MasterMarc: Hi Dexter. Some of our readers probably know you by your nickname “theDarkContainer” as you used to do your sessions in a shipping container. We really have to talk about this special location a little later but first you have really to tell us, what are you into and when have you done your first steps into the kinky world?
Dexter: My very first steps into the world of kink came in 2001 when I lived in London, England. A good friend ran the SM Gays nights at The Hoist in Vauxhall and I had started playing with a guy who wanted to investigate mummification. So me and this guy went along to some of my friend’s SM Gays Discovery nights together and we later practised on each other with full body duct tape mummification at his flat. Shortly after that my partner at the time started regular meets with a ropework top and that sparked my interest in bondage with rope. I don’t do much full body mummification these days but duct tape hoods are still one of my “trademarks” in my play. Today all my sessions are based on bondage with rope or chain, and duct tape blindfolds or custom-made duct tape hoods are mandatory – plus whatever kink the sub is into or wants to try.
MasterMarc: It is really a pity that the hoist ist closing soon. It is a great fetish club. Duct tape hoods, that sounds interesting. Can you tell us more about the attraction of it?
Dexter: I make my duct tape hoods very tight. A sub recently said he never realised how many muscles he had in his forehead and face until he’d had a hood on a couple of hours and could feel the stress and strain of every muscle movement in his face. I make them either from black or grey duct tape and then add detailing in the other colour. Each one is unique, and each one fits the sub perfectly because they are made new each time. I just love the sound of duct tape being pulled off the roll, and of gradually building up the layers to encase the sub’s head completely. I love the smell of the tape, licking across a sub’s eyes when they’re beneath the tape. The subs become almost anonymous to me and the experience is more intense to them as breathing is more difficult with only a nose hole or a breathing tube into the mouth. I like that each one is individual compared to just the easy option of sticking a leather or rubber hood on. I like the build up and the time it takes to make each one, the anticipation the sub has first his mouth is covered, then his jaw taped closed, then his eyes obscured one by one, as it gets tighter and tighter across his face and around his head.
MasterMarc: If you play with boys, how important is this anonymity, the duct tape hood is creating, for you? Is it important to make an object out of the boy? What does it change?
Dexter: Haha now you’re getting into the psychology of the darkest recesses of my mind. I don’t always make a full duct tape hood, but yes it adds to the objectification while giving me full access to the rest of the body. I miss that it means his mouth isn’t accesible any more though! I guess it’s more that I think it adds extra restriction to the sub, particularly as I sometimes add a lot of rope bondage around the head too. I don’t think many subs have experienced that kind of feeling, of having the head so restricted but the body totally exposed, I think it adds some interesting sensations in the mind of the sub that they don’t get with other doms who either use “standard” hoods or encase the entire body including the head, or just the body.
MasterMarc: I wasn’t talking about the sensations of the subs. I’m intersted to know what it changes for you as top if the boy becomes an anonymous object? 🙂
Dexter: The psychology of what’s going on in the sub’s head is just as important to me as what I’m getting out of a session. Because my first kink experience was experimenting with various levels of duct tape mummification, sometimes being left “unattended” for an hour or more at a time, I’ve experienced some of the mental stuff that happens. So the sensation of the sub is important for what it changes for me as the dom/top too. But ok, I see what you are getting at. I’ve not analysed it before, I guess it makes it easier to bring out the more “evil” side of my personality, the darker side that I don’t get to exhibit in my everyday life but which lurks within me, if the thing in front of me doesn’t have a face. It makes that side of me more potent and intense if all I have in front of me is another piece of flesh, muscle and bone rather than the expressiveness of a face, and it makes the noises the sub makes more muffled and somehow sexier to my darker side. But at other times I’ll want to see the face contort and hear the noises more clearly, so make just a blindfold from duct tape instead of a full hood.
MasterMarc: As I know that for you the well being of the boys is very important I have to ask you, how do you recognize the boy’s feelings and sensations if he has such a duct tape hood on?
Dexter: Experience comes into it for sure: I’ve lost track of how many duct tape hoods I must have made since 2001! But I don’t tend to put a duct tape hood on for the first session with a sub I’ve never played with before, particularly if he’s new to kink. A lot of the lads I meet have never even been tied up or blindfolded before. I’m pretty pick with who I meet and always want to focus on finding subs who aspire to become my regular playmates. I’ve found kink sessions get so much better with time as you start to learn more and more about the sub and what he likes and doesn’t like and how he reacts and how far you can push the limits. The first couple of play sessions there’s always a lot of communication from me – perhaps too much sometimes – so that the sub feels safe and so I know what’s going on.
