a fellow playing the part of the over butch husband
in a divorce case on one of those daytime shows that faked "real" cases
with psuedo reporters. He wore a light blue suit with a pink (!)
shirt, a light blue solid silk tie, and a pink silk puff, quite
lavishly displayed. A Fench cuff shirt, with gold links. He looked
quite dashing, but in this case it was something I will touch on later,
the contrast between his dandified, not to say foppish clothing--pink,
indeed, and that quite huge puff--with the man's butch demeanor and his
quite considerable, mustachioed good looks. He was ripe as a candidate
for robbery, trussed up within an inch of his life and with his
handsome mouth stuffed full of a huge handkerchief gag and tied up
tight with a couple more. Nonetheless, most often, despite such true
exceptions, and to be safe, dark colors.
And, ideally, patterned. I strongly favor old-fashioned patterns:
foulards, paisleys, the like. I am not at all keen on some of the more
current patterns, those that have been fashionable in the last three or
four years. I like what used to be (and may still) be called in the
trade, "neats": small lozenges evenly and closely spaced, small
florets likewise, little squares, densely designed paisleys. Of
course, there is one reason easy to cite for this: I reached puberty
and began at that point to be really obsessed with silk handkerchiefs
in the early sixties, and these sorts of patterns are just those that
became fashionable at that point. When men first started wearing silk
puffs again in the early sixties, "neats" were the thing, and the
matching tie and handkerchief had not yet been revived. Solid silk
squares came in very soon after, but I always preferred patterned silk
handkerchiefs, although a solid will do very nicely, indeed.
As to placement, well, I have made abundantly clear, for me, the puff
arrangement, corners down, center displayed, is *the* arrangement for a
man's silk handkerchief. There are perhaps many reasons for this, but
all of them, though I will detail them, for the fun of it, are special
pleading, really. The truth of matter is, that is the arrangement I
become fetistically fixated on as a young teenager, and that is what
turns me on. But, to the supposed reasons. Most of them are what one
might call associational. One is the association with the handkerchief
as a gag. The puff, which is almost a wad, is very like the wad
stuffing a man's mouth for his gag; it is, so to speak, arranged in a
way that makes it ready to hand. A quick snatch, a quick thrust, and
suddenly your victim finds his mouth stuffed with his own handkerchief
as a gag. Another reason is a somewhat circular association: through
liking older men and silk puffs, I came to greatly admire those BBC
English sorts who show up in so many of their shows imported over here,
tweedy sorts with colored and patterned silk handkerchiefs puffed in
their chest pockets, young and old. Having come to admire them, the
puff now reminds me of what it once drew my attention to, and in
circular re-inforcement, the association of the puff with man, and the
man with the puff, turns me on to both. There is also the
deliberateness of the puff arrangement, which may sound wrong, but
actually: certainly the squared off look is the least deliberate
arrangement. Whatever the reality may be, it looks as if the man simply
took the handkerchief out of his drawer and tucked it into his chest
pocket. The points up fashion may seem very deliberate, but its usual
distinct casualness, when done with a silk handkerchief, belies that,
really: it seems as if it were taken from the drawer, given a shake,
and casually stuffed in the pocket. The puff, however, seems to
me--but perhaps, o very well, almost surely, this stems from my own
care in placing my handkerchiefs--to require more attention to its
arrangement. It must be opened up, unlike the squared display, but then
it must be carefully and studiedly pulled in again, unlike the careless
points up display; the puff is opened, carefully gathered, and
carefully slipped into the chest pocket.
And why should all this matter? For me, because the more the chest
pocket handkerchief looks like the man choose to wear it--that is, the
more of its elements involve deliberate choices the man must make--the
sexier it is. That is partly why silk over linen/cotton (the latter
two have other, utilitarian applications), why colored over white
(color must be co-ordinated with the rest of the man's outfit), why
the puff over any other arrangement (it requires more deliberation, or
appears to do so, to arrange).
So sensuality: the physical properties and arrangement of the
handkerchief.
Now, contrast. I have touched on this above. There is the element of
contrast between the dandified aspect, not to say foppish aspect, of
wearing a chest pocket handkerchief, and being a man. The equation is
not really two continuums laid side by side, one butch to effeminate in
the man's demeanor, one foppishness to barest requirements for
acceptance in the man's dress, and the sexiest effect being the greatest
foppishness with the greatest butch demeanor. It is of course far more
complicated than that. And yet that crude and much too baldly stated
example does set forth the basic elements of what I mean by contrast.
It is just that there are niceties to be observed both in the case of
how butch and in what way and in the case of how foppish and to what
extent. For me, muchly because of a long history of associations and
influences during my life, what is most sexy to me is a fairly high
degree of foppishness combined with a kind of quiet masculinity that is
not of the truck driver variety, but of a middle class,
semi-aristocratic sort. In many cases, what you might call tweedy
academic. Oh, I admire and find sexy your high-powered executive sort,
with his sharp suit, and his tastefully glittering cufflinks, his
aggressively thrusting silk puff, and all that. And such a man,
indignant and outraged, seized upon, overpowered by brute force, and
lavishly bound with rope and hugely gagged with
handkerchiefs--preferably his own--is most certainly sexy. And
yet--for an ideal, my ideal, give me a tweedy but very dapper academic,
a masculine but not overly butch fellow, who likes his clothes neat,
who wears them well on a well-tended form--a sound mind in a sound
body--and who likes to dress with just a bit of dandyism in his attire,
say, a big, deeply colored, densely patterned, heavy weight silk
handkerchief arranged in the chest pocket of his tweed jacket in a
large, thickly rounded, slightly lolling puff. And such a man, dressed
in such a fashion, not so much indignant and outraged at being
kidnapped or robbed, but rather bewildered, astonished,
half-disbelieving, as he is overpowered, bound hand and foot,
and lavishly, cruelly gagged with a wad and cinch of his own
white pocket handkerchiefs.
And potential use. Well, I have touched on this above already. I
remember a fellow who answered an ad I had placed in "Bound and Gagged"
magazine. He wrote, "I have always had a fascination with bandannas
and silk handkerchiefs. I guess I saw them as potential gags." One
could hardly put it more simply. For me, aside from everything
else--and that everything else, I hope I have made clear, is a very
substantial "everything else"--aside from everything else, a man's
chest pocket handkerchief is just as that fellow said: a potential gag.
A man wearing a proper handkerchief in his chest pocket is essentially,
in the eyes of some of us, walking down the street with an outright
appeal in his attire that says loud and clear, "Gag me, please, gag me!"
Not, as I have also said, that I wish the man to be gagged with the
handkerchief from his chest pocket, or not any more, anyway. Once,
when I was still a lad, I did include that in my fantasies: the man
kidnapped, his mouth stuffed with his own pocket handkerchief, and the
stuffing held in by the handkerchief, silk and large, taken from his
chest pocket and bound through his jaws. But very soon the desire to
have my fetish and eat it, too, or, at least, for the victim in my
fantasies to have my fetish and eat it, too, overwhelmed such ideas. I
wanted the man gagged with other handkerchiefs, and his chest pocket
handkerchief left where it was. Perhaps, mussed up and made more
prominently, more protuberantly puffed in the course of his being
overpowered and bound and gagged by his abductors, but, still puffed at
his chest, as he struggled against the ropes binding him and grunted
into the gag muffling him. But still, I know, that association
lingers, that potential a man's chest pocket handkerchief has to be
used to gag him, and that association enhances greatly the arousal the
silk handkerchief puffed in a man's chest pocket induces in me.