Suspension cuffs

Suspension cuffs are a specialised form of bondage cuffs, designed to be used to suspend the body during suspended hogties and other suspension bondage without injury. Some of the more advanced styles are used for other then suspension because they reduce the stress on the wrists during more active BDSM activities.

There are several different styles that have been created and used including:

Heavy padded wrist and ankle cuffs;
these tend to be not really suitable for any kind of sustained suspension as they are essentially regular wrist or ankle cuffs with more padding and possibly a longer wrist depth. A few have a suspension strap with a D-ring attached to it. The main problem with this style is that the wrist will not be properly supported as stress will tend to be highest on the side of the wrist facing away from the anchor point of the suspension, which will tend to cut into the wrist and possibly pinch nerves.

Grip style suspension cuffs;
These have a soft or hard bar that can be gripped by the hand. The bar is usually attached by chain or sometimes leather to the rest of the cuff which is otherwise a standard cuff with additional padding. They are better suited then the heavy padded type, but provide less comfort when the bottom gets tired, which will occur slightly faster due to the need to hang onto the grip. However as long as grip is maintained they induce little additional strain on the wrist.

Loop Around the Wrist Style suspension cuffs;
These are perhaps the predecessor to the D-ring style cuffs. The are basically a leather strap looped back to itself. The usually do not have a specific wrist strap as the main strap tightens when tension is applied. While good for shorter durations and for getting into and out of the cuffs very quickly, they offer little actual support to the wrist beyond what several loops of rope would.

Large D-ring Style suspension cuffs;
These cuffs use a U-shaped piece of leather with the ends attached over a large 3-5" Metal D-ring. This style is similar to the grip cuffs, with strain occurring most to the knuckles of the hand, but they do offer actual support to the wrist better then the grip cuffs, by distributing the stress around the wrist relatively evenly.

Small D-ring style suspension cuffs(also known as "Easy Wear Cuffs");
These cuffs use a similar U-shaped pattern as the large D-ring cuffs, however they have a longer strap length and use a small 1-2" D-ring. This style is gripped by the submissive around the strap, which allows for something to grip even as they get tired. The majority of available small D-ring style suspension cuffs use a single strap around the wrist. This is also the most common style available in 2008.

A 1" Panic Snap can be substituted for the D-ring.

More advanced designs which use the small D-ring style use two wrist straps, which makes the support for the wrist distribute more evenly then a single strap and at least one company's design has a right and left pattern allowing for even more comfort. With even better comfort coming from custom made suspension cuffs matching the bottom's specific wrist size.

Lesser versions of both the large and small D-rings tend to use a straight U-pattern, which does not do as good of a job distributing the stress around the wrist. The better ones are a more bent outward U-pattern, some specific designs beyond the straight U-pattern are copyrighted.

There are a few other designs beyond the above, but are not seen as often in popular BDSM venues.

The name of the cuff style may be different depending on vendor

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