Masks remain probably the most highly emotionally charged piece of fetish wear in sex. They’re even more emotionally loaded than the infamous collar in BDSM, because a collar at its most extreme merely means that you’re owned. It implies a change in status, from equal to slave. But the change in status implied by a mask or hood is even more extreme. It means you’re no longer even a person: you’re a faceless, anonymous, sexual object, there to be used only for the pleasure your body can afford and for nothing else. People find the idea of hiding their identity—or of having their identity hidden for them—to be either very erotic and liberating or terribly demeaning and dehumanizing. There seems to be very little emotional neutrality about it.
We’re not talking about blindfolds here, or the little harlequin masks that hide only the area around the eyes. Those can be fun, but here I mean the serious carnival masks of Venice that cover one’s entire face, or those wicked leather or latex hoods of BDSM that conceal the head. These provide total anonymity, which is the critical variable for this discussion. You put these on, and a stranger could not identify you later. You’re free of your identity, and that’s the whole point. You can do whatever you want and no one will know it’s you.
This is part of the appeal of the mask, of course. You’re relieved of the whole burden and responsibility of your identity. You can be as wild and animalistic as you want and no one will ever know. You’re free. If you want to be a prude, you can be a prude. If you want to be a whore, you can be a whore. When you put on the mask, you put on an entirely new personality. That’s a powerful idea, and no one’s as absolutely naked as a naked person wearing a mask that conceals their face. It’s a terribly erotic sight.
There’s another side to the mask too that I myself find perversely appealing. With a mask or hood on, no one can see your expressions, nor can you see the expressions of anyone who’s wearing a mask. You’re thus freed of the responsibility of responding to your lover, and also, you can’t really tell by looking if you’re pleasing a masked lover, and so sex becomes a strangely isolated affair, the two of you seeking your own selfish pleasure in each other’s bodies.
This may seem like an unfortunate state of affairs, but actually, a certain amount of selfishness is much to be desired in lovemaking. Selfishness is always a component of the most passionate sex, one partner feverishly taking from the other, or both taking from both. These days we seem to suffer from an excess of politeness and consideration in the bedroom, each lover being so careful not to neglect the other’s needs that sex can get boring and unspontaneous. Brought to this state of selfishness by masking, there’s little danger of this kind of polite and boring love-making. The perverse anonymity of the mask brings out the beast in people.
The common complaint against masks is that they’re depersonalizing, yet this is often voiced by the same people who complain about being embarrassed by so much in sex, so it seems a contradiction to me. If you’re embarrassed by sex, a mask would seem like the perfect solution. But I can certainly understand how some people would be put off my the awkwardness of having to wear a mask during sex. For all its sexiness and erotic potential, masking is a highly contrived situation that’s probably most easily managed in a BDSM, setting where the partner has no choice in the matter.
The masks is a powerful symbol, speaking as it does to our ideas of self and identity, and it’s no wonder their use in sex provokes such strong reactions, pro and con. But in exploring the boundaries of human sexuality you run up against this idea of identity sooner or later, and sooner or later you might find yourself exploring with masks. Believe me, the first time you see your lover with their face covered—it’s a chilling, thrilling experience.
