With so much of my life this year taking place indoors, I relied even more on my favorite media-makers to keep me entertained, informed, and uplifted. All 5 of my picks for this year’s sex-savvy superheroes list are people whose media creations I adore, but they’re also just wonderful, smart people. I hope you check out their work and that you enjoy it as much as I do!
Rachel Rabbit White is mostly known as a poet these days, and while her poetry is indeed transcendent, I first encountered her work about a decade ago, when she was one of the only people I’d ever heard of who was successfully making a living as a sex journalist. I actually interviewed her in 2012 for a first-year journalism school assignment where we were tasked with asking for advice from a journalist we admired; she was gracious and kind. Her debut book of poetry, Porn Carnival, felt like a useful reminder this year to lean into hedonism, glamour, and messy joy, even in times of great global strife.
Tuck Woodstock is the host and creator of the Gender Reveal podcast, one of the best sources of high-level gender discourse on the internet (IMO). They’re also a journalist who has covered anti-police protests in Portland, among other topics. One of the things I admire most about him is his commitment to mutual aid: over $150,000 has been redistributed to trans and nonbinary folks in need, due to Tuck’s work and advocacy, and the generosity of the community they have created. There is always more to learn about gender, regardless of how you identify in that area, and I’m so grateful for Tuck’s work and all that it has taught me.
Princess Kelley May is a spanking fetishist and professional disciplinarian. This year I absolutely fell in love with her YouTube channel, Spanking University, which is full of indispensable advice, not only for spankophiles but really for sadomasochists of all stripes. Her advice is more thoughtful, thorough, and experience-backed than most I’ve seen; I love, for example, her thoughts on accounting for differences in body size and ability level in her video on the over-the-knee position, and her detailed explanation of how to play safely without a safeword. Her education is life-changing and I wish I could show these videos to every spanking newbie!
Kai Cheng Thom is a writer, performer, and former therapist who writes my favorite advice column on the internet, and I was so grateful for all of her words this year. She writes with such kindness on topics like sex, gender, dating, mental health, addiction, and abuse. She also studies conflict resolution techniques and has (bravely) publicly opposed the widespread harassment campaigns that often result when the left turns against itself in cancel-culture spectacles of misguided, performative rage. She’s one of the most courageous and compassionate writers I know of.
Dixie De La Tour is the host and creator of Bawdy Storytelling, a sex-themed storytelling event that I was lucky enough to perform in this year (you can listen to my story on the Bawdy podcast). Prior to speaking at Bawdy, I had no idea the extent to which Dixie makes herself available to storytellers for help shaping and sharpening each story to make it gleam. She transformed mine from a quirky little anecdote to a fully-fledged emotional tale with a beginning, middle, and end. She’s also just incredibly charismatic and a joy to watch on stage (or on Zoom, as the case may be) – she has a way of making the audience much more comfortable with explicit subject matter, even taboo stuff, with her easy charm and matter-of-fact approach to all things sexy. Definitely check out the Bawdy podcast if you need more sexy stories in your life!
I was sent this toy by the good folks at SheVibe as part of my research for an article I wrote for them on dildo materials other than silicone. In perusing their site, I realized that I’d tried almost all of these materials – glass, metal, ceramic – but had yet to try one of these crystal dildos, which are beloved by the Goop crowd, among others. This one is made of rose quartz, which is believed (by people who believe in such things) to help cultivate self-love and self-compassion, something I could definitely use some help with from time to time.
To my surprise, I ended up really enjoying this toy. The smooth shape of it makes it feel luxurious and gentle when well-lubed, even if I’m not super turned on yet. The slim end can nudge my A-spot on every thrust. The girth is satisfying but not overpowering. And the cool, smooth feeling of the rose quartz is soothing and calming, as you would hope a dildo oriented toward spiritual self-love would be.
There’s some debate in the sex toy community about whether crystal dildos are actually any good (it has been posited that they are porous and also bad for the environment). I don’t know enough about the material and its harvesting process to make a fair assessment of that, but I know I haven’t had any vaginal issues from using my Chakrubs toy. It’s definitely not something I reach for every week or even every month, but when I’m craving a woo-woo experience that’s focused on self-adoration, this is the toy for the job.
