Allow me to introduce you to the Vac-U-Lock Platinum Edition Supreme Harness from Doc Johnson, sent to me for review by SheVibe. (Thanks, SheVibe!) Because it can fit up to a 70-inch waist, I knew I’d have no trouble fitting my generously-sized fat bod within its handsome black straps.

At first glance, the Supreme Harness is pretty standard: two leg straps and a triangular bumper in the front where you can secure your dildo. But the Supreme Harness is unique in that it offers you two different methods to fasten your dildo: a Vac-U-Lock (which we’ll discuss in a moment) plug, or one of three differently sized o-rings. This means your dildo options are nearly limitless! As long as it has either a harness-compatible base (flared or suction-cupped) or a Vac-U-Lock hole, it’ll suit this strap-on harness.

And I definitely appreciate versatility in the bedroom. *finger guns*

The Supreme Harness is made of soft, flexible neoprene, but its straps are made of the same densely woven nylon-y material as the kind of straps you’d find on a backpack. The waist and thigh sizing is adjusted via tightening or loosening the straps with sturdy plastic buckles. The harness’s triangular front is seven inches wide, and features a velcro pocket for the Vac-U-Lock plug, and four slots through which the straps fit to fasten the dildo of your choice. (There is no pocket officially designated for bullet vibes.) Each strap ends in with a metal snap to keep the interchangeable silicone rings secure in use.

The Vac-U-Lock Supreme Harness didn’t come in an intimidating tangle of undone straps like past purchases – instead it came carefully packaged, and unrolled neatly upon being freed of its bindings. All I had to do to put it on the first time was shake out the straps, hold the top two straps (which slide through the upper slots on the front, so they’re easy to identify) and step through them while making sure the two bottom two straps remain between your legs. More complicated to describe than to actually do, trust me!

Because I’m a slob and I just toss the harness in my closet haphazardly after use, it’s often jumbled up when I go to retrieve it. I’ve found that giving it a single firm shake helps reorient the straps enough to see if it actually needs untwisting.

In terms of how the harness “should” fit, there’s no real rule book; generally, folks want the front bumper to rest on their pubic mound (mons pubis) but depending on your body and the body of your partner, you might tweak that placement to better suit your situation. I found that I preferred wearing the Supreme Harness as intended: with the straps curved over my hips and the bumper against my pubic mound. I do find my body at odds with this positioning though because I carry a lot of my weight in my lower stomach, which sometimes means the front of the harness is folded forward or awkwardly tucked under my belly.

Unfortunately, this harness isn’t particularly comfortable in any other way either. The straps are surprisingly sturdy and don’t slip around in the buckles, and the tight fit you’re able to achieve means the harness doesn’t shift or sag even when you’re in constant movement… But the straps are very flat and have a vague scratchiness to their edges due to the plasticy cheapness of the nylon-like material. Initially I assumed they weren’t sharp enough to cut, but recently they sliced the crease of my thigh (twice, in different places) and I’ve taken to wearing pajama shorts beneath them to prevent it from happening again. The padded back is also a bit too small for my wide frame, which means the straps wrap partially around my back in a way that feels super unsexy.

My partner Buster has had to layer the Supreme Harness over underwear from the beginning. They have prominent inner labia (aren’t vulvas neat?) that protrudes past their outer labia, so fabric is needed to keep the harness straps from possibly pinching them. And given these straps’ bite, I’m glad Buster was cautious. (But the harness does suit their backside better than mine, providing secure and attractive framing for their ass – so they ‘win’ in that arena.)

Despite these drawbacks, I do love the stability of the Supreme Harness. Even when I’m dubious of the fit, it stays in place. That’s not something I expected from a double leg strap harness. The buckles are good.

So what’s the point of a strap-style harness if you might have to wear it over underwear anyway? Well for me, the versatility. I have full access to the fastenings and can exchange ring sizes or use the Vac-U-Lock plug to suit different dildos, something you can’t do with fasteners that are sewn into fabric like underwear-style harnesses. I can also use this harness with partners of different sizes.

Do I wish Doc Johnson had chosen a gentler material for their straps? Yes. Fuck yes. Who the hell wants to be in 92 degree heat with a healing cut right where their thigh sweat collects? Not this thorough reviewer. But this backpacky strap style seems pretty popular with affordable harnesses, so this choice isn’t isolated to them.

