UPDATE OCTOBER 2020: The Asylum line from Topco Sales is no longer in production. This straight jacket review remains as a reference who want to read more information about this jacket.
The Asylum Patient Straight Jacket is a canvas material that has sewn-on nylon straps. It comes with both a Small/Medium and Large/X-Large version. It only comes in a white, and this jacket is part of the Topco Sales Asylum line. The buckles on the straight jacket are all two-D-ring buckles.
The box is a pretty basic box. It’s a plain, white cardboard box that has a window to let you see part of the fabric of the straight jacket. To be honest, the box isn’t exactly sturdy or anything, but it does hold the jacket for it to be shipped in. It’d be possible to refold the jacket and fit it back into the box, but it’s seriously a pain and not really worth fighting with it. The box is a little creepy and not really discreet though. If you have a “mad doctor” fetish, you’ll love the packaging, but for the boyfriend and I, the packaging was really a turn off. A huge one. There’s a guy in the packaging that has black make-up all over his fae and looks really scary. We threw away the packaging as soon as the jacket was out.
The boyfriend and I don’t exactly do much “medical play”, so there was really no reason for us to like it for medical reasons. The box is actually kinda frightening-looking, and it’s obvious it’s marketed towards those with a “mad doctor” fetish. However, the boyfriend absolutely loves bondage, so if you exclude the creepy packaging, it did serve a need for us. A lot of people in the kink community have straight-jackets to work as the easy version of bondage for those who love being immobilized.
The straightjacket is made from a canvas-y cotton material. I wouldn’t call it heavy-duty, but it’s definitely heavy. It’s probably about 50% strength of a real straight-jacket. (Some kink friends own one.) However, for general use, this jacket will definitely hold up. There’s no concern about the canvas of the jacket tearing – at all. There are nylon straps sewn onto the jacket – that’s where I have more concern about things ripping. The boyfriend was being pretty forceful with his squirming, and it did end up tearing one of the straps slightly, but it won’t be hard to sew the strap back on. If anything was going to tear though, it’s going to be one of the nylon straps off of the canvas material of the jacket.
The jacket fastens interestingly. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never put on a straight jacket before. It’s sorta self-explanatory but sorta not. You could probably, mostly figure if out if you looked at the figures on the box, but again, we weren’t planning on looking at that box if either of us still wanted to be in the mood to play with the straight jacket. I sincerely, sincerely wished this would have come with a small instruction booklet of some kind. Maybe just easy-to-follow pictures on the box would have helped.
All of the fastens on this straight jacket are those with two metal D-rings where the nylon strap will fit through to secure it. There are three straps on the back of the jacket – one at the neckline, one at the middle back, and one at the bottom of the back. You fasten those first. After you fasten though, you fasten the arms. We weren’t really sure how to do those. I ended up putting them looped around his back, but now, looking at the pictures, they are supposed to be looped through the loop on the front of the jacket. Regardless, the jacket has close-ended sleeves that your hands go in that make you unable to use your fingers. There’s a two d-ring combination on one of the ends of the sleeves with a nylon strap on the other sleeve.
The jacket fastens on really nicely. And I mean *really* nicely. Once it all was fastened and tightened, the boyfriend couldn’t get out. At all. He squirmed and squirmed and fell over, but he wasn’t going to get out of it. He then happily curled up into a ball with the jacket for about a half-hour. After that, he said the canvas was getting really, really heavy and making him sweat, so we took him out of it. The canvas does seem to be really thick and will probably make you sweat if you wear it for awhile. Unless you do a *lot* of struggling, your “captive” is not going to get out of this straight jacket.
As I said before, we own the Large/X-Large jacket. As the boyfriend is a tiny guy, this was pretty huge on him. I was concerned that his shoulders would be too large for the small jacket though. This jacket seems more targeted towards males than females because of the extra shoulder room. The boyfriend is six feet tall and 140 pounds, and it fit him just fine with a LOT of extra room to spare. I’d say you could easily go up to 200 pounds in this one. It might be a bit tight, but that’s half the point. The boyfriend has really long arms too, and the jacket was more than long enough to allow him to comfortably have his arms in it. There doesn’t seem to a size chart, but I’d say if you’re under 140, go with the small, and if you’re over 140 (or have a big/tall frame) go with the large.
Overall, it was neat to be able to review a straight jacket. It’s not like I review those very often. The boyfriend loves the feeling of encompassing bondage, and this is an easy way to bind him up and allow him the sensation of bondage without having to worry about rope or handcuffs. While the packaging is a bit creepy (and made us hold off on trying it very quickly), the jacket itself is pretty high-quality. I like it. Thanks to TopcoSales for sending out the Asylum Patient Straight Jacket for review.