I had heard about Lovense for years because of their toys’ proliferation in the webcam performer community, but this year I finally got to try some for myself, as research for various articles on long-distance toys.
The Max 2 is their vibrating stroker, and it does some wild stuff. It pairs a textured sleeve with powerful vibrations, and on top of that, it can also mimic vaginal contractions by rhythmically squeezing your dick while it’s in there.
Best of all, it can be used with Lovense’s robust and reliable Bluetooth technology, so I can control a long-distance partner’s pleasure from far away. My spouse and I used this toy a lot this year while we were separated by distance, but also sometimes when we weren’t, because the interface on Lovense’s app allows me to stroke their cock the way I want to without actually using my hands – something I appreciate as a person who deals with pain and strength issues in my hands at times.
My partner often has super intense orgasms with this toy. We’ve found the Max 2 particularly fun to use as part of chastity play – it’s a wonderful way to give them the release they’ve earned after a week or more in chastity. But it’s also just a fantastic stroker for day-to-day usage. Well done, Lovense!
As I noted in my review, the Balldo really surprised me. I mean, it’s a silicone apparatus that slips over your balls and turns them into a dildo you can fuck someone with. How good could it really be?
Pretty good, it turns out. And certainly unique. While getting it on is a struggle, and it’s prone to slipping out once you actually get it into somebody, it works so well for us when it’s working. My partner’s able to achieve the “ballgasms” promised by the toy, and I’m able to enjoy the utter weirdness of the whole situation, alongside the hotness of seeing/hearing/feeling my partner experiencing a whole new type of pleasure.
If you’re dating/fucking someone who is open to adventure and has a good sense of humor, I think this could be a good gift for them. Or at least a gift they won’t soon forget.
This is a newer acquisition for me, and I’m loving it so far. There just aren’t that many companies out there making body-safe wooden sex toys (NobEssence is the most notable one), so I’m always glad to see new makers popping up on the scene.
I picked this toy over another Dee Lee Doo toy (the G-spot-focused Habu) because I thought it’d be able to hit my A-spot, and I was right. The length and shape of this toy are absolutely perfect for hitting that spot, whether I’m handling it myself or giving control over to a partner.
I like that wood is such a lightweight material, because it’s still easy for me to manipulate when I’m having a flare-up of pain or fatigue. It’s also hard without being overwhelmingly hard like metal and glass can be, making it an especially good pick for hitting a spot that simultaneously craves firm pressure and needs some gentleness. I hope to see more from this company in the new year!
My partner bought me this gorgeous leather strap as a gift after we saw spanking aficionado Princess Kelley May rave about it in a video. I don’t think I’d ever been spanked with a strap before, and it’s been wonderful getting to know that new sensation!
This is such a stunning product, “hand-crafted from beginning to end” by expert leatherworkers. I love the way it feels, both in my hand and on my ass.
As Kelley May points out in the video linked above, this strap is initially somewhat firm and inflexible but will soften with use. Right now, mine is still in the firm stage, so it feels more like a leather paddle – stingy with a side of thud. I’m looking forward to feeling what it feels like when it’s softened up a bit.
Another Lovense toy?! Yep, they really are that good.
This is another one that gets used exclusively on my partner and not on me – but I love using it on them! It’s a vibrating butt plug with two motors: one for the prostate and one for the perineum. Like the Max 2 above, it can be controlled from a distance using Lovense’s excellent app. Notably, you can control each of the motors separately, which makes it great for (as its name would suggest) edging.
This one is tons of fun to use when my partner is in chastity, because I can give them prostate orgasms even while their cock is in a chastity cage, and even when I’m 500 miles away. Truly amazing.
What, you thought I wasn’t gonna include the dildo I designed on this list?! Not a chance.
Obviously I love the Easy A because it was designed to meet my needs, as someone who adores deep penetration and also has hand strength issues that benefit from ergonomic sex toy bases. But I really think a lot of people would like this toy. The squishiness of the triple-density silicone is delightful, the bright blue color is swoonworthy, and the shape! Oh, the shape! It’s just exactly what I want an A-spot toy to be shaped like.
