Basic Information
Chinese name: chastity belt
Alias: Florence Belt
Purpose: to prevent promiscuity of women and men
Popularity: 14th century Italy
Invention: During the Crusades in Medieval Europe
Material: metal or rubber belt
Popular Period: Europe's Dark Medieval Era
Origin related
The origins of chastity belts can be traced back to Homer. Hundreds of years BC Homer described in "The Odyssey": Aphrodina, the wife of the fire god Hephaestus, had sex with He's younger brother. In order to prevent his wife from going out again, Hephaestus, the god of blacksmith protection, forged a corset for her to wear, so that she could not have sexual intercourse with men other than her husband, which may be the prototype of the earliest chastity belt.
Legend has it that the chastity belt was invented during the Crusades (11th century) to ensure that the wives of knights would not have an affair with others. However, to the best of our knowledge, there is no evidence of chastity belts in Europe during the Crusades.
The earliest mention of chastity belts is in a book on military technology in the 15th century. The book also mentions an iron chastity belt worn by women in Florence, Italy. Also known as the "Florentine chastity belt," this design consists of a half-circle: a circle around the waist, connected by a half-circle that goes under the straddle.
The direct record of chastity belts in Europe begins on August 28, 1405. The poet K. Giselle completed a poem about chastity belts and drew a picture this day. "It's a heavy iron belt held by Florentine men, and that's how it's locked up," he explained. In other passages of his poem, there are also other Italian cities that produce such things: Rome, Venice, Milan, Bergamo.
Most historians believe that the tyrant Francisco Carrara II of Padua, Italy (reigned at the end of the 14th century) first used chastity belts to lock all his wives and concubines, and the time matches the poet's records. A chastity belt now in the Venetian museum belongs to his queen.
Two of the chastity belts in the Clooney Museum in Paris were made by King Henry II of France (1547-1559) for his queen Caterina and Louis XIII (1610-1643) for his queen Anne.
From the 15th to the 18th centuries, chastity belts were popular in the upper classes of Europe. The chastity belt in the later period has been quite delicate [1], inlaid with ivory carvings, gold and silver jewelry, potentially containing the tendency of chastity belt jewelry. However, this kind of chastity belt is not suitable to be worn for a long time and cannot solve the hygiene problem.
In 1901, in a cemetery near the Austrian city of Linz, the skeleton of a young woman with a chastity belt was accidentally excavated. The woman lived in the 16th century and belonged to the upper class.
Some believe that chastity belts are a product of medieval religious asceticism and male possessiveness. However, it is well documented that chastity belts did not become popular in other parts of Europe until the 16th and 17th centuries, so chastity belts should be a product of the Renaissance, not a product of the Middle Ages.
Braddock reported in his monograph "The Marriage Bed" that chastity belts were popular in Europe for hundreds of years, and chastity belts were still used in Spain in the 19th century. But chastity belts designed before the twentieth century are not suitable for long-term use. In the mid-19th century, some doctors regarded the chastity belt as a device to abstain from masturbation and limit excessive sexual intercourse for women, and improved the metal chastity belt into a more comfortable and suitable rubber chastity belt.
By the Victorian era of the 19th century, when medical science generally believed that masturbation was harmful, many medical studies advocated the use of chastity belts to prevent masturbation. Since boys' masturbation problem is the most obvious, male chastity belts were first invented. Since then, a large number of male chastity belts have been manufactured in America and Europe, and the US Patent Office has also received many patent applications for the design of chastity belts to prevent self-blame.
Inspired by the chastity belt that ensures the wife's "chastity", someone invented a "chastity belt" similar to the chastity belt to maintain the "chastiness" of the girl. For example, before the girls of Chaksia on the Russian frontier were mature, they were forced to wear a fixed vaginal belt sewn or woven with animal skins, tied around the waist, and sewn from the back; some were locked with silver locks until they were married. It can be opened only at night (see Chastity). This is yet another barbaric method intended to preserve the virginity of girls.
