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ENGINEERING_and_ECONOMICS_of_the_FLORENTINE_CHASTITY_BELT
If
politics is the art of the possible,
engineering is the art of the practical and economics
is the art of the reasonable at the lowest common
denominator. Economics is called the dismal science because it
keeps so many idealized kites from flying -- by showing that
the costs of the kite are higher than the said kite could
fly.
"Kite-flying" is a British
polite vernacular term for either blue-sky speculation or for
the spinning of fantasy; in either case, the imagination soars
untrammeled by earthbound concerns of practicality, whether in
the making of the items hypothecated or in their costs to the
end-use buyer. Kite-flying about futuristic chastity belts is
abundant in stories posted on the web, whether on this site or
any other concerned with the topic of the Belt, and in such novels
as The Contract and others published by House of Gord.
But the reality ("Never forget reality," says
my friend the retired psychoanalyst, "because reality never
forgets you."), as is so much else in our modern age, is
governed by the cost -- first of making of the item, then
in its price.
With which we must begin, a Belt
must be a one-off item: The design may be constant
from unit to unit -- even from maker to maker -- but the measurements
of each unit vary widely, as the measurements vary widely from
one girl or woman to another. Granted that some parts
of any maker's Belts are constant from unit to unit, hence admissible
of mass-production, others are critically dependent upon
the individual wearer's bodily measurements. The constant components
can be farmed out to a job machine-shop; but the girdle, the
shield and the posterior chainettes must be cut to measure.
This means by hand, although with the help of power tools,
jigs to keep constant relationships constant, and dies
to keep arrays of parts in place. This adds to the cost of materials,
the costs of the maker's own labor in all phases from assembly
and finishing to his entrepreneurship, and the per-unit amoritization
of the aggregate cost of his own tools.
While I acknowledge I know nothing about
the Mendes (Neosteel) and their operation, nor anything about
Latowski's operation, and while the Tookers (Access Denied) have
a factory operation (though the degree that theirs approaches
the same kind of mass production as characterizes an assembly
line in an automobile factory, I do not know); I do know that
Tollyboy (J. H. Higginbottom initially, now Richard L. Davies),
La Ceinture de Chastete (William A. Jones), and Walter
Goethals are all one-man operations, and I suspect that so is
Reliable Spousal Security a one-man operation. What can one man,
even if he is an engineer and a tool- and die-maker grade machinist
in the same person, do with such tools as one could reasonably
expect to find in a one-man size workshop? Mr. Higginbottom nothing
less than made, from standard stock, every metal component
part of each Tollyboy chastity belt -- except the locks, the
chain for the posterior chainettes, and not excluding
the smallest rivet -- that he sold; and he did this out of one
bay in his garage. And before that, he made his own one-off specialized
tooling: Jigs, dies, etcetera. He did not heat-treat his
Belts after he had assembled them and before he polished and
lined them -- this he farmed out to a specialist heat-treating
plant -- but after they were heat-treated, he did polish them
himself, seven times, with seven different ascending finenesses
of abrasives, the last of them being levigated alumina. This
makes Tollyboy the equivalent in chastity belts, of Purdy in
shotguns or Rolls-Royce in automobiles.
Now there are two different ways of looking
at the difference between Mr. Higginbottom and Mr. Jones. One
can say either that Mr. Jones skimps, or that Mr. Higginbottom
has gone overboard, on hand work. It is in some ways a difference
in tradition: All-and-only hand-work is part of the mystique
of goods which furnish the lives of the wealthy, witness again
the Purdy shotgun. Indeed, Mr. Jones has called Mr. Higginbottom's
work, "museum quality." On the other hand is the American
tradition of pragmatism: Hand-work where the necessity is inescapable,
and then nothing less than the very best that one can do; but
where hand-work is not inescapably necessary, for practicality's
sake one should escape it by mass-production. Hence Mr. Jones
has his constant components mass-produced to order; but
he himself cuts the girdles, shields and chainettes, and
he himself assembles all parts by himself into the finished product.
That finished product is, continuing the comparison of chastity
belts to shotguns, equivalent to a Browning or Ruger sporting-grade
double-bore: One fine and graceful practical shooting iron. The
comparable automobile would be a Volvo. Mr. Jones cuts the steel
of the girdle to measure, cuts the shield himself (by hand, with
the aid of a reciprocating saw), and cuts the chainettes
himself, as well as assembles all parts into the finished product
by hand. But such as rivets, D-rings, and the neoprene linings
and edgings are off-the shelf; and the master-pin, guide-pins,
and locking-blocks are farmed out to a machine shop for mass
production to his specifications.
