Gender and desire are inextricably linked when it comes to fetish and fantasy, politics and personal attraction. When I began working as a professional dominatrix in the 2000s, I saw many clients who wanted to be “forced feminized” — i.e.
transformed into sissies in lacy underwear and bubblegum-flavored lipgloss. In my daily life as a queer person, I saw so many other ways that my community was bending gender, through leather daddy contests and silicon strap-ons, through fabulous drag nightlife and genderqueer identities. For some, femininity, masculinity, and even androgyny could be a tool with which to access something they wanted more of in their sex lives.
For others, gender symbols from glittery pumps to engineer boots were a form of cultural affinity, a way of affirming self expression and a sense of belonging. In my book Why Are People Into That: A Cultural Investigation of Kink — based on my podcast of the same name which I’ve been hosting and producing independently since 2013 — I wanted to explore, alongside other fetishes like spanking and sploshing and financial domination, what author Lucie Fielding calls “gender pleasure.” The bimbo struck me as the perfect icon of twenty-first century gender expression, whose frivolity dresses up a depth of meaning.
She stands for the freedom to trash oppressive gender roles and rules, to have fun and get off. That’s really what’s at the heart of the curious exploration of why people are into whatever they�.