Content note: This post contains some non-explicit, not-super-detailed descriptions of times that I was sexually creeped on by adults when I was a teen.
I’ve always had a complicated relationship to the foot fetish community. Some of my earliest memories of feeling creeped out and sexually taken advantage of are related to foot fetishism, unfortunately. But that just means I have to work harder to overcome my biases and embrace kinksters who approach this fetish in fully consensual, 100% respectful ways – unlike those who started harassing me online when I was 14.
I’ve been posting outfit photos on-and-off since 2006, and one thing that happens when you post outfit photos to an audience of any significant size is that you attract people who fetishize the stuff you wear. People flocked to my Flickr page to fawn over my leggings, my corduroy shorts, the leather gloves I’d occasionally put on for fancy events. Pretty much anything I ever wore, there would be somebody who’d fetishize it.
But unfortunately it was often the foot fetishists who were the most extreme in this behavior. Even when I was literally 14 years old, I would receive comments and messages from them regularly, demanding that I post more barefoot pics, wear more sandals, or even send them my old and unwanted pairs of shoes. Some of them would lie to me in order to achieve the result they wanted; I’ll never forget the one who told me he ran a “recycling plant” for old sneakers and would be happy to accept my donations. Even at 14, I saw right through that shit and called him out – but it made me feel deeply uncomfortable and violated nonetheless, to be so intensely sexualized by strangers who clearly just saw me as a body for their visual consumption.
It’s been 16 years since I first started posting outfit photos online, and I have a lot more perspective on human behavior now – not to mention, a lot more knowledge about the shame and secrecy that run rampant in fetish communities. It actually makes total sense to me that people who’ve had their deepest sexual desires shamed and stigmatized for many years would turn to unsavory tactics to get their needs met. I’m not saying it’s okay – it’s deeply, deeply not okay at all – but I do understand where the impulse comes from. It’s just not a good impulse, because it involves prioritizing your own pleasure and gratification over someone else’s personhood and safety – and that’s never acceptable, no matter how difficult it may have been to live with the fetish that you have.
These experiences have made me extra appreciative in adulthood of fetishists who are straightforward and respectful, e.g. those who politely request sexy feet pics from me with the clear knowledge that money will need to be exchanged in order for those photos to materialize. (If that’s something you’re interested in, by the way, you should click here.)
It’s not that paying for foot-related media is the only way to access it respectfully; it’s just that it’s the only way for an internet stranger to get foot-related media from me, specifically, and I know many others feel the same. That’s why websites like FunWithFeet.com are so cool – they connect people who want foot content with people who are willing to provide it, for an agreed-upon fee.
I always wished for something like this when I was in my late teens/early twenties, because it frustrated me to no end that random men would demand I post more pics of me in sandals, or whatever, and not even offer to buy me the sandals in question. I longed for platforms where consensual, ethical fetishism could be expressed and enjoyed by anyone who wanted to participate, and where no one would ever feel even remotely pressured into doing something they didn’t want to do. So it’s pretty awesome to me that FunWithFeet and other such foot-focused hubs exist.
Another aspect of all this is the way foot fetishism manifests in my personal life, as opposed to my professional life. I’ve had a few partners who were into feet to some degree, including my current partner. It was educational and weirdly cleansing to satisfy real-life partners’ desire for foot pics after having been lied to, used, grossed out and taken advantage of by so many foot fetishists as a teen.
A beloved partner politely requesting pictures of my feet felt completely different from a faceless internet stranger one-handedly and irately demanding I post foot pics for free. It still made me nervous at times, but in different ways: I was nervous about whether my feet were pretty enough to be fetishized, whether they needed a pedicure, whether they’d somehow be a turn-off instead of a turn-on.
Luckily, though, all my foot fetishist partners have been incredibly complimentary about my feet and have never made me feel the way those online strangers did – like my feet were my entire value and the rest of me didn’t matter. Even now, when we’re lying on the couch together watching a movie at night, my partner will sometimes sweetly ask if they can remove my socks and massage my feet while we watch – and though it still sometimes feels vulnerable, or embarrassing, or tickly, I usually say yes.
It can be healing to encounter something that used to make you feel scared, sad, used, and unimportant, and to find ways to feel exactly the opposite about it. I’m reminded, once again, of one of the central lessons I’ve learned about sex as a whole: consent makes all the difference.
This post was sponsored. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.
Blow out the candles, I’m 30 today
Sing me that dissonant song
People keep asking me, “Are you okay?”
And I laugh and I half-play along
Recently, while I was combing my hair
I spotted a grey on the right
Could be a sign that I’m aging
Could be a trick of the light
It’s just a date on the calendar
I’m shuttled along like a passenger
And I’d like to speak to the manager
How am I 30?
