quizzical pussy

His hand darts between my legs, toying with my pussy through my jeans as I rock my hips back and forth. I feel my eyes glazing over with lust; it never takes much.

Then Laramy Fuquerton’s fingers make a violent flicking motion toward my nethers that doesn’t quite find purchase and whispers “Yeah. Flick that clit!” huskily.

“No!” I snap my legs shut to protect my precious, minuscule pearl.

“Yes! You like that.”

I sigh dramatically, wearily. “Laramy,” I put on my best lecturing voice, “we need to have a frank and open conversation about sexuality at this time.” He nods excitedly. “There’s a very sensitive part of a woman’s anatomy called a clitoris. It looks kind of like a little man in a boat. Now, when you flick this little man his boat capsizes and a big shark comes out of the ocean and eats him. Do you understand what I’m saying here?”

“Yes!” Laramy exclaims. “The shark’s a metaphor for an orgasm!” And here we just about die laughing. I’m not sure where it started but there’s this huge joke between us where Laramy pretends to think that girls like it when you flick their clitorises and I pretend to be horrified. We’re frightfully mature, you know.

“No no no,” I rally, trying to regain my serious face. “You can’t flick it. That’s a terrible idea. There are more nerve endings in my clit than there are in your entire penis!”

He looks impressed. “Is that true?”

“I dunno. It’s in the Vagina Monologues.” I shrug. We make out more. For the truly dorky, inside jokes are foreplay.

I did not expect the air hunger to come back.

A few years ago when I was first started getting my stupid fucked-up illness I had this weird, deceptive shortness of breath. I knew I was taking air in because I made a point to draw ponderous diaphragm breaths all the way down, pushing my stomach out with each inhalation. Also, I demonstrably wasn’t dying. But it didn’t feel like my breaths were working. It felt like I was suffocating.

This is the kind of thing that seems like it would accompany a panic attack or something, but anxiety was never a factor… except, you know, the what-the-fuck-is-happening-why-am-I-not-breathing-right? thing that kept coming up somewhere in the middle of feeling like I wanted to tear my lungs out to expose them to open air directly. It’s something neurological, and it’s really disturbing. Fortunately I haven’t had to deal with this air hunger in a while. It went away for a few years as my back-stabbing body moved on to focus on other symptoms.

It came back tonight out of nowhere. While I was masturbating, actually. So here are my thoughts on this situation:

1. It kind of ruined my jack-off session and I’m pissed.
2. It is incredibly hard to sleep through these respiratory shenanigans.
3. (a corollary to #2) It is so terribly late that it is in fact early, but not that early.
4. I want to tear my lungs out and expose them to open air. Good idea?
5. I’m worried that this is not going to be an isolated, aberrant setback.
6. I’m so sleepy. And my hands and lips are tingly.
7. I hope this doesn’t happen next time I’m sleeping over at Laramy’s. That could be super annoying for everyone.
8. I had more orgasms in me, dammit.
9. I would like a trade-in body that works, and preferably has a really nice ass.
10. There should be ten things, since I was already up to nine.

It’s kind of cool when you realize that the positions you like best also seem to be particularly good for your partner.

I’m really super partial to what I guess we’ll call the “folded deckchair“, although traditionally I like to call it “throw my legs over your shoulders and fuck me sore.” For me, that and doggy are to sex what Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman are to modern comics. In vulgar parlance, they’re the my baby daddies of their respective fields.

But I also don’t like to ask for things in bed. Ever. You may recall that when I ask for things, it hasn’t always worked out in my favor. I guess with my experiences of it backfiring, my natural diffidence, and my reluctance to rock the boat when someone inexplicably actually wants to fuck me, I just tend to go with the flow instead. It’s to the point where I generally don’t even suggest new positions to try out (zounds but I’m dull!), although I do occasionally maneuver into them with utmost subtlety.

I’m not sure why Laramy and I hadn’t tried the “folded deckchair” yet. (Also, that name is stupid.)  I guess maybe we just hadn’t gotten to it yet, but that night it seemed like a good idea. We were settling into good old missionary when I flung my legs over his shoulders. Oooooh, yes! I thought, I remember why this is awesome now! Suddenly his cock was catching my G-spot from the most delicious angle and my orgasms came fast and urgent, one after another, building.

