Rachel's love connections - restraints discontinued by Rachel's Pleasures - review by GeekWife

This piece of bondage gear allows a user to connect their lover's wrists to their neck, via a behind-the-back strap. Basically, you get two separate pieces: a collar piece with a strap extending perpendicular from it, and a second strap with wrist cuffs attached. The straps are made of basic woven nylon material with soft foam padding inside the cuffs and collar, and hook and loop closures with plastic hardware.

It arrives in a clear plastic box, with several pictures of scantly clad women in provocative poses using this and various other items in the Rachel's Gear collection. Discreet, it is not. I don't suggest storing it in this box, as it obviously folds up much smaller than the package itself. Pretty much anyone who found it in the box would know exactly what you were doing behind closed doors. However, it's complicated enough looking that by itself it would leave a snoop wondering what it was. The box also includes no instructions, and I took this as kind of a downfall because the collar piece and the wrist piece were separate from one another. I will admit it took me some trial and error to make sure it was put together right. In fact, I'm still not entirely sure I did it right at this point!

Comfort-wise, the padding does its job well enough, but it tends to cause perspiration when worn for too long. The collar was a bit wide for me, perhaps I just have a short neck or something. It might be more comfortable if you have a longer or more slender neck. I think I also have a fat neck, because there was barely enough hook and loop closure to get a good tight fit on me without actually choking me, which I'm not into at all. I wasn't impressed to say the least. It was even tougher to get a good fit on my husband, who has a large neck and chin. Also I found that there were places where the hook and loop kind of scratched me a bit.

As far as the cuffs go, size and padding were fine for me (a person with average sized lady wrists), but I found that there was a lot of give in how my arms hung when bound in the cuffs, and this created some discomfort for me. I'm not sure what I was expecting though, to be honest. With so much give, I wouldn't think experienced BDSM players would be interested in this product, other than maybe for looks. It's not super strong either, so I wouldn't expect any super rough play to go well in this product. I tried struggling against it, as did my husband. He could get free pretty easily. I couldn't, but there are other reasons I probably didn't do well with that challenge, which I'll get to in a moment. I would say, though, that it's good for beginners, since you don't feel overly restrained while wearing it.

My husband did tell me that I looked really sexy while wearing the collar and with my wrists in the cuffs, as it does lend nicely to that submissive look. Alas, this is where the sexiness stopped for me.

Let me preface this section by saying that I'm a big busted gal (38 F/G.) Something I never thought about is that having my arms disabled behind my back tends to throw me a bit out of balance, just due to basic physics. Changing positions while wearing this restraint proved to be more than difficult. While in the girl-on-top position, still restrained mind you, I tried to move my leg out of the way of the bunched up comforter...and fell; face first, into our headboard, while still on top of my husband. This is where my discovery about the lack of balance came into play. I couldn't right myself. At all. I was stuck. (Thankfully, our headboard is padded!) My husband had to physically grab me and pull me forward to get me to sit upright. However, my foot was still caught in the covers, so I fell again. Our "super naughty BDSM" sex had turned into a laugh fest! That really put the final nail in the coffin for this product for me, sadly.

After this fiasco, my husband demonstrated that without the "ginormous twins" up front, one can be slightly more agile in this restraint. He could easily maneuver while restrained without, well, falling over. So, the moral of my story here is: big busted girls beware! Klutzes too.