How am I 30?
A woman can fade like a desolate flower
That’s how it seems when we’re sad
Losing our beauty is losing our power
And every last charm that we had
Everyone seems to be asking me
“When are you starting a family?”
But who knows what’s left in my ovaries?
How am I 30?
How am I 30?
Don’t wanna grow up
Makes me wanna throw up
I’m still 16 in my head
Make the clock stop
Let me take a year off
Guess I’m grateful I’m not dead
Though some days I’d like that instead
I doubt I’ll be dying disastrously
But there’s always the fear of catastrophe
Even with decades ahead of me
How am I 30?
All I can do is appreciate
My face and my age and my body weight
I guess I’ve got plenty to celebrate
Now that I’m 30
Now that I’m 30
Songwriting diary:
I’d been vaguely aware that I wanted to write a song about turning 30 – largely inspired by Bo Burnham’s brilliant song on the same subject – but I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted it to say. After I finished writing most of my song “Dreamgirl” in mid-April, I continued messing around on the little keyboard I’d written it on, and improvised a little section (“It’s just a date on the calendar/ I’m shuttled along like a passenger/ And I’d like to speak to the manager/ How am I 30?”) that reminded me rhythmically of “Another Hundred People” from Stephen Sondheim’s musical Company. I liked the nervous, syncopated feeling that it had, but still wasn’t sure what I thought the song should say – in part because I wasn’t having any particularly strong feelings about turning 30 – so I set it aside for a few weeks.
In early May I wrote some verses and a bridge about turning 30 but they were in a minor key and seemed like a weird fit with the major-key section I’d already written. I tried it on my keyboard and then on my baritone ukulele and it sounded sort of odd both ways. But then I decided to do a multi-instrumental arrangement for it in Garageband and it immediately made way more sense to me – the transitions between sections felt more purposeful, and had the sense of disorientation that aging can instill.
I did some minor lyric editing after the initial writing session. My spouse suggested using the word “catastrophe” in the verse about death, in lieu of “mortality,” and I’m glad I made that change because it works much better.
Song 20/52: “Credit Card”
Lyrics:
Got my new passport
And a burner phone I picked up at the airport
Got my next mark:
She’s a widow in a condo next to Central Park
I know where she’s goin’
And I follow her there without her even knowin’
Woo her at a bar
And play a character I carry in my repertoire
Chorus:
And I say “Hey, little honey, could you pick up the tab?
And when we’re heading home, would you pay for the cab?”
It’s oh so easy that it gets me hard
When you say yes and let me decimate your credit card
Yes, I’m a trickster
When she seems suspicious, I just stop and kiss her
That’s how it goes:
If you keep a lady happy then the money flows
(repeat chorus)
Would I do it to the queen? Yeah, you betcha!
To the stars on silver screens? Of course I would!
They can say they’d never fall for it
They can hide their cash and stall a bit
Still, I’d walk away with all of it
(repeat chorus)
Songwriting diary:
In February my spouse and I watched the documentary The Tinder Swindler together. I found it fascinating, not only because I like con-artist stories but also because, at times, I have dealt with anxiety-based delusions that my partner might actually just be pretending to like me in order to con me somehow. (You can hear that full story in this episode of the Bawdy Storytelling podcast if you’re interested.) I wanted to write a song from the perspective of a charismatic con man – equal parts Tinder Swindler, Harold Hill and Jordan Belfort – who uses his savviness and charm to get women to give him money.
I wrote the whole lyric one night. It was an odd case, as far as my usual songwriting process goes, because I didn’t start with any chords and wasn’t even playing an instrument; I just heard how I wanted the song to sound in my head, and then had to figure it out on piano. This was even trickier than I thought it would be because I heard the song distinctly as being in a bluesy/jazzy style, which is not a style I have a lot of experience playing in. (I think the last song I wrote in this style was a terrible one called “Ogle Me” when I was like 15.)
I ended up scrapping most of what I’d written, though. The verses were boring and the bridge was too redeeming – it showed the character’s human fallibility and vulnerability (“sometimes I feel a twinge of conscience/ but maybe it just means I don’t know what I want yet/ I’ll go online and click on ‘add to cart’/ and fill the empty pit inside my heart”) and I just didn’t think that was the right vibe for the song. But I really liked the chorus (“I say, hey, little honey, could you pick up the tab…”) and found that it would get stuck in my head a lot while I went about my day, which made me want to take another crack at the song. This has been a common thing lately: only deciding to continue with a song because it proves its catchiness to me.
Once again my spouse made a small-but-important contribution to my lyrics this week: originally the line in the chorus was “it’s oh so easy, gets me oh so hard” and then “it’s oh so easy and it gets me hard” and my spouse suggested that it should be “it’s oh so easy that it gets me hard.” It’s funny how sometimes you need an outside observer to tell you what the missing puzzle piece is, because you can’t see it yourself when you’ve been staring at the puzzle up-close for so long.