I have my suspicions that the texture of my G-spot or the grip of my pussy when I come so hard is something that Laramy likes especially, because we both seem to favor the G-spot heavy positions. With my legs like that, he was getting that face he gets when it’s unbearably good, slowing down a little to dial the intensity back. I felt a jolt of joy that we were together on this one: this was Watchmen, this was a triumph. At some points my legs moved down under his arms and he grabbed them for leverage, and at others I’d toss my legs higher again and we’d grimace together at the absolute bliss of that angle. We felt it together. We sucked in air together, except when I forgot to breathe while I curled my head back in climax after searing climax.

When you have dozens of orgasms, scores of orgasms, a motherfucking shoal of orgasms, the odds get pretty damn good that you’re going to have a simultaneous orgasm with your partner. Laramy and I come at the same time often, and it honestly doesn’t get old. It’s like twice the orgasm. The feeling of his cock pulsing and pouring its heat into me sometimes sends me over the edge even if I’m not quite there yet. But this time I really, really was. It was like Michael Bay was directing my vagina. I swear.

Laramy and I were both sweating and spent. He hung over me, draped on the frame my legs gave him. He was panting and grinning and blinking like a big-budget explosion had just torn through the bedroom: it was kind of adorable. I grabbed my ankles and pulled my legs back to my own shoulders, lowering him right over my lips, and then we kissed, which made us laugh. “I didn’t know you could do that!” he cried.

Piffle. Of course I can!

Don't make this weird.

Happy International Women’s Day, everybody!

In honor of this highest and holiest of high holy days, I’m going to reveal something that may shock some people, and here it is: We’re really actually not living in a post-sexist age. Your mind’s blown, isn’t it?

I’m not here to tell you it necessarily sucks to be female, although concerning some parts of the world we can certainly make that argument. For me, though, in all my incredible comparative privilege, I more or less like being a chick and I’m not ready to turn in my pussy card just yet.

But even nestled in the bosom of Western culture we haven’t attained the basic equality that women set out to achieve generations ago. We’re closer, but we’re so not there. Equal pay for equal work is still a goal rather than a reality. Our culture produces children who believe that violence against women is easily justified. One in six women is sexually assaulted in her lifetime, and all too often it’s perfectly acceptable to blame her.

Women are still sexual objects, not just to some people, but to society as a whole. I know 20-year-old women who have anxiety over being “too old”. Too old to have a kick-ass career? Too old to make a difference politically or socially? Nope. Too old to be a doe-eyed ingenue; too old to be Miley Cyrus. Apparently legal is the new expired. And realizing that being pretty gets us more appreciation and success than any other positive trait, way too many of us have a near-religious conviction that we’re ugly: too fat, too tall, too short, too flat-chested, too pimpled, too muscular, too pale, too dark, too scrawny, too imperfect. We think that our toes are weird or that our stretch marks mean that no one will ever love us. And if no one is going to love us, we are somehow worthless.

If we mention that these things are unfair, we’ll often get called unbalanced, emotional, or irrational. There are still so many things to tackle, but as a small nerdy she-fish in an ocean of crap I wish women didn’t have to deal with, I’m starting tiny.

I’m starting with sexual harassment at the Sci Fi Conventions I go to.

Here’s an imagination exercise: Take a bunch of people who likely faced romantic rejection and isolation growing up, making sure that a healthy percentage of these are shitty at recognizing social cues. Add a common interest they may not get to talk to real people about all that often, and all the excitement and adjacent libido that would naturally result. Put some of these people in costumes designed to make the wearers look (with varying success) like cartoon and video game characters, and put others in corsets. There will also be people inexplicably wandering around wearing cat ears.

Hi there. It looks like you have a Fan Convention on your hands. You realize, of course, that with all those roiling factors in play, someone is going to try to fuck up this nerdy utopia by being super creepy, right? Some guy will inevitably think that the hot costumes exist only for his personal enjoyment and that any woman who likes the same TV shows he does must be praying nightly for someone just like him to appear and grope her tits.

Which is why I’ve taken on the daunting task of organizing an anti-harassment project at my local con. The convention has a sexual harassment policy in place already, but it hasn’t been implemented all that well, and some creeptastic geek-on-geek crimes have been perpetrated.

