Sex toys for straight men

We sex bloggers get an e-mail or two a month from companies selling sex toys. “Review our toy!” they say.

A number of sex blogs do this. Some do a lot of it. I never have. Or, never did, until recently.

My relationship with Marina presented me with the idea: I could have a sex toy sent to her by one or another of these companies, and together, we could review it.

That was a good idea. But the company out to which I reached, and which promised to send a toy forthwith, couldn’t navigate the COVID impediments to get a toy to Marina. Or, if they could, they couldn’t manage to get it to her before our romance came to an end.

This post, though, isn’t about the toy that never made it to Marina. Nor is it about Marina.

No, in this post, I want to think a bit about male sex toys.

A few years ago (five? seven?) I bought a little purple gel sleeve that promised a phenomenal masturbatory experience. I was disappointed. Mostly what I got was an unforgettable clean-up challenge. The sleeve sits, unused, in my underwear drawer. Perhaps for my son to find one day.

Recently, though, as I was scrolling through porn on twitter at 3 in the morning (I do this rarely, and only when I get up to pee at 3 am), I stumbled on an ad for a “Fleshlight.” Some porn star (Ella Hughes) had tweeted (twote, as I can’t avoid thinking) that she just had had her pussy (verbed?) so that a cast could be made to extrude Fleshlights.

I spent some time looking at Ella Hughes online. She’s hot. Not so much my type, but I liked what I saw.

I wasn’t in any way enamored of the idea of fucking her pussy. Or, of fucking a sex toy molded to look like her pussy.

But I got curious about Fleshlights.

I went to the Fleshlight web page, and read their various reviews, and descriptions. Honestly, I was a bit confused. It seemed that the users of this toy (or at least the “users” whose “reviews” were posted on the web site) bought multiple sleeves for it – an Ella Hughes pussy sleeve, a Riley Reid pussy sleeve, a Stoya pussy sleeve. This all seemed very silly to me. But. The reviews for each seemed very different. So I read a bit. I’m not going to take the time to summarize what I read, but, suffice it to say, what I read in the Ella Hughes reviews actually seemed qualitatively, objectively, better than what I read in all the other reviews. And, impulsively, I ordered one. A hundred dollars and two weeks later, I opened the box.

I want to pause: sex toys for women are cool. Cool women talk about their vibrators, their dildos. They talk about them together, they talk about them with their girlfriends, they talk about them with their boyfriends, they blog about them.

Sex toys for (straight) men? They’re… embarrassing. Lonely. Pathetic. [Note: I’m not discussing butt plugs, dildos, or any other toys designed or possibly deployed for anal stimulation in this post. My point is toys meant for cock.]

Maybe that’s not true. Maybe I’m projecting some set of associations I have. But I don’t think so.

In another post, perhaps, I’ll muse on why it is that sex toys for women are empowering (they reappropriate women’s sexuality, they project confidence, comfort, and independence) and sex toys for men are castrating (they suggest loneliness, desperation, pathetic-ness).

Add to that that most sex toys for women (other than some dildos) don’t simulate intercourse. They do something entirely different from what a woman might do with a man. Unless, you know, she’s with a man who wields a wand. Or who wields a dildo. Or any other toy. (I fucking love incorporating sex toys for women into my sex with women.)

Sex toys for straight men – other than the wand, which, applied very delicately, can be a lot of fun – simulate an absent woman. And, given the way the sexual economy works, given that women can have a cock if they want one (and don’t care what it’s attached to), and that men can’t have a pussy if they want one without paying, unless they’re prepared to put in at least a little work – and in many cases, more work than they’re capable of) – well, a cock sex toy feels a bit like an admission of defeat.

Ok. I’ve meditated on it a bit. Maybe I’ll write more later.

The real point of this post was, actually, to review the Fleshlight. I haven’t gotten to it yet, and my writing time is waning. So. Consider this a tease. In some subsequent post, I’ll tell you all about using a Fleshlight to make myself come.

Executive summary? Holy. Fucking. Shit. (And, lest you doubt me, I have no business relationship with anyone related to Fleshlight.)