Author: Kate Sloan

The Best Sex Toys of 2024

Kate Sloan

I’ve been lucky enough in my career to write sex toy listicles for all sorts of big publications. I love being able to spread sex toy awareness to the masses, but ultimately, this website is still my favorite place to write about these products – because this website is the only one where I can give you the full, detailed, unvarnished lowdown on why I like (or dislike) any given toy. I love having that kind of freedom!

With that in mind, I want to tell you about the toys I used and enjoyed the most in 2024…

Old faithfuls

Before I tell you about my 8 favorite new-to-me sex toys of the year, I gotta shout out the nightstand workhorses that’ve stuck around for a while:

 

My 8 favorite new toys of the year

Yep – I’m gonna do a “top 8,” MySpace-style!

Not all of these were released this year, but they all arrived in my collection sometime in 2024. I’ll start at the bottom and work my way up…

8. Mr Hankey’s Perfect Penis

Not much to say about this one, except that it’s a huge, beautiful silicone dick that I reach for when I want to feel well and truly fucked. And also it works better as an iPhone stand than many actual iPhone stands.

 

7. Uberrime Suavis plug

There are two vaginal plugs that I love: this one, and the Hole Punch Fluke, which has long been my go-to when I want some passive G-spot stimulation while receiving oral sex. The problem with the Fluke, however, is that I can’t wear it for longer than about an hour before my vag starts to get a little sore from the firmness of the silicone.

That’s where the Uberrime Suavis comes in – it’s softer, squishier, and more comfortable for longer wear (I think I’ve comfortably left it in for up to 3 hours before). The trade-off is that it doesn’t feel as good for me during orgasm as the Fluke does, because I prefer a firmer silicone at that moment – plus, sometimes my vag swallows the whole Suavis, base and all, which can make it a little tricky to retrieve. In any case, though, I love having two different vaginal plugs for the two different ways I like to use ’em!

6. Magic Wand Micro

They made a miniature version of the Magic Wand. Of course I love it!

The teeny-tiny Micro might disappoint some Wand diehards, because naturally it doesn’t quite stack up to its bigger siblings in terms of power – but it’s respectably rumbly and strong for its petite size, it’s portable as hell, and (perhaps most importantly of all) it’s really fucking cute.

 

5. Fun Factory Stronic G Forte

Hate to do this to ya, but this appears to be sold out everywhere… most likely because of Fun Factory’s recent acquisition by Satisfyer and it increasingly seems like they’re phasing out the brand. That would be a HUGE bummer for sex toy nerds around the world, because Fun Factory has long been one of the best and most ethical companies in the biz.

But it would feel weird to omit this toy from my list, even though you’ll have a hell of a time trying to sleuth one out at this point. Fun Factory’s Stronic line of “pulsators” thrust back and forth in small motions, and nowhere is this technology used more effectively than in the G Forte, which is made to target the G-spot with those quick little strokes. It’s girthier and stronger than the original Stronic G, and I’m sad that more people won’t get to experience it.

 

4. Solina Mega L dildo

At first glance, this toy may not look especially remarkable. It’s a straight, average-sized, realistic silicone dildo. So what?

Here’s what: This dildo is made of dual-density silicone, widely regarded as the best balance between realism and body-safety (since realistically squishy toys are usually made of porous and/or toxic materials) – and it only costs $40. It wasn’t so long ago that you’d have to shell out $100+ for a great dual-density silicone dildo – and the ones in that price range are still gorgeous and worthy of their price tags, but I love having an option I can recommend to folks who are on a tighter budget.

I’ve recently been sent a new addition to the Solina line, which I’ll write about sometime in 2025, and it’s lovely too. I’ve definitely got my eye on this brand!

3. Mr. Hankey’s Captain’s Hook

This toy’s deep curve and hefty girth make it one of the most breathtakingly G-spotty toys I’ve ever used. I find its realism sexy both visually and tactilely – that coronal ridge is simply marvelous.

I’d probably use it a lot more often if it wasn’t so heavy. But it speaks well of this toy that I’m willing to put up with the sore hands and arms occasionally in order to experience its pleasures.

