Speaking personally I’d agree. They used to be really rare and only the very odd shop sold them. When we bought our first one they were such an unusual item that it was actually quite embarrassing even in the confines of a sex shop and I remember the female assistant being very amused and intrigued. Now you can buy them at any sex shop and no one makes any comment. Also there is a huge variety of styles and sizes. Online it’s even easier. All of this supply is clearly catering to a big increase in demand. So yes many more men than you’d probably guess own and wear them, mostly for play but sometimes for longer.
1) Some anecdata: I'm not keeping records, but iirc, among not-conpleteky-newbie sub leaning or switchy males I encountered on apps/in the scene and had more than a few words' conversation with either all or almost all had at least one chastity device. Before you start nodding smugly with "I told you so", the vast majority of those seemed to be either barely used or used as part of an array of sex toys, most certainly not as a key (see what I did there) or must-have kink. Of those who filled my spreadsheet (that's quite a bit further down the funnel) most were only into use of the device at playtime and not all that super keen. Yes, I'm not INTO chastity devices, so there's a natural filtering process going on but I only recall one person for whom it was a deal-breaker. So I suspect that a VAST majority of those things end up gathering dust in various knicker drawers, a male equivalent of That Weird Dildo With Sparkly Little Wings.
2) That said, I think there's an affordance there and the fact that chastity devices do languish in toy boxes has certain potential. What changed my mind about it was realising that the benefits (payout) were asymmetrical, not in the +/- sense of "I say, you do" or "his pain, my pleasure" but with a shift. The key benefit to the dom is different than the key impairment to the sub, I think, or at least can be. The key benefit to the dom (especially the kind you call a vanilla domme) is I think "no piv/no erections". The desired impairment for the sub surely must be "no orgasm". They both are achieved by the same means, but they differ substantially (tho there's a bondage aspect and potential for sadistic teasing of course).
I think "affordance" nails it: it need not be a fetish out-of-the-box because it pings some fairly basic drives.
I would predict, just by Pareto's Principle, that only 1 in 20 of cage owners are serious users. However, I strongly suspect that many of those who own one would be nudgable. Chastity is fascinating and disconcerting because it's so very passively masochistic.
I would really like to see some comparison of kink chastity with "normal" chastity. And whether the latter feels masochistic at all. And whether kink chastity when practiced as a kink feels NECESSARILY masochistic. It certainly doesn't seem like a necessary feature from the dom side, IF the objective is to remove erect penis from any sexual interactions. But maybe it needs to be for the sub.
More broadly with examples: is dieting, or working on onerous/boring tasks just for money, masochistic? Or merely unpleasant in service of some greater good/higher goal?
If we assume that people engage in things with negative hedonic value for various reasons, looking how they apply to chastity as a kink and as a, for example, religiously motivated life choice, would be interesting.
I think you have to factor in the purely erotic/sensual effects of chastity, which is to trap the wearer in an extended plateau phase, or at least in overwhelming erotic suspense.
So I don't think it has a negative hedonic value as such.
That totally makes sense to me on the basis of short term play experiences. But you called it masochistic, which implies suffering = negative hedonic value (unless you mean pain < pleasure-or-something-desirable-anyway). Which for me goes with 'broadly defined hedonism", tho I realise it's unorthodox.
Ah. Yes, this makes sense, absolutely. Though I'm wavering on equalising all erotic masochism with squirm, probably entirely dependent on how attractive the squirminess feels to me personally [and intuitively, it feels like a "suspended disbelief/game squirm" is attractive, but actual, true internalised squirm gets tired eventually, if shared, and sooner rather than later].
But -- I'm also edging close to "top side squirm" hypothesis, via the route of depravity. I think it's much more of a thing than it's acknowledged, especially by the "there's nothing dark about femdom" intellectual ("intellectual"?) formation. I also think that it's much more visible in the humiliation/emotional masochism realm than in physical SM play (to the extent that I'd argue that it only applies to physical SM insofar as it includes some EM framing). But that's all outside the realm of the OP.