I remember the jubilation I felt when I discovered that the deep spot that reliably made me come had a name – and, more importantly, that there were sex toys out there (albeit not very many of them) that could target it efficiently and pleasurably. I’m so glad to have partnered with the folks at the Pleasure Tailor to create an addition to the scant-but-growing selection of A-spot toys on the market!
I get excited every time We-Vibe comes out with a new product, because they are truly one of the best companies in this industry right now. Their toys are well-made, aesthetically pleasing, and (best and most importantly of all) have legendarily good motors.
I was especially excited that they decided to update their classic bullet vibe, the Tango, of which I’d been a long-time fan. This new version, the Tango X, is a massive improvement. It has more speeds, easier charging, a travel lock, a silicone finger grip, and just overall feels like a nicer, better toy than the original Tango.
Since it’s pleasantly rumbly and relatively affordable for a rechargeable vibe of its caliber, this is one of my top recommendations for beginners who are curious about vibrators but don’t know where to start. If you like clitoral/external stimulation, you’d probably like this toy. I certainly do!
When I first received this toy, I did not expect that it would end up becoming one of my favorite toys of the year, and possibly my favorite pressure-wave toy of all time. Lelo is a company known for doing shocking things, often in a bad way – but this toy shocked me in a very good way.
As far as oral sex simulators go, this is the only one I’ve found that encases not just the tip of my clit but also my entire clitoral shaft, an oft-ignored part of clitoral anatomy. It’s like the difference between a tongue swirling around the head of a dick and a full-on deepthroat blowjob. (For that reason, it’s also potentially great for trans men and other transmasculine folks, aside from the twee/feminine-leaning color scheme.)
This toy sets itself apart from other pressure-wave products with its soft aesthetic and thoughtful design (especially those flat “lips,” which help the toy create a good seal around my clit). It’s elegant and well-made. It’s waterproof, so I can take it in the tub for a relaxing wank, featuring oral sex fantasies galore. It’s the one pressure-wave toy I would take with me on a desert island, if for some reason I had to do that. It’s just really damn good and I’m glad I own one.
What sex toys did you love most this year?
P.S.: Thanks for buying through my affiliate links! When you do so, I get a small commission at no extra cost to you. It’s basically like tipping me for providing such excellent recommendations 😉
Music was, as ever, a huge part of my life this year – and, as ever, I’m gathering 10 of my favorite songs into a blog post here, and writing little essays about how they made me feel as I listened to them on repeat all year long.
Originally this list was titled “10 Perfect Sex Songs,” but this year I’ve changed it to simply “10 Perfect Songs,” because the way I feel about music is just so much bigger than its applications for sex. But plenty of these are very, very sexy nonetheless.
The best way to read this post is to hit “play” on the embedded player above each song before you read about it, so you can get a sense for the vibe of the track while you read. (Trust me, these songs are gooooood.)
As always, I’ve collected these songs, along with all the previous years’ selections, into a Spotify playlist which you are welcome to check out. I hope you enjoy this year’s picks!
Don’t want to share you with the stars in the night / I only want you to only want me / Now, then and forever / Even jealous of the sun in your eyes / I want you looking at me, only me / I want all your attention
When I got my very first cellphone at age 13 or so – a petite silver Audiovox flip phone – one of the first things I did with it was figure out how to create custom ringtones. I remember spending hours after school painstakingly editing music files into ringtone-friendly lengths and formats, so that familiarly bright musical stings could punctuate my days. One of the very first songs I set as my ringtone was this one.
I’d been enamored with Daniel and his music for quite some time, but particularly with this song. At that age, it struck me as one of the most romantic things I’d ever heard: the narrator of the song (or, in poetry parlance, the “speaker”) is beseeching his partner/crush to let everything else in her life fall by the wayside so as to focus her entire attention on him. This spoke to me deeply at that age; I was struggling with the same desperate adolescent longing to be someone’s central focus in a romantic way, particularly since boys were not exactly flocking to date me, with my blue-bracketed braces, zitty skin, and total lack of self-confidence. I dreamed of someone being as obsessed with me one day as Bedingfield seems to be with his mystery lady in this song.
