Arnold Zwicky's Blog

(Except for the names of bdsm gear and the slang term gimp, this is mostly about sexual practices.)

My posting of December 20th had a section on gay men with a preference for Arab partners that had a piece on Cuban-American gay pornstar Damien Crosse, including a hot picture of Crosse wearing a type of harness I wasn’t familiar with:

(#1)

Those two straps clearly go under his armits to get connected in the back and then go over his shoulders. It turns out that such a harness (a piece of fetishwear, for sexual display of the body or for restraint) is known as a shoulder harness, or, because of its resemblance to devices for holstering pistols, a holster harness. I’ve had a lot of trouble finding a holster harness that has buckles for adjustment in the back (rather than the one on Crosse, with buckles in the front, where the wearer can easily adjust the buckles himself) being worn by a real human being, but I did find a version on a manikin.

Then on to yet another type of harness, the Y harness, and to some other types of fetishwear, in particular chaps and the bondage suit or gimp suit.

On a man, a harness, especially a black leather one, is a display of the wearer’s body and a projection of masculinity, in combination with a presentation of the wearer either as a dominant stud or as a submissive. (Crosse plays characters of both sorts in his gay porn work.) Crosse in #1 can be read either way, thanks to the fact that he can easily adjust the buckles himself; if the buckles had been on the back, then adjustment would be more difficult for him to do himself, suggesting that a dominant man would do the adjusting for him.

Previously on my blogs: a regular-blog piece of 8/10/13 with cross harnesses, by far the most common variety, in #1 and #2 there; and a AZBlogX posting of 9/18/13 with some more cross harnesses and also, in #4 and #5 there, a couple of bulldog harnesses.

A note on materials. Harnesses of all kinds can in principle be made of many materials, including leather, rubber, and a number of faux-leather and faux-rubber plastics, but genuine leather has a special status for fetishwear, in part because of its smell, which many people find very attractive, in fact sexy.

Now to holster harnesses. Here’s a totally simple one, in (genuine) black leather with black piping on the straps, from the BON BDSM company, seen here from the front:

(#3)

(the manikin is clearly meant to be male, but it’s a nippleless wonder)

and then from the rear, where the straps are adjustable and there’s a ring for attaching other gear (like a leash or a sex toy):

(#4)

Damien Crosse’s version just has the buckles (for adjustment)  in the front rather than the back.

This model has padding on the leather, for comfort and ease of cleaning, and it also comes in a style with white piping or (for the more blatant) shocking pink piping.

The holster harness is so called from the shoulder holsters used for carrying firearms. From NOAD2:

a holder for carrying a handgun or other firearm, typically made of leather and worn on a belt or under the arm: the Luger slid easily from the holster.

These are, respectively, hip holsters and shoulder holsters (there are also ankle holsters and leg holsters). For stability, shoulder holsters require straps, either across the chest or (more commonly) across the back, and they are typically one-sided (how many people need to carry two firearms?), but there are two-sided variants, such as this two-fisted number Brendan Fraser is wearing in his Mummy movie role (which presumably has straps in the back):

(#5)

Adapting shoulder holsters for fetish use, we get the one-sided holster harness, shown in thumbnail on another manikin:

(#6)

(This manikin has visible, but creepily flesh-colored, nipples, and it’s articulated, so that the arms can be moved and posed in different positions.)

And on to Y harnesses. Here’s a basic Y harness, with no one in it:

(#7)

Y harnesses are the same front and back, so that they can be worn with the adjustment buckles on either side — on the front, where the wearer can easily adjust the harness himself, or on the back, suggesting that a dominant man will buckle him into the harness.

Y harnesses are usually made stable by a horizontal strap around the body — a chest strap as in #7, or a waist strap, or a hip strap, or two of these. The O rings provide points for attaching a leash, a cockring, or some other sex toy. Strapless Y harnesses are another possibility, in which case the vertical strap just goes under the crotch, usually with an anchoring cockring, as in this number:

(#8)

(I have fuzzed out the business end of the model’s penis so that the image can appear on this WordPress blog.)

The O ring in back can be used to attach a leash.

In any case, this is the simplest sort of Y harness, one in which the Y of the name appears without any extras.

