Since some interesting points about domming and consent have been raised, I'm going to chip and provide you guys with an alternative viewpoint to consider.
This will probably
not be what most of you want to hear, but I'm going to say it anyways, since I believe it applies very strongly to Steven's current predicament. Keep in mind, I support and encourage debates and discussions like these.
The topic being discussed is very multi-faceted, so I'm going to turn it around and show you another facet of it.
I take pride in keeping Steven's story as realistic as possible; most notably his reactions and the reactions of those around him.
Many of you can identify with Steven or another character because of the fact that said character reminds you of yourself (at least on some level).
Now I don't want you guys to misconstrue what I'm saying here.
Consent
should be the baseline of any sexual relation and should also be viewed as similarly essential during bondage play.
Let's put the sex aside for a moment and focus solely on the bondage.
Consent is the primary edict preached by BDSM savvies and pundits, and rightly so.
However, outside this small sphere of bondage-loving kinksters, and outside sex, the word completely loses it's meaning.
BDSM, Dom, Sub; those words are foreign and meaningless to most people out there. That's a fact.
If you mention the word "bondage", the first thing that'll come to most people's mind's will be a whip-wielding leather-clad dominatrix.
The word will usually elicits a few laughs and is generally seen as being slightly funny and a little awkward/taboo.
As someone who's friends and buddies consists almost entirely of non-kinky straight guys, I can assure you that all these things are true.
Why is this even relevant?
Well, for many reasons.
First, I think it would be erroneous to label Phil or any of the college guys as "Doms".
The concept of Dom and sub as we know it, is a very foreign to the vast majority of people.
Phil is in no way being portrayed as a Dom. Sure, he likes to take advantage of helpless guys and torment them a little. But he's no Dom. Neither is Shawn, Josh, Mike or any of these guys.
There's a HUGE difference between a Dom, a prankster and an Alpha.
Again, why is this relevant?
Well, to put it simply, I think it would be naïve to expect straight vanilla guys to adhere to the edicts of BDSM conduct (ex: consent during bondage) when all they're doing is horsing around and acting like real college jocks.
Note that common college pranks and army hazing pranks involve surprise (and often times forceful) tie ups, bouts of wrestling, forced body hair removal, sockgags, forced headshaves, forced t-bagging/stinkface and other "innocent" forms of torture. The victim usually doesn't go along with these things willingly, which often leads to organized paybacks and never-ending revenge pranks. Of course, at the end of the day, it's all in good fun and the guys settle their score by pranking each other back and forth and sharing a few beers with each other when the fun is over.
That's called hazing, and although it often involves a victim being restrained, either with rope or duct tape, you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone referring to such scenes as being "bondage".
When this site originally aired in the early 2000s, it was a tie up/hazing/pranking-only website.
"Bondage" as we know it only started being featured here in the 2010s, causing many of the original members to leave because they felt the site had changed from innocent non-sexual tie ups to more mature, fetish themes.
Again, BDSM and bondage (as we know it) is foreign to the vast majority of people.
I'm giving you this tugstories history lesson to remind you all that the recent scene involving Joshua and Steven's duct tape mummification doesn't exactly fit into what most folks (myself included) would consider "bondage". To Steven it is, 'cause he's a kinky guy. But for Chris, Mike, Kyle, Joey and etc, this is just another day of college hazing and horsing around.
Some of you might have also noticed the fact that Steven's aroused state caused a small level of discomfort and hesitation in the room.
Kyle ignored it and was the first to start the duct taping, eventually to be joined by the other guys.
Nobody wanted to talk about it, or even mention it. A definite sign that these guys aren't turned on by the tying up process and that they don't see it in the same light that you and I do.
Phil is a prankster, who probably has to resort to extra nastiness to get respect from his peers, who are all much taller and stronger than he is. We can correctly associate that with overcompensation.
He walks into a room and finds two mummified and gagged twerps, writhing and mmpphing across the floor.
The first thing to cross his head was probably that the two prisoners had been taped up as part of a prank or a payback.
Is he going to join in and have fun at their expense? Hell yeah.
Would Josh do the same had Phil been the one taped up and gagged? You bet!