That said, like many things I enjoyed at age 13, this one barely holds up. To a modern, progressive ear, it lands as selfish, whiny, manipulative, possessive, even abusive – but under the veneer of sexy sentimentality and melodious romance. I still think it’s hot and sweet in its own way, but only when I’m able to envision it as depicting a consensual kinky relationship, rather than real-life scary obsessiveness. Love can make us want to behave in inappropriate ways at times, but that doesn’t mean we have to let those impulses move beyond the realm of thought and into the land of reality.
I’m getting hot at just the thought of what I’d do to you / ‘Cause in my head, I’m in your bed and getting through to you / They made the internet for nights like these / I love you, baby; send a picture of your tits, please
I didn’t know what to expect when my spouse and I loaded up Bo Burnham’s then-brand-new special, Inside, on Netflix and pressed play. Bo is traditionally the king of snarky silliness in song form, as his previous specials can attest, and I figured this would be more of the same. But Inside is so much more than that, as I wrote when I called it a masterpiece on this very blog.
As you know if you’ve seen it, the first half of Inside is rife with classic Bo goofiness that nonetheless hints constantly at the depressed, anxious mess beneath the surface, which we get to experience more directly in the darker, more existential second half. One of the first-act bangers is “Sexting,” a song that makes me scream with laughter every time I watch the video. In his razor-sharp way, Bo lampoons staples of millennials’ textual intercourse, like communicating in emojis (“you send me a peach / I send a carrot back / you send a Ferris wheel / that’s pretty abstract”), wanting nudes from a partner while being too insecure to send any oneself (“you send the pic and say it’s now my turn / Jesus fucking Christ, I guess I never learn”), and worrying about whether the asynchronous medium is breeding misunderstandings (it usually is).
However, then, as only Bo could do, he pivots easily from texty sexytimes into the crushing loneliness that can set in when the technology fails you, or when digital sex feels too starkly different from in-person sex to generate a meaningful oxytocin high, or when you put your phone down and wipe up the cum, only to notice with shocking intensity just how alone you actually are. “Another night on my own / stuck in my home / sitting alone / one hand on my dick and one hand on my phone,” Burnham laments, and to that, all I can say is: been there, Bo. Been there.
No, I’m not a snack at all / Look, baby, I’m the whole damn meal
I was late to the party with regards to Lizzo, because I just don’t listen to that much mainstream/top-40 music these days, but I’m so glad I finally checked her out. It must have been the third or fourth time I heard this song, and found myself physically compelled to dance, that I finally whipped out my phone to figure out what the hell I was listening to.
It’s since become my favorite medicine for low-energy days, for bad-body-image days, for everything-is-terrible days. I’ll put it on, start moving my body, and feel the greyness start to lift. In particular, I think it’s the all-time best song for dancing to while nude in front of a mirror; every time I do this, it feels like someone just injected me with liquid confidence. Sincerely, Lizzo, thank you for the gift that is this song.
My enjoyment of sex, or indeed my very ability to be mentally present during sex, can be strongly affected by my body image du jour. Intrusive thoughts about my thighs and ass and belly frequently interrupt otherwise sexy interludes, frustrating me and worrying my partners. Listening to this song feels like saying a prayer for body-positivity, accepting (and adoring) the things I cannot change, embracing all the parts of me because they’re me and thus inherently worthy. It’s worth putting on every sex playlist I make from here on out, if just because hearing even its opening chords makes my whole body relax, like it finally knows it’s beautiful.
Life after you / Life overdue / My girl, you know that I had dreamed of you
What a lot of the songs on this year’s list have in common is that they seem to send a shot of dopamine directly to my brain. This one is no different.
Violents is a project by my all-time favorite singer/songwriter, Jeremy Larson. Normally he writes songs and a smooth-voiced collaborator sings them, but the EP this song is from, June, is about being a new adoptive father and all the feelings associated with that, so it made sense for him to sing this one himself. And it’s stunning.
“After You” is an open-hearted, revelatory, no-holds-barred love song for Jeremy’s first daughter. It marks a clear delineation between life before her and life after her. I have thought a lot about parenthood this year – mostly because I am reaching the age at which people start insisting women think about this topic, as if it would be a crime if we chose to stay childless – and, while I’m not at all convinced I ever want kids, pieces of art like this song make me wonder if I’d be missing out.