Creeps have been routinely grabbing or hugging people without permission or warning, commenting on their bodies uninvited, flirting aggressively… you know, the things that you might have heard about cons that make you reluctant to ever go to one, but that shouldn’t be tolerated. Worse, the injured parties have been afraid to report these incidents to con staff because they’re worried about seeming hypersensitive, or like trouble-makers.

But how fucked up does a culture (or subculture) have to be to alienate the victim and make the offender feel justified? Just because men tend to outnumber women at these things doesn’t mean they get to make it a boys’ club where the women attending are just so many sacrifices to the communal hard-on. And neither do women get to harass men, nor men men, nor women women. Let’s just be universally uncreepy.

Of course, nerds flirt at conventions. They get laid at conventions and have glorious, debaucherous times in an environment where free love and free energy drinks reign. I don’t want to put a damper on that, but seriously, the creepy people need to back the fuck off, practice common respect, and only put their hands where they’re expressly invited.

So I’m going to work to make sure the harassment policies are accessible to everyone, to educate the con staff and the con guests how to deal with creepy person encounters, witnessed or experienced, and to open a dialogue about this stuff. I’m going to try to make my little corner of fandom safer for catgirls and cosplayers.

In reality, though, there’s a good chance I’ll set a terrible example for everyone by shouting off-color jokes all over the place. But at least my horrible behavior will be a good talking point for whichever brave warrior takes over my post after I’m escorted off the premises.

I know at least six people who reached adulthood before realizing that narwhals are real animals and not mythological creatures like griffins and hot, single bisexual women. I’m just about at that point right now with narwhal dildos. I think they should exist, but I’m not sure they do yet. And if they really don’t, who dropped the ball on that one? I can get a replica kangaroo penis but not a narwhal tusk toy? Fuck yes I’m judging you, world.

A recent conversation with my friend Lucian Treblewood follows.

______________________________________________

Lucian: So ummm, hey there… watcha wearing?

Quizzical Pussy: A bearskin! (note: If you ever ask me what I’m wearing you’ll likely get an absurd kind of answer. Fair warning. -Q.P.)

Lucian: Sweet! Like with the mouth and teeth?

Quizzical Pussy: Of course. And I’m holding a narwhal tusk as a scepter.

Lucian: Well wearing just a bearskin rug, I hope you will not be innapropriate with your narwahl tusk… *tisk tisk

Quizzical Pussy: We may have different ideas about what qualifies as “inappropriate”.

Lucian: Perhaps I would find it more or less appropriate only due to the fact of the instrument in question (I don’t even know what this means, which is why I’m about to answer with “Narwhals are sweet, man.” Watch… -Q.P.)

Quizzical Pussy: Narwhals are sweet, man.

…I should design a narwhal dildo.

Lucian: Bet its been done

Quizzical Pussy: I’ve found ones branded as unicorn horns, but not narwhal horns. Or tusks. Whatever.

Lucian: Hmmm, now I shall be on the hunt. If I can’t find you one, I will craft you one. (I can guarantee you that Lucian has forgotten this promise by now, but I have not. -Q.P.)

Quizzical Pussy: Even though you find it inappropriate???

Lucian: I only asked you… I said it could be more or less. You will find, I am pretty open and accepting.

Quizzical Pussy: Oh, so you’re a fencesitter!

Lucian: Hardly

Quizzical Pussy: Okay. It’s time to come down on one side. Narwhal horn fucking: pro or con?

Lucian: It would be hip cuz it’s exotic

Probably not on the narwhal

Quizzical Pussy: Well, no. That’s turning the corner into bestiality town. And it should be fake because they’re an endangered species. (Actually, I guess they’re not, but I’ve never met one, so… -Q.P.)

______________________________________________

Now, I realize that narwhal tusks are pretty damn sharp and way too long to be at all comfortable for insertion, so a realistic one might not be a super great idea, but it’s a helical tusk, people! That’s nature’s “ribbed for her pleasure”. If Viking women of yore didn’t carve dildos out of those things, I feel like they should stop calling themselves Vikings because they’re abusing the privilege. So, we could just chunk up the design and round it out a little, and maybe the blowhole should be incorporated somehow. Honestly, I haven’t really worked out the details… but, but, narwhal dildo! The idea sells itself.

