Living in Chains

Scrotum collars, also called ball weights or ball stretchers are wonderful things. Nothing screams “bondage” to a male louder that a ring of steel around his balls. If he can’t take that steel off, the scream becomes a thundering roar. Every minute of every day, it’s there, gently squeezing and sensitizing. Why any guy would ever want to take it off is beyond me.

But there are practical concerns.

It MUST be stainless steel, not plated. Plating can wear off and create sharp edges. Anything other than stainless will corrode in the damp, moist, salty environment down there.

It MUST be silky smooth and well rounded. Anything else will wear a hole in your skin, leaving an open sore that won’t heal as long as the metal contacts it. The cheaper products available online can be atrocious in this regard. Spend the extra cash on a quality item. If there are small imperfections or sharp edges, these can be removed with a fine file then wet-or-dry sandpaper, working with finer and finer grits and finishing up with a scotch bright pad.

It SHOULD have an attachment point or two for chains or weights. You haven’t been chained until your balls are padlocked to an immovable object. Be careful if the scene is going to get rough - you don’t want to race across the room and be pulled up short (or, much, much worse, not) by you balls. If you wear leg irons, connect a chain from the scrotum collar to the center link of the leg irons. Adjust the length of this center chain so the leg irons stay well clear of the ground and so the center chain puts a gentle tug on your balls when the leg iron chain is taunt. You’ll want to take a ten mile hike just to keep feeling that tug.

It MUST fit. The band of diameters between “castration thru lack of blood flow” and “it keeps popping out” is surprisingly small. For me, 37mm inside diameter is perfect, 33mm is way too small and 41mm is too big. The difficulty is that your balls and the tissue-and-tubes connecting them to the rest of you change size and shape. When the balls are big and pulled up against you, the collar will be tight. When you balls are small and the tissue relaxed, everything will be loose. There IS a size that will be tolerably comfortable when your balls are big and tight yet snug when they are small and loose. There’s no real way to figure out that size other than wear one for a while. You’ll know if it’s too small fairly quickly. It will take several days to figure out if it’s too big. There are a few online stores that carry multiple sizes and will let you return collars until you find the right size.

I prefer a smaller, lighter collar. It won’t stretch the scrotum as much making it less visible under a bathing suit for instance. With an attachment ring, weight can always be added and removed as desired. In any case, loose underwear and pants will make things more comfortable all around. Sorry fashionistas.

It SHOULD be permanent. Ok, there’s room for discussion on this one. But there’s a whole new mental dynamic that sets in when it’s not coming off, ever, and you know it’s not coming off. Your kink life style will forever change in powerful ways. Think this one over carefully. Wear it for a few weeks to make sure the size and finish are perfect before taking the plunge.

The easy way to make it permanent is to get out your dremel tool with the little cut-off disc. Cut a slice off the Allen wrench that came with the collar that is just long enough to fill the hole in the Allen bolt flush. Make two plugs if there are two bolts. Epoxy the plugs in the heads of the bolts. The allen wrench is made of hardened steel and is a bitch to drill out. You can make a visually smooth permanence to the collar by filling in the recesses with epoxy after glueing in the plugs.

Steel chain comes in several finishes. The shiny hardware store chain has a zinc plating to keep it from rusting. Zinc oxidizes with the acid in you perspiration and leaves a black or dark gray stain if worn for longer than a few hours. The stain washes off skin easily enough but is difficult to get out of clothes. Still, zinc chain is cheap and readily available and is widely used for bondage.

Chains designed for water use (boat anchor chains for instance) have a hot dipped galvanized coating which a dull silver or gray coating. Galvanized coating is another form of zinc coating and will stain as described above. Galvanized coating is generally rougher than the shiny zinc plating or plain steel and the chain is more expensive. However, if you plan to chain your Andromeda to the rocky sea shore and the kraken might take a couple years to show up, galvanized will do the job. Lucky Andromeda!

Heavier chains can be bought with no finish at all, just the steel itself. In time, these chains will rust. If you are building an old school damp dungeon, rusty chains might be just the thing.

Most chain is available in stainless steel which is pretty much the gold standard for bondage. It doesn’t corrode and looks great. Stainless is slightly stronger than Grade 30 steel (1,570 lbs working load vs 1,300 lbs for 1/4” chain). Stainless is also expensive but if you want an unobtrusive permanent collar, wrap a length of 3/16” stainless twist chain around your neck and lock it in place.

I’ve also seen some heavier proof coil chain with what looks like a cadmium coating. It’s a yellow-gold plating. Cadmium plating does a good job of preventing rust on nuts and bolts but I haven’t used any of the chain for bondage yet.