It’s not enough / Keeping up / When my chin is dripping with you / One hell of a view / Hopefully, I can make these legs move if I try
I don’t know what this song is about, but I know that when I first heard Nathan of Brotherkenzie sing these particular lyrics, I blushed. If indeed this section is about cunnilingus, which I believe it is, then it’s one of the gentlest, most anti-bravado and anti-machismo references to cunnilingus I’ve ever heard in a song. In context it sounds gentle, slow, gradual, sweet. The lyrics signal genuine enjoyment of the act and genuine interest in the pleasure it can produce. It’s just… nice.
This isn’t at all a conventional pick for a “sexy song,” and yet there’s something about it that feels to me like slow, familiar sex with someone who knows your body. The dependable rhythm of it. The prodding, plodding sweetness. The way your favorite face fills with rapture as it peers up at you from between your legs. One hell of a view.
I don’t know how to pay for therapy / I imagine if I did, I’d have some clarity / I don’t know how to weather ignorance / Makes me wanna drink wine and eat some cigarettes
I don’t know how to even convey how much Ben Hopkins’s music meant to me this year. But this is a song about not knowing how to do things, so maybe that’s okay.
There’s a certain freneticism to my interactions with other millennials in recent years, a constant low hum of existential anxiety and manic dread. You can’t ask a clued-in millennial a question about their future, or the future of humanity, without them going into a bit of a tailspin.
This is gonna sound douchey but the current state of the world makes me really grateful I got to take some classes on existential philosophy in university, because I don’t know how I would make sense of our current world without existentialist thought to fall back on. One of the biggest revelations I picked up from those classes was this: When the existentialists realized there was probably no God, no “true path” for any of them, no “meaning of life,” initially they were distraught – but then, after a “dark night of the soul,” often there would come a point when the lack of any inherent meaning began to feel less like a burden and more like freedom. The freedom to create your own meaning, your own path, your own purpose.
So much of Ben Hopkins’s music, but especially this song, makes me feel that way. It’s music that commiserates with the listener about the pointlessness and absurdity of [gestures broadly] all this, but at the same time, finds some raucous joy and connection in all that madness. Ben and their collaborator Tsebiyah shout back and forth at one another in this song about all the things they don’t know how to do, and then come together in the chorus to chant, “I don’t know what I’m doing / I don’t know if it’s right / I don’t know what I’m doing / I don’t know if it’s right,” like a tragic, silly, sad, excited, terrified, brave millennial mantra.
Something inside us / Knows there’s nothing guaranteed / Girl, I don’t need you / To tell me that you’ll never leave / When we’ve done all that we could / To turn darkness into light, turn evil to good / Even when we try so hard / For that perfect kind of love / It could all fall apart
I’ve loved watching John Legend’s evolution as an artist over the past several years. A lot of his early music made him sound like a bit of a cad, even if those songs were fictional (I’m not sure if they were or not); he seemed to churn out endless songs about cheating on a partner, wanting to cheat on a partner, thinking about cheating on a partner, avoiding (or giving in to) the temptation to cheat on a partner, etc. But those albums all came out when he was in his 20s; modern-day John Legend is a mature man with a big heart and a beautiful way with words, and his songs land just as sexy for me now as they always have, but much more romantic.
“Love Me Now” is a type of love song I’ve never heard before, a love song arising from non-toxic masculinity and compassionate realism. It acknowledges the fact that even relationships we think will last forever might not, and that life goes on after those relationships end. Most notably, it states: “I don’t know who’s gonna kiss you when I’m gone, so I’m gonna love you now, like it’s all I have.”
You could interpret this to mean that John doesn’t want anyone else to kiss his lady-love when and if he’s out of her life, but I have a different read on it. To me, it sounds like he wants her to always have someone to kiss, because he wants her to be happy. But he knows he can’t guarantee that, so he’s going to do his best to make up for that future uncertainty in the present. This reminds me of every partner of mine who’s taken non-monogamy as an invitation to love me harder, not a challenge to love me “better than” my other partner(s). We all deserve someone in our life who wants nothing but happiness for us. We all deserve a partner who wonders, with hope and in earnest, who’s gonna kiss us when they’re gone.
