When the term, "
Florentine" is used to describe a chastity belt, what specifically it means is a posterior arrangement in which the primary shield ends at the wearer's perineum and adjoins to two diverging straps or
chainettes, which rise over her buttocks and adjoin to the girdle of the Belt at offsets equidistant from center back
.
The term itself originates from what appears to be nothing less than the very first chastity belt ever to come to public notice other than in fiction , the
Bracile Florentinarum, pictured in a line-drawing
illustrating Konrad Keyser vonEichstadt's
Bellefortis, a treatise on military fortification.
One sees this posterior arrangement in modern chastity belts, beginning with this +XIX century product
made for parental use to stop adolescents from masturbating.
Although not pictured here, because I have been unable to find a photograph thereof on the web, is item #40133 in the 1904 catalogue of the orthotics maker
Maison Mathieu of Paris. Also a parental-use masturbation shield for an adolescent daughter, its shield is a domed-out isosceles-triangular affair of stout screen material with a Florentine posterior arrangement, closing in back with one padlock. The girdle of this Belt rides the lass' body at the line of the hip and thigh joint. A picture of that Belt
in abstracto is included in the illustrations of Alec Comfort's
The Anxiety Makers.
Even more recently, in the 1930 catalogue of the Institutional supplier Allen & Hanbury of London, is
- FLORENTINE figure 4.jpg (7.04 KiB) Viewed 11461 times
.
Of course, the very original of the Tollyboy Line, from the founding of Tollyboy in 1956, the F/B-100 (Female Belt Mark One mod. zero), is
waistline Florentine. Likewise, centerpiece of the line of every vendor of a "clone" of Tollyboy, is a waistline Florentine. (I exclude Mr. Goethals from this because he does not address the Tollybly design -- as different as a revolver from a semiautomatic pistol.) Although all makers provide variations in girdles and posterior arrangements, it would seem that the Florentine is most popular. On
upper-case-"A" Authority I trust (i.e.: The Lady wore one), I have been told that the Florentine arrangement is -- if not most comfortable, then -- least uncomfortable one for a young woman to wear, and that it is easy to keep clean.
I should like to start a discussion of this, and I respectfully request plentiful female participation in this discussion. What makes or breaks chastity belt usage, is Key-holder conduct, and the comfort of his (or her?) Lady
in the Belt must be one of his (her?)
D O M I N A N T concerns. (Apologies to disappointed BDSM
aficionados, but while a masochist might seek discomfort, inconvenience, humiliation, even actual pain both of body and spirit; she will doubtless find it, though possibly in inharmonious and distasteful combination. However, to the farthest extent whereof I am capable, she shall not find that in my line of advocacy.) This dominant concern needs must subsume concern for the comfort of the specific Belt itself to the lass who wears it.