My (not so) brief straitjacket history

So, like every bondage enthusiast, there comes a time where you start to realize that you have a fetish for bondage. Although I liked to play with rope as a child, my time came at the age of about 14 years.

It was at a christmas evening when I watched a show on TV with my family. As a show filler a magician performed a straitjacket escape. While the magician was getting strapped into the straitjacket, I suddenly felt a strong desire to also get bound like that. And that was the day where I took one of my sweaters and started to experiment around with it, with the goal to create something similar like the straitjacket I've seen in the show.

So the fist thing I did, was actually pretty simple: I took a rope and used it to knot the sleeves together at the ends. That was not very much, but it was enough to give a good first impression of a straitjacket.

[Getting in] I simply pulled the body of the jacket above my head and slipped with the arms into the sleeves. After that I simply crossed the arms into a loop and pulled that over my head and shoulders.

[Getting out] Simply reversing the process.

But I soon figured out that the rope takes a way a big amount of the sleeves. Because the sleeves were shorter than normal sleeves, but had to fit in the whole arms including hands, the body of the jacket started to stretch sideways. I could easily pull my arms into the body of the jacket. I had to do something about that.

So I silently took a part of my mother's sewing (she probably never noticed that because she has a lot of it) and started to sew the sleeves together at their ends. Of course, I was completely unexperienced, so the seam ended up totally chaotic. To compensate that, I simply stitched more than necessary. I did not get rid of the stretching problem entirely, but it was better than before. I still could pull my arms out of the sleeves, if I wanted... but it wasn't that easy anymore.

The next feature I added, was a crotch strap. I simply took a belt, cut it in two parts and fixed in the front and back. It was not really a big change, but the straitjacket suddenly felt so much better, because the crotch strap added slight pressure from all sides by tightening the lower part of the jacket.

[Getting in] Before slipping the arms into the sleeves, I closed the crotch strap from inside the jacket.

After months of using this version and browsing straitjacket pictures I wanted to add another feature to the jacket: the front loop. After thinking about it for a while, I decided to take a piece of canvas (about 3cm*25cm). So I crossed the sleeves and fixed the piece of canvas on the front at two points. This also made a big difference in terms of restriction.

[Getting in] To form the loop for the body I just had to push the sleeves into the front loop to make the already existing arm loop bigger. And because the arms are fixed at the loop, I had to bend down in order to get my head through the sleeve loop.

But getting out was still too easy... I needed a loop at the back, but that would have made getting in incredibly difficult. I had to come up with something different. So I cut another belt in two parts, disconnected the sleeves and attached the belts to the sleeves. With that change, I was able to add a back loop. Now I was no longer able to slip my arms above my head. This was another huge improvement in the straitjacket feeling.

[Getting in] At first I threaded the sleeves through the loops and connected the strap at the longest possible length. Then I slipped into the body, closed the crotch strap, slipped with my arms into the sleeves and tightened the arm strap. This was possible because the buckle was only able to slide in one direction. After getting the arms as far as I could, I just gave it a good tug and the buckle was locked.

[Getting out] In order to loosen the buckle, I had to catch the arm strap hanging in my back with my leg. Once I got tension on the strap, I was able to push the arm against the buckle, which loosened it. When loose, the strap could be slowly pulled through the buckle.

Because the sweater was a hoodie, I tried to make an experimental change: I sew the opening of the hood shut, so I ended up with a closed hood. I still could breathe fine through the fabric, but I wasn't able to see anymore. It was a kind of interesting experience, but I think I would prefer a separate hood, because that allows more flexibility.

A few days after the last modification my jacket broke. It ripped irreparably at the lower half.

Well, this was a problem. My straitjacket was broken, but - of course - my fetish didn't vanish, too. I had to create another straitjacket. But with the experience I gathered, I had the opportunity to create a new one from scratch. I wanted to make sure that this jacket will not stretch as much as the previous one. At first I searched through my sweaters in order to find the most unstretchable one. It was this one:

But wait! We know that color scheme, don't we? :)

Yes, this sweater turned into the straitjacket, I've modelled my profile picture after. But like the first straitjacket this one also went through more than one iteration:

Instead of sewing the arm straps directly to the sleeves, I cut the sleeve ends of the old jacket at about a hand length and sewed those to the sleeves of the new jacket. Now I had longer sleeves where the whole arms could fit in and thus the jacket didn't get stretched sideways anymore. And so the arm pits of the jacket also were at the arm pits of the wearer. With this setup I never managed to pull the arms from the sleeves into the body (but I think it would still be possible, by yanking really hard).

I also made some better loops from stable straps. But instead of just sewing them to the jacket at two points, I made them in a closed loop and attached them at the full length. This also prevented stretching the jacket part of the loop.

But like the previous jacket, the sleeve ends started to break. The fabric got worn out too much. So I took two pieces of canvas (15cm*20cm) and created sleeve extensions, which replaced the old ones.

This version was pretty good already. Despite the fact, that the front and back loop prevented me from lifting the arms above my head, I still had a lot of freedom for vertical hand movement on my sides. I could move my hands up to the shoulders, where my freedom ended. This was still to much, the jacket needed more restriction! So I used the rest of the loop material to create two side loops, which I attached on both sides below the arm pits.

But there was still something that bugged me. My methods of getting into the straitjacket involved slipping the arms from the body into the sleeves, which I didn't like that much. It was a potential way to stretch the jacket. But if I wanted to prevent that, I would have needed to wrap the arm strap through the loops around me, while I'm already inside the jacket. And the back loop was just too high to reach from that position. So I removed that loop and attached it about 20cm lower.

I also started the first try of reinforcing the jacket. For that I took one of my last belts (the amount of belts a person has, is limited and will eventually reach zero, if you don't buy new ones and use the old ones to craft bondage equipment) to create a loop, just big enough that my head could fit through. Then I stitched it onto the inside of the neck opening to reinforce it. This was just the start of the planned reinforcement.

[Getting in] At first I slipped into the jacket like a normal sweater, with the arms inside the sleeves, like it actually should be. Then I closed the crotch strap from the outside. Beginning with the strap of the right arm, I started then to thread the end of the strap through the front loop, left side loop, back loop (which worked from now on), right side loop and finally through the front loop again. All I had to do then was threading the strap through the buckle, grab it with my teeth and pushing the arm to my back to remove as much slack as possible. Then I just pulled at the strap and the buckle locked. To make escape even more difficult, I always tried to get the arm strap tangled in the back.

[Getting out] Before catching the strap with my leg, I had to make sure that it's not knotted. If it was, I had to untangle it with the help of a door knob. Once this was done, I could kneel onto the strap to create tension and then loosen it slowly. This process always took 2-5 minutes.

So that's the current status of the homemade straitjacket. This whole process of creating and refining it took several years.

I never finished the internal belt harness for the jacket, but I don't think, that I'm gonna change anything in the future. With my purchase of a real Posey straitjacket (in March 2016), I noticed the enormous quality difference between those two. It was already obvious before the purchase, but now the homemade straitjacket feels really fragile. The fact, that the sweater is kinda small for a grown person doesn't help, either.

Now it's basically an artifact of my initial kink exploration phase, and I don't think, that I'm going to wear it again. But I will keep it, because it's been an important piece of work for me.