Handcuffs

What are handcuffs?

Handcuffs (Dutch: handboeien) are restraints that hold the two wrists close together, joined by a chain, a hinge or a fixed bar. Each cuff turns on a ratchet that makes opening impossible once it is closed. In BDSM both steel police cuffs and wide leather or nylon cuffs are used.

How a handcuff closes

With a ratchet, and that knows only one direction. The encyclopedia describes the mechanism like this: each cuff has a turning arm that catches in a ratchet, so it can no longer be opened once it sits around a wrist. Tightening further is always still possible. That is exactly where it goes wrong.

The double lock exists for that reason: a bar that, once engaged, keeps the cuff from clicking any tighter. The same source names the reason right away, namely that tightening can cause nerve damage or cut off circulation, and that this tightening can just as easily happen through struggling as on purpose. You unlock it by turning the key the other way than when you open it.

Why police cuffs are something other than bondage cuffs

Because one kind is designed to hold someone who wants to get away, and the other to hold someone who does not.

A steel arm puts all the force on a narrow edge around the wrist. Khan and colleagues went through sixteen studies with 807 participants together for Hand, and found that damage to the superficial branch of the radial nerve was by far the most reported injury: 82 percent of the hands examined. In 6 percent there was bone injury as well, three fractures of the radial styloid process and two scaphoid fractures.

That it does not always pass is clear from the prospective study by Grant and Cook in Muscle & Nerve. For 27 months they followed 41 patients with numbness, tingling or loss of strength after handcuffs that had been tightened too far. Their conclusion: injury to the superficial branch of the radial nerve can be serious and lasting.

What you watch for

Engage the double lock the moment the cuff goes on, not later. Put two keys in two different places in the room. Ask about the thumb side of the wrist and not about the hand as a whole, because that is where the nerve sits that gets hit most often. And with tingling, a numb feeling or a cold hand, they come off.

Where this fits on my site

If you want to know how being held feels without steel coming into it, that belongs with a BDSM date. On that page you can read what we agree in advance about time and signals.

Sources

• Hand and Wrist Injuries Associated With Application of Physical Restraints: A Systematic Review. Khan, Mosa, Clayton & McCabe, Hand (New York, N.Y.) 18(8), 1253–1257, 2023. Systematic review of sixteen studies with 807 participants. Supplies the 82 percent share (42 of 55 examined hands) for injury to the superficial branch of the radial nerve, and the 6 percent share (5 of 77 hands) with bone injury, including three fractures of the radial styloid process and two scaphoid fractures.
• A prospective study of handcuff neuropathies. Andrew C. Grant & Alexandra A. Cook, Muscle & Nerve 23(6), 933–938, 2000. Prospective study over 27 months in a large city hospital among 41 patients with complaints after handcuffs tightened too far. Supplies the distribution across 22 superficial radial, 12 median and 9 ulnar nerves among the eighteen patients examined electrodiagnostically, and the conclusion that injury to the superficial branch of the radial nerve can be serious and lasting.
• Handcuffs. Wikipedia. Supplies the build from two parts joined by chain, hinge or fixed bar, the turning arm that catches in a ratchet and prevents opening, the working of the double lock as a bar against further tightening, the warning that tightening can cause nerve damage or cut off circulation and can also come from struggling, and the way to release the lock by turning the key the other way.

Related terms

• Restraints. The family handcuffs belong to, with the difference between leather, nylon and steel.
• Ankle cuffs. The same idea around the ankles; expressly not the same object.
• Thumbcuffs. The same ratchet in miniature, around the thumbs.
• Door cuffs. Wrist cuffs with a clamp system, for anyone without a play piece of furniture.
• D-ring. The fitting that wide bondage cuffs have and steel handcuffs do not.
• Bondage. The practice in which handcuffs do their work, with the ground rules alongside.
• Wrist cuffs. The wide cuff version around the same wrist, with the D-ring and the carpal tunnel underneath.
• Chain. The material handcuffs use to attach to a fixed point.
• Spreader bar. The same holding in place without furniture, with the legs apart.