Hanky Code: communicating with colors
Red, yellow, blue, black, white... primary colors, inviting, playful. They are not just simple pigments, they are well-defined codes that allow you to communicate and express yourself.
Let's talk about Hanky Code. Or Handkerchief Code, or Flagging... nothing contemporary or modern, this code has its roots even in rural America in the late nineteenth - early twentieth century. Even then and in the wastelands, the human desire to communicate and interact with his fellow men was strong and felt, there was the need to make one's sexual orientation evident but only to those who could understand it and share it... then the American farmers developed a language linked to what they cultivated, depending on what you planted in your field the message was loud and clear: potatoes = bottom, grain = top, legumes/lentils = lesbianism, flax = elettrophilia (the first anti-hysteria devices emanated a light purple, linen has purple flowers). Anyone who knew the code passed by the property knew if they could find the ideal companion.
But the use of secret codes to communicate one's intimacy was not relegated to bucolic America, even prostitutes in city brothels used colors to communicate without using words with their customers. Depending on the shade of the bustier they wore, we already knew what the peculiarities of the woman we met were: pink = submission, black = mistress, green = more perverse practices. A changing universe for a universe of desires…
In Victorian London then, we encounter a color that was linked to the most bizarre perversions, green. It is well known that Oscar Wild also wore green carnations in his buttonhole, to make his wishes out of the box known.
Moving back in time, we come to the end of the 19th century, when the Hanky Code originated. At that time, the use of colored bandanas around the neck was common among cowboys, workers and miners in the western United States. Away from home and their families for long periods, these men spent their free moments drinking and dancing, whoever wore a blue handkerchief led the dances while whoever wore a red handkerchief played the female role in the dance.
In the modern era, more precisely in the 70s, in the US, Canada and Europe, things do not change much. Color communication codes are always present, evolving in parallel with times and habits. The Hanky Code or flagging is a signaling system, usually used by gay men seeking random sex or BDSM activities, to indicate their sexual preferences through the color of the handkerchief and the position in which it is worn. Depending on where the bandana was placed, the message you wanted to convey changed: right side = passive role, left side = active role.
Time passes, needs change, but the desire to secretly communicate their desires remains unchanged.
SIRAINER plays with colors too: black = SM, white = masturbation / voyeur, yellow = piss / watersport, blue = anal sex, red = fist
Which one do you choose?