The belt

Nearly everyone reaches for a belt at some point, because it is in the room and it looks like a strap. It is not a strap. It is a tapered piece of thin leather with metal on one end, and it is the implement I have seen produce more accidental injuries than anything except a cane.

Consenting adults only. Everything on this page is about adults over 18 who have freely agreed to it.

Written from first-hand experience or extensive research by the editor.

Everything on this page is about consenting adults over 18. If a belt carries a weight for you that has nothing to do with play, the section at the bottom of this page is the one to read.

What it is

A trouser belt. Leather or something sold as leather, usually 3 to 4 centimetres wide, 2 to 3 millimetres thick, tapered towards the tip, with punched holes at one end and a metal buckle at the other. Cheaper ones are bonded leather, which is ground-up hide glued together and coated, and it peels and cracks with use.

Every one of those features is a problem for this purpose. The taper means the thickness and weight change along its length. The holes are edges. The buckle is a lump of metal. And the leather is thinner and floppier than any purpose-made strap, so it does not hold a plane in flight.

What it feels like

When it lands flat, a broad hot slap with a good deal of noise, not far off a light strap. When it does not land flat, which is often, it is a narrow burning line where an edge caught, or a sharp sting where the tip arrived on its own.

That variability is the actual character of the implement, and it is why I rate it poorly. The problem with a belt is not that it hurts too much. It is that two apparently identical swings produce different results, so neither of you can calibrate, and calibration is the thing that keeps this safe. An implement you cannot predict is worse than one that hits harder.

The buckle rule

The buckle stays in your hand, wrapped inside your fist, for the entire time the belt is out of the wardrobe. There is no technique, no scenario and no level of skill that makes a swinging buckle acceptable. It is a hard metal object on the end of a flexible strip travelling at the speed of the tip, and it will cut, it will chip a tooth if it reaches a face, and it can cause an eye injury that does not recover.

People know this and still get it wrong, usually by switching hands mid-scene, or by using the buckle end as the grip and letting the loose end run out during a big swing. Set the grip before you start, keep it, and if you need to change hands, stop and reset deliberately.

Folding it, and how to fold it badly

The standard method: fold the belt in half so the buckle end and the tip end are both in your hand, and use the doubled loop as the striking face. This solves several problems at once. Both dangerous ends are contained. The thickness doubles, which gives you a heavier, duller and much more forgiving stroke. And the effective length halves, which is exactly what you want in an ordinary room.

A doubled length of about 30 to 40 centimetres is right for most people. Longer than that and you are back to the tip travelling further than you intended, just with two tips instead of one.

The way people fold it badly is by leaving the loop slack. A loose fold lets the two halves separate in flight and snap together at the moment of impact, which is where the theatrical crack comes from and also a genuinely nasty pinching sting. Hold both ends firmly so the loop stays closed. If you are getting a loud snap rather than a solid slap, the fold is loose.

Technique

Stand square, close, and use a short controlled stroke from the elbow. The doubled loop should arrive flat across the fullest part of the lower buttocks and stop, not sweep across the body.

Aim short. Because the loop still has an end, the same rule applies as for a strap: intend the far end of the belt to finish inside the far edge of the target rather than at it. If you can see a mark curving round towards the hip afterwards, your distance was wrong.

Listen. A clean flat slap means the loop landed as one. A snap, a double sound or a smear means it did not, and the fix is more tension or a shorter loop rather than a harder swing.

And keep the count low. Belts sound alarming and people push through more strokes than they would with something quieter, on the basis that it is only a belt. It is not only anything.

How it marks

Wide red stripes with slightly ragged edges, and often a scatter of small darker spots where the punched holes landed. Bruising is generally moderate from a folded belt and can be considerable from a single swing that caught edge-on.

The one to watch for is a curved mark running round onto the side of the hip. That is a wrap, and it means the tip is going past the body. Stop, shorten the loop or step back. Under R v Brown [1993] UKHL 19, consent is not a defence to actual bodily harm in England and Wales, and a buckle laceration or a deep wrap injury is the realistic route from an improvised implement to a conversation nobody wants. See marks and bruising.

Buying, or rather not buying

You own one. If you want to buy one specifically for this, look for a plain untapered belt in thick vegetable-tanned leather, 3.5 to 4 centimetres wide, with no studs, no metal tip and no decorative stitching, which on the high street runs to somewhere around fifteen to thirty pounds. Avoid bonded leather entirely, since it delaminates and the coating flakes.

But the honest recommendation is this: if you find yourself shopping for a better belt, spend the money on a strap instead. You get an object designed for this, with even thickness, a proper handle and no hardware, and it will be safer and more consistent on both ends. The belt is worth writing about because it is what people have, not because it is good.

Care, and one other thing

Ordinary leather care. Condition it occasionally, hang it rather than coiling it, and retire it when the surface cracks or the holes start to tear.