A Chastity Belt is a garment/device designed to prevent those wearing it from engaging in sexual intercourse or masturbation.
Such belts were historically designed for women for the purpose of preserving their chastity, to protect them from rape or to dissuade them and their potential sexual partners from sexual temptation.
While modern myths say that such devices were used by women during the Crusades (10th - 14th centuries) to prove their faithfulness to their husbands, research dictates that such devices were actually first used during the Renaissance period in the 16th century as methods to preserve chastity and as anti-masturbation devices in the early 19th century when the act of masturbation was considered harmful to mental health.
Trivia[]
- Modern versions of chastity belts are predominantly used in the BDSM community which can also be worn by men.