In the 1930s and 1940s, some people still used it against wives. This method of imprisoning the female genitalia with a lock is extremely barbaric and cruel, often causing the locked woman's genitals, waist and buttocks to fester, and soft tissue lesions, which are now basically extinct. Many museums in Europe have various chastity belts on display.
development path
In a period when the chastity system developed to the extreme, women had become the private property of men. In addition to guaranteeing the absolute possession of this sex with unwritten customs and laws and explicit laws, men with abnormal sex actually invented the Special utensils that forced women to keep their chastity to him. The so-called chastity belt is a special device used to achieve this purpose. The utensil is mainly made of two pieces of iron, leaving a gap for laxatives, tied around the waist with a belt, and attached with a special lock. thing. In museums in Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Madrid, Munich and Rome, there are now quite a few remnants of this thing preserved.
Researchers speculate that the time when the object appeared in Europe was probably after the 12th century and extended to the 17th and 18th centuries. It can also be said that the popularity of this thing is just in the dark medieval era of Europe, and it has gradually disappeared in modern times.
Regarding the original inventor of the European chastity belt, it is generally speculated that it was the tyrant of Venice, Carrera. Carrera's remnants of his tyranny in Venice are many novel and cruel instruments of torture, which are still preserved in the Armaments Museum of Venice. Among the instruments of torture were two iron chastity belts that the tyrant used to force all his women to be chastity to him. According to the records of many documents, this belt gradually spread to Spain, France and Germany after the invention of the tyrant of Carrera. But only the aristocracy can apply such a thing.
In the 16th and 17th centuries, this thing became a luxury for noble women. The two pieces in the middle are made of ivory or silver, and are carved with various fine common patterns. Locks, one with 2 to 4 small silver locks. For example, in a wood carving of a woman and two men with a chastity belt, the woman puts one hand on the shoulders of a man, the other holds the money and stretches out into the distance, the latter is the lock Carpenter. There are four verses next to this picture, which translates as "No lock can hold a cunning woman, and without love there can be no woman's fidelity. For this reason, I use your money to buy the lock I don't have".
After the 18th century, chastity belts became obsolete in Europe. Up to now, this semi-barbaric custom of protecting or forcing chastity, only the specimens of that mysterious thing are kept in the museums of European countries, so that people can realize its cruelty.
The Frenchman Bouddie once said that the savage peoples of Africa used to hospitalize the labia majora with wires to protect the chastity of women. According to the reports of many scholars, the gypsies in Spain value chastity, and women wrap the lower part of the body with a kind of cloth belt. Barras reported that the women on the island of Segasin, from the age of eleven or twelve, had been bound in the lower part with a piece of sackcloth or a belt, the poor women with sewing, the rich women with small silver locks, until the knot. The wedding night is cut off by the groom with a sharp blade. This method of tying the straps with locks is very similar to European chastity.
modern
Most of the chastity belts produced today are used for playing sexual abuse games, and some are used for women's self-protection during turmoil. For example, when the Indonesian Chinese exclusion incident happened in 1998, some Chinese women bought it to prevent being raped by thugs. A leather chastity belt is worn. Some are made of leather or plastic. There are also high-security products made of stainless steel by some specialized factories.
A modern Florentine chastity belt, with a circle around the waist, with a shield covering the genitals between the legs. This design is available for men or women, and has an opening for excretion, so it can be worn for extended periods of time. Florentine design for women: Traditional chastity belts are mostly covered by a flat belt with a small opening just in front of the vagina for urination. Some styles create serrations at the opening to deter. For men, they usually have a downward tube to hold the penis. There is an opening at the end of the tube to drain urine. The rear part of some chastity belts is split into two pieces and does not cover the anus. Some will open in the anus.
At present, the main users of female chastity belts come from Arab countries and Japan, while the main users of male chastity belts are from Western countries such as Europe and the United States.
comment
Some people believe that preventing women from being raped is also the reason for the creation of chastity belts. For example, when the Indonesian Chinese Exclusion Incident happened in 1998, some Chinese women bought leather chastity belts to prevent them from being raped by thugs.
Legend has it that because the Middle Ages was an era of sexual indulgence, as a revenge for asceticism and sexual monopoly, various types of "transition keys" and "master keys" appeared at that time, making the chastity belt a fig leaf for adultery and indulgence. This is an ironic page in the history of world culture.