 

2. Hot Octopuss Pulse Queen

One of my core skills as a sex toy reviewer is being very aware of my own “baseline,” in terms of sensitivity and sexual response, so that I will know when a toy causes significant deviations in those areas. And to that end, I noticed immediately that the Pulse Queen clitoral stimulator feels deeper and more stimulating than other vibes – and that the orgasms it gives me have a unique quality to them as well, a depth and sweetness that frequently makes me swear like a sailor while I’m coming.

The only reasons this toy isn’t in the #1 spot: It doesn’t stand up well at all to pressure (which makes it effectively useless in many PIV positions), and it has an annoyingly short battery life. But damn, nothing else feels quite like this toy, and when I’m craving it, absolutely nothing else will do.

 

1. We-Vibe Wand 2

The toys at the top of my list each year are usually fairly straightforward. They do one thing, and they do it well. Let that be a lesson to any sex toy company reps who may be reading this!

We-Vibe’s updated wand is a prime example. It’s “just” a wand – but oh, what a wand it is! It’s easily one of the rumbliest ones I’ve ever tried, and its speeds range from a low, gentle purr to a full-on jackhammer rumble. I’ve reached for it more times than I can count this year, because, simply put, it gets the fucking job done. It may not be the prettiest wand (or the most affordable), but it’s probably the wand that got me off the most times this year, and that’s a pretty big deal!

 

What were your favorite new toys this year?

 

As a reminder: when you buy toys through my links, I get a li’l monetary kickback (at no extra cost to you), which is a great way to “tip” me if you’ve appreciated my toy guidance this year 😘 Thanks, babes!

My New Tattoo is Romantic as Hell 💖

Kate Sloan

It’s no secret that I love hearts, and pink and red things, and the whole lovecore aesthetic. I mean, I just wrote a whole blog post last week about pink-and-red outfits I devised to match a pink-and-red dildo… Suffice it to say, I’m a fan of these colors!

I think what draws me to the lovecore look even more than its pretty colors, though, is its emphasis on love and romance. They are really important themes in my life – I mean, I have a whole blog category dedicated to them! Love and romance have guided me toward many of my greatest joys and my happiest days – and not just because romance itself is fun and uplifting, but because crushes encourage growth!

If you are a person who experiences attraction (sexual, romantic, or otherwise), you can probably remember a time when you wanted to impress someone you were attracted to, or even just wanted to understand them more deeply – and in this effort, you researched a topic that was new to you, or consumed media you would’ve never stumbled across otherwise, or discovered a whole new side of your personality that you never knew existed. Whether or not our attractions ever “pan out” into “anything more” (which we can’t always control, anyway), they still pull us in the direction of who we want to become, and I think that’s fucking magical.

As we get older, every heartbreak and rejection can make it harder to keep pursuing love and connection. It seems scarier and scarier to go out into the world and take big, foolhardy risks with your heart – and gosh, wouldn’t it be so much easier to stay home on your sofa, numbing out with Netflix and living vicariously through other people’s loves? (If you feel called out, trust me, I’m calling myself out even more!)

It takes a concerted effort to push back against that impulse to self-isolate. Risk-aversion may be a prudent approach in finance or business, but it’s rarely the right impulse when it comes to human relationships, which inherently require some degree of risk. The ‘finding people to date’ part is risky and scary, the ‘actually going on dates’ part is risky and scary, and the ‘opening yourself up emotionally and physically to a new person’ part is definitely risky and scary… but when those risks pay off, it’s like winning the emotional jackpot.

Anyway, all of this has been on my mind for a long time, but especially since the pandemic kicked off. It’s never been easier to self-isolate. It’s never been easier to avoid relational risk. But I don’t want to do that. So I got a new tattoo to remind me: it’ll always be worth it to roll the dice on love.

My friend Addison Finch is an artist extraordinaire; you might know him as the creator of the current Dildorks album art, or the Making Magic album art, or his illustrations on the Funkit Toys Random Encounters sex dice, or any of the numerous other projects he’s done in the sex-positive sphere. He’s also a tattoo artist, so when he mentioned to me that he was going to be visiting my city and doing a guest spot at a local tattoo shop, I knew right away that I wanted some of his art on my skin!

