Step onto almost any dance floor, peer into nearly all back rooms, stroll through most every sex party and you’re likely to find one common, uniting factor—someone, somewhere is wearing a mask. Maybe a twink is dipping his toes into pup play; perhaps a particularly bold cumdump is wearing a blindfold while he gets pounded out. For many people, masks are a fun kink to explore from time to time. For others, they’re a way of life.
Xai, who goes by Xai Corrupted on most platforms, falls into that second category. He’s spent years collecting everything from furry hoods to pup masks to full-body latex suits. “It’s very hard to define why I have this fetish,” he says. “It just feels really nice.” In a less esoteric sense, wearing masks is a utility for Xai in that they allow him to stay anonymous. “it enables me to be the type of person that I would rather be,” he says, “instead of the person that I have to pretend to be for work and around family.”
That anonymity is an important part of masked play, but aside from its utility, the anon play itself is part of the fun. Anon hookups are a specific fetish unto themselves, but hiding your identity with a mask allows you to step outside of yourself—to experiment and chase your curiosity in a way you might otherwise be afraid to. That anonymity erases who you are, but for some people, it’s about sublimating yourself even further.
That’s where drone play—the full body latex suits, the hypnosis, the submission—and other non-human suits and masks come into play. Xai says feeling unhuman is part of the draw. “There's something particularly exciting about not being human,” he explains.
But each mask, according to Xai, keys into a different dynamic. A gimp mask, for example, is naturally submissive. Dragon or wolf hoods, on the other hand, are more naturally dominant. But as newly minted pup Skylar explains, within the pup mask kink there are a myriad of different submissive and dominant expressions.
Alpha pups and pack leaders fit into a more dominant role—sexually, yes—but Skylar says alphas are also protective. “I can get really protective,” he admits. That means making sure the rest of the pack is safe on dance floors and in back rooms. Beta and omega pups will be more submissive, and handlers, who don’t wear pup masks are at the top of the food chain—they’re the ones that will send you to your cage if you misbehave.
If masked play sounds like something you might want to try, start with baby steps. Masks can get expensive fast. Maybe you want to start with a thirty dollar fleshlight mask as you start to experiment with masked submission. Pup masks are generally around a couple hundred bucks, according to Skylar, though custom pieces can get much pricier. If you’re ready to go whole hog, prepare to spend. Xai estimated a full-body suit, including boots, a bodysuit, and a hood—all custom made and tailored to your measurements—will be north of two grand. Ah, the price we pay for kink.