Mr. Higginbottom, Mr. Jones, Access Denied,
and Neosteel, all of these exclude complex curves from
their work, both in the plane of the flat of the metal and in
the plane perpecdicular to the flat of the metal: This enables
them to use stock strips and sheets without expensive elaboration,
a saving that is passed on to the end-use buyer. On the other
hand, Walter Goethals of Antwerp, Belgium, does employ
complex curvature in the girdles of his Belts. Too, the shields
are gratings, rather than the more familiar longitudinal slit
through which the wearer's labia minora protrude. He has
both girdles and shields laser-cut to order for each belt
he makes. Then he himself assembles the finished product. Given
that his prices are competitive, this implies either that he
has access to comparatively inexpensive laser-cutting service,
or that prices for laser-cutting to order are generally lower
in Belgium than they are either here in America or in England.
Shaping sheet metal in complex curves is
either a capital-intensive process, as in the complex curves
of automobile-body parts, or else it is a skilled-labor-intensive
process, as it needs must be in a Belt, as any Belt is a one-off
item. Cluny Museum item #6599 (Dingwall, The Girdle of Chastity,
plate VII) is the outstanding example historically. Latowski,
in Germany, does this today. The enormous amount of complex curvature
in his design explains the high price, comparative to the other
major makers, that he charges for a piece of his work.
Goethals and Latowski are, strictly speaking,
outside the scope of this paper, as niether maker center-pieces
the Florentine design in his product-line. Both makers' products
follow the Venetian design, in which the wearer's anus is covered,
and the posterior assembly provides for exit of the feces during
defecation.
The Florentine design is that which resembles
a male athletic supporter: The shield attaches to the girdle
but ends at the wearer's perineum, where it attaches to two chainettes
or straps which diverge and ascend over the wearer's buttocks,
attaching to the girdle at points equidistant from the center
of her back. This leaves the anus uncovered, enabling defecation
without need for the Belt to be released. In the Florentine pattern,
the girdle can ride the wearer's body either at the narrowest
point of her waist, at the hipline as with a low-cut contemporary
(2000 Common Era) bikini swimsuit bottom, or at the line between
the superior (iliac) and inferior (trochanteric) pelvic crests.
(The French Maison Mathieu girl's masturbation shield,
1904 catalog item #40133, shown in Alec Comfort's The Anxiety
Makers, and the English Allen & Hanbury #8691, also pictured
in Comfort's book and on Altairboy's site [http://www.tpe.com/~altairboy/not80631.htm],
are examples of Florentine Belts where the girdle rides at the
line between the wearer's pelvic crests.) All modern makers favor
the narrowest point of the wearer's waist as locus optimus,
providing the best balance between the wearer's comfort and the
device's security.
The Florentine design has the virtue of
least capital-intensivity of manufacture: The girdle is
cut to measure from 1.25" (3 cm.) strap stock; bored to
accept the rivets for the mounting-tabs of the chainettes,
the rivets for the bridge, and the seating for the master-pin
and guide pins; then the bridge and the array of pins are attached.
The shield is cut from sheet-metal, the longitudinal slit is
cut in the shield, its edges bevelled round dor the wearer's
safety, the shield is bored to accept the mounting-tab for the
D-ring that transfixes the lower links of both chainettes
and to fit over the array of master-pin and guide-pins, then
it is edged or plastic-coated The chainettes are cut to
measure; then both ends are transfixed through D-rings. (For
better security, the closures of the D-rings can afterward be
welded shut: Discoloration resultant from welding can be chemically
removed. Mr. Davies uses Carbrax buffing compount and a sisal
polishing mop for this operation.) The D-rings are covered with
folded small pieces of steel, the mounting tabs, and riveted
to the points where they are to be attached. This done, the girdle
can be lined and edged. (Incidentally, retrofitting of D-rings
to the girdle after shipment requires re-lining of the girdle
after mechanical procedures are finished, because the cement
used is effective enough that the lining cannot be non-destructively
removed.) Now one closes the girdle by bringing the bridge over
the master-pin and guide-pins, and places the top of the shield
over the array of pins. Placement and securance of the locking-block
completes the process. But take my word for it, that the process
of making a Belt, especially if it is to be proven by results
to have been done right, is easier by far to describe than to
do.