The main function
More than just a tool for domestic violence
Today, when the concept of male domination has been denied, the chastity belt has extended the functions of birth control, maintaining virginity and virginity, preventing rape, etc., but the chastity belt still needs to exist for the reason of "loyalty".
For example, some men and women wear chastity belts in order to identify a partner (the key holder) in a loyal relationship; in the case that one party cannot guarantee loyalty to his spouse, but still has feelings, the other party asks him to wear a chastity belt Maintain the marriage relationship; for men and women in love, one or both parties wear chastity belts to let the other party hold the key to practice the vow of love. However, no matter what the cause, the relationship formed by voluntarily wearing a chastity belt will turn into a mild sadomasochistic relationship.
These simple prohibition functions are actually a multi-edged knife, which can not only become a tool of domestic violence, a symbol of male domination, but also can unearth many unimaginable psychological functions that cannot be explained by the word "function". Effect.
"We tend to want things we can't get"
Being bound by a chastity belt can directly feel the oppression of material and spirit, which makes the wearer have more sexual imaginations, thus being in a special state of excitement. A man wrote about his experience of wearing a chastity belt: "When I wear a chastity belt, I am slightly drunk most of the time due to my desire for sexual orgy." After wearing a chastity belt, there will be A sense of humiliation for fear of being known by others, which makes the wearer feel a special pleasure.
It takes a long time for a chastity belt to measure the body, order it and finally receive the product. Many chastity belt experience articles talk about the anxiety of waiting and the excitement of receiving a chastity belt. According to the famous sexual sociologist Ms. Li Yinhe, "masochism is a state of waiting", and "masochistic pleasure comes from strong expectations". Both men and women, when they received the chastity belt, they immediately put it on excitedly. The initial strange feeling was almost perfect, but after a period of time, some ill-fitting problems were discovered.
In either case, it echoes an ancient Greek saying: We tend to want more than we can get. Putting on a chastity belt awakens the pursuit of some kind of potential pleasure in people.
Chastity belts sexualize sexual power. Each of us has some sadomasochistic tendencies in sexual relationships with the opposite sex, such as limited rudeness, biting, and fantasies about limited violence, which are normal within certain limits.
Li Yinhe wrote about the nature of sadomasochism: "In sadomasochistic activities, power relations are open, masters can become slaves, and slaves can become masters. It is very attractive to people who have too much power and become a burden.”
The keys to most chastity belts are usually held by someone else, and this is a non-socio-political power, the feeling of which is quite different from the feeling of socio-political power. In contemporary society, men are under great social pressure and have more power at the same time.
Finding a psychological balance for one's real-life power, feeling the allure of powerlessness and sexualizing it, may be the overall social reason why contemporary chastity belts have so many male interests. Women who are interested in chastity have more personal characteristics.
Get rid of the monotony and numbness of sex
To diversify life may also be another general reason. One German woman who volunteered to wear a chastity belt wrote: "In any case, I believe many women own or at least wear chastity belts by chance. There may be many reasons, as far as I know, to diversify their lives." More men than women There seems to be a greater demand for variety in sex life, which is one of the reasons why men's chastity belts are selling so much more than women.
The background for this demand is: In recent decades, Western social life has been too stable and material is too rich. Therefore, turning ordinary life into drama, making dull, monotonous, and numb sex life stronger, and making estranged relationships more intimate, has become a pursuit of people. Reality is boring and requires games and drama.
Female chastity belts used symbolically
Since there are so many traditional chastity belt stories in Europe, the rituals in this kind of stories still have vitality. Some women hope to wear chastity belts to their weddings, and hand over the chastity belt keys to the groom on the wedding night to express a kind of trust and dedication. In early 2003, an English-language college website discussed "self-restraint", and some girls said that she was willing to put on a chastity belt and give the keys to their loved ones at future weddings. One single professional woman wearing a chastity belt wrote: "I keep wearing it until I have a stable friend. He must understand my mind and allow me to wear a chastity belt before getting married. If he's going to hold the keys , which is unfounded. Unless he comes to my room and frees me, I am willing to wait for him in a chastity belt: it was a sweet dream of mine, and he freed me on the wedding night."
