Strap-on

What is a strap-on?

A strap-on is a dildo on a harness that sits around the hips and between the legs, so the wearer can penetrate without hands. The word names the strap, not the dildo. It works for any combination of people, whatever they have between their own legs.

Where the word strap-on comes from

From English, and older than you’d think.

Green’s Dictionary of Slang defines strap-on as “a dildo, with straps that anchor it to the user’s body” and gives its oldest citation as 1959, from Naked Lunch by William Burroughs: “All right, Lee!! Come out from behind that strap-on!” Terry Southern follows in 1970, a glossary of queer slang in 1998, and on to 2020. So the object had an English name for a good forty years before pegging got one in 2001, for the specific case where a woman penetrates a man.

Why the harness matters more than the dildo

Because the dildo sits where the harness lets it sit.

The encyclopedia sets the two common shapes side by side. A two-strap harness runs like a thong: one around the waist, one between the legs. A three-strap harness has a band around each thigh instead, leaves the genitals and anus free and holds the dildo more firmly, but it does not sit comfortably on everyone and slips down sooner.

The attachment itself does even more. The cheap option is a ring that a dildo with a wide base pokes through: lots of choice, little money, but the dildo hangs loose, flops down and rotates, so a curved model no longer aims its shape at anything. A vacuum lock like the Vac-u-lock does keep it in place. Material is not a detail either: latex has a limited lifespan, especially with oil-based lube, while nylon with faux leather just goes in the washing machine.

What a strap-on is not: something that only works between a woman and a man, or something that has to involve sex. Some people wear one under their clothes, with no plan. That’s called packing, and the encyclopedia mentions it in the same breath as the rest.

Sources

• strap-on, n.. Green’s Dictionary of Slang, Jonathon Green, digital edition. Gives the definition “a dildo, with straps that anchor it to the user’s body” and the run of citations from 1959 (William Burroughs, Naked Lunch), through Terry Southern 1970 and Rebecca’s Dictionary of Queer Slang 1998, to S.A. Crosby 2020.
• Strap-on dildo. Wikipedia. Gives the distinction between a two-strap and a three-strap harness and their drawbacks, the ring-with-wide-base and vacuum-lock attachment methods with the problem of sagging and rotating, the material comparison including the limited lifespan of latex with oil-based lube and machine-washable nylon, the point that a strap-on is used by people of every sex and orientation, and the description of packing.

Related terms

• Dildo. The object that goes on the harness, and the page where the materials and the wide base are covered.
• Pegging. The act a strap-on is best known for, with the anatomy alongside it.
• Anal sex. What a strap-on is most often used for, with the build-up and the lube.
• Prostate massage. What happens under that front wall in a man.