To Cage A Yellowbird

The birdcage: a gay man's golden handcuffs by Sam of A Year Without Water

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In this bold personal story from Sam of the Substack A Year Without Water, desire, power, and vulnerability intertwine in the first tentative steps of a queer connection. Set against the restless backdrop of New York’s West Village, this narrative traces not only the ritual of locking a partner into his first chastity cage, but also the emotional labyrinths that follow: longing for control, wrestling with intimacy, and the complex dance between fantasy and reality.

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To Cage A Yellowbird

The birdcage: a gay man's golden handcuffs

by Sam

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I remember how I locked Jim into his very first chastity cage.

It was a small thing shoddily made out of metal, sold to me on a cheery spring day by one of the innumerable adult toy stores in the heart of New York's West Village. I had told him to wait for me there outside of the shop before our second hookup.

We had met just the week prior via Grindr, on which I was looking to move past a recent breakup that had too quickly followed an even bigger breakup. I wanted to find someone new to fill the vacancy in my life, and my clandestine introduction to Jim had hinted at our potential compatibility: he was intimately submissive where I preferred to be dominant. Instructing him to meet me at the shop was, therefore, also a test of his submission and how far he was willing to go. When I arrived at the shop and saw him standing there next to its entrance, I considered him to have passed with flying colors.

In the aftermath of our first tryst, we had briefly discussed over text messages the prospect of him “locking up.” He had never before experienced being caged and I, although I didn't divulge it, had never caged a partner, but we had both been exposed to the concept through niche queer media online, and the idea of making such a fantasy real was both novel and exciting.

I would argue that the average gay man is desensitized to sex. Gay male spaces, online and offline, are rife with erotogenic material, and conversations about sex, about kinks and pleasure, are more than commonplace—it is practically our run-of-the-mill small talk, for better or for worse. "Gay-famous" (read: notoriety attained specifically and almost exclusively amongst LGBTQ+ people) personalities like Caged Jock, Maxon Caged, and Eli Shaw have advanced the interest's visibility but, then again, men have never shied away from such experimentation throughout the annals of time. At any rate, the urge to copulate is (or should be) uncontroversial: humans, like every other animal species, experience natural desires, and denying that would be akin to denying that we breathe.

Inside the store, I led Jim to a display of chastity cages and directed him to pick one. After some light consideration, he selected a basic model; I bought it, and together we rushed back to his apartment to try it on. The subway ride was crowded, but there was palpable energy between us two. Nervous-yet-exhilarated adrenaline coursed through us, and I pulled his body to be held tightly against mine as we silently counted down the stops until we reached his. When we finally got off, we raced down the street to his building.

Urban Dictionary defines chastity cages as "a cage […] that fully encompasses a penis. The cage is then locked so it can't be taken off without the key. It's designed to prevent erections and masturbation, and is often used in BDSM relationships where the key is given to someone's significant other, called a 'keyholder.'" As we hurried into Jim’s apartment, he offered to reimburse me for having purchased the cage; I said no, declining because I knew that that would set the pace for our budding connection—I was not yet his keyholder, but I wanted to be. Because my recent breakups had so devastated my sense of self-worth, I wanted to be deeply and primally needed by someone. That night, our entanglement was intense and almost passionate.

Jim was cute. At 5'5", he was shorter than any man I had ever dated, but the height difference between us of nearly eight inches lent itself well to our dynamic. To accept a new job at a major tech company, he had moved to New York just the year before, which meant that he was unencumbered by the social circles of gay, Asian men in their late twenties or early thirties here in the city and thereby had none of the accompanying baggage. Jim felt safe for me to see because there was practically no chance of him being acquainted with any of my exes. With him, I would be someone new; for him, I could be someone else.

It's not that I'm exclusively into Asian guys. I have had (and will probably continue to have) dalliances with men of all backgrounds, but I learned through a decade of dating that mutual interest is most easily established when there exist shared experiences. The intricacies of race, gender, and sexuality were always at play whenever I met prospective suitors, and I realized that I feel most understood by the ones who could capably articulate how these nuances affect us. As I sought to move on from my failed relationships, staring down my own thirtieth birthday and an imagined, self-prescribed maturity that I wanted so desperately to embody, I was wondering when I would finally find my life partner. I wanted something that felt effortless.

For the first few months, I never considered Jim to be a candidate for that position. The role he did play in my life was primarily physical, and vice versa. I had just started a new job at which I strove to excel, and he had received a promotion to a demanding position that required him to work unsustainably long hours; suffice it to say that I needed release, and so did he. Ergo, the reliable consistency we provided each other achieved that goal with great efficiency.

I drew the line at boyfriend—it is a label that I take exceedingly seriously. Although I had dated a fair number of men by then, I had only ever granted four that designation because it implies a level of commitment that surpasses typical dating. I spent time with him to address one need in particular, and I didn't want to over-complicate what we had with unnecessary emotions.

A couple years ago, Men's Health published an explainer on the rising popularity of chastity cages. There's a "masochistic thrill of not being able to get off," the author reported, and it taps into "some of our most fundamental needs and desires: intimacy, vulnerability, and trust." Simultaneously, I am reminded of an apocryphal quote commonly misattributed to Oscar Wilde, famously gay but not only gay-famous: "Everything is about sex except sex; sex is about power." Beyond subverting gender norms, especially because such relations between men are inherently subversive, relinquishing control allows a safe escape from pressures to conform and perform. Jim trusted me implicitly to wield power over him, and I paid him regular visits. To mark my "ownership" of him, I strung the key to his cage onto a chain necklace that I wore discreetly beneath my everyday shirts.

