A body belt is any waist belt fitted with D-rings or other attachment points. The same hardware shows up in three very different worlds: institutional medical restraint, industrial and climbing safety, and sexual bondage. In hospitals and similar institutions the belts are used as bed and wheelchair restraints. In outdoor and job-site work they have been used for safety in abseiling and construction. When the same idea is used in sexual bondage play, people usually call it a bondage belt; it is also worn as fetish clothing. Fastening is usually a buckle. Some models add a lock, which can still be set up for a quick release. For BDSM readers the important split is this: a workplace fall-arrest belt and a dungeon bondage belt may both sit at the waist with rings, but they are not the same tool and they are not legal substitutes for each other.
Fall arrest after OSHA, and prisoner transport
Historically, body belts were used as a personal fall-arrest system. OSHA rule changes ended that: from 1 January 1998 they ceased to be acceptable for fall arrest. If you see a waist belt with D-rings on a construction site now, it is not the old "this will catch you if you fall" device. That date is the bright line between an obsolete safety belt and anything a kink shop might sell with the same silhouette.
When transporting prisoners, leather or nylon belts are often used instead of belly chains to hold the prisoner’s arms at waist level. These restraint belts have a metal ring on the front. Handcuffs are passed through that ring and then closed on the detainee’s wrists. The belt goes around the waist and closes with a buckle; some models can also take a padlock. For still tighter control, a stun belt may be fastened around the same waist. If the subject misbehaves, the device can deliver an electric shock. That carceral hardware is why a waist belt with a front ring reads as control even before anyone calls it a bondage belt.
Bondage belts, fetish wear, and Sid Vicious
In sexual bondage a body belt is usually called a bondage belt. It is not, by itself, a full physical restraint. What it does is give you an anchoring point for other restraints—bondage cuffs, rope, and similar ties—so wrists and other lines can be locked or lashed to the waist instead of wandering. Simple lengths of leather strapping with buckles are sometimes also called bondage belts, because you can use them quickly to bind limbs. Most dedicated bondage belts are fabric or leather, which tend to be more comfortable and to spread pressure better across the skin than a skinny webbing strap. Leather bondage belts have also been worn as fashion by subcultures such as punks and goths. Sid Vicious is often cited for popularizing the item in alternative fashion. Related reading sits under bondage as BDSM and under physical restraint. For play the belt is a waist anchor, not a climbing harness: OSHA barred body belts for fall arrest from 1 January 1998.