Song 21/52: “Bodily Autonomy”
Lyrics:
Have you heard the news today?
They’re trying to take our rights away
They think they know us, think they own us
And it’s not okay
You’d think that we could all agree
On bodily autonomy
They’d rather praise the olden days
And the economy
Chorus:
But I own my body, and it’s mine alone
And you own your body – every nerve, every bone
They don’t own our bodies; they just think they do
But thinking doesn’t make it true
I’m worried ’bout my oldest friends
Most of whom are queer and trans
And all the pride they’ve had to hide
It’s like it never ends
If someone wants a surgery
Or to end a pregnancy
It shouldn’t matter who gets mad
Or says they disagree
(repeat chorus)
If we never owned our bodies, do we own anything?
If they control our bodies, don’t they own everything?
How can they patrol our bodies? Their own bible says be kind
If they control our bodies, next they’re coming for our minds
(repeat chorus)
Songwriting diary:
I wrote this song in a way that was totally backwards compared to how I normally write songs. I was feeling deeply uninspired trying to improvise on my ukulele and piano like I normally might, so I fired up Garageband on my iPad and plugged in my Novation Launchkey midi keyboard. I had a vague idea that I wanted to write something in a waltz time signature with jazzy-sounding chords, so I tapped out a simple drum beat and laid down the first chord progression that popped into my head. Then I looped the 8 bars I’d recorded and tried improvising vocally over them for a while.
There were a bunch of different potential topics and ideas on my mind for the lyrics, one of which was the recent news that the U.S. Supreme Court plans on stripping its citizens of the right to safe abortions. I improvised the lines “Have you heard the news today?/ They’re trying to take our rights away” and it immediately felt well-suited to the melancholy vibe that the chords had, so I continued writing from there.
The lyrics went through many rewrites, most notably the second verse, which I knew had to be about trans issues. Initially it was totally different (“Some people need a medicine/ An androgen or estrogen/ To smile and thrive and stay alive/ And feel born again”) but I decided it was too medically focused and I moreso wanted to emphasize the feelings involved in being denied bodily autonomy.
The bridge took a lot of attempts to get right, too. Initially it was way more angry (“Give us a democracy instead of a theocracy/ Stop insisting blood and bone should ever be a battle zone/ Check your bible and you’ll find that your own savior says be kind/ All the founding fathers died and why should corpses be our guide?”) but the vibes were off. I usually just feel sad and despairing when I think about basic human rights being taken away; anger is a rarer response from me in that situation, so I didn’t really think I could “sell” it when I performed it, plus I knew people would be pissed about me referring to the founding fathers as corpses even though a bunch of them owned slaves and were demonstrably fallible. So I wrote a softer, more plaintive bridge that fit the mood of the rest of the song better.
Song 22/52: “The Stage”
Lyrics:
We come to this hallowed place not to kneel or repent
We come to this magical place ’cause we know what it’s meant
We’re saying goodbye to our co-star, our friend and our leader
Tomorrow’s the last day he’ll ever perform in this theatre
Our backpacks are packed up with pillows and candles and wine
We’ll stay overnight; it’s a secret, but it’ll be fine
We hide in a corner, so quiet, for almost 2 hours
We hide while the janitor mops and then shuts off the power
And then we float onto the stage, like it’s our home (’cause it’s our home)
And we say a little prayer and read a poem
We’ve said it again and again to each other
That I’m like his sister and he’s like my brother
But 8 shows a week, we pretend to be lovers
It’s acting, I know, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t real
And audience members will never know quite how that feels
The touching and kissing and that’s all before intermission
Rehearsals where you never moved til you had my permission
I know when we opened, we never thought we’d run for years
So we savored each moment, each curtain call given through tears
Family isn’t just chromosomes, blood and trauma
Our family shared a marquee and some backstage drama
And we sit up on the stage, like it’s our home (’cause it’s our home)
And we linger in the love of those we’ve known
We’ve said it again and again to each other
At Saturday matinees all through the summer
I cry like I’m losing my soulmate, my lover
See the thing is: I’ve loved you for a long, long time
And not just ’cause it’s in our lines
We’ve stared into each other’s eyes
For hours on end – lord knows I’ve tried
To keep my art and life apart
But that is not what’s in my heart
The critics said I seemed genuine
They didn’t know how much trouble I’m in
Now you hold me on the stage; it feels like home (’cause you’re my home)
And I think of who we were, and how we’ve grown
We’ve said it again and again to each other
When you say “I love you,” I still feel a flutter
The last time you kiss me, I’ll long for another
Songwriting diary:
My spouse and I watched a documentary together, Those You’ve Known, which is about the Broadway musical Spring Awakening and a recent reunion/anniversary concert that the original cast did. There was a touching story in the doc about the three leads of the show sneakily staying overnight in the theatre (which I’m sure would’ve been an insurance nightmare for the production company) and sharing wine on a candlelit stage, to say goodbye to a cast member who was leaving. It really stuck with me, as did Lea Michele and Jonathan Groff’s relationship, which seems to have been more than a friendship but not quite a sexual or romantic connection.
