Ya, if it's steel use a welding glove to avoid getting pricked. You can grab it with a glove and position your hand so the pulling force pulls the glove against your body and lean back a bit.
Or if you got some dirty garage clothes, you can kind of wrap it around your butt and lean back against it putting more tension. Synthetic is better for this, or CarHart pants and coveralls and a steel cable that isn't too rough you can lean on it and clamp the cable in one hand with a leather glove on.
There is obvious safety issues with this for some people, clearly you don't want to be close to the winch in case it catches and be able to have lots of time to let go of the button
You tend to unwind a fair bit of cable when you need it next anyways, so if the last 15-25' of cable aren't spooled too tight its not really an issue so much anyways as its coming off to winch next anyways.
Sorry if this was obvoius.