If you tell someone that you found some handcuffs in your friend Bill’s sock drawer (why were you snooping in there in the first place?!) or that you discovered a set in the glovebox of Granny Betsy’s car, it’s highly likely that you’ll see an eyebrow raised into a hairline and an appreciative-slash-knowing smirk rather than a look of horror at the news. 

I must confess, I am intrigued by this thinking. What is it about them that makes them so palatable to so many? Do they denote an ‘acceptable’ (and please don’t for one minute interpret my use of that word here as symbolising my own personal views on what is and isn’t acceptable between two consenting adults) brand of kink? One that it is ‘okay’ to indulge in? Most people seem to think nothing of a little restraint in the bedroom – bondage by any other name would feel as sweet – even if they don’t identify as kinky. But I suspect the reaction you’d get from a vanilla individual coming across a cane or a vampire glove amongst your personal items would be rather different. (Double-take and a step backwards rather than a blasé smirk?) I wonder if it’s because handcuffs don’t, generally speaking, involve any sort of pain on the wearer’s part and are thus far less confrontational than other forms of kink, which may have some sort of marked sensation component attached to them?

Funnily enough (and despite my initial assertion), I don’t personally include ‘traditional’ handcuffs – by which I mean the metal kind you’d expect a policeman to carry and see bedecked with horrid, fake fur on occasion – as part of my on kink landscape. They are uncomfortable, dig into the skin and are, in my experience, really only good for show or roleplay. A toy or gimmick that I don’t associate with safe, fun bondage, basically. Leather cuffs or even a warm set of hands wrapped around my wrists? Now that’s a different story entirely …

Image: Houdini in Handcuffs, 1918, Bettmann/Corbis, through The New York Times photo archive

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