I considered a few different possibilities, but kept coming back to an idea I had seen represented by various different illustrators over the years (including RubyRoller-Art, xPixelPerfect and Eidalfina): pink dice decorated with red hearts. To me, it was the perfect encapsulation of my current goals vis-à-vis love and romance: Roll the dice. Take a risk. See what happens.

After some discussions of layout and placement, Addison drew up a design in his own style for me to look at, and I loved it. He set to work tattooing it on me, while we chatted about life, love, kink, and art for a couple of hours. When I saw the completed ink on my arm, it felt right immediately – almost like it had always been there.

I’m not the bravest person in the world when it comes to love (or anything else). But I hope this tattoo will give me a kick in the pants when I need it, reminding me that love might hurt, and it might surprise me, and it might even blow up in my face – but it’s always, always worth rolling the dice on.

LGBTQ+ People Are Not Going Back

Kate Sloan
The Progress Pride flag, designed by Daniel Quasar

This post was written as part of Julia Serano’s suggested action today for LGBTQ+ people and their allies.

 

It’s a terrifying time to be queer or trans – but especially to be trans.

In the months leading up to this latest U.S. election, unhinged right-wingers called queer people groomers and pedophiles, cruelly politicized the horrific deaths of trans people, and spent $215 million on anti-trans attack ads. (God, can you imagine if that money had gone to something actually useful instead, like housing or famine relief?)

Republicans are unsettled by us, not just because so few of us vote for them (I mean, why the fuck would we?!) but because of what we represent: that sexuality and gender are neither fixed nor binaristic, and that this means gender- and sex-based power hierarchies are, and have always been, artificial and meaningless.

I also suspect there’s a tinge of subconscious jealousy coloring the behavior of these bigots – not because I think they’re necessarily queer or trans themselves, but because I think many of them feel trapped in the scripted tedium of conservative cis-hetero life, and are furious at us for daring to build our own lives and be our own selves, instead of grabbing ready-mades off the shelf.

But while Republicans spewing vile hatred is to be expected, what’s more surprising is when members of the LGBTQ+ community throw each other under the bus. There have always been people who do this, but we’re seeing more and more of it since the election: many Democrats, some of whom are queer, have theorized that trans rights were a sticking point that may have lost us the election, or have essentially argued that we need to “pick our battles” and that basic civil rights for trans people are not a battle worth picking.

This, obviously, is despicable. It’s despicable not only because abandoning an already-disadvantaged community is cruel, and not only because every human being deserves human rights, but also because queer struggles and trans struggles go hand-in-hand. Right-wing zealots hate queer people for many of the same reasons they hate trans people, and vice-versa.

I mean, hell, plenty of them don’t even know the difference between being queer and being trans! They hold a deep-seated hatred toward sexual and gender transgressors (…except for cis male rapists, apparently, to whom they give jobs instead), and they paint that hatred across all of us with a very broad brush. We don’t all get treated the same, and certainly some of us are more privileged than others (myself included, as a white queer cis lady who can ‘pass’ as straight in some situations) – but the hatred levelled against all of us, I believe, originates in more-or-less the same place.

This is why our social and political goals have long been aligned, this is why we have often grouped ourselves under the LGBTQ+ umbrella, and this is why it’s absurd to me when cis queers don’t care about trans issues. As the pastor Martin Niemöller reminds us in his famous 1946 poem “First they came…,” your obedience and silence will not save you from the wrath of the fascists. They will come for you, too. The Leopards Eating People’s Faces party will eat a queer face just as readily, and just as happily, as they’ll eat a trans one.

So, when I say that LGBTQ+ people are not going back, I mean that we refuse to give up our hard-won rights and freedoms – and I also mean that we should never go back to being a splintered group with disparate goals and dissenting strategies. We need to band together now more than we ever have before. We need to have each other’s backs. We need to fight this madness and take care of each other and ourselves at the same time. It’s the only fucking way forward.

