On a wet Saturday evening in Soho, upstairs at Comptons, Barney is hosting a drinks social for friends who are into clowns. It’s a quiet night at the pub, with people at tables chatting and cackling over pints. The social takes place in the months between Stuck in the Middle, Barney’s clown-kink party, where attendees can arrive in full regalia.

Barney, AKA The Muckle Stoater, or simply Muckles, is a London fetish artist, performer, and self-described clown-porn advocate—perhaps you’ve heard him on The Big Top, his podcast about fetish and sex. When Oli Raptor photographed him for his photo-booth book Stripped, Barney turned up with a bag of latex and socks so stripy that Oli compared him to the Wicked Witch of the West. His clown fixation began in childhood. The fascination started earlier. He was a precocious, easily embarrassed kid, and the thought of being pulled on stage by a clown mortified him. The fear became an obsession. “What if clowns kidnapped me and they did silly things to me and embarrassed me, and what if I wanted to be a clown and became one?” he remembers asking himself. He thinks the terror and excitement are linked. “Fear and kink are very closely related,” he says.

As a teenager, Barney discovered that, beyond a fascination, clowns were sexual for him. “I was jerking it to JPEGs of circus clowns,” he says. “I always thought, if they ever knew, they’d think I’m such a gross, weird pervert.” When he found images of the Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey clowns online, their aesthetic “burnt itself” into his brain. The online clown scene existed, but it was small. Finding porn, conversation, and other people who wanted men in clown make-up was difficult, and finding that community in real life was harder still. One exception was Ouchy the Clown, a BDSM clown from the San Francisco area who appeared in Cirque Noir, a gay porn film. Ouchy and another clown called ‘Rimjob’ pull a guy on stage, clown him up and flog him while making jokes, then they all circus-fuck in the centre ring. “It is so good,” Barney says. “I think he should be the star.”

If you choose to research clown porn yourself, you will likely run into the word “clussy,” a portmanteau of clown and pussy. It is the kind of internet slang that started as a joke, escaped into porn titles and became impossible to avoid once you knew to look for it. The term has circulated online since around 2017, but it is more popular as horny internet language than as a serious term among clown fetishists.  Barney has encountered it often enough to reject it. “That takes me out of it,” he says. “I want you to call me a bozo.”

Sex, he argues, is already absurd. “You are putting weird things in funny places. There is no way we can take this seriously.” He’s fond of butt plugs that toot, dildos that honk, and harmonica gags. He also welcomes the mishaps. “If you’re doing anal, that’s where poo happens. Sorry. It’s not built for that. You can’t knock on shit’s door and be mad that they’re home.”

Silliness is also how he got past his limits. He thought of himself as a “pain pussy” until he watched a man being whipped on a St Andrew’s cross and realised it could be funny. Later that same night, Barney was offered a spanking. “If we’re doing it, we’re going on the cross,” he said. Someone held a clown nose to his bum and checked whether his reddened arse was the same colour—a revelation for Barney. “As soon as it was fun and playful, I could do way more extreme things.”

For years, Barney kept this part of himself separate from the rest of his life. It took him five years to come out to his long-term partner. He tried introducing other kinks first, suggesting pup play and BDSM, but none of them could scratch the clown-shaped itch. Then he told his partner about the clowns, the honking, the buffoonery, the whole circus. “That’s it!” his partner said. “That makes way more sense than all the other things you’ve brought up.” Then: “What are you doing? You’re miserable. Go make kinky friends.” That conversation eventually led them to open up their relationship, and pushed Barney towards the clown scene, where he found a place for the parts of himself he had been trying to keep under wraps.

Barney’s clown party, Stuck in the Middle, runs from 1 pm to 6 pm at The Underground Club in King’s Cross, with a “clowny/silly” dress code and the promise of “equal parts wholesome & horny”. Ticket holders can arrive at noon to get ready, meet fellow clown-fuckers, and try on costumes. He dresses the room as “a bit of a circus wonderland”, with vintage velvet curtains and bunting. There’s a pie booth where you can get pies thrown at you, which runs in one-hour shifts (someone has to clean up the pie), and, naturally, Twister. 

During the event, half the partygoers are chatting, while the other half are mucking in. “If you want to go and have weird kinky clown sex, totally welcome.” Others chat. “It’s less about showing off, it’s more about showing up.” When people message to ask if they’re allowed in, Barney enthusiastically says yes. Anyone can come. It’s not just for clowns; there is no dress code, and all fetishes are welcome. People often message to ask whether they’ll be allowed in wearing something unusual: “What if I have my tits out and I’m dressed as a donkey?” Barney’s response is immediate: “Yes. Oh my god, please.”

Recently he came second in the first Fetish UK contest, an important milestone. By entering as a clown, he proved that it was “not just leather, rubber, pup.” Next he wants to take his event to Amsterdam and Berlin. More than that, though, he wants other people to start their own nights. In short, he wants to see more clowns. If there are three of you at a pub on a Saturday, that’s a community. That’s enough.”