More fetishwear: chaps. In looking for illustrations of holster harnesses and Y harnesses — eventually I found a lot, but not before I’d written up the material above, with its prevalence of manikins and disembodied gear — I came across this wonderful image, which has been passed around on various leather sites:

(#9)

An attractive, smiling guy in a black leather bulldog harness, highlighting his nipples, and crotchless, or open-crotch, black leather chaps (which means that they’re also seatless, or open-ass, gear), but with a detachable blue leather thong. He’s displaying his handsome ass or making his ass available to other men (or both) and he’s focusing attention on his dick while concealing it, but making it easily available. An admirable performance.

Chaps are very common items of fetishwear, and crotchless garments (which I’ve called dickholewear on my X blog) are scarcely unknown, but there aren’t many occasions where a man can wear them in public without getting into hot water, so they’re mostly limited to sexual display in private or to use with an accompanying cover, like a thong.

Chaps were not, however, invented as fetishwear, but originated as clothing for working men (which jacks up their appeal as fetishwear). From NOAD2:

chaps pl. noun   leather pants without a seat, worn by a cowboy over ordinary pants to protect the legs. ORIGIN mid 19th cent.: short for chaparajos.

chaparajos N. Amer. full form of chaps (also chaparejos) ORIGIN mid 19th cent.: from Mexican Spanish chaparreras, from chaparra (with reference to protection from thorny vegetation: see chaparral); probably influenced by Spanish aparejo ‘equipment’

Chaps can, of course, be made of various sorts of faux leather, but genuine leather is the way to go.

More fetishwear: bondage suits. My friend Juan, who is straight, has been getting an education in things gay from talking with me about my postings. Recently, that’s taken us into the world of gay bdsm, including slave collars and now harnesses. Oh, he asked a few days ago, do you know the movie Pulp Fiction? — Yes. — And the Gimp?  — Um, no; I either missed that or forgot about it.

Here’s a YouTube clip of the relevant scene, in which the Gimp, in a bondage suit, is brought out of the box / cage in which he’s been kept. (I knew about bondage suits, but the name gimp suit was new to me).

From Wikipedia:

A bondage suit, also commonly called a gimp suit, is a garment designed to cover the body completely (usually including the hands and feet), fitting it closely, and often including anchor points for bondage. It often has an attached hood; if it does not, it often is worn with a bondage hood or “gimp mask”. The suit may be made from any material; leather, PVC, rubber, spandex, and darlexx are the most usual. Leather, not being stretchy, cannot fit as tightly as the others.

A bondage suit is used in BDSM to objectify the wearer, or gimp, and reduce him or her to the status of a sexual toy, rather than a sexual partner. Unless there are suitably placed zippers, the breasts and genitals are not directly accessible while the suit is worn.

Here’s a man in a bondage suit of some sort of synthetic material, wearing a slave collar (with leash attached) that forces him to keep his head straight, and with restraints that prevent him from moving his arms, bending over, or standing up:

(#10)

Note that the panels covering the slave’s eyes, mouth, and nipples can be unsnapped.

Now a black leather bondage suit from Mr. S Leather in San Francisco:

(#11)

In the photo, the model has his eyes, mouth, nipples, and hands uncovered, so that he can pinch his tits and grab his dick, and has no restraints attached, so that he can move around freely. But that can easily be fixed.

From the Mr. S site:

This is the ultimate bondage experience.
– Made of over twenty pounds of thick soft leather.
– This improved version of the original Fetters design is completely made in our San Francisco workshops.
– Ten different lacing points with 20 separate belts that go around the suit.
– Multiple ‘D’ rings allow this suit to be attached to anything for total restraint.
– All belts and lacing included.
The Fetters Bondage suit separates at the waist in two pieces so you can wear each piece separately.
Jacket and pants are laced together with connecting eyelets to tighten enough to restrict bending or not.

It sells for $2,250, not a high price for specially made genuine leather.

Bondage suit is a transparent N-N compound. But where does gimp suit come from? Consider NOAD2 on the relevant noun:

gimp N. Amer. informal, derogatory a physically handicapped or lame person; a feeble or contemptible person. ORIGIN mid 17th cent.: from Dutch, of unknown ultimate origin.

The idea then is that a bondage suit disables you, makes you into a disabled person, a gimp.

This entry was posted on December 24, 2015 at 6:27 am and is filed under Clothing, Gender and sexuality, Language of clothing, Movies and tv. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.