Steven has some added appeal to Phil, probably for being the new kid on the block and for being of similar size and stature.
Steven is also in Phil's environment, and given that he's only seen Steven being restrained, teased and tormented at the hands of Josh, it's safe to assume that Phil simply wants to join in on the fun and make the little mummy twerp suffer as well.
He takes a perverse pleasure from making others squirm, and probably feel victim to his older brother's devilish pranks more often than not.
Steven is screaming for release and growling in anger...just like any sane, "non kinky" guy being pranked would.
I mean, who in their right mind would wanna be tapped up and stinkfaced, right?
[mention]Sniffmyfeet[/mention] and [mention]ShadowHusky[/mention] have also mentioned some things about Steven only consenting to being played with by some guys and how such a thing would be shallow.
I'm sorry to say this, but no matter how shallow it is, that's
exactly what Steven is doing.
He disliked Phil right from the start, and continued to dislike him even though Josh was giving him the
exact same treatment.
Steven is a very flawed character, which is why he's so relatable, given how we're all flawed as well.
Steven describes Josh as being a devil, but always portrays the troublesome jock in a humorous, positive light.
Steven also describes Phil in the same way, but portrays him in a totally different light.
Is it justified? Probably not.
All we know is that Steven finds Josh super hot, but doesn't find Phil nearly as attractive.
Would Steven's view of Phil change if he actually got to know the guy? Possibly. Only time will tell.
In [mention]gaggedfeety[/mention]'s words, Phil is a "
douchy opportunist who just likes to fuck with people" which is exactly what Josh has shown himself to be. Alas, he gets the "hotness" pass, and not only with Steven, but with MANY of you!
The extra screen time Josh has been granted allowed Steven to see a lighter/friendlier side to the jock.
I'll leave it up to you guys to decide whether or not Steven's dislike of Phil would lessen if he were given equal screen time.
Now I'm not defending Phil, but before you guys get all torn up about consent, bondage-edicts and good domming practices, I think it would be very important to take the circumstances and environment surrounding Steven's latest predicament into consideration.
I'm not trying to sway your minds or trying to tell you what to believe.
All I can say is that Steven's current predicament at the hands of douchebag Phil and these college hunks, mirrors that of real life hazing practices.
Some inventive Youtube/ThisVid searches will yield an enormous number of military men hazing prank videos and college/roommate wars that involve non-consensual tie ups. Portuguese and Turkish guys in particular are VERY handsy with each other when it comes to this sort of stuff (something I think [mention]DeeperThanRed[/mention] can attest to
).
At the end of the day, realism is the principal facet this story pushes for.
Whether the scenarios are morally acceptable or not is for each and everyone one of you to decide.
However, I
do believe it would be a bit sad and naïve to expect college jocks to act in line with BDSM edicts of morality, especially considering how taboo BDSM is to the outside world. Consent (for the vast majority of people) is automatically linked to sex, not tie up games and certainly not college/sports team/guy-on-guy pranking and hazing.
The only thing we know about Phil (from his screen time on Bound & Gagged and from his intro story "Skaterboy Gets His Way") is that he loves tormenting his friends, he gets a sick thrill from t-bagging, he loves to badmouth and degrade his victims, and he loves shoving his socked feet into other people's faces.
We also know that he gets along great with Joshua. He gets along great with Kyle. And he's never shown to have any beef with any of the guys in Shawn's apartment. Some of you might remember how ruthless he was to his own older brother when the guy was taped, mummified and gagged against his will as an 18th birthday party prank.
For those who might've missed Phil's backstory:
Skaterboy Gets His Way (m/M):
https://tugstories.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=5645
I'm hoping that all of these reminders will help put things into perspective and give you guys more things to think about.
And if it's any comfort to you, aside from Shawn's blackmail attempt a few days ago, I very much doubt Steven will be going back home with bad memories of his time at Shawn's place. That alone should speak tons about his predicament and current mindset.
My two cents.
You have no idea how many times I read through my posts before submitting!
I think poor Steven's evening isn't really going to get better soon. Unless one of the other jocks discovers him or ....worse the jock that discovers him just joins in. 
