Things That Make Me Go Hmmmm: The Harness

December 13, 2025
HANK ORSO

Ah, the ubiquity of the gay man in a harness. Many of us own one, though fewer of us wear them. Bought on a dare, or just out of curiosity, it now sits in the back of your closet, maybe coming out to see the light of day during a rather festive evening of solo fun, or if your partner or a trick makes the request to see you in it. Or, you're like way too many gay boys who put them on to go clubbing as easily as you do your jockstrap and deodorant. And way too much cologne. Because isn't that who mostly wears them nowadays? "Leather dudes" wearing cologne? IN Magazine recently had a blurb about the history of the leather harness, and it got me thinking about them, but not always in the most positive way. Yes, harnesses are a thing most gays love that make me go "Hhmmmm..."

Now this is what I think of when I imagine a dude in a harness. A fairly butched-up kinda guy, a member of the leather community, kinda beefy, and allowing a pervy sub to worship his body put so amply on display because of just how much the harness reveals.

When I was a teen, I lived in New Orleans. This was back in the late 70s to early 80s. I'd sneak out after my (insert name of fast food business here) and get my skinny twink ass ( at the time, since I hadn't found my Bears yet) to the French Quarter and scope out the bars. Not the nelly queen party bars, but Jewels, a bar for men, where the first image I ever saw in a gay bar was a sweaty dude in a jock dancing on top of a stack of beer bottles. I'm sure I saw a harness or two there, BUT the earliest recollection I have of seeing a guy in one was as I was driving to the bar one night, and I spotted a young, handsome, thickly muscled young guy standing at the corner of Canal and Royal streets. Not a particularly gay area, and he was getting looks from the passing straights. It hugged his well-formed chest, accentuating his pecs and nipples to all who glanced his way. Yes, I know, he was probably a hustler. And I hope to god he got all the money and action he was looking for!

According to that IN Magazine article, there really isn't any one definitive history of just how the harness came to be so tied to gay male fashion. They pinpoint the surge in popularity starting sometime between 1972 and 194, when they notice it starting to appear in catalogues for leather shops. Tom of Finland is certainly a source, though even the Leather Archives and Museum in Chicago can't tell for certain. They say in Tom's work, it may have stemmed from censorship laws. He wasn't allowed to draw sex specifically when he was starting out, but history art was allowed. So he drew Roman soldiers and whatnot in Gladiator gear, which included a harness-like apparatus. And it grew from there? We can't really know. Some speculate the influence came from turn-of-the-century Japanese Kabuki theater, which started using rope bondage ties as part of the costuming and storytelling, and WWII soldiers might have witnessed this and brought it back. Oh yeah, it always goes back to soldiers, away from their wives, free to more fully explore their secret desires!

We do know that sales of harnesses really started taking off in the 80s and have only grown steadily from there, as people put their own spin on it. They've become colorful, softer, multi-functional. They're great for women into kink as they can wrap the breasts and highlight the nipples. On men of all sizes, they can show off whatever shape you wish. Bear dudes let them rest under the tits and above the belly, or they can have straps that come down and envelope the belly as well. If you really like to be bound, you get one with a strap that goes down the front of your pants and ends in a cockring, and can even come back up the backside to join the gear over your shoulder blades.

All of them are well and good, but please, for the love of all that is unholy, do not come at me with whatever the hell this monstrosity is:

The harness, however, which came to be so identified with gay subculture, is a subculture no more. It broke free into the mainstream long before Michael B. Jordan wore some semblance of one to the 2019 SAG Awards. And I just...I can't...ugh. Because it all feels like a watering down of something that was underground, cutting-edge, dangerous, unique, and special. Only a certain kind of man wore them, and we feared them a bit as they turned us on.

And now we have...this...