Speaking personally I’d agree. They used to be really rare and only the very odd shop sold them. When we bought our first one they were such an unusual item that it was actually quite embarrassing even in the confines of a sex shop and I remember the female assistant being very amused and intrigued. Now you can buy them at any sex shop and no one makes any comment. Also there is a huge variety of styles and sizes. Online it’s even easier. All of this supply is clearly catering to a big increase in demand. So yes many more men than you’d probably guess own and wear them, mostly for play but sometimes for longer.
Two points:
1) Some anecdata: I'm not keeping records, but iirc, among not-conpleteky-newbie sub leaning or switchy males I encountered on apps/in the scene and had more than a few words' conversation with either all or almost all had at least one chastity device. Before you start nodding smugly with "I told you so", the vast majority of those seemed to be either barely used or used as part of an array of sex toys, most certainly not as a key (see what I did there) or must-have kink. Of those who filled my spreadsheet (that's quite a bit further down the funnel) most were only into use of the device at playtime and not all that super keen. Yes, I'm not INTO chastity devices, so there's a natural filtering process going on but I only recall one person for whom it was a deal-breaker. So I suspect that a VAST majority of those things end up gathering dust in various knicker drawers, a male equivalent of That Weird Dildo With Sparkly Little Wings.
2) That said, I think there's an affordance there and the fact that chastity devices do languish in toy boxes has certain potential. What changed my mind about it was realising that the benefits (payout) were asymmetrical, not in the +/- sense of "I say, you do" or "his pain, my pleasure" but with a shift. The key benefit to the dom is different than the key impairment to the sub, I think, or at least can be. The key benefit to the dom (especially the kind you call a vanilla domme) is I think "no piv/no erections". The desired impairment for the sub surely must be "no orgasm". They both are achieved by the same means, but they differ substantially (tho there's a bondage aspect and potential for sadistic teasing of course).
I think "affordance" nails it: it need not be a fetish out-of-the-box because it pings some fairly basic drives.
I would predict, just by Pareto's Principle, that only 1 in 20 of cage owners are serious users. However, I strongly suspect that many of those who own one would be nudgable. Chastity is fascinating and disconcerting because it's so very passively masochistic.
I would really like to see some comparison of kink chastity with "normal" chastity. And whether the latter feels masochistic at all. And whether kink chastity when practiced as a kink feels NECESSARILY masochistic. It certainly doesn't seem like a necessary feature from the dom side, IF the objective is to remove erect penis from any sexual interactions. But maybe it needs to be for the sub.
More broadly with examples: is dieting, or working on onerous/boring tasks just for money, masochistic? Or merely unpleasant in service of some greater good/higher goal?
If we assume that people engage in things with negative hedonic value for various reasons, looking how they apply to chastity as a kink and as a, for example, religiously motivated life choice, would be interesting.
I'm not sure.
I think you have to factor in the purely erotic/sensual effects of chastity, which is to trap the wearer in an extended plateau phase, or at least in overwhelming erotic suspense.
So I don't think it has a negative hedonic value as such.
That totally makes sense to me on the basis of short term play experiences. But you called it masochistic, which implies suffering = negative hedonic value (unless you mean pain < pleasure-or-something-desirable-anyway). Which for me goes with 'broadly defined hedonism", tho I realise it's unorthodox.
To clarify: I think submitting to erotic suspense is precisely masochistic on a granular level. It's the "squirm" I talk about, but barely cognitive.
Ah. Yes, this makes sense, absolutely. Though I'm wavering on equalising all erotic masochism with squirm, probably entirely dependent on how attractive the squirminess feels to me personally [and intuitively, it feels like a "suspended disbelief/game squirm" is attractive, but actual, true internalised squirm gets tired eventually, if shared, and sooner rather than later].
But -- I'm also edging close to "top side squirm" hypothesis, via the route of depravity. I think it's much more of a thing than it's acknowledged, especially by the "there's nothing dark about femdom" intellectual ("intellectual"?) formation. I also think that it's much more visible in the humiliation/emotional masochism realm than in physical SM play (to the extent that I'd argue that it only applies to physical SM insofar as it includes some EM framing). But that's all outside the realm of the OP.