Carabiner

What is a carabiner?

A carabiner is a metal loop with a spring gate that lets you connect two things in one motion and release them just as fast. In BDSM it links rope, restraints, collars, and anchor points to each other. Only one with a rated breaking strength belongs in anything that carries weight.

Where does the carabiner get its name?

From a rifle.

A carbine is a rifle with a short barrel. According to the Etymologisch Woordenboek van het Nederlands the word was borrowed from French, where carabin was the light cavalryman and carabine his weapon. In Dutch it first turns up in 1599.

In the manual of the British Mountaineering Council, Neville McMillan describes how the hook came into it. Soldiers carried the weapon on a bandolier and noticed it went much faster when it was fastened with a hook. That pear-shaped hook with a spring closure was called Karabinerhaken in German. Around 1900 alpinists saw the use of it for clipping quickly onto a piton, and in English the haken wore off it afterward. Dutch kept the whole word.

What do the kilonewtons on a carabiner mean?

Not how much the hook may carry, but when it breaks.

That same manual lays out the requirements of the climbing standard. An ordinary carabiner holds at least 20 kilonewtons lengthwise with the gate closed. Loaded across, meaning with the force on the gate, it is much weaker: usually 7 kilonewtons. With the gate open, 7 kilonewtons is likewise the floor, raised from the 6 in the old DIN standard. The standard requires those three values to be printed on the hook itself, and that is exactly the difference from the hook at the hardware store. Nothing is printed on that one, so nothing is promised either.

Where it goes wrong is well documented. Of all the carabiners the British review panel examined after an accident, the two most common causes were loading while the gate was open, and loading from an odd angle that pushed the gate open under tension. Hence the advice to use a screw gate as soon as a lot hangs on the hook, and never to clip two carabiners straight to each other.

Where this fits on this site

Chains and steel restraints are part of what I bring, and then a carabiner is the part that holds the rest together. The page on the BDSM date covers how we agree beforehand on how intense it gets and where the line is.

Sources

• UIAA Standards 121 / Connectors (Karabiners): Recommendations for Inspection and Retirement. Neville McMillan, British Mountaineering Council, published alongside the standard of the Union Internationale des Associations d’Alpinisme. Provides the origin of the German Karabinerhaken and its use by alpinists around 1900, the requirement that the strengths be marked on the body of the hook, the values of at least 20 kN lengthwise with the gate closed, usually 7 kN across and at least 7 kN with the gate open against 6 kN in the old DIN standard, and the finding that the most commonly reported causes of failure are loading with the gate open and abnormal loading.
• karabijn. Etymologiebank, hosted by the Instituut voor de Nederlandse Taal, with the entry from the Etymologisch Woordenboek van het Nederlands (Philippa et al., 2003-2009) and the one from the Etymologisch woordenboek by Van Veen and Van der Sijs (1997). Provides the meaning “rifle with a short barrel”, the borrowing from the French carabin (light cavalryman) alongside carabine (his weapon), and the 1599 attestation in which the word is recorded in the sense of a rifle.

Related terms

• Bondage. The practice this connecting hardware belongs to, with the agreements that come with it.
• D-ring. The fixed eye a carabiner clips into, on restraints, collars, and harnesses.
• Restraints. The straps around wrist or ankle that you link to each other or to something else with a carabiner.
• Collar. The same coupling, but in the place where you never hang weight.
• Door cuffs. A ready-made set with the carabiner already in it.
• Snap hook. The same quick coupling, but with a sliding sleeve and no rated strength.
• Chain. The heavier connecting hardware that often hangs from a carabiner.
• Panic snap. The closure that does the opposite: opening while there is tension on it.
• Wrist cuffs. The cuffs you link to each other or to a fixed point with a hook like this.
• Suspension. The rope form where this metal carries a whole body, with the standard that does exist for it in a work setting.
• Hoist. The pulley system above it, and why the gain is in your hand and not in the beam.
• Sling. The piece of furniture where a whole body hangs from a hook like this, so where those kilonewtons really start to count.