Chains come is many styles. Below are some of the common ones found at your local hardware store that are commonly used for bondage.

Proof coil is all-purpose chain.

Transport chain is similar to proof coil but the links are sized to be compatible with the grab hooks used by truckers and loggers.

Pass link has wider links so the links can slide past each other, making it less likely to kink. It’s still “kinky” it just doesn’t “kink.”

Twist link lies flat and does less damage to the skin that other chains making it good for cuffs and collars. It resembles jewelry chain making it popular for everyday wear as a collar or cuff.

Long link is lighter per foot than other chains. Two chains can be joined by putting the end link of one chain thru the center link of the other chain and putting a lock thru the end link of the first chain. This allows the chain to carry the load and not the locking mechanism of the lock, making it useful if you use very light locks.

Straight link is similar to long link, just not as long.

Twist link is best for chain cuffs and collars as the flat links spread the load more evenly over your skin. Any of the other chains can leave small bruises if much force is applied. Proof coil and transport chains are heavier than the more open chains for any given size. Straight, long and pass link chains are easier to attach things to and are generally cheaper. If you’re equipping a dungeon with dozens of manacles attached to the walls and need several hundred feet of chain, you’ll likely use 1/4” or 3/16” straight link, zinc plated chain. Hundreds of dungeons use it.

The next few posts are for the newbies. Experienced kinksters feel free to comment.

Steel chain comes in five grades: 30, 43, 70, 80 and 100. The grade tells you the tensile strength of the steel used to make the chain with 30 being the weakest and 100 the strongest. Grades 30, 43 and 70 are “not recommended for overhead lifting” where the load can fall on people if the chain fails. The stronger grades will be more expensive, of course. For our purposes, looking at the “working load” of the chain is a better gauge of whether the chain is suitable. If you weigh 200 pounds and you want to suspend yourself from the ceiling while struggling, you could conceivably put shock loads up to about twice your weight on the chain or 400 pounds. If we use a safety factor of 5, then we’ll need a chain with a working load of 2,000 pounds. Looking here:

http://www.fehr.com/img/product/description/NACM%20Welded%20Chain%20Specifications.pdf

we find that 3/8” Grade 30 proof coil has a working load of 2,650 lbs. 3/8” is very heavy chain. Heavy can be nice but if you want something lighter, 1/4” Grade 43 chain has a working load of 2,600 lbs. If you went with Grade 100 chain, 7/32” chain (less than 1/4” or about the size of the light weight Grade 30 chain in the hardware store) will get you 2,700 lbs working load - at a price!

If you don’t plan on hanging from the chains, Grade 30 chain in 3/16” (800 lbs working load) or 1/4” (1,300 lbs) will work fine. A very strong man can bench press 300 pounds and put a shock load of maybe a little more than that on his wrist chains. Of course, heavy is nice. A 15-inch ankle chain made from 3/8” proof coil weighs about 2 pounds not including whatever the cuffs weigh and feels absolutely wonderful when every movement is weighted down by those massive links.

For my wrist chains, 10 inches is the longest I use. I can rake the yard, wash dishes and do most chores. A 10-inch chain is short enough that I’m constantly bumping into its limit and my arms don’t hang at my sides, they hang in front. Shorter chains are, of course, shorter and more restrictive. At 7 inches, I can do about 95% of what I can do at 10 inches, just a little slower. 7 inches is my default length with 10 inches for times when I’m working with large, bulky objects. Below about 5 inches, things we normally do with two hands, like washing or drying dishes, become difficult because we can’t get our hands far enough apart to scrub the middle of the plate while holding onto the edge. (A note on handling dishes in chains: go slowly the first few times, it’s surprisingly easy to break or chip dishes and glassware with the chain if you move quickly and get the chain slinging around.) Less than 5 inches, we effectively have one not-very-flexible arm and one extra-large hand. The most difficult household task with any wrist restraint is folding sheets!

I’m a practical guy so this blog will focus on the practical aspects of chain bondage. We’ll discuss simple, how-to things that make life in chains, well, practical.

For instance, I wear men’s size 10-1/2 shoes or about average size feet. A 15-inch chain between my ankles will just let me step over the edge of a standard bathtub. I must stand on trip-toe to do it but it works. 15-inches also lets me climb stairs and step ladders but is half my normal stride of 30 inches so it is nicely restrictive. I can walk in shorter chains but 15 inches is a nice length for enjoying bondage while still being able to function around the house.

Warning: Install sturdy handholds on your tub if you climb in and out wearing leg irons. It’s easy to slip and hurt yourself! Hardware stores carry tub handrails for old people - get a couple and put them on your tub. Don’ trust the shower curtain rod - it won’t hold even a small person’s weight.