One Bar Prison

12-18-2015
Welcome back! There are updates in Tickle and Gifs, and there is a new anthology in the shop: the One Bar Prison book! All about ladies being stuck, held captive by nothing more than gravity. This also ties in with Coco's next Bishop's celebration article, down below, with a bit of history on top.

You could say that this is one of my favorite favorites! First of all I like the predicament. I had already experimented with the pole in my own work (which was still rather pathetic at that time), being thrilled by this idea that you could immobilize a woman without even tying her or locking her up, just by using er own body weight against her. And then finding this gem: it blew my mind! First of all, I like the perspective. I feel in contributes to the notion that she can't rise up any higher, that she has stretched as far as she can. Then there's this beautiful flowing line work, accentuating the muscularity of the legs and the strain she's in. And the shading of the lower part of her tummy, which makes her love mount more pronounced in ever so subtle a manner. The pole its self: the man was so good in expressing different kinds of material. This is steel, no doubt about it. Rigid and shiny, perfect. And then of course, that wonderful leg spreading device!

Now, it would be wrong I think to say that Bishop invented the pole. Neither did I, or any other twenty century artist: the thing has probably been around for centuries,used in horrendous ways best been forgotten. I do have another claim though.

It must have been in the late eighties when a couple of friends and I were planning to start a new BDSM magazine. It was a diverse group: there were photographers, artists, fashion designers and manufacturers of bondage gear. One of the latter ones asked me if he could make for real the pole like he had found it in one of my drawings, and he asked how he should call it. It was then, that I thought of the name: One bar prison. It just came to me, and we all agreed that it covered the essence quite well.

In the end, the group fell apart, and the magazine never got made. Anyway, I continued to use the pole in my work. The fact that, when a woman was put in position, all she could do was just stand there... I just loved it (still do).From time to time, I would use its name in my work. I would have it engraved in the device its self, or it would be mentioned in a accompanying text. But I would also use other terms, like 'Going nowhere", or 'Neither up nor down'.

Now, with the rise of the internet I for the first time started to encounter the thing for real, in some pics and vids. The first time I remember was a dungeon scene on Hogtied, with Matt Williams. A great scene appeared years later, one from PD, (don't know if it was still on Insex or already on Infernal Restraints), and you saw it pop up on Gord's site from time to time.

But quite recently, I saw a new and really beautiful new incarnation of the device, on the site of Metal Bondage, and my heart jumped as I read the commentary that went with one of the video's:

For years, we have been hearing rumors about a way to restrain a girl using only 1 steel bar!! So we finally decided to build this device, to see if it is true that a girl can not escape this diabolical contraption. We needed a large metal dildo on an adjustable pole, and a girl in high heels. Natalia Forrest happened to be hanging around our studio, so we grabbed her to test this new device. She didn’t believe that it would hold her in place, and neither did we. But amazingly, Natalia was unable to escape from the One Bar Prison! She couldn’t get off it. Wearing high heels meant that she was already on her toes, and the dildo was in too deep. Her hands were cuffed behind her back to prevent her from reaching the pole’s adjuster. We left a camera running and sneaked into the other room. Her reaction was priceless! It is true! One bar can hold a girl!

I am so happy: my idea has made it into a brand! And the way they designed it is really beautiful. They started out with a slender version, with some additions and alterations, and lately they have come up with a more robust design. If you're interested, they have pics and vids of the device with various models, and its inescapabellity is aptly demonstrated. Go to www.metalbondage.com
I would like to congratulate them, and thank them for making the name One Bar Prison a house hold name (hopefully).

Coco

CBAP