I’ve been doing a thing lately where, when I can’t sleep, I try to write a complete set of lyrics for a potential song. I either use a random word generator to give me a starting point, or I use a concept I’ve been wanting to write a song about. One night before bed, I typed up some lyrics on my phone that told the beginning of this story: sneaking into the theatre, hiding in a corner, etc. I didn’t get very far with it, just a couple stanzas.
When I looked at it again the following morning and started trying to put it to music, the chorus-y section (“And then we float onto the stage…“) came to me naturally while I was improvising. But I didn’t start conceptualizing the song as a romantic story until the bridge kinda popped into my head (“See, the thing is, I’ve loved you for a long long time, and not just ’cause it’s in our lines…”). I thought that would ultimately be more compelling than a song about friends hanging out platonically in a theatre after hours, but maybe that’s just because I’m more comfortable writing romantic stuff.
The Magic Wand franchise turns 54 this month. Yep! Can you believe it? In 1968, around this time, a vibrator was being launched that no one knew was going to change the world. In fact, it seems that no one knew it was even a vibrator; for decades after its launch, the toy’s makers, Hitachi, still insisted it was merely a “body massager.”
Brief primer on Hitachi Magic Wand history (which someone should really pay me to write a book about one of these days – don’t think I haven’t pitched it!): While officially billed as a non-sexual device, the Magic Wand’s popularity for pleasure first picked up steam in the late great Betty Dodson’s legendary masturbation workshops, so I’ve been told. The story goes (and I believe it to be true) that she would hand out wands to each workshop participant when the time came, and that many of them had their lives changed in an instant by their first taste of genital vibration. In the years since, the Magic Wand has gained nicknames like “the Cadillac of vibrators,” has showed up in countless porn videos (especially those featuring queer performers), and has become one of the most instantly recognizable vibrators in the world.
There was some drama around 2015 when Hitachi almost pulled the plug (so to speak) on producing the wand anymore. I don’t know why for certain, but I’ve been told by sources in the know that the company is relatively conservative and didn’t like having their name associated with a world-famous sex toy. An American sex toy distributor called Vibratex, then best known for their Rabbit Habit vibrator which was featured in a memorable episode of Sex & the City, stepped in and offered to take over marketing and distribution of the wand. They also overhauled the mechanics, making the toy safer (it had previously been known to overheat or even burst into flames) and adding a rechargeable version to the lineup but otherwise leaving it as close to the original as possible. As far as I’m aware, still to this day, the wand is physically produced by Hitachi but officially it is a Vibratex product.
(If you’re wondering why I know all this, it’s because in my last year of journalism school, they let me spend a semester writing a feature story on anything I wanted, and I wrote it on the Magic Wand. In the process, I interviewed, among other people, Vibratex’s VP and several people who had owned multiple wands, having immediately bought a new one when their old one died. Some interviewees even allowed me to sit in on real-life sex or masturbation sessions where they used their wands; I sat in the corner fully clothed with a notebook and pen, rapt. Truly don’t know why my professors let me do this but hey, it led me here.)
Anyway, I bring this up because there’s a new member of the Magic Wand family: the Magic Wand Mini. And it’s fucking ADORABLE.
Before we get into pros and cons, let’s briefly go over the basic differences between the Mini and the other versions, so we know what we’re talking about here.
The original wand is around 12″ long; the Mini is only 9.6″ long.
Of course, it’s also lighter – 9.7 oz, which is less than half of what the other wands weigh.
The Magic Wand Mini’s head is made of silicone, like that of the Magic Wand Rechargeable and Magic Wand Plus – as opposed to being made of porous vinyl (which is a health hazard and also just gross), like that of the Magic Wand Original.
The Mini uses a different charger than the Magic Wand Rechargeable.
The Mini does not have vibration patterns, as the Magic Wand Rechargeable does – it only has steady speeds.
The Mini has 3 different vibration speeds, as opposed to the Original which has 2, and the Rechargeable and Plus, which both have 4.
Unlike the Rechargeable, the Mini cannot be used while it’s charging – so if your wand dies mid-session, you’re out of luck. It has battery life indicators though.
Okay, now let’s talk about what I actually think of this vibrator, shall we?