Watching a guy play with himself fascinates me. But I’m not interested in a long, lingering, self-conscious tease that acknowledges that I’m watching and attempts to give me a show. I like to see how a guy gets himself off normally, without frills. I revel in the businesslike, perfunctory action; I like noticing the parts of his penis he focuses on and the places he ignores. I want to understand what it means for him to possess his genitals, to spy on his relationship with them. And sometimes, I find myself relating to him as much as I’m turned on.

And this is why I bought my Feeldoe. I wanted a cock of my own. Specifically, I wanted to jack off. It did occur to me– casually– that I might want to fuck another person at some point. Also, that it would be hot to slide my pretty purple cock between a set of lips, provided I could find someone to agree to give me a blowjob. But I wasn’t holding my breath or my order for any such opportunities to emerge: they were like the wacky roadtrips you might envision when you get a new car, but you’re really getting it for your day-to-day driving. Basically, I got it for day-to-day wanking.

A few of my male friends have remarked that buying the ingenious strapless strap-on to jack off with is perhaps the purest and most excellent reason to get one. It’s always nice to get unique compliments. I’m pretty sure my reason is simply the most penis-envious. Of course, if I were male I’d likely consider penis envy pretty pure and excellent myself.

I adore my pussy. I love my small-but-mighty clitoris. I write poems about my G-spot. But a cock is a beautiful thing to have, as an accessory, and I picked an especially good one.

About a year ago I was looking at strap-ons online and thinking how none of them really seemed all that tempting. I could see how the act of penetrating someone could be kinky and erotic and all, but I couldn’t imagine any harness/dildo combo feeling all that good from the fucker’s end. There’d be some clit stimulation against the harness, but it probably wouldn’t be all that different from dry humping, would it? But then. Oh, then! Then I saw the Feeldoe.

Naive as I was, to me a double dildo was a long, straight, two-headed phallus used only in porn and Darren Aronofsky movies. But this was different. This was brilliant. “Surely,” I declared to myself, “a woman designed this marvel.” Turns out, yup. It has a bulb that the top puts inside her pussy so she can feel every thrust she makes with the external dildo, and ridges that press enticingly against her clit. I could imagine the Feeldoe propelling me toward real, joyous fucking, compelling me to push faster and faster into my fuckee like a man in the grip of his impending orgasm. I also immediately realized that if I had this wondrous device I could jack myself off, and that possibility made me dizzy with longing.

I tried to reason with myself: there was no point in spending all that money on a two-person toy if I was only ever going to use it by myself. I might not even enjoy wanking like a guy, maybe I just liked the idea. But the image of stroking my own cock kept creeping into my brain, eventually camping out as a persistent fantasy. I couldn’t explain it: I wanted a cock. It didn’t matter if I never penetrated a single orifice with it, I wanted it and I would make my own fun.

So I decided to stop being a jerk and to let me have my penis. And when it came, all my wildest dreams came true. Not about fucking with it, or even getting a blowjob, because none of that has happened yet. But jacking off with my Feeldoe is fabulous. The ridges that work my clit (which I consider the major tell that a woman designed it, by the way) feel amazing when I pull on the shaft, both ends of it feel great inside me, and the little bullet vibe is a mind-blowing enhancement when I want a little something extra.

The only problem is that when I come especially hard my pelvic muscles tend to contract and push out whatever’s inside me, be it warm, pulsating flesh or slick violet silicone. So I have to concentrate on keeping it in if I want it to stay put. But the beauty of a detachable penis is that you can take it out and put it back in with ease. I do so love having it all.

I would like to think that emotions can usually be controlled. That’s not to say it’s easy. And maybe we can’t always keep them in check… not like actions, but often we can. Emotions follow thoughts, thoughts acquire speed, lips acquire stains, the stains become a warning. Or something like that.

But I also can’t get past the fact that it’s all biology. Hormones and neurotransmitters and shit. It’s kind of humbling how little control we have over these impulses that can blindside us. A chemical imbalance can compel you to injure yourself; a surge of dopamine can make you instantly giddy… or it is giddiness, I’m not even sure. I was a liberal arts major.