Even with a hood on it’s possible to get nods or shakes of the head – or movements of the hands or feet if the head is tied rigid. Whatever works in the scenario I will tell the sub how to indicate he’s not happy and, as I always instruct subs that we’ll communicate in plain English not coded safe words, we do just that. I try to tread the fine line between keeping a session intense while also keeping it very safe and consensual. I don’t get off on lads feeling genuinely threatened or scared or not enjoying stuff, so I make it very plain that we’ll change stuff he’s absolutely hating. That communication happens in different ways depending on the situation. With a duct tape hood, because it is impossible for the sub to speak clearly as the jaw is taped shut so tightly, I make it clear that if any signal is given that I feel may mean he wants to stop, I will immediately cut the jaw and mouth area out so he can speak to me. I also seem to have a deep sense internally of when a sub is not cool with the situation that I think just comes from years of experience, both of kink sessions in general and also of the sub in particular if I’ve met him a few times already.
With further sessions I get to learn in much more depth how to communicate with and read the sub’s feelings without actually ever talking to him. I don’t know how other doms are but I don’t tend to say much during sessions with lads I’ve played with a lot and know well. This is really important for maintaining and building on intensity with each session with those subs I play with regularly. Having started kink in the world of full body duct tape mummification, where most movement is pretty impossible, only having the hood is easy in comparison.
MasterMarc: As better I know a boy as less I have to talk with him. I think that is normal. And of course this non verbal communication helps again to make an object out of the boy. This dehumanisation is I think an important part of good sessions. But of course you need to know a boy well to understand his non verbal communication as good as you should as master. What’s the importance of experience for a master?
Dexter: It’s important to be confident and to project that you are in control of the situation. I think with experienced subs it’s far more important to be experienced as a master so that you can create that atmosphere of being in control. If playing with guys who are new to kink, experience as a master is probably not so important as the sub doesn’t really know what to expect – but then it’s important to pace the session correctly so that guys new to kink are not put off and want to actually progress and get deeper into further kink sessions. The way to do that also requires a lot of experience of working with that kind of sub so that the intensity is manageable for the individual guy.
I am always a little more nervous going into a session if playing with subs who have also played with “well known” names in the kink world or respected doms that have a lot of experience. It adds pressure but as I’ve also been doing it so long I’m confident in my abilities and the different nuances that I can bring to a session that subs may not have come across before. If you’re not experienced as a master/dom you may not be as confident and that can I think diminish the scene for the sub. With rope bondage there is a lot that comes with experience; speed of tying for one and being able to perform complex ties with ease. Experience can also teach you when a tie is going to be uncomfortable or indeed dangerous. Most of my bad experiences have come from having guys in standing up bondage for extended periods of time, so it makes me more cautious and more aware that when I’m going to require subs to do that I know the signs to look for that they are maybe not coping with the situation. I think experience can bring an element of safety that is not necessarily there otherwise, particularly with rope bondage.
True confidence in any situation comes with experience, but for me imagination and creativity is also very important. Because I work with rope, chain, bamboo and duct tape as the foundation of my sessions, and because it is partly the creative side of the bondage scenario that I enjoy, being able to create new scenes and imaginative bondage comes easier with more and more experience. It ensures that I can make every session with a sub new which keeps things interesting for me too. Even for subs I have met and played with many times before, I can keep introducing new elements, tying them in different ways, introducing new additional elements to the play.
Psychological play is fun too and I play various different types of dramatic cinematic music during my sessions which I think adds to the atmosphere. I use it to help control and define the pace of the session at times and merging that background music with what’s going on with the sensations and the rope and other elements like maybe wax play or hard flogging takes experience to get right. Sometimes I’ll switch the music to something more dark and menacing and then draw a blade across the sub’s neck while he’s tied down and blindfolded; light enough that I’m not going to cause harm but clear enough that he knows one wrong move could end up with us both in a lot of trouble. That, along with breath control play and suffocation, requires a lot of steady nerve, confidence and experience to ensure you take things further than the sub may be comfortable with but not so far that you cause harm. There is a very fine line and I’ve become more confident with the more “terrifying” aspects of play as I’ve become more experienced with the scenes that I create.
MasterMarc: I see we have still a lot to talk about in our next interview. But for now i want to come back to the duct tape hoods. Can you tell us a little more how you do it? Probably you have also some pics to show, how you do it?
Dexter: Hey a magician never reveals his secrets, right. I don’t have any photos showing the stages but yes I’m happy to explain it and there are lots of pictures of the finished hoods with different designs that I’ll give to you. As with most mummification with duct tape it starts with cling film: I pull and wrap cling film twice, quite tightly, across the sub’s face and around his head and then another piece from one shoulder, over the top of the head and down to the other shoulder. I then use my hands to ensure it’s all snug. Before that I’ll have decided whether to go for a nose hole or a breathing tube into the mouth and I’ll have poked a hole in the cling film at the right place before wrapping it around the sub’s head so that he can breathe while I do the cling film base of the hood – unless he’s into breath control in which case you can have some extra fun before the duct taping begins! Breathing tubes are a bit more hardcore in my view and turn the sub into a drool machine.
