Master Graham & bear
“The outfit isn’t a costume — it’s language. Fetish has always been a way I understand myself and the world: through texture, power, trust, and intention. What I wear connects me to masculinity in a way that feels embodied rather than performative. It’s practical, direct, and unapologetic.
High-vis, rubber, sports kit, socks — they’re things that feel strong, functional, and familiar. They make me feel comfortable in my body, present, and grounded. Comfort matters. When I’m comfortable, I’m confident. When I’m confident, I’m honest.
My bear being naked isn’t about shock or exposure — it’s protocol. One of many. It speaks to vulnerability, surrender, trust, and clarity of roles. Nothing is random. Everything has meaning. And yes — my bear’s collar is permanent. It’s a symbol of commitment, care, and connection, worn every day, not just in private.
Fetish, for me, is structure as much as desire — a way of making sense of intimacy, masculinity, and care. This is how we show up fully. Nothing hidden. Nothing to apologise for.
Growing up, the barbershop was just short back and sides — functional, masculine in a very narrow, approved way. Men’s style felt boxed in: military, office-friendly, don’t stand out. There was no self-expression in it, just maintenance.
I started going bald at 18 and skipped straight past experimentation. I shaved it off, leaned into the gay skinhead look, and found my way into the fetish scene instead. That’s where masculinity finally made sense to me — chosen, intentional, embodied — not dictated by a mirror in a shop window.
For me, identity wasn’t shaped by grooming rituals — it was shaped by claiming my body on my own terms.
The shoot with Chris was great. We already know each other socially and I had sat for him before, so there was an ease from the start. It’s always an honour to be photographed by him. That familiarity makes a real difference. You feel relaxed, trusted, and free to just be rather than perform. When the space feels safe, the images come naturally — and that’s when the honesty shows.“
Master Graham & bear (he/him)
Graham is a gay man shaped by survival and by staying when disappearing felt easier. For years he carried shame, fear and the sense of being too much and not enough at once, learning to make himself quieter and smaller to feel safe. Unlearning that has been painful and necessary. He is still here not because it was easy, but because he refused to vanish, held by community, chosen family, queer spaces, shared laughter and shared grief. For him, visibility is not about fearlessness, it is about being seen anyway, and he shows up for those who feel late, broken or left behind, knowing they are not.
Being queer, to Graham, means refusing to be sanitised. It is about desire, body, joy, shame and unlearning who he was told to be to deserve love. His sexuality shapes how he feels, what he wants and how alive he feels in his body. As a fetish guy, queerness is claiming pleasure without guilt, rejecting the need to be palatable or respectable, and treating desire as honesty and survival rather than something to hide.
Graham expresses who he is through his body, through clothes that show confidence and comfort with being looked at, and through fetish textures that help him stand taller with less apology. To his younger self, and to queer kids now, he would say this: you are not broken, and you do not need to earn the right to exist. Care matters as much as pleasure. It will not always be safe, but life does get wider. Stay, even when it hurts, because there is a future version of you who is still here and glad you survived long enough to become them.
This is UNCUT — a raw, striking portrait series by award-winning photographer Chris Jepson capturing the power and pride of Queer Joy, shot in a barber’s chair. No filters, no retouching, no compromise. Just bold, beautiful people taking up space exactly as they are.