Even when we want to think that we have control, a chemical signal can fuck that right up. Sex is a perfect example: Penises wax rampant at awkward times, or you suddenly feel inconveniently bonded to that person you were just using for sex.  The honeymoon phase of a relationship often wears off predictably at the precise moment that the natural swoon stimulants runs dry. And (I love this one) you can take a tiny little pill to trick your body into thinking it’s already got a little zygote passenger on board so you can have crazy monkey sex with reproductive impunity.

I started a new birth control pill last month. I liked my old one just fine, but my insurance dropped it and not getting knocked up is pretty expensive when it’s not subsidized, although it’s nothing compared to getting knocked up.

So I switched to something that was still in my formulary. When I say “new pill”, that’s a little misleading because it’s actually the same one (Ortho Tri Cyclen) I started on when I was 19, until I was put on a lower hormone dose (Ortho Tri Cyclen Lo) a couple years later because the lady at Planned Parenthood said it was better.

I was more nervous than I would’ve been with an untried oral contraceptive, though, because I couldn’t help but remember being miserable for nearly every single day that I was on regular Ortho Tri Cyclen. The only exceptions were the bright patches that coincided with the months when I was off-again with my abusive boyfriend. Oh, also, I was miserable for roughly a year before I started taking any contraceptive pill, which eerily began a few months after we started dating, when I found out he was OMFGcrazy. But despite all this, I asked myself: what if the misery was all down to the hormones making me crazy? What if I’ve vilified him in my memory to rationalize that crazy? What if my female hysterics made him hit me and do other not-so-nice stuff? Or what if the hormones contributed even just a little to the whole accursed business? I didn’t want to go back to any part of that.

I knew these questions weren’t rational (I was irrationally afraid of becoming irrational! Can you stand it!?). The difference is literally 0.01 mg of fake estrogen a day. That might make a subtle difference, but it’s probably not going to make someone’s emotional well-being unravel entirely. But however absurd, I was trepidatious about going back to the higher dose. My Ortho Tri Cyclen Lo had been like a grisgris, a talisman protecting me from the dark, ominous mysteries of female hormones and their mind-bending wiles.

It is profoundly sexist that I was swallowing any form of “estrogen makes you crazy” line. I realize that. I don’t think that estrogen makes people crazy, irrational, or emotionally fragile. I don’t even think that fake estrogen does. I was just a little worried, in the back of my mind. Because of internalized sexism, obviously. And beaten girl syndrome. Thanks, patriarchy.

However, I certainly wasn’t going to let all this stop me from taking an oral contraceptive that I could actually afford, so of course I sucked it up, filled the new  prescription and started taking it. I enlisted Laramy to alert me to any strange, “crazier than usual” behavior. He agreed to tell me the absolute, brutal truth, as long as I wasn’t holding anything sharp at the time.

A month in, no perceptible emotional changes have surfaced. I feel vindicated. I was never hormone crazy. I was just abused, and that probably made me depressed, but that’s a fairly natural and sane reaction. I have noticed some physical changes. I was a bit nauseated for most of the first month, which seems to be abating, and my boobs hurt more than usual before my last period started, but that’s fake-out pregnancy for you.

On another hormone tip, I recently adjusted my thyroid medication and I’ve been masturbating like crazy all week and humping the furniture and shit. Which I guess we should call “back to normal” for me. I love science.

Quizzical Pussy: WTF????

Sofia: I’m preorgasmic.

Jamie: Does that mean you’re about to have one?

-Shortbus

The word for a woman who has never gotten off used to be anorgasmic, which isn’t very optimistic. The term preorgasmic is much more hopeful, but it seems like it might be a little too much pressure: like the universe is crouched in breathless anticipation, waiting for you to climax at any minute. All the time. And if you can’t hack it, you’re disappointing yourself, the word, the universe… everyone. Maybe it’s just my imagination running away with me, but I think I’d actually prefer to have a more desolate term and just let my body surprise me if it ever got around to coming. But I’m not much of an expert on not coming.

Laramy and I watched a movie over the weekend about a female sex therapist/couples counselor who had never had an orgasm, and not for lack of trying. What followed was a journey into a debauched New York City sex-drenched subculture, much like Alice in Wonderland if the White Rabbit were a hot chick with many tattoos and the flower beds were dozens of strangers engaged in joyous orgies. This is a world I’d like to live in. At one point Laramy asked “Are there really sex clubs like this?” and I replied, “I have no idea, but we should definitely open one.”

