Friday Favorites: Harnesses
Man! It has been a tough couple of weeks. Here I am, all set to be a good little blogger again, and then I get hit with a painful project at work that sapped all my time for a couple of weeks. I hate that. And the client has been a pain in the ass, too. I don’t do passive aggression well, especially when I wholly and utterly think the decisions being made are just … dumb. Anyway. What can you do? So we turn back to blogging.
I love harnesses. I love the look of them on a man, I love what they do to a man’s physique. I think the right harness, worn the right way, can really do wonders for a guy. It’s like there’s a harness for everyone, it’s just a matter of finding the one that suits him. Even my non-kinky husband agrees, he loves a harness on a guy. And those guys that can get away (apparently) wearing one under a suit … oh man … the very hint of leather goodness under a hot Dom’s clothes sends my cock a’flutter and my knees a’bending.
I’ve been saving the harness post for a while now because I wanted to find out more about the role of a harness in BDSM play. Or learn more about the background of how harnesses came into the world of kink, or any sort of protocol about them. But the reality is, I just haven’t been able to find anything all that authoritative on why we wear harnesses, where they started, or the “rules” around wearing them. From what I’ve been able to research on Fetlife in particular, there may have once been a set of rules, but nowadays no one knows. If you know, please educate me!
For a sub, I see the role of the harness pretty plainly. It’s something to tie the animal to in order to control him, rein him in, keep him in place. Tie a leash to it, tie his own limbs to it, hoist him up by it or otherwise just use it as a sign of submission and animalistic servitude. The harness is a quintessential symbol of bondage … one is literally bound into the straps (or rope or chain) and the way a harness wraps the body’s core, it allows maximum control or leverage for tying down a boy. I’ve seen some scant commentary that these days, a harness that connects the rib cage to a cock ring is meant for submissives, but I don’t think that’s a hard and fast rule. But in a way, a cock-connecting harness does seem, to me anyway, a sign that that person is meant to be controlled, right down to that which makes him a man, is tied up and controlled by another.
But though a harness, to me, seems to be an archetypal symbol of bondage and ownership, to see a Dom in one just makes me swoon. On a well-built Dom, especially, the harness evokes power, mastery, strength. The way a good harness outlines the chest and arms, highlights those parts of a man that are so often equated to strength and dominance. A holster-type harness or one that slings over the shoulder would seem to emphasize this even more, because they hint at harnesses of old that would hold weapons. A strong man in a hot harness would have my submission almost instantly. There’s just something about the way a strong Dom wears one that summarizes almost everything I find I want in a Master, at least in the imagery of Dominance.
So where did they come from? What’s the historical role of them in BDSM? I dunno. All I know is, they’re hot, and they have a place for both subs and Doms in my opinion, and they’re one of my favorite things about our community.
