Does Liz Truss Wear a BDSM Day Collar?

It’s been a whirlwind month for U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss. First, she won her election to replace partygater Boris Johnson as PM. Two days after that, the Queen died, sending the entire nation into a royal mourning period that impacted everything from bike lock stations to a David Bowie-themed NFT sale called “Bowie on the Blockchain.” Then, Truss’s new government announced a “mini-budget” that included Britain’s biggest tax cuts in 50 years, slashing $48 billion in revenue largely from the wealthiest brackets, which some called a “gamble” and others called “a simply staggering, huge tax cut for richer households” and ultimately, sent the British pound to lows “not seen since 1985.”

At the same time, Truss set off a quieter, less life-or-death news cycle: the debate over whether her signature necklace — a gold circle on a gold chain which she has worn so often that it earned its own nickname, the “Circle of Truss” — could be a “day collar.” For the uninitiated, a day collar, or a “Ring of O,” is a kind of necklace popular in the BDSM world, inspired by Pauline Réage’s 1954 literary porno, The Story of O, and worn by submissives to discreetly announce that they are “owned” by dominants. These can range from cartoonish props out of Salò to somewhat subtler pieces like this. Truss happens to own a very similar necklace, which you can see in almost every Instagram photo she’s posted this year. She also owns a second, more Salò one; she wore it on her first day as PM.

The resemblance has raised some eyebrows. “If the O-ring necklace Truss loves to wear is ever revealed to be a day collar,” one Twitter user wrote, “I'll shrivel into an actual vanilla pod.” It is “inevitable at this point,” podcaster Alice Avizandum agreed. “I’ve worn subtler dog collars.” The British gossip newsletter Popbitch, of which Truss is a known reader, used the occasion to address the PM directly (“Perhaps you’re unaware, but the necklace you’re always seen wearing looks very similar to a ‘Ring Of O,’” the newsletter read. “If that’s your thing, by all means crack on with it. Absolutely fill your boots.”) By mid-September, the Circle of Truss theory had spread widely enough that the Australian website, We Got This Covered, ran two articles about it in a single day. One headline read: “Conspiracy theories suggest U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss is a member of the BDSM community because of her necklace.”

To be clear, there is not much “conspiring” here, but there’s definitely a bit of theorizing going down — something of a common theme with Truss, who has been shrouded by vague, sex-related rumors for years. It started in 2005, when Truss had an 18-month affair with her fellow Tory MP and mentor, Mark Field, which ended Field’s marriage after the news came out. Truss stayed with her husband, but infidelity rumors followed her. In 2017, for example, Truss was named in a “sex dossier” of sexual allegations against 36 members of Parliament. The allegations were entirely unconfirmed, and even if true, were pretty banal. Most described adultery or workplace relationships (in Truss’s case, quite Britishly, that she “fornicated with male researchers whilst backbench MP”). Then, there was some speculation from Popbitch that Truss had used coded Bible passages to telegraph another Tory’s interest in swinging; and conversely, some speculation from Popbitch readers that a particularly blue blind item was about Truss. Notably, the latter came up in the day collar conversation.

The day collar theory fits somewhat in with the gossip. But is the woman currently pushing the British economy to the brink actually a collared BDSM enthusiast? That would make a certain amount of sense. If she weren’t, one might think 10 Downing Street would want to dispel the rumors, or at least allow them to be disproven. But Truss has continued to wear her signature circle well after the theory went viral (see: her first meeting with Joe Biden) and the PM’s office continues to not do much to dispel rumors. When I called them to ask which jeweler made Truss’s necklace, a spokesperson demurred. “It's not something we're getting into,” he said. “It's not something we're commenting on."

Truss has always been something of a clothes horse, or at least, per Women’s Wear Daily, known as the “stylish” one within the prim Conservative Party. She has modeled herself in the literal image of Margaret Thatcher, pairing “stiff silhouettes, block colors and short, neat, blond suburban mum hairstyles,” with a fast-fashion spin. There was a short-lived news cycle this summer, for example, over the fact that Truss bought a £4.50 pair of bauble earrings from tween mall-favorite Claire’s. The necklace, however, has gotten much closer scrutiny because she wears it so often — so much so that the Telegraph dedicated a very long and very odd article to deciphering its significance:

Circles symbolize eternity, wholeness and perfection. A never-ending hoop is used to signify unbroken love and commitment, whether on a wedding band or as part of a necklace. On a subconscious level, humans are drawn to the geometry of a perfect circle; it’s a universal symbol that spans cultures and centuries, representing everything from the perpetuity of time to the potential of the digit zero…Perhaps Truss is striving towards a psychic wholeness.