But it was hard for me to relate to the protagonist’s problem. Sure, at one point I was preorgasmic too, but I had to be eight years old or so at the time. I know women who’ve never gotten off, or whose sexual response is tricky and elusive, but I’ve never had any good advice to give them. I’m the opposite. There is no mystery in how to make me come. Of course you need some skill to get me off just touching my arm or back, but if you’ve found my clitoris or are penetrating me with anything more comfortable than a cactus, I’m not going to walk away frustrated.

There were ten months or so a couple years ago, though, during which I lost my orgasm. I had no sex drive, no periods, and couldn’t get off no matter what. I was dating Edwin Pomble at the time. He’d told me early on in our adventures that he hadn’t really cared for sex until we started fucking, and a lot of the change was down to the fact that he never had to worry that I was enjoying myself. He could just relax and have fun.

My orgasms are hard to miss. My pelvic muscles can contract with enough force to eject any cock. I usually cease my mid-sex caterwauling and get suddenly quiet. I stop breathing for a moment (a terrible habit). I make funny, blissed-out faces. If it’s an especially crazy one, my eyes roll way back into my head, which is super sexy…I promise.

I’ve noticed that the ease of getting me off sometimes goes to people’s heads. It did Edwin’s. Although he started out ambivalent about sex and self-deprecating about his abilites, by the time we’d been together for a while he would trot out the “I know I’m really amazing at sex, but is that all I am to you? An incredible lay?” card during arguments.

But all that stopped for a while, and poor Edwin didn’t understand what was happening any better than I did. Although I think part of it was the fact I was unhappy in the relationship, it turned out that the larger factor was a medical thing. When I got on the right thyroid medication things improved and eventually went more or less back to normal. But while I had this problem, I had zero interest in sex (which just goes to show how much we owe to biology, seeing as one of my dominant personality traits shut off one day because of hormones) so I didn’t really miss my orgasms all that much. It was troubling, but not really very frustrating. For me. I’m sure it was frustrating for Edwin, poor thing.

When my thyroid levels were still iffy, but rising, I finally got off by masturbating while doing deep breathing exercises, which I still find makes my orgasms more intense (this is why holding your breath is a terrible habit, by the way). A couple weeks later I had Edwin jack off against my clitoris, kind of slapping it with his cock. I don’t know why, but I absolutely love that. Would these methods help anyone else? No idea!

So while I had this little taste of what it’s like to have an orgasm block, I’ve never had to wonder if I’ll ever be able to come. I knew from early on what I like and how my body reacts. I was always confident that my climax issues were temporary. I still don’t know what it’s like to be preorgasmic. I’m lucky.

In fact, I’m so easy I worry about it. Later in our weekend together I flashed my left nipple playfully at Laramy while we were cuddling in bed. Guys are to nipples as magpies are to shiny things, so of course he started teasing it with his fingers, tonguing it, gently sucking. I had three orgasms from this inside of five minutes.

“Does it get irritating how easy I am to get off?” I asked after a bit. I worry about this way more often than I bring it up. It’s particularly embarrassing when I’ve just had a blatant orgasm during a PG-13 second-date make-out, but it almost always makes me a little self-conscious.

“Why would that be irritating?” He seemed puzzled.

“I don’t know. Kind of like always having to play a video game on the easiest level. Like there’s no challenge to it or something.” I swear this makes sense in my head.

“That’s very silly. I never think, ‘Wow, this would be so much cooler if I had no idea how to get her off, or maybe if I had to apply the same super specific stimulation until my tongue was numb and my jaw ached and I gave up in despair and she was completely frustrated and unsatisfied.’ You don’t have to worry. I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of watching you come.”

…Which is good, because being hyperorgasmic is pretty fun for me.

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of male sex toys. I think they’re every bit as good an idea as their female counterparts, and those are canon in Quizzical Pussyland. I even want a Fleshlight of my own so I can fuck it with my Feeldoe. Is that meta or what?

I say I specifically want a Fleshlight because I’m a little wary of some of the other toys out there. Like with any partner, I have some standards for my sex toys. I’m not saying that my masturbation aids have to be charming, witty, and have pretty eyes. I’m saying that they need to not creep me right the fuck out.