Things I like about this vibrator
First of all, I have to commend Vibratex for keeping the exact same aesthetic and basic proportions as the original wand, just in miniaturized form. I truly cannot overstate how cute this toy is. It’s like if someone made a Magic Wand for a doll. (Uhhh, that actually sounds like a very kinky dollification scene I need to do, like, yesterday.) It might not have quite the same appeal if you’ve never seen an original Magic Wand in person, but every sex toy nerd to whom I’ve showed this toy has shouted “IT’S SO CUUUUUTE!!” because it really fucking is.
The first speed of this toy rules. Vibratex should be very proud of this speed; as far as vibration speeds go, it is primo. It’s got a lot of rumble to it, and is strong enough to get me off easily on an average day, provided I use it in ways that work for me (more on that below). There are very few vibrators that can comfortably make me come on their lowest speed; one of the only other ones is the Magic Wand Rechargeable. So, at least on this one speed, Vibratex has succeeded in evoking a full-size wand experience in a smaller package. The rumbliness is such that I can definitely feel it in my internal clit, whether I’m holding it on the external part or even just my outer labia. This leads to orgasms every bit as intense – and almost as reliable and easy to achieve – as those I expect from other Magic Wands. I should note here, though, that I’m not a person who commonly uses wildly strong vibrators on high settings to get off. I think diehard fans of true power would be vastly disappointed by this toy (more on that in the “things I dislike” section).
One of my fundamental problems with full-size Magic Wands is that they cause some temporary numbness if I leave them in one place for a while. I prefer to move them around my vulva, staying in one spot for a minute or two and then packing up and moving on like a circus runaway. Granted, this is true of most vibrators, but it becomes more obvious with big wands because they’re so heavy that moving them around becomes a chore. But the Magic Wand Mini is much more nimble, and it makes a noticeable difference: I can move it around my inner and outer labia, come at my clit from various different angles, use it to stimulate my vaginal opening or perineum, etc. and my arm doesn’t get tired. As a person with chronic pain and strength issues in my hands/arms, I really appreciate that the wand is less than half the weight of the original.
When I use a regular-size Magic Wand, I usually tilt it so that only the corner/edge of the head is against my bits. This is because I like more pinpointed clit stimulation than the full width of the head can offer. The Magic Wand Mini is sufficiently small that I don’t really have to do this, and can target specific areas of my vulva as needed.
The smaller form factor would also make this toy better for using during PIV, I suspect. (Tragically, I cannot find out at the moment because my partner is 500 miles away from me.) I do notice that the vibrations are slightly dampened when pressure is applied to the head of the toy – which, incidentally, may also be an issue for people who like to push vibrators very firmly against their body – but it’s not so much as to cause problems for me. I’d still be likelier to use this in rear-entry positions, though, because wands – however petite and adorable – are just not well-suited for missionary.
Speaking of my partner being 500 miles away from me – I do a fair amount of travel (or did, when there wasn’t a pandemic happening), so I appreciate a wand I can comfortably fit in a purse or small suitcase. I think this would be a terrific vibe for hotel sex.
The buttons are super intuitive. There’s a power button and “plus” and “minus” buttons, which all do what you’d expect them to do. They make a satisfying click when pressed, but require just enough force to do so that I never press one accidentally. Kudos, Vibratex.
There’s some flexibility in the neck, similar to the amount offered by the Rechargeable. I’d still be worried I’d break it if I bent it too far, but it flexes enough to be comfortable when you’re applying pressure. This isn’t super important to me because I don’t apply much pressure when I use vibrators, but I know a lot of people feel strongly about this.
Things I don’t like about this vibrator
It has to be said: the vibrations are not as powerful or as rumbly as you may be used to if you’re a Magic Wand fan. The first setting is excellent, but the other two are pretty disappointingly buzzy – so, even though they supposedly have the same RPM (revolutions per minute) as the original wand, they just don’t feel as impactful and can cause temporary numbness. I think this probably has a lot to do with the smaller size of the toy, not just the motor.
Like all the Magic Wands, it’s kind of loud. It’s certainly quieter than the high settings of any other Magic Wand, but it has a shrillness to its tone that makes the noise seem louder somehow, even if, decibels-wise, it’s not. I don’t like using this vibe late at night, for example, lest it disturb my roommate… through a wall. (I have anxiety and some past trauma around being punished for being disruptively noisy, though, so take this with a big ol’ grain of salt.)
This wand won’t work with most classic Magic Wand accessories/attachments, because of its smaller size. Some companies do make attachments for smaller wands, though. Those made for the Le Wand Petite or the Mystic Wand, for example, should fit the Magic Wand Mini, albeit maybe slightly tightly or loosely.
I miss being able to use the toy while it’s charging, like you can with the Magic Wand Rechargeable.