The Telegraph claimed the necklace has “been her constant companion all the way along her rocky road to the top.” But it wasn’t always a Truss signature; a few photos from the late 1990s show her bare-necked. A review of her Instagram posts suggests necklaces had become a staple by the time she joined Parliament in 2010, though at first not this particular one. At the time, photo evidence suggests, she favored a chunky, faux-pearl neck piece (for convenience, let’s call that N1). By 2013, Truss had found a new favorite (N2): a silver chain with hanging baubles clustered around the center. To the credit of day-collar skeptics, it’s clear Truss goes through phases with necklaces, wearing a given one for months at a time. This was the case with N2, at least as of 2018, when Truss had created an Instagram and featured it in almost every photo.

But by that fall, Truss had introduced at least six other necklaces: two different red ones resembling berry wreaths (N3 and N4, respectively), a cross-like chain (N5), a circle of interwoven silver leaves (N6), a long chain with two giant ring pendants (N7), and a sixth, featuring a gold, day-collary ring (N8). In early 2019, she brought out N9, another long gold chain, with a gold circle pendant overlaid with some kind of organically shaped charm. For most of the year, she waffled between the latter two, until late summer, when she soft-launched the day collar on main (N10). The Telegraph article claims that Truss was first photographed in N10 during September of 2019, when Boris Johnson appointed her as International Trade Secretary. But Truss actually debuted it on her Instagram a month earlier — on August 1, six days after her 44th birthday.

The piece may have been a birthday present, as the Telegraph did confirm that Truss’s husband had given it to her as a gift. (It also fits somewhat into one of the more developed Truss-truther theories, compiled by Twitter user @LillianaFuture, which posits that Truss found her husband’s liberal sympathies unmanly, sending her into an affair with the “hyper-conservative and sexually agressive Mark Field,” which awoke her “appreciation for D/S dynamics,” which she then took back to her marriage, at which point her husband, “now aware of her kink, proceeded to collar her.”) The outlet could not confirm its origins, beyond nixing the idea that it had been chosen by a stylist or purchased from an arts and crafts market in her South West Norfolk constituency.

One contributor to @LillianaFuture’s thread suggested it might have been the “BDSM Locking Day Collar O Ring Submissive Solid 14K Gold Minimalist Discreet Micro BDSM Yellow Rose or White” option available on “ToBeHis.com” for $299.95 (it now costs $349). But the comparison collapses on close inspection. Truss’s model has light engravings around the ring; the ToBeHis.com model is smooth. The Telegraph hypothesized, at the recommendation of a staff columnist “who has studied the many, many, photographs of Truss wearing the necklace,” that it might have come from the U.K. department store, John Lewis & Partners. But when we contacted John Lewis for comment, a spokesman wrote back: “I've just caught up with our jewelry buyers. While we've stocked items like this, they don't believe that this exact design was one of ours, I'm afraid.”

“The necklace’s anonymity,” the Telegraph offered, “could be one of the reasons she likes it so much.” Maybe it is! Unfortunately, the sex professionals are skeptical. “It's a stretch to call that a day collar, or to think it’s an homage to it,” sex therapist Brooke Sprowl, who works with BSDM clients, told Gawker. “Even if it were, it’s kind of like, so what?” The author of the U.K. site Kinky with a Twist, who goes by “Helen S.” agreed: “No, I don't think it's really indicative of anything.” Most day collars, she explained, “sit closer to the neck,” pointing to an example on Etsy, “whereas this appears to be more of a necklace.” Clinical sexologist Dr. Gloria Brame was more open to speculation, in large part because Truss has a second necklace in the same style. “The second one has a real chain look to it, and I definitely wouldn’t be surprised to see that at a BDSM club,” Brame said. “We’d all go up and say, ‘that’s really pretty.’”

The question is does she realize what she’s signaling with that? My guess is she has no idea. But on the other hand, why does she have more than one in that exact style? So while I don’t engage in silly trash talk, this is rife for silly trash talk…There was a woman here who was a prosecutor who would wear a handcuff necklace, and I was always laughing about it like, “Where did she buy that at, Mr. Leather?” Did she understand the irony of it? We always have to take these things with a grain of salt. But it's a bad look, because either way, she's clueless, or she’s not clueless.

So what is it, exactly? “I think it probably has another, less-exciting meaning,” Helen S. said. “Circles are used to demonstrate many things, including wholeness, unity, continuity and even God.” It is definitely a circle — or if we take the Telegraph’s word, “a universal symbol that spans cultures and centuries, representing everything from the perpetuity of time to the potential of the digit zero.” By that logic, it could represent a day collar, the pound-sterling’s imminent value, or pretty much whatever we want. (Unless you know something we don’t, in which case email tips@gawker.com.) “Maybe,” Brame said, “she’s just showing unwitting solidarity with the kinksters.”