On my recent flight home, trapped without WiFi and forced into actual introspection, the gimp found itself looping through old music. Mostly Pet Shop Boys, synth-pop, Rush and other 80s-ish bands (this should surprise no one that knows gimp) One lyric from “Being Boring” hit gimp with unexpected force; already emotionally rattled from its intense experience over the weekend when it heard the line:
“I never dreamt that I would get to be the creature that I was always meant to be.” – Being Boring, Pet Shop Boys
For a moment, everything paused. The gimp recognized itself in that lyric. The creature it spent its teenage years fantasizing about while scrolling GearFetish and the old WorldSkins site (before Recon was the monolith it is now there were separate sites based on kinks) had finally come into being. Back then it was a nervous kid trying to puzzle out kink through shitty pixelated photos and badly lit gear selfies, convinced that the life it wanted belonged to other people. People braver, cooler, hotter, with more gear and self-confidence.
Somehow, over the years, that changed. Not suddenly, not with a big dramatic moment, but slowly. Like waking up one morning and realizing the person in the mirror isn’t pretending anymore.
Almost ten years after writing “What Is a Gimp?” for Recon now seems like a good point to take stock of how much the gimp has grown.
In the early days, almost everything lived in its head. The fantasies were big and elaborate, but the actual experiences were few. Scenes were imagined, not lived. Friends were usernames, not people met at events, play parties, or dinners. Community felt like something other people had.
These days the gimp has an entire circle of kinky friends, an amazing partner who gimp could not exist without (he is quite literally my ‘other half’), a busy calendar of events, and a travel schedule that would confuse the teenager who once hid a gas mask under the bed like it was contraband. It has become one of “those guys,” the kind it used to stalk online for inspiration. The ones with full gear collections, inside jokes, shared memories, and a sense of belonging.
The biggest shift has been confidence. The gimp no longer melts down when wearing gear in public. In fact, it runs errands in skin gear, full cowboy get up, or other random gear without thinking twice. Somewhere along the way the fear of being seen turned into a thrill of being visible. It became easier to live for itself instead of for what it imagined society demanded. Turns out no one at the grocery store cares what you’re wearing as long as you’re not blocking the aisle. And to be completely honest more people talk with gimp randomly when it’s in gear (it’s sure there’s a social experiment in there somewhere.)
Its relationship to gear changed too. Rubber is still its deepest home. That part has stayed constant. Nothing replaces the feeling of sliding into full coverage and watching humanity vanish under shine and lube. But now the gimp explores beyond rubber. Leather, cowboy gear, military looks, skinhead, tactical gear, compression gear. It discovered that being covered in gear is the real magic, not the specific material. As long as the human disappears, the kinky creature underneath can breathe.
The gimp also became more grounded. Less frantic. Less obsessed with the performance of kink and more invested in the meaning of it. A decade ago it thought being gimp meant looking hardcore all the time. Now it understands that the quieter parts matter even more: reliability, community, authenticity, and finding peace inside the identity rather than pushing for intensity every second.
It learned that service, connection, and ritual mean more than collecting gear for Instagram photos. It learned that discipline isn’t something scary but something that provides stability. It learned how to show up for people, how to exist in a community, how to be someone others trust and rely on.
And maybe the most surprising change of all:
It stopped living entirely in hunger and impatience.
The younger gimp was always reaching for the next thing, the next scene, the next high, the next transformation. It was terrified the life it wanted would slip away if it didn’t grab it fast enough.
The gimp today understands something different. It understands presence. It understands enjoyment. It understands that growth happens in the long stretches between scenes, not only during them. The creature that once survived on fantasy now thrives in reality.
The past ten years brought a lot of growth on their own, but the last ~two years of being owned marked a clear next step in the gimp’s evolution. Ownership didn’t start the journey, but it accelerated and deepened it. SIR entered the gimp’s life, at first as a concerned freind, at a point when it was at some of its darkest mental and emotional moments with kink. Gimp was even questioning whether it even wanted to continue in the kink world. But SIR understood it was an opportunity for it, it was ready to be shaped, and His influence pushed the creature further than it ever managed alone. His expectations, structure, and corrections hardened the gimp’s foundation and helped it understand its purpose with more clarity than ever before. Everything the gimp became in the first eight years created the groundwork. The last two years under SIR refined it, steadied it, and brought out a more focused, centered, and truer version of itself.
If the younger version of this creature could see it now, it would be stunned. Certainly a little jealous. Definitely proud. I hope that younger self would understand that the dark days weren’t the full story. They were only the beginning of becoming something stronger and more settled and much more itself.
The gimp finally grew into the creature it was always meant to be.
And it is better than anything the lonely teenager could have imagined.
To everyone of my kinky friends (especially the ones who tolerate me being a wacky autist at events), my partner, and my Owner, thank You for being in my life; you all give Gimp far more than it can ever give You in return.