Next the first layer of tape begins. I call this the functional layer as it forms the base layer of the tape hood. I tend to make my duct tape hoods very tight and restrictive, though it’s important to be careful when pulling the tape across the ears that you don’t “fold” them down or make it too tight there – and especially to be careful not to make it tight across any part of the nose if you’re expecting the sub to breathe only through his nose. I start at eye level, darkening the world for the sub immediately, and then just work the tape around the head, sticking it to the cling film directly from the roll until I reach a point that I need to tear the tape. Once stuck you cannot pull the tape off the cling film so it’s important to get it right first time: to maintain the shape and stop too much creasing, I don’t “bend” the direction of the tape. If the sub’s going to have a breathing tube, I’ll insert it now – just a short piece of tube from the plumbing aisle of the local hardware store! Once as much as possible has been added in one go, I will tear off strips of tape which may be anything from 10cm to 50cm long and apply them one by one to completely encase the head.
I add three key strips: one that goes directly under the front of the jaw and is pulled hard up each side of the face and then stuck in place; another that does the same from the top, placed across the top of the middle of the head and pulled hard down each side over the ears; and one that runs front to back from the bridge of the nose, over the top of the head and down to the back of the neck. I’ll shape individual pieces around the base of the neck and jawline and then work on closing up any gaps. To add duct tape tightly you just pull it tight as you stick it down. It is then under tension.
There is already quite a lot of duct tape on the sub’s head at this point, but I now add another layer. I call this the layer that makes it look pretty! I’ll cover the entire functional layer of the hood in smaller strips of duct tape laid methodically rather than in fairly random directions as can sometimes happen with the functional layer, using my fingers to ease out any creases and cover them up with fresh tape. These strips can also be applied quite tightly. I usually add a sort of upside down triangle of tape to the face too – one strip probably 20-30cm long horizontally across the eyes and around the head, then two more that run at the angle of the nose down each side of the nose. This defines the shape of the nose and all helps to give more unbroken lines of tape across the front of the face.
The final step is something I’ve only started doing in the last few months: adding some additional detail in a different colour of tape. So if I’ve made the hood out of grey tape I’ll add detail in short strips of black tape, and vice versa. This is not in any way functional, it’s just something I do with my hoods to make them look unique. I choose whether to make the hood black or grey depending on the scene I want to create. If I’m adding my metal “crown of thorns” I’ll generally make a black hood to give more contrast against the metalwork, but if I’m going to be photographing against a black background then I’ll make the hood predominantly grey.
Whether I’ve left a hole for the nostrils to breathe, or I’ve sealed the nose and used a breathing tube into the mouth, it’s easy to give the sub poppers if he’s into them or to have some fun breath control. With a nose hole you can use an extra strip of tape to block up the nose; it creates panic fairly quickly and makes an amazing noise as the sub gasps for breath under the air-sealed hood. However, it’s really important to realise that the sub will usually start trying to flail and thrash around and violently moving his head to try to get breath. You should fold the end of the strip of tape over on itself so it’s easy to find the end of the strip when you need to: you have to be in complete control and make it simple to rip that extra bit of tape off the nose at the right time. If you cannot do this or there is a failure with the tape you’re going to end up in a very bad situation. Obviously I hope everyone knows that breath control is a serious business and you shouldn’t go sealing subs into duct tape hoods without experience.
I suppose the next question is how do you get them off. I use very narrow special ‘blunt ended’ scissors and make a few cuts up the sides of the neck and under the jaw line. It’s really important to be very cautious and push two fingers under the cling film and then only use the scissor blade between those fingers. You don’t want to be cutting the sub’s lips or skin. Eventually there will be enough cuts to be able to use force to rip the tape apart. The more layers there are, the harder this is. But at some point the whole hood will just slip off over the top of the head and will retain its shape. Some subs keep these as souvenirs of an awesome session 😉
Wow, I never knew there was so much to explaining how I make my hoods! I’m a bit twisted so I enjoy licking across the eyes of the sub when they’re encased under the duct tape and also from the skin of the upper chest and neck and over the duct tape. Rather than just putting some kind of manufactured hood on the sub, this is a whole process and takes time and it gets tighter and tighter with each strip that’s added, which adds a further dimension to that part of the play. I think they look great and, well, any sub looks prettier tied tight by my ropes with his head encased in duct tape.
MasterMarc: Hey Dexter, that was interesting and I’m sure we will continue our talks very soon.
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