You make me pace / Make me chase / Make my heart race / I dig you when you ditch me cold / ‘Cause I’m a sheep / I’m a creep / And I’m losing sleep / No, I don’t know what’s right for you, baby / Wild babe / I just wanna be your prey
Cruisr has showed up on this list previously for their up-tempo kinky bop “Kidnap Me,” and I still listen to that one on a regular basis. But “Wild Babe” may have eclipsed it as my fave Cruisr tune, simply because it makes me want to be the wild babe it eponymizes. And when I dance to it, I feel like I’m becoming her.
To me, this is a song about that sunny feeling when a new crush bursts into your life and is instantly all you can think about. That feeling was in short supply for many of us during the pandemic; this song feels like it’d be the right thing to listen to on the walk to your first post-COVID date with your first post-COVID crush, heart pounding in rhythm with the drums.
At the end of the day / Would you do what it takes? / If I fall, am I safe? / Validation hit different when you don’t gotta ask for it / Would you push your pride to the side? / Prove me wrong by doing it right
I’ve included an Alina Baraz song on this list literally every year since I started doing this, because almost every year she puts out stunningly sexy new songs. She’s an absolute queen of the slowjam genre.
This song sticks out to me most on her latest EP because it’s about stating your boundaries, holding your ground, lifting your head high and maintaining your standards. Some of Alina’s past songs have been about melting under a man’s touch, getting lost in the reverie of a new flirtation, bending her life and her self to accommodate a powerful infatuation. But this one is different. “Say you wanna keep up,” she dares him; “If you stay the night, you could change my mind.” It’s the ultimate fuck-you to a fuckboy – and a dare for him to do better, to be better, so he can be with her.
I’ll channel Alina Baraz in this song if ever I need to tell someone, in the future, that they’re not currently meeting my standards but that they’re always welcome to change my mind.
You’re so sweet, so tight / I won’t bite, unless you like / If you smoke, I got the haze / And if you’re hungry, girl, I got filets
My brother Max tipped me off to this one. When he gives me a music recommendation, I listen, because 99% of the time, if he thinks I’ll like a song, I end up loving it.
You know that feeling when you get a “booty call” text from the person you’ve been secretly hoping would send you that exact text for hours, if not days or weeks? That feeling of jubilation, excitement, and promise? That feeling that makes you want to spring out of bed, shed your pajamas in favor of a flashier ensemble, slick on some lip gloss and head out to face the thrills of the night to come? This song is that feeling, distilled into a 4-minute-long radio-ready slowjam. It’s perfection.
The lines I quoted above are my favorites, because to me there’s something genuinely healing about a man expressing desire for a woman in a way that acknowledges that she eats – that her hunger is potentially not just sexual but literal, too. Sounds silly, maybe, but we’ve all heard (or experienced firsthand) those tropes about how women only order salad on dates. I’ve always appreciated beaux who showed zero evidence of fat-shaming or food-shaming, and in fact actively encouraged me to stay nourished enough to have good sex – by making me a protein-packed pre-sex steak for energy, handing me a bottle of Gatorade to refuel my electrolytes mid-session, or (in one case) bringing me a selection of refrigerated chocolate bars on a midsummer night to help pump me up for a round 2.
I have no doubts, after listening to this song as many times as I have, that Bruno Mars is a great person to receive a booty call from. He’s passionate. He’s polite. He’s gonna leave the door open for you. Dreamy.
There are many annoying questions I face on a regular basis as a result of being a sex toy reviewer. One of them is, “So you just get paid to masturbate all day?” (Hahahaha, no.) Another is, “And your spouse is okay with that?!” (Um, yes; it’s part of why they married me!) But that second question is usually just a precursor to a third, even more irritating question: “So what’s better – a dildo or a human dick?”