Fleshlights are cute, with a range of neat little orifices and inner textures (lotus, twista, ultra tight, vortex…), many of which seem appealing. The coin-slot “stealth” orifice is the closest these things come to being creepy (I can’t help but think it’d be like fucking a Barbie piggy bank, if there were such a thing), unless you find the hilarious “Succu Dry” vampire-toothed mouth off-putting.

Another  masturbator that seems pretty cool is the Tenga Flip, which looks like a hyperbaric chamber for your cock, or possibly something out of 2001: A Space Odyssey. It might seem a little sexless and sterile for some people, but since I have a well-known robot fetish I’d have no trouble putting my equipment in this docking station. Hopefully the tech wouldn’t revolt and the ending wouldn’t be totally inscrutable.

There are other sleeves and masturbators that seem pretty great. But there are many, many toys for guys out there that seem like catastrophically bad ideas. They’re designed oddly, marketed awkwardly, rendered patently unattractive, or just seem weird somehow. I realize that a vulva or a mouth is more aesthetically complex than, say, a penis, and that might account for some of the problems I’ve seen. But let’s face it, it doesn’t explain away all of them. Let’s examine some of these issues a little more closely:

Terrible Marketing Copy

The Super Head Honcho Masturbator has the following quote in its description: “It’s as good as a blow-job. Women will be dancing in the streets.” You know what guys like to think about while they’re masturbating? How much chicks hate giving them blowjobs! If my boyfriend had one of these and we were about to have sex, I’d definitely just hand him his Super Head Honcho Masturbator and a bottle of lube and tell him, “Enjoy your foreplay! Let me know when you want to fuck. I’ll be on the couch playing Pokemon.”

…Except how I like putting cocks in my mouth and the Head Honcho doesn’t have anything to do with that. That quote is just reinforcing the “Hey, consumer, you can’t get a woman to blow you, so you’d better buy this!” stereotype that I already mentioned I hate. This also seems like a rather dim marketing strategy.

Hilarious Details

Some guys are turned on by a full bush. I’ve had zero real guys complain that I shave mine, but I had a phone sex client who would always treat me to a diatribe about how I was hurting my “poor little peach” and crippling my sexiness whenever I forgot his preference and told him my character was smooth. So there’s a market for pubic hair.

The Full Bush Vibrating Cyberskin Pussy isn’t just a clever name: it was clearly meant to cater to the bush-loving demographic. But I can’t help but think that something went wrong in the execution. Something about it seems a little… off. I don’t think that pubic hair grows the way they think it grows. I vote we rename this “The Swedish Cleft”.

…which brings us to…

Dealbreakingly Embarrassing Name

The design could be absolute genius, the orgasmic promise superb. Still, I just don’t see myself buying a Flip A Sister Over or an ATM (not referring to banking) masturbator. Where I come from we try to keep our masturbation devices classy, thank you very much.

Resembles Something Deeply Troubling

I may never learn why anyone would choose to give the Kinky Virgin Masturbator a scalloped detail around its gaping suggestion of a vulva, but I hope they realize that it gives the toy an eerie vagina dentata/hookworm flavor to it.

However, I don’t have time to worry about The Kinky Virgin. I’m too busy praying to Paul Verhoeven Almighty that the My Cocoa Stroker isn’t hiding under my bed. I can confidently state that this is NOT what pussies are supposed to look like. Why why why would anyone put a body part inside something that looks like the brain bug from Starship Troopers? I loathe the people who brought this abomination into the world and I hate everything they stand for.

WHAT?

The reviews for the UR3 Pocket Ass are really good, and maybe I’m missing something, but does the disembodied finger tugging open its “life-sized” anus add something positive to this toy, or is it just really, really funny?

Real Dolls are arguably kind of creepy, but their anime-inspired Boy Toy line is far creepier. “Hey, Dawg. I heard you like the uncanny valley, so I put your sex doll in the uncanny valley so you can be unsettled while you fuck fake women.”

And don’t even get me started on ROXXXY. Robots are keen, but I’m with Holly on this particular one. I wouldn’t touch this “companion” with a ten-foot arc welder.

In closing, dear god what IS this thing?