As I mentioned earlier, you have multiple options for securing your chosen dildo to the Doc Johnson Supreme Harness. The first and most familiar is with the stretchy silicone rings. To accommodate three different sizes, the rings are held in place via all four straps, which have snaps at the end so you can undo them. It’s pretty hard to get the snaps open, so I just pull the straps forward enough to get the dildo behind the ring and then pull them tight again – which means I secure the dildo before I put the harness on. (Though some dildos – like the Avant Pride Beauty – have especially pliable bases that you can just fold into a taco shape, tuck into the ring, and then unfurl so you don’t have to mess with the straps at all.) If you need to use a different ring size, you’ll have to pry open the snaps and swap it out.

Then you have the Vac-U-Lock option. There is a velcro-sealed pocket within the front bumper where you can situate the Vac-U-Lock plug, and snaps that help keep it in place. The circular opening in the neoprene behind the ring is for the plug to protrude.

Vac-U-Lock is Doc Johnson’s unique and somewhat baffling strap-on system. Vac-U-Lock dildos come with a unique cavity at the bottom that locks onto a plug base for a more secure fit for harnesses, fucking machines, or other dildo-wielding devices like wand toppers. To make sure the fit is vacuum sealed, Vac-U-Powder must be liberally sprinkled into the toy’s base before plugging it. The advantages posed by the Vac-U-Lock system are that you don’t have to bother with rings and their varying sizes*, you have a more stable base for harnesses, and the plugs are available for a variety of other devices.

*Because the ring-securing straps are also the harness’s frame straps, you still have to keep them secured to a ring. So unless the base of your Vac-U-Lock dildo is smaller than the ring and can just slip past, you’ll still have to pull it through like a regular dildo in addition to plugging it.

Honestly though, for harness use I found the Vac-U-Lock system didn’t warrant all the fuss. The powder is a huge pain in the ass, the vacuum seal is great but really hard to pop to remove the dildo for cleaning (impossible if you don’t have a strong grip), and the stabilization provided by the plug base is barely noticeable. On the other hand, I’m now equipped to use Vac-U-Lock style dildos that I would otherwise be limited with, so – points for investing in my future.

As far as cleaning goes, the Supreme Harness is machine washable with the caveat of using a garment bag. We do our laundry in the huge-ass washers at the laundromat which are notoriously rough on delicates, so the two times we did more than spot-clean via handwashing, I heeded Doc Johnson’s advice and used a garment bag. Both times the Supreme Harness survived just fine! We let it air dry.

Unfortunately, though the harness did not survive regular use. During one of the latest drafts of this review, I discovered the harness is experiencing some pretty substantial tearing where the straps fit to the neoprene backrest. The straps are fine, but the neoprene is shredding. It makes sense that this would be the Supreme Harness’s weak point: it’s right next to the buckles, so it endures tugging during fastening and then shoulders the stress of your movements. The tearing must be a very recent thing, as I checked the entire harness over after both trips to the laundromat and didn’t notice any ripping.

This… really sucks, y’all. Though this harness is in the middle of the pricing spectrum (currently currently $60 USD at SheVibe), I would expect it to last more than three months’ worth of weekends. And it’s not as though a better design would have drastically increased the production price – just making the triangular base of the straps bigger would have helped better distribute the stress. But instead Doc Johnson just folded the strap over itself and sewed it right to the neoprene. Shortsighted, and a bummer.

This harness allowed me to comfortably strap-on fuck my partner for the first time, so I’m grateful for its accommodating size, dildo versatility, and remarkably stable straps and buckles. But it also cut me – twice – and is now literally falling apart. This is a dramatic fall from grace worthy of the Winchester brothers… except there’s no next season for a recycled redemption storyline. When the last fibers of the neoprene tear free, this harness is female character on Supernatural levels of dead.

In my original review slated for earlier in the month (before the issues of the wounding and shredding came up), I heavily critiqued the Supreme Harness Platinum Edition for its cheap-feeling straps but still recommended it for its stable fit, sleek black aesthetic, and nearly endless dildo options. Now, several rewrites later, I can’t bring myself to suggest it except perhaps as an infrequently used addition to your toy closet. There is much to love about the Supreme Harness but it’s all squandered by the lack of investment in its materials. I’m seriously bummed out.

If you’re just looking for versatile harness and only plan on using it a few times a year, the Supreme Harness offers a lot of possibility when layered over a cute pair of boyshorts. As long as you’re mindful of its shortcomings, I don’t think it’s a bad harness for testing the waters… but if you like swimming, you might want to invest in a higher quality piece.

You can buy the Vac-U-Lock Platinum Edition Supreme Harness by Doc Johnson at SheVibe for $42 USD at the time of this posting. SheVibe even carries other Vac-U-Lock products to pair with your purchase.

Thank you, SheVibe, for sending me the Supreme Harness in exchange for an honest review. Affiliate links were used in this post.