male chastity
Interestingly, the majority of current Western chastity belt wearers are men. Seventy or eighty percent of the chastity belts sold in Western countries are for men (while the chastity belts sold to Arab countries and Japan are almost exclusively for women). Seventy to eighty percent of the authors of articles about wearing chastity belts on the Internet are male; even in many online novels about chastity belts, women or the same sex control male chastity belt wearers. 85% of respondents to an online chastity belt user survey were male. As of 2005, the vast majority of chastity belts in the world were designed for men. Obviously, the concept of chastity belts in the West has changed radically now, and has lost the meaning of men's domination of women in a socio-political sense. The chastity belt now plays a very different role than it once did. To understand this shift in perception, it is necessary to understand the history of the chastity belt. [3]
before the 19th century
The male chastity belt that appeared in the 19th century is basically the same as the female one. There is a metal belt, and the inside of the longitudinal metal belt is fixed with a tube with an opening facing down to bind the penis inside so that it cannot be touched and erected. Men wearing such chastity belts can only sit or squat to urinate. There is also a chastity device that covers the penis with a cylindrical metal cage with an opening facing down, which is then attached to the belt with two chains at the front and back.
The male penis tube is completely covered by the shield directly in front. once the penis is inside, it is difficult to escape. Integral chastity belt, the curve of the metal belt passing through the crotch is almost exactly the same as the curve of the body, and the opening of the part covering the anus is larger to facilitate hygiene.
Modern male chastity with a penis cage is a more appropriate cage design, usually made of stainless steel. In 2000, an American company invented a beltless male chastity device. This is a group of fiberglass-steel products, based on a ring that holds both the base of the penis and the scrotum, connected to a fiberglass-steel cage that covers the penis, and secured with locks.
During the period of Queen Victoria of England (1836-1901), some doctors invented chastity devices for teenagers that they had to wear to sleep to stop masturbation. Since the masturbation problem of boys is the most significant, the male chastity belt was invented first; and the device to prevent girls from masturbation is similar to the chastity belt in history.
Russian media reported in early 2006 that there are currently 30,000 men in Europe wearing chastity belts. Devout male believers are 100% willing to wear chastity belts when they are young to prove their sexual allegiance. Eighteen years ago, a magazine reported that 35,000 chastity belts were sold worldwide that year. Due to the secrecy of chastity belt commodity transactions, it is difficult to achieve comprehensive statistics.
male related
Since 2001, all kinds of men's and women's leather chastity belts imported from abroad have been sold online in China. Since the end of 2004, metal chastity belts have been sold online.
Men are the main users of contemporary chastity belts
Interestingly, the majority of contemporary chastity belt wearers are men. Seventy-eight percent of the chastity belts sold in Western countries are for men; while the chastity belts sold to Arab countries and Japan are almost exclusively for women. Seventy to eighty percent of the authors of articles about wearing chastity belts on the Internet are male; even in many online novels about chastity belts, women or the same sex control male chastity belt wearers. 85% of respondents to an online chastity belt user survey were male. Obviously, the concept of chastity belts in the West has changed radically now, and has lost the meaning of men's domination of women in a socio-political sense. The chastity belt now plays a very different role than it once did. To understand this shift in perception, it is necessary to understand the history of the chastity belt.
Ancient China
There is no record of European chastity belts in Chinese history. Writer Zhou Zuoren published an article devoted to chastity belts in 1932. According to his research, there are two things comparable to chastity belts in China and Europe. It's all about preventing female sex and maintaining chastity.
"The Book of Han", Volume 97, "Biography of Foreign Relatives" records: When Emperor Zhao of the Han Dynasty, the uncle Huo Guang wanted the emperor to only favor the queen and give birth to a son, so he catered to his wishes, requiring other concubines to wear poor clothes and not to close to the emperor. Mentioned here is a kind of underwear that is blocked by something at the front and back and has a lot of laces, which is inconvenient to take off. This happened in the 1st century BC. "Poverty" is just a thicker fabric or leather product.
Since 2001, the "Reproductive Health and Sexual Culture Science Education Exhibition" has been held in major cities in China, and a bronze chastity belt of late Qing China has been displayed. To be sure, the existence of chastity belts in China in the late Qing Dynasty was an individual phenomenon. If it is more common, it will be revealed in various records even if it is secretly and limitedly popular in large families.