 

If you’re on board with that goal, here are some concrete things you can do:

• If you are in the U.S., please contact your senators, your state legislators, and even your local politicians, to state unequivocally that you refuse to tolerate a backslide in rights and protections for LGBTQ+ people, and that you will take your vote elsewhere next election if they cannot commit to action on this. Julia Serano has a script you can borrow if you’re not sure what to say.

• If you have some cash to spare, consider donating to an organization that fights for queer and trans rights, such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) or Advocates for Trans Equality (A4TE).

• You also might consider donating to organizations that help individual trans people directly, like GLITS, the Trans Lifeline, or a mutual aid fund in your community.

5 Ways to Make Video Sex Less Nervewracking!

Kate Sloan

For the nervous among us, video sex (…or whatever we’re calling it these days) can be a bone(r)-chilling proposition – not because we don’t want to have it, necessarily, but because of all the anxieties it raises:

Will my body look appealing enough to my partner, through the lens of my low-def (or, worse, high-def) webcam? Will the glow of my laptop screen create flattering light in a dark room, or will it just make me look like a scene from The Blair Witch Project? Will my internet die at an inopportune moment, leaving a harrowing freeze-frame of me on my paramour’s screen? Will I squirt all over my very expensive computer and incur the wrath of the nerds at the Genius Bar?! (Uhh, that last one has never actually happened to me… yet…)

I’ve been in a long-distance relationship for seven years, and although phone sex is our go-to, we do occasionally have sex via video call – and, while it initially made me shake with anxiety, I’ve used the following tips to get much more comfortable with it…

 

Tip #1: You don’t have to do video the whole time (or at all!)

Obligatory note on consent: If you don’t want to have video sex, you don’t have to. Period. There are other ways to connect sexually in long-distance relationships, and if video doesn’t turn your crank, I’d encourage you to communicate that to your partner and discuss other options. (This might be a dealbreaker for them if they’re a very visually-oriented person… or it might not, because photos exist. Who knows.)

That being said, it’s possible to freely consent to video sex even if you’re not that excited about it. Maybe there are things about it that turn you on, like being able to see/hear your partner’s reactions to your body, but your anxieties get in the way eventually. This has often been the case for me, so I very much appreciate that my partner and I will sometimes switch to an audio call after a while. The visuals are like an appetizer, or an aperitif, whereas the phone call is the main dish. Going audio-only helps me relax more, so I can enjoy myself more – and maybe it would help you in the same way.

 

Tip #2: Seek salacious inspiration

Whenever I feel unsexy in a particular sexual situation, I’ll look up videos of porn performers in that same situation, and see how they do it. Now, granted, this isn’t always the best approach – (most) porn is meant as entertainment, not education, and you may want to skip this one if you know that porn triggers your insecurities – but it’s an interesting starting point, at the very least.

Pay attention to stuff like: What poses/positions/angles do they use? Which toys seem to both feel awesome and look awesome on camera? How much time are they spending flirting with the viewer versus focusing on their own pleasure? What aspects of their style/approach, if any, appeal to you or would feel fun for you to try out? If it’s within your relationship boundaries, you could even hop onto a website featuring cam performers, BDSM cams, etc. and watch a live show for inspiration (don’t forget to tip!).

 

Tip #3: Wear something you feel cute in (and leave it on, if you want to!)

While sex is commonly depicted as a naked activity, it doesn’t have to be! I often feel more confident when I’m sporting a little outfit of some kind, even if said “outfit” is just a slip dress and some thigh-high socks. Sometimes I’ll strip it all off before the night is over, but other times I’ll just pull clothing aside to access relevant body parts as needed.

If the idea of being fully naked in front of a webcam freaks you out, why not ask your partner what clothing or accessories they’d find you hottest in? You don’t have to fulfill their wishes, of course – there are very few people for whom I would willingly subject myself to an underwire at this point, for instance! – but it could help you feel a whole lot foxier without even having to take your clothes off.

 

Tip #4: Try a medium-appropriate roleplay

It can sometimes feel awkward to try to replicate analog sex in a digital medium, so to speak… which is why it might help to do a roleplay that makes sense as a video call.