Trust me when I say that this is like asking if a cold bottled Coke is more delicious than a hand-mixed cocktail, or like asking if I’d rather watch a movie cozied up at home with loved ones or tilted back in my chair at an IMAX theatre, or like asking if I’d prefer to see Shakespeare in the park featuring local actors or Shakespeare performed in a high-budget movie starring Anthony Hopkins. Which is to say… there is (for me at least) no clear, definitive answer, because comparing the two in the first place is an erroneous thing to do. They are simply not comparable. Each exists to address a particular mood, or need, or whim. I wouldn’t say it’s a choice between “apples and oranges,” exactly; it’s more like the choice between a fresh juicy apple pulled straight off the tree or a simmered and spiced apple crumble prepared by a skilled chef. It really just depends on what you’re craving.
Dildos can hit some spots dicks can hit, and some spots they cannot. Dicks are warm by default, unless you’re dating a vampire; sex toys are not, though you can pre-warm them if you want to. Humans can cuddle you, talk dirty to you, make you feel loved and appreciated; dildos simply can’t. You wouldn’t ask a human being to punch a nail into a plank with their bare fist; you’d use a hammer. Likewise, you wouldn’t use a hammer to play the piano (I fucking hope); you’d ask a human, one with graceful fingers and a musical mind, to play instead. Hammers and humans do not have the same skillset, and neither do dildos and dicks. It’s a fool’s errand to expect one to be able to do all the things the other is capable of.
I’ll say, too, that this question – “Are dildos better than dicks?” – is posed almost exclusively by people who apparently haven’t realized you can combine sex toys with human penises. Sex toys are still too often framed in mainstream sexual discourse as something a person (typically a cisgender, heterosexual woman) uses alone, often as a direct result of finding human sexual partners unsatisfactory or unattainable.
But this just has not been my experience of sexuality at any point in my life, whether I’ve been fucking men, women, nonbinary people, or some combination thereof. I’m deeply turned off by people who find sex toys threatening or distasteful, so the people I end up sexually entangled with are usually quite enthusiastic about incorporating toys into our play, particularly since I have so many of them. I would say sex toys are a part of literally about 98-99% of the sex I have these days – and rather than ever being a replacement for a partner, they tend to supplement and complement a partner’s skills, making touch more pleasurable and orgasm more attainable.
In every case, my partner is still present and engaged in what we’re doing together, so it would be inaccurate to say that the toy gave me an orgasm when in fact it was the toy in my partner’s hand that did so – or the toy in my own hand while my partner provided the psychological context that enabled me to get off. In many cases it doesn’t even matter if the toy is automated, as with vibrators with pulsing patterns, pressure-wave toys that suck my clit in rhythmic waves, or thrusting dildos like these ones; it was still my partner’s presence that made the sensations hot in a different way than they are when I’m alone, and so it was inherently a partnered experience even if my partner played a role closer to narrator or observer than direct participant.
My inboxes and DMs will probably always abound with messages from people who envy their partner’s toy(s), and people who resent their partner’s toy envy. While it’s tempting for me to tell the latter type of person to “dump the motherfucker already” because toxic views of sex toys are a red flag in my mind, I know that not everyone feels that way, and some people are willing to put in the work to help a partner become comfortable with toy usage. For those people, my advice would be:
Emphasize what your partner brings to the table. Make it clear to them that they are providing value that goes above and beyond (or is simply different than) what a toy can offer.
Emphasize, too, your own pleasure and how much you desire it. Presumably one of the things your partner finds hot about fucking you is seeing/hearing/feeling you experience pleasure, and toys can amp that up. (If they’re not that interested in your pleasure, well, maybe they’re not a good person for you to be sleeping with.)
Maybe don’t skip straight to huge, hyper-realistic dildos if your partner is sensitive about their dick size or prowess. Small toys might be easier for those folks to handle initially. (But also, your preferences matter here too, so if you’re all about huge dildos, don’t let a partner shame you out of that perfectly valid desire.)
My hope is that toys will someday be so utterly un-taboo that they will easily become part of the sex lives of anyone who wants to use them. We’re not quite there yet, not only for the reasons outlined in this post but also for cost reasons, health and safety reasons, geographic access reasons, and more – but I’m holding out hope for shame-free, pleasurable, technologically-enhanced sexuality for all who desire it.
This post was sponsored. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.