But if you want to try it, here are the
power-tools used by both Mr. Higginbottom and Mr. Jones:-
- Reciprocating saw, bench-mounted, capable
of 500 r.p.m. (Mr. Davies has replaced this with a band-saw with
a blade speed of 47 ft./min.)
- Drill press, for precision
boring and small milling;
- Bench-mount electric grinder/polisher;
- Small hydraulic press or coarse-screw
fly-press, for peening rivets and butt-ends of pins.
All of this can be had for less than a
thousand dollars, total, if one shops carefully among vendors
of used machine tools. These are basic equipment. Mr. Higginbottom
also had a metal lathe, though Mr. Jones has not found this necessary.
That figure of <$1,000.00 does not include renewables (e.g.:
Drill bits, grinding or polishing wheels, saw blades, etcetera),
which must be replaced frequently: For 431-L stainless steel
is not the easiest of metals to work. Nor does it include materials:
Stainless steel strip stock or sheet stock, 16-gauge, 431-L bright
annealed; neoprene U-cross-section molding or flat strips; stainless
steel twist-link machine chain; heat-shrink plastic tubing, etcetera.
The cost to the end-use buyer, must fully
subsume cost of materials. Too, it must subsume per-unit share
of amoritization of the maker's permanent and renewable tools.
More, it must subsume a per-unit share of amoritization of the
maker's costs of starting up in business: This would include
costs of acquiring a going concern, where the acquisition is
not fully orderly, as in buying the concern from the heir of
an intestate estate of a decedent whose records were not coherent.
Further, it must subsume a per-unit share of the maker's costs
of staying in business: The workshop's share of the mortgage
or the rent, utilities, taxes, all that humdrum banality; retainer
of a lawyer and an accountant; and any advertising. All of the
foregoing, are overhead. Finally, it must yield a measure
of profit to the maker, as reward for the effort of making the
item, the wages of his hire, as it were, on a piecework basis.
Total revenue minus overhead is profit. Without profit, it is
not worthwhile to the maker to remain in that line of business.
Another constraint imposed by reality,
is that of time, the artificer's own and that of any vendor
whose goods or services are essential to the making of the finished
product. Mr. Jones tells me that he can make a Florentine ("Classic")
Belt with secondary shield in eight hours from scratch, raw stock
to finished product. Mr. Higginbottom took much longer by accountant's
measure of total time invested per unit; but this must also take
into account the making by hand of components that Mr. Jones
either buys off the shelf or farms out. If a farmed-out service
-- best examples here being laser-cutting and/or heat-treating
-- keeps specific hours, those hours are a constraint around
which it is necessary to plan one's production schedule
Not all profit is financial, however; though
a certain minimum of per-unit tangible profit is necessary to
keep it worthwhile for the maker to stay in business. We in the
chastity belt interest community, both mundane and "scene,"
are fortunate indeed that John Harold ("Hal") Higginbottom
and William A. Jones sincerely believe in the mundane
practicality of the major work they do (or, in Mr. H's case,
did; Mr. H died 22 May 1997). The same probably is true of Mr.
Goethals, though I have not talked at all long enough to him
to enable reaching an analysis of his motivation. (About the
Tookers in Lindenhurst, New York, and the Mendes in Germany,
simply I do not know, full stop. And, of course, I would
like to know.). Between that sincere belief in the female Belt
and low overhead, aided by offsetting a higher per-unit overhead
to other items they do, they make (or made) female Belts accessible
to a wide range of clients from the fully practical to the frivolous,
at a price less than market value of the quality of the item
would warrant.
Since Mr. Higginbottom is dead now, this
revelation cannot harm his business: On a few occasions, he nothing
less than outright gave F/B-100s to rape victims and women or
girls in imminent danger of sexual abuse.
It is my hope that this paper would, at
the very least, stimulate a Discussion
Forum thread on the topics of creating a Belt out of more
exotic metals still. For example, Mr Davies (Mr. Higginbottom's
successor in business at Tollyboy) has had enquiries about titanium
Belts. Over to you, readers.
(Webmaster Note: Feel free to discuss this
article in the Discussion
Forum.)
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