As we explored chastity and control together, Jim continuously upgraded and resized his cage, purchasing various iterations to find the best fit. I observed him trying on different models, as if he were discovering his true self for the very first time, and watched his personality change. Whereas he previously was rather shy and unassuming, with his cage he became more assertive and self-confident, like he had found his rightful place in life.

Then, one day, he asked to get to know me better.

Honestly, I was unsurprised. We had been seeing each other so frequently that I expected this conversation to eventually manifest. Still, I was hesitant because I had until then refrained from engaging him beyond our established, situational roles—doing so would irreversibly shatter the fantasy. But, there was in my head a train of thought that argued in favor of stepping past the illusion because of the potential for a deeper and more fulfilling relationship. Would granting him the opportunity to really date me lead us to that?

At first, I told him to give me some time to think it over; it wasn’t an outright no, but I needed to mull it over. My immediate reaction was actually to decline—however, I wanted to appear mature. I had my own emotional baggage with regard to dating, I was well aware, yet there was a hopeful voice in my mind that persisted, that wanted to believe in possibilities. So, with slight apprehension, I agreed to give him a chance. Ownership thus also became a relationship.

For the rest of the year, it somewhat worked out. We began to do things together outside of the bedroom. He introduced me to Fred again.., California burritos, and the infamous TikToker Pinkydoll; I planned visits to Michelin-starred restaurants and even met up with him on the other side of the country. He told me that I was the only person to ever call him Jim, despite his given name being James, an affectionate diminutive that he had never before received, not least from another man because he hadn't begun dating until just four years prior to us meeting. I was his first in so many ways.

Nevertheless, I held off from describing him as my boyfriend. I could concede that we were dating, but I thought he was still unprepared to fulfill that function in particular. Our interactions felt kind of lacking, like a prescriptive, dispassionate sort of blandness. He had few interests besides exercise and electronic dance music—and, given his workaholic tendencies, he didn't have much free time to do anything but his job anyways. Dating him felt perfunctory.

Incrementally, I came to resent what I perceived to be his inability to meet my expectations of a boyfriend. We saw each other, we slept together, we did stuff in tandem, yet I felt uninspired. I liked him, but was that all we would ever be? I had been in enough relationships to know what true companionship was, and I felt frustrated by our stagnancy.

As unrelated turmoil entered my life, I became darkly estranged from my mother and I quit my job, but he had nothing to offer me except empty platitudes and I felt unsupported. He was and remained physically there for me, that was true, but there was emotional distance between us. I needed a partner who could prop me up as some of my ex-boyfriends had done for me before, and Jim wasn’t up to par. He had said that he wanted to get to know me on a deeper level, but it seemed like he wasn't ready to accept the me that wasn't a fantasy, to truly come to terms with the fact that I was a person with my own individual complexities.

Moreover, I was upset that we had had a dynamic that worked, a balance that was sacrificed because he had wanted to cosplay at being in a serious relationship, and we didn't even have that. Our copulation too gradually became sporadic. Finally, I had to break it off. In tears, I told him over text messages that I was dissatisfied, and I decided to try to move on.

I kept one of the keys to his cage. As I slowly recovered and began to meet other men, I continued to wear his key on the chain around my neck. It was partially an aesthetic choice, but I knew deep down the truth was I liked its signaling that I had claimed someone else as my own and in turn that I was desirable enough to be claimed, because I wanted to be wanted. I knew that desire is, in part, performative. People want what other people want; people want to have what other people have.

Months later, I saw Jim again on Grindr. (Even though his pictures were faceless and relatively anonymous, I'd recognize his torso anywhere—I did know it intimately.) If dating app profiles are how we market ourselves, his now sold him as being locked and submissive. I felt mixed emotions at being suddenly confronted with the cage that my key opened on the man who had once belonged to me. I blocked his profile so that I would not have to see him…or it. I still missed what we had had.

When we had attempted to transition our relationship beyond the boundaries of metal, I had surmised that he was unprepared for the realities of such a relationship, but I think, in hindsight, that it was me in actuality. The partner I wanted was one that trusted me unequivocally, yet I needed to learn to trust them in kind, in return. I had thought him mediocre when I needed him most, but I had uncharitably disregarded the likelihood that he was doing his best with what he, we, had—after all, we'd only known each other for less than a year. I had allowed my own immaturity to get in the way, and I had fabricated friction as a result.

In the ensuing time since, I heard through the gay grapevine that Jim was seeing other men. He was apparently busying himself with exploring more intense aspects of domination and submission, and he (unknowingly) slept with someone I once dated, too. Being presented with all of this information stirred up possessive jealousy from deep within me, but I had to let it go. He was mine no longer.

I don't know if Jim ever realized that he was my first partner in chastity as much as I was also his. Sometimes, I wonder if he thinks of me, maybe when he fidgets with his cage; I would like to assume that he does. I ponder whether he has found a new keyholder, or if he remembers that I still have his key. I no longer wear it around my neck—the chain, instead, is now barren. I haven't been able to muster up the wherewithal to throw the key away, but I think I never will. Most likely, I'll continue to keep it somewhere safe as a reminder of the experiences I once had. It is my secret memento to a life I once lived, to the person I once was and the boy I once knew, all within a cage of its own.

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BIO: Born a Chinese American and raised between Los Angeles and Changsha, Sam is currently a resident of New York City. He is a creative nonfiction writer and the author of A YEAR WITHOUT WATER.