Final thoughts
I’ve tried a bunch of smaller wands – including the buzzy-AF Le Wand Petite and the gorgeous Bodywand Midnight – and the Magic Wand Mini certainly ranks as one of the best. Vibratex and Hitachi clearly both care about vibration quality and have tried to make a smaller toy that still does the Magic Wand name proud, by prioritizing motor quality and strength above any extraneous bells and whistles.
It just seems that the smaller size and lighter weight of the Mini make its vibrations feel too buzzy on the higher end of the speed spectrum. I might use one of those two higher speeds as a “finisher” – there are times when it takes a dash of buzz to push me over the edge – but the first speed is really the only one that satisfies me in the way that Magic Wands usually do. It’s a damn good speed, but it wouldn’t be strong enough for true power aficionados, who’d be better off sticking with full-size wands.
I would pick up the Magic Wand Mini instead of a larger wand if I was having a pain flare-up or just feeling lazy, because it’s much easier to maneuver around my vulva. I’d also reach for it if I wanted a wand to use during penetrative sex. I would not, however, use it if I was craving a lot of power or a lot of rumble – the Magic Wand Rechargeable is still king for that. But, I mean, look at this cute little wand. It’s doing its best. And I think its best is pretty decent.
Thanks to LuxuryVibrators.ca for sending me this product to review! This post was sponsored, meaning I was paid to write a fair and honest review of this product. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.
As a big fan of receiving cunnilingus (what a great way to start a blog post), I have tried many an oral sex simulator in my time.
They have licked and flapped and sucked, some skilfully, some less so. But I never give up hope that the next one will be the one that really does feel like getting head from a talented and enthusiastic lover. It hasn’t happened yet, but hey, tomorrow is a new day.
That said, this latest addition to my collection of cunnilingus simulators – the Bubblefunny Bubble Flower Beauty – actually surprised me with how close it got to feeling like the real thing.
(There’s a coupon code at the end of this post incase you want to buy your own, FYI!)
What is the Bubble Flower Beauty and what does it do?
The whimsically-named Bubble Flower Beauty is a dual-stimulation toy: there’s a mechanized silicone tongue on one end, and a phallus on the other end that thrusts and vibrates; between the two is a flexible silicone cord.
Bubblefunny recommends various different uses for it, including slipping the thruster into your vag while the tongue teases your butthole, but I think the main usage the toy designers had in mind was probably having the tongue stimulate the user’s clit while the thruster pleasures their G-spot. (That’s the only way I chose to test this toy, anyway. I’ve got nothing against rimjobs, I just didn’t want one from a robot.)
Things I like about this toy:
Firstly and most importantly, I actually love the tongue. It’s made of soft silicone with just enough flexibility to feel comfortable and just enough firmness to feel impactful. (Cunnilinguists-in-training, take note.) I won’t say it feels like a real human’s tongue, both texturally and size-wise, but it is in that general neighborhood of sensations. It starts at a pretty fast speed – like, way faster than any partner of mine would ever start licking me – but it slows down slightly with pressure, which I found actually felt better for me.
The design of the toy allows you to move the tongue around your clit while you’re using it, so you can stimulate the tip, the sides, the hood, etc. as your whims dictate. I strongly prefer indirect clitoral stimulation, so I love being able to switch up the toy’s location, turn it upside-down, and so on, to get the type of stimulation I’m craving. In some ways, I think that more advanced cunnilingus simulators have failed by trying to replicate the dynamic motions of a human; being able to hit the exact right spots yourself, exactly when you need to, can be better than having a machine try to guess where they are.
The orgasms actually remind me a lot of the orgasms I have from real oral sex. There’s a similar slow build, and a similar sense of teetering on the precipice of coming for longer than usual before going over the edge. However, as with real cunnilingus, I find that this toy works best if I maximize my sensitivity before I use it, by taking a break from vibrators and/or orgasms for at least a day, shaving my pubes, holding my outer labia open, smoking weed, or some combination thereof. It’s not quite enough to get me off if I’ve had an orgasm recently or if I’ve used strong vibes in the past day or so.
Although there are only three steady speeds (more on that below), the tongue’s motions do get noticeably faster and harder when I click up to the next speed.
This toy is waterproof! Hooray!
It comes with a cute black velvet storage bag that doesn’t shed lint all over the toy, like cheap storage bags tend to do. Nice touch.
Things I don’t like about this toy:
The tongue often doesn’t quite feel powerful enough to get me off, especially since it slows down when pressure is applied to it. I find that I always have to either thrust against the toy or rub it up and down or in circles against my clit, or I won’t be able to get off. That said, sometimes I thrust my hips during actual cunnilingus for the same reason, so maybe it’s just authentic like that.
