My boyfriend is a lucky guy. I buy him Tenga Eggs practically every time I’m in vicinity of a sex shop (which, as you might imagine, is often), and this past month I asked him if he’d be interested in reviewing a Fleshlight with me. Naturally, he said yes.
After poring over all the options, he settled on the Stamina Training Unit, or STU. It’s marketed as an aid for guys who want to last longer, but it only “helps” with this problem because it’s so stimulating that lasting five minutes with this Fleshlight is supposed to be like lasting ten minutes in a real vagina. My boyfriend just wanted it because the texture looked awesome, though.
Like I said, he has tried a few Tenga Eggs, including the Clicker, the Wavy, and one of the limited edition models. He reported to me that the Fleshlight actually feels very similar to the Eggs – soft, squishy, textured – but that the Fleshlight is better overall.
Why is it better? Well, one obvious reason is that it’ll last longer. If you take care of a Fleshlight properly, it could conceivably last for hundreds of uses, unlike a Tenga Egg which tend to start to fall apart after 5-10 uses, even with diligent cleaning.
The Fleshlight is also significantly quieter than an Egg. The Tenga products we’ve tried have always produced loud squelching noises that could definitely be heard by a bedmate or roommate. The Fleshlight does make sounds in use, but they’re quiet and subtle. You might even be able to get away with using it while someone sleeps in the same room as you, if you can control your moans.
For my boyfriend, the biggest factor giving it a leg up over Tenga Eggs is the cushiony “vulva” which he can press into his pubic mound. He likes pressure at the base of his penis, not only because it feels like “the real thing” but also because it just feels good, so he appreciates that he can apply that kind of pressure to his heart’s content with the Fleshlight.
There’s also a suction function, controlled by the screw-off cap on the end of the toy, which he doesn’t really dig, though he says that plenty of guys would like it.
He likes that the Fleshlight allows for “a level of disconnect” that the Eggs don’t. Using the Fleshlight almost feels like he’s not jerking off, like someone else is in charge of the motion – perhaps because he doesn’t have direct control over the tightness of the Fleshlight’s grip, unlike he does with the Eggs.
I asked him what he thought of the visual of his penis going in and out of a rather realistic-looking vulva. He said he’d prefer if it was just a plain slit, because as is, it “feels a little objectifying.” I asked him if he thought my realistic dildos were “objectifying” and he wasn’t sure what to say to that. (My boyfriend is such a feminist. It’s nice.)
As for the actual texture of the sleeve, it’s very intense. He’s uncut and very sensitive, so I was worried that this texture might overwhelm him, but he really likes it – as long as it’s thoroughly lubed. I gave him a bottle of a thin Sliquid lube to use with it (the Fleshlight’s material can only handle water-based lubricants), and he says he likes it but it dries out too quickly. Something thicker and more gel-like would probably be a better choice.
The main downside to owning a Fleshlight is that cleaning it is a big fuckin’ deal. You have to clean it after every single use, as soon as possible (i.e. ideally within an hour), or it risks becoming gummy, tacky, or even mouldy. You can’t use soap, only water and maybe some isopropyl alcohol if necessary. You can’t turn it inside out, or it’ll tear. And once it’s clean, you have to set it out to dry, and you can’t put it back into the case until it’s completely dry or it’ll get mouldy. Does this sound like a process you want to go through when you’ve just had an orgasm? Not so much.
Another “con” of this product is that it’s not discreet in the least. For a company that has built an entire line of toys on the idea of “looking like a flashlight,” the STU really doesn’t. It’s way too big and bulky to be a flashlight, plus it’s gold, plus it has the word “Fleshlight” emblazoned on the side of it. Yeah, real subtle. Needless to say, my boyfriend would prefer if the case was plainer and looked less like a prop from a Las Vegas burlesque show.
I asked him for an overall rating out of 5, and he said 3.75. At $70, the Fleshlight STU would be worth the money if he was single, he says, but as a guy in a happy sexual relationship, he just doesn’t use it often enough to make it worth that price tag. It feels great, but the impending cumbersome cleanup makes him reluctant to use it as often as he’d like to. Still, he likes it more than I was expecting him to.
Thanks so much to Sex Toys Canada for sending us this toy to try out!