[LINK] "Bondage Gear, Straight from Karachi"

[rfmcdonald]

I found this startling Willa Paskin-authored item via Slate.

Ever wonder where S&M bondage gear—whips, straps, masks, assless pants—is made? No? Well, you should have. The Times has a fascinating video piece about a company in Karachi, Pakistan that manufactures fetish wear and exports it to the West.

[. . .]

Two brothers from a poor family started the company, AQTH, in 2001. It now makes a million dollars a year, employs dozens, and only rarely runs into trouble with the devout Muslims who live next door. Though AQTH is flourishing, manufacturing "the famous spanking skirt" in Karachi ("it has all the back open for the spanking, while lovemaking," one of the brothers explains) is a little more complicated than manufacturing other less outré leather goods might be. The owner's wives haven't been told what the company produces and many of the employees don't know—or don't want to know—what they're making. One man thinks the sex swing he's crafting is actually a black-leather, silver-studded beach chair.

That said, the brothers are refreshingly unembarrassed about their product line, equating the items to the "spices of sex." One of their sales executives, a 25-year-old woman, refuses to pick a favorite piece, admonishing sternly that she has several. "I have a desire to wear some of the items," she goes on to say, "but not all of them."

The New York Times video piece referred to in the article is here, and the company's website is here.

The San Francisco Chronicle and The New York Times both go into more detail.