The Booto Hip Harness

I honestly couldn’t decide whether to call this hip harness the “Booto” or the “Hot Cross Bum”, but I’ve decided to go with “Booto” because it’s shorter. This thing is really useful for partial and full suspensions, and potentially for increasing sensitivity on the ass as well, should you be keen on that sort of thing (think spanking and impact).

I learned this hip harness from a rope artist who goes by _succubus_ on Fetlife. She came over and did a great workshop where we all learned quite a bit, and since blogging is part of my learning method, I’m putting it up.

I decided to call it the “Booto” because it reminds me a lot of the Futomomo (Leg Tie) in terms of construction, and does really interesting things to the booty… get the logic?

Hip harnesses are freaking awesome, and I highly recommend them for either full or partial suspension. They’re a really good way to support the natural fulcrum of the body, and you can use them by themselves to suspend someone reasonably safely. I think they’re probably the best tie to use when you’re first experimenting with suspending someone’s weight.

A couple of points before I go on.

Point One: One of the most important tips is that this thing should be tight. One of the quotes taken away from the workshop was “If it doesn’t hurt your fingers as you tie it, it isn’t tight enough.”

The reason for this is that with suspension, your wraps are placed where they are for good reason. You want them to stay right where they are, not move around when they have tension placed on them. With this harness, you do NOT want it to suddenly turn into a crotch rope… because that would hurt like hell. So wrap tightly!

Point Two: Feel free to improve on what you see in these pictures. I didn’t really take them for photoshoot purposes, and there’s definitely room for improvement in the dressing and the evenness of the wraps. What’s that phrase… “Do as I say, not as I do”.

How To Create The Tie

Start with a single column tie around the hips. You want to place it so that the rope is sitting on the bones of the pelvis; you should be able to feel the flare of the hip bones beneath your hands and rope. (Fun fact, this is often referred to as the Ïliac Crest”. Pretty, huh?)

So far, as I’ve experimented with this hip harness, I’ve found that it’s easier to keep even tension on both wraps of the band if I use a forward tension single column tie, as opposed to a reverse tension one. So I recommend a forward tension tie.

Much like in the Leg Tie shown elsewhere in this site, you then create another two bands going down the butt, frictioning off as you go (Check out the tutorial regarding on the Leg Tie or Chest Harnesses if you need to understand frictions). Once again, placement of the bands is important. I think of them as the “Mid-Butt Band” and the “Under-Butt Band“, so that I remember where to place them.  (You can refer to other pictures below to check that your placement is appropriate.)

Again, these are forward tension ties, which are then frictioned off to keep that tension even. It’s helpful to dress each band as you go, running a finger under them to smooth out any unevenness (it will be difficult because of the tightness, but it pays off in increased comfort later for the bottom).

Take note in the above picture: the final friction should be BELOW the crotch. That trailing rope is about to go between the legs, and you do NOT want it making contact with the genitals. The final friction and the rope that comes after it should be well below the intersection of the legs, even if you have to restrict the legs a little to do it.

I have made the mistake of having it too high, and accidental crotch rope happened. She was not impressed. Scene still went well after I retied it though. 

Important note: when tying this on a guy, I would suggest moving both second band and third band a bit lower. You want a bit more leeway and space going downwards.

Why?

Because guys have dangly bits. So your bottom band may end up a few inches down the thighs, for safety. Your midbutt band may end up being placed where the under butt band was instead. Experiment with your model to test this.

So you bring the rope through, and on the other side, you start hitching your way up, just as you did with the Leg Tie. It doesn’t hurt to begin compacting the space between bands as you go.

When you get up to the top, finish off the hip harness with a cow hitch (shown in Three Ways To Improve The Look Of Your Bondage).This is a good opportunity to pull down and compact the whole tie together, which increases the tightness further before you lock off with the cow hitch.

Using Up Your Rope

What you do with your extra rope is up to you. I’ve done a couple of different things; usually I do some reinforcement of the stem by bringing the rope back down and wrapping around the stem.

However, if you still have lots of rope left over, you can get decorative with it.

The above picture looks pretty as hell, right? Basically, I had a really long leftover tail because the lovely model is fairly petite, so I wove it around her torso and then into the chest harness, resulting in a sort of “full body harness” look. The actual functional bits are the hip and chest harnesses, but it was a fun way to use up my remainder.

Where To Place Your Suspension/Upline

Now, importantly: the places to attach a suspension line on this thing are on the vertical stem, usually centred on the middle junction or with a loop above and below it. This means you get the benefit of all three horizontal bands supporting the person you tie. If it’s placed well, you can suspend someone facing upward or downward.

I don’t think there’s much more to say about this one. I haven’t tried a side suspension with it yet, though I imagine it’s possible; you’d have to attach your rope directly to the horizontal bands, and I doubt it would be as comfortable or supportive if you did.

Any helpful suggestions, questions or comments, feel free to add them below this post .