For example, you could roleplay a telehealth appointment gone awry when the doctor gets the hots for their patient… or an online job interview that yields chemistry more personal than professional… or a tech-support call with a shy-but-corruptible computer nerd. The possibilities are effectively endless! (And once again – if you need inspo, roleplaying live cams sites are a good place to start.)

 

Tip #5: Wear a blindfold

It may seem counterintuitive to wear a blindfold while engaging in such a visual form of sex… and indeed, if visuals are your primary turn-on, you might wanna skip this one. But I wanted to mention it, because wearing a blindfold reduces my sexual anxiety massively. It means that I don’t have to see myself on the screen (something that can also be fixed via settings in some apps, or by sticking a Post-It note over your own face on the screen – hey, whatever w0rks!), and it also just allows me to focus more closely on things that turn me on more than visuals do, like sounds, words, and sensations.

 

What has helped you most in combating video-sex anxieties?

 

This post contains sponsored links. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

Why Does Ovulation Make Me Crave Realistic Dildos So Bad?!

Kate Sloan
Pictured: realistic dildos made by Solina, Vixen Creations, and the Pleasure Tailor

One Sunday afternoon, I grabbed the bin of dirty sex toys from under my bed and brought it to the sink for cleaning. As I stared down into its contents, I was confronted with the realization: Every single toy in the bin was a realistic dildo. Apparently, I had craved cock – and only cock – for the past week or more.

I chuckled about this as I began soaping up the dildos, giving them sudsy handjobs under running water. I wondered what could possibly explain this sudden phallic fascination. On a hunch, I whipped out my phone to check my cycle tracking app – and lo and behold, I was (very likely) ovulating. Suddenly, it all made perfect sense.

Now, don’t get it twisted – I am a huge fan of dicks, and of their silicone facsimiles, on most days of the month, not just when I’m ovulating. But despite how much I like getting dicked down, I don’t fantasize about it all that often. Like the majority of people with vulvas, most of my pleasure – and all of my orgasms – come from clit stimulation, so when I’m fantasizing about having stuff done to me, usually it’s some kind of clit stuff.

But around ovulation time, I’ve noticed that my thoughts seem to wander to dicks more often. I used to notice this most acutely when I worked in sex toy retail and would catch myself staring longingly at the dildo display, filthy images flitting through my mind – but only at that particular time in my cycle. And now, I see it in my dirty-toy bin, which tells me truths about my current headspace like prophetic tea leaves in a cup.

Of course, from an evo-psych perspective, it makes complete sense that I would crave peen-in-vag sex at the time when that type of sex could most readily knock me up. I don’t even know whether I’m physically capable of getting pregnant (I’ve never knowingly been pregnant, never had a pregnancy scare, and have a history of ovarian cysts and irregular periods), but nonetheless, my body and brain seem to be pushing me toward that outcome when I ovulate.

This is a good illustration of something I strongly believe about sex toys: that they can help us make better sexual decisions for ourselves – decisions that are more in line with our values, preferences, and goals, both in and out of the bedroom. Back in the day, for instance, I used to sate my cyclical cock cravings by finding people to hook up with on dating apps – and while there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, the urgency of my desire would sometimes lead me to ignore red flags and rush into an evening of stilted conversation and bad sex.

These days, the only dicks that interest me are the ones attached to people I actually like, and the disembodied ones in my nightstand drawers. I would much rather keep myself satisfied with sex toys as needed, and only go out with people who genuinely excite me and treat me well, than roll the dice on impulsive hookups that are almost never as good as the fantasies in my head.

I’m sure some people would argue, “It’s not the same! Using a dildo could never feel as good as real human connection!” and to those people, I would say: Have you even felt dual-density silicone, babe?! It feels pretty fuckin’ good, my dude!!

But also: I do experience real human connection when masturbating. It’s a connection with myself, my body, and my fantasies. And anyone who doesn’t see the intrinsic value in that is just not someone I’d allow into my life – let alone into my holes.

 

This post contains a sponsored link. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.