The wank that dare not speak its name (Pt. 2)
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?
To be fair, the brain bug from Starship Troopers does, in turn, look like a vagina. (Also, Neil Patrick Harris was freakin’ awesome in that movie. FYI.)
I guess the finger is there because otherwise the gape would just look like she was super loose and/or pooping?
Real Dolls are super mega creepy, mostly because the pricing and the level of detail suggests that they’re for use as a “companion” rather than just a masturbatory aid. Which suggests that there are guys out there whose ideal companion is sessile, customizable, and under their ownership. Creeeepy.
@Holly Pervocracy Oh yeah, brain bugs are super yonic by design. But for me the “Cocoa Stroker” somehow evokes the horror of those aliens much more than it does an actual pussy. What I guess I’m really saying is that those brain bugs and the stroker creep me out in very much the same way, and real, non-deformed genitals creep me out not at all. Neil Patrick Harris WAS totally awesome! That sounds like truth to me.
Speaking of the pocket ass and gaping asses, I wonder if there’s a prolapsed rectum toy. Quick google search suggests “not yet”, but I don’t want to look too deeply into this possibility.
You’ve seen the documentary Guys and Dolls, right? Creepy is bloody right.
I’m officially creeped out.
NPH is just generally awesome – Doctor Horrible, anyone?
@Oddtwang I couldn’t agree more. One of my many big damn dreams is to organize a burlesque performance of Dr. Horrible, but no one I find for the eponymous character will ever beat Neil and his awesomeness, even if it’s a hot chick wearing a white underbust corset and caduceus pasties.
I’ve kind of always wanted a Real Doll. I don’t think for a moment one could come anywhere near a real woman, but at the same time if I had few extra grand just laying around I might buy one.
http://www.amazon.com/Kaylanis-Foot-Fetish/dp/B000CFJVXU
WTF.
Haven’t tried a flesh light (yet), but I’ve tried a few different things… I have a thing for the more mechanical masturbators… unfortunately, they usually are of poor quality/design and don’t work well for very long (the plastic gears break easily, and there goes that in/out motion). I did, however, purchase a while back an awesome toy, and I have to say, after many many hours of use, it’s still working like the first day I got it. It’s called the Full Stroke (see it at http://www.fullstroke.com). I was kinda leery about getting it, considering the price tag, but it turned out to be a great investment. No need to hold it, no need to move it, no need to sway my hips back and forth, I just hit the “on” switch and it does all the work. Highly recommended!
@Breda Holy shit. It took me about five minutes of shouting “What am I looking at? WHAT am I looking at? Seriously, what am I looking at?” before I understood what was going on with that, and I don’t feel comfortable with it now that I know.
This post is glorious, and so true. I am similarly disturbed by gross pubes and extra added flaps of skin. I had to laugh at your last link, because I featured that product on my blog for my first “Um, No” feature. It’s hard not to feature pocket pussies every time, really, since there are so many WTF?-worthy ones.
@Epiphora Thanks for the link; your site is awesome! I can’t even begin to understand what R&D department thought the Dual Pussy and Ass was an inspiration to pursue, but it disturbs me to think that these two women probably thought it was a good-not-horrifying idea too.