Both the tongue and the thruster only have three steady speeds, followed by seven patterns. As someone who uses steady speeds almost exclusively, I find this disappointing. And sometimes orgasm-ruining, if I hit a button by accident while already on the third steady speed.
Speaking of buttons, there are only two of them. Two is better than one in this case, certainly, but it’d be really great if it had four: an “increase intensity” button and a “decrease intensity” button for each part of the toy. I hate having to cycle through all the patterns to get back to the speed I was using before.
My preferred way to use the tongue is upside-down, because that way it’s licking downward on my clitoral hood, rather than flicking upward against the hypersensitive head of my clit. However, when used this way, the buttons are on the opposite side of the toy from you, which makes it tricky to hit the right one in the heat of the moment.
The thruster tends to slip out of me during use, especially if things are especially lubed-up down there. I would actually recommend using less lube than you normally would, or perhaps even none at all, on the thruster part of the toy, to give it a better shot at staying inside you.
The cord is just slightly too short (for my anatomy, anyway), so I often find myself accidentally tugging the thruster out of my vag while I’m adjusting the tongue.
The vibration of the thruster is pretty damn buzzy. I actually think I’d like the thruster better if it was just thrusting and not vibrating, since the buzzy-as-fuck vibration kind of mutes the sensation of thrusting. But you can’t separate the two in this toy; they’re a package deal.
So far as I can tell, once you’ve activated either part of the toy, there’s no way to turn it off without turning off the whole toy, which takes a few seconds. So, for example, if you decided mid-session that you wanted to shut off the thruster and just focus on the tongue, there would be no quick and easy way to do that.
You have to put a fuckton of lube on your vulva before you use the tongue, or it’ll feel like receiving head from a Tinder boy who’s baffled by vulvas and has a dry mouth from smoking too much weed. (Can neither confirm nor deny that this has happened to me.) When testing this toy, I’ve mostly used a coconut oil-based lube I’ve been loving lately, and I actually think natural oil-based lubes (if you’re not too prone to getting infections from them) are the best pick for this type of toy, because they won’t react poorly with silicone toys like silicone-based lubes do, and they won’t dry up every few minutes like water-based lubes do.
The product page says that this toy sucks and licks, but there is no sucking to speak of. I tried pressing the toy firmly enough against my vulva that it would have created a seal if any suction was indeed happening, and all it did was slow down the tongue enormously.
Final thoughts:
I know I had a lot of critical things to say about the Bubblefunny Bubble Flower Beauty, but it actually is one of the better oral sex simulators I’ve tried. It gets me off (usually), and the orgasms feel, if not as good as those that happen in my partner’s mouth, at least somewhere in that direction.
I wish the thruster portion of the toy had been executed better – it feels like an afterthought, with its buzzy vibrations and tendency to shimmy out of my vagina – but the tongue part of this toy is really the star of the show anyway. I would happily use a version of this toy that was just the tongue. Sometimes you just need a little oral action, and head from a silicone gadget is better than no head at all.
Thanks to Bubblefunny for sending me this toy to review! You can use the code “GJ20” to get 20% off anything on their website. Maybe you want a wand vibrator shaped like a person? Or perhaps a clitoral stimulator that looks like a moon? This post was sponsored, meaning I was paid to write a fair and honest review of this product. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.
Always leaving me on read
Makes me wish that I was dead
That isn’t love, or so I hear
Love should not be everything you fear
I’m a moth and you’re the flame
Mixing signals, that’s your game
Why do you make me feel so sad?
It’s scary that your love can hurt this bad
Chorus: I’ve had enough, so I guess I’ll go
Thought this was love, but I didn’t know
That you’re not who I thought you’d be
There’s a lot I could not foresee
And I’m choosing me
I gotta put my feelings first
You never do, ’cause you’re the worst
Figured out why I’ve been so blue
Here’s a little clue: it’s ’cause of you
(repeat chorus)
Here’s to all the ladies dating dudes who make them feel like shit
Here’s to anybody who decides they’ve had enough of it
Here’s to grit and guts and hearts that hustle
Self-esteem is just a muscle
You can get stronger if you try
But first, you gotta dump the fucking guy
(repeat chorus)
Songwriting diary:
If you’re a songwriter, it’s really smart and helpful to use some kind of voice memo app that’s specifically for song drafts, bits and pieces of melody, etc. The one I use is called Voice Record Pro and was recommended to us in journalism school because you have a lot of granular control over the recording settings. I use it to store any and all musical ideas, and I also usually record each section of every song as I’m writing it, so that (for example) I don’t forget the verse melody by the time I get to the bridge.
