Tag: handcuffs

08

Lovehoney to release official range of Fifty Shades of Grey sex toys

Last week, U.K. sex toy retailer, Lovehoney, announced that they would be selling a range of sex toys developed in conjunction with Fifty Shades of Grey author E.L. James. (You may have seen the @ChintzCurtain tweets about it.) Per the Lovehoney website:

 

‘The Fifty Shades of Grey official collection is beautifully packaged, discreet and couple-friendly. Products are supplied with a luxurious, branded storage bag and each comes with suggestions for use and tips on introducing the toys into a relationship.’

 

Image: courtesy of Lovehoney

Yes, fans of the series will soon be able to buy ‘Inner Goddess – Silver Pleasure Balls’, ‘You. Are. Mine. – Metal Handcuffs’, a ‘Submit To Me – First Time Bondage Kit’, ‘All Mine – Deluxe Satin Blackout Mask’, the ‘Sweet Sting – Riding Crop’, and the ‘Twitchy Palm – Spanking Paddle’. Continue reading →

17

Christian Grey’s playthings, part four: handcuffs

What we used: Luxury Suede Leather Handcuffs in red
From: Bondara
Price: £25.99
Material(s): Cuffs – suede and leather. Fastenings – nickel-plated steel

Read Fifty Shades of Grey and curious about bondage? If so, we hope you enjoy the fourth and final post in our Christian Grey’s playthings series, in which Thomas restrains Lizzie with some very comfortable leather handcuffs and she does a bit of … hanging about.

Important: If you haven’t already, please read the Behind the Chintz Curtain Disclaimer. (It’s not as dry and boring as you might think, so please do take the time to have a look.)

First impressions …

Lizzie
I have a bit of a thing for the colour red, so it was probably a given that I’d like the look of these cuffs. They arrive in generic brown packaging and, I have to say, my first thought when I extract them from their plastic sleeve is that they appear to be very well made; heavier and a lot more substantial than I imagined they would be. I can’t resist giving them a quick sniff – I adore the smell of leather – and am not disappointed by their aroma!

Each red suede cuff is lined with smooth black leather and has a metal buckle, a leather strap with punched holes, and a metal D-ring (to which the accompanying chain can be clipped to secure the cuffs together) on its outer surface. A close inspection reveals that the finishing is excellent: the stitching on the cuff edges is neat and the rivets that attach the D-rings and buckle sections are firmly set. The leather is wonderfully supple and bends easily when I manipulate the cuffs with my hands – a very good sign since having something stiff or hard around the wrists isn’t a great idea if you’re going to get physical. (You don’t want restraints chaffing, cutting into your skin or affecting circulation.) Continue reading →

03

Curious about Christian Grey’s playthings?

Okay. You’ve read Fifty Shades of Grey and you’re curious. What exactly happens when people play with all those things in the bedroom in real life? You know, those, er, ‘toys’?

Before Fifty came on the scene, the items that Christian Grey uses during his sexual encounters with Anastasia Steele were probably a bit outside the standard sexual behaviour box for a good many people. But if this book has done one thing by going mainstream, regardless of what you think of its origins, the writing, and the way it portrays the BDSM lifestyle, it has opened the door for candid conversations between partners and – hopefully – allowed them to communicate more openly about things they’d like to try in (or out of) the bedroom.

That said, it’s one thing to read about these sorts of things in a book and quite another to go out, buy up the hardware aisle at Homebase, and experiment with your significant other. So, to quench your curiosity, we’re going to roadtest (well, our reviewers Lizzie and Thomas are) four of the items from E.L. James’s record-breaking novel – the blindfold, the crop, ‘the beads’ and the handcuffs – to help you decide whether you’d like to try them out yourself.

We’ll be posting the reviews in instalments, so make sure you visit Chintz later this week for the first in the series.

Fifty Shades of Grey is available from: Amazon.co.uk (Kindle ; paperback), Amazon.com (Kindle ; paperback), Barnes & Noble (Nook ; paperback), Kobo (eBook).

 

03

It’s not about curtains

Chintz has been an idea in my head for a very long time and I’m so excited to finally be welcoming you all ‘behind the curtain’.

I’ve always adored books and have been an avid reader throughout my life. And I’m fascinated by just about all forms of writing – books, blogs, newspapers, the labels on cleaning products … You name it. If it’s got text on it, I want to pick it up and read it.

While I can’t remember how old I was at the time, I can vividly remember my first-ever encounter with a book that hinted at sex and sexuality. It was called Brown Cows (unfortunately, no longer in print) and etched forever in my brain is a scene in which a boy is given the opportunity to touch a girl’s breast for the first time. Despite the fact that the moment portrayed was actually quite emotionally awkward, it was something of an awakening for me and from that moment on I began to seek out and take notice of sex and relationships in the books I was reading.

Fast-forward to my teens and the discovery of the 80s ‘bonk busters’ on my mother’s bedside table (think Judith Krantz, Jilly Cooper and Jackie Collins), which resulted in me lying in bed for hours on Saturday and Sunday mornings, practically inhaling the words from the pages and being at once fascinated and slightly horrified by the sexual antics of the characters (why would anyone put THAT in their mouth?!). With a few more years on the clock and a bit more maturity, however, the shock factor I’d initially experienced was considerably lessened and I began to enjoy some much deeper, more edgy erotica and romance titles, ineffectually hiding the ones with the raunchier covers from casual passers-by by bending the front covers backwards against the bodies of the books. (God bless eReaders.) Continue reading →