I had one day left in the week to write a song, and set aside an evening in which to do it. Nothing new was coming to me after a while of trying, so I pulled up some of my old recordings to see if there was anything I could salvage. I came across a tiny fragment that ended up becoming the first half of the first verse of this song (“always leaving me on read… love should not be everything you fear”). I think I had originally envisioned those lines as being part of a sad, mopey song about dating fuckboys who disrespect you, but I was in a bit more of a cheerful, triumphant mood on the day that I wrote the rest of the song, so it ended up being much more positive in tone and style.
“Choosing oneself” was an idea I’d been pondering since seeing it come up in the show Love is Blind (which I wrote a song about the previous week). When I reached the bridge, I realized I wanted it to provide comfort and advice to people who are dating jerks. I wrote the advice I wish I’d gotten back when I was in that situation.
Song 15/52: “At the Wedding”
Lyrics:
Really need to wash my filthy bedding
Clearly I’m depressed and something’s missing
Today I’m seeing April at her best friend’s wedding
It’s always weird to see her just existing
It’s not that we’re not on good terms
I think we’ve both lived and we learned
But still, I’m just a little bit concerned
When I dug this suit out from my closet
It’s ’cause I knew the grey one was her fave
I wanted her to blush and I wanted to cause it
I know that that’s a creepy thing to crave
She always looked perfect in pink
I think I’ve had too much to drink
I’m tired of feeling; I don’t wanna think
I guess that’s her new boyfriend
Cemented by her side
I hope he knows he’s lucky
I hope he’s filled with pride
And if she catches the bouquet
I know she’ll make a beautiful bride one day
When I saw them twirling by the band
I wished that it was me holding her hand
But I had my chance
So I watched them dance
I should’ve kept her happy like I’d planned
I wish I’d kept her happy like I’d planned
Songwriting diary:
This song was heavily inspired by the Andy Shauf song “Jeremy’s Wedding,” which I listened to obsessively on loop when it first came out. It’s a song about seeing your ex at the wedding of a mutual friend, and how sad and awkward that can be. (I also once briefly dated a guy who was, at the time, about to attend a wedding that his very recent ex was going to be at. He bought a very expensive suit and sent me photos of it, which was weird because he had clearly bought it moreso to impress her than to impress me. But I digress.) Andy Shauf’s version is a bit more hopeful – the protagonist and the ex are friendly, smoke a joint together, and have some fun on the dance floor – and originally I had written my song to have some more interaction with the ex in it (e.g. the protagonist was seated at her table at the reception) but I ended up deciding to make it more of a tragic story where he probably never even talks to her all night.
I wrote this song on my baritone ukulele, but the rhythm was really odd for the uke and I kept hearing the song in my head as having more of an ’80s-’90s high school prom type of sound. (This was, in itself, probably inspired by another Andy Shauf song, “Martha Sways,” which always has the vibe to me of something you’d slowdance to if you and your sweetie were the last people on the dance floor at 2 a.m. at a sad prom.) I had been watching all these videos on YouTube of songwriters making music with midi keyboards and laptops, and realized how much I’d missed doing music production and incorporating multiple “instruments,” the way I did on my self-produced album Know It All in 2015. So I bought myself a Novation Launchkey Mini (it is sooooo cute and small!!) and spent several hours piecing together an arrangement for this song in GarageBand that included synths, bass, drums, clapping, electric piano, vibraphone, flute, and hammered wood. It really elevated the song to a different level, to the point that I had sort of disliked the song before I arranged it, but after finishing the arrangement, I felt like it was really fun and sad and a pretty solid song.
Song 16/52: “Call Me Back”
Lyrics:
Ignoring me goes poorly when I’m lonely in the morning
I pour a coffee, pore over my phone
Your phoniness is surely just a sore and sour warning
Your hollowness has left me all alone
Chorus: Will you call me back?
I’m bending over backwards
When you call me back
I swear that I will answer
Wish you’d call me back, but
Maybe you’ve been hacked, or
Did you never really care at all?
God, I really wish that you would call
I’m reading all these books, and I think you might be avoidant
Not trying to point fingers or lay blame
But honestly, it’s hard for me; I don’t think I enjoy it
It always ends up more-or-less the same
(repeat chorus)
Should I turn my phone off?
Should I block your number?
You’ve already flown off
Wish I wouldn’t wonder:
How hard is it to punch in digits?
I know it’s sad, but I’m counting down the minutes
(repeat chorus)
Why’d I ever think that you would call?
It would be so nice if you would call
God, I really wish that you would call
Songwriting diary:
I actually wrote this song on the same day as last week’s. It’s funny going back into my voice memos from days when I was hopping around wildly between multiple different songs, but it also makes sense to me – sometimes you just take a song as far as it can go that day, and you have to give your brain some time to work on the puzzle of the song in the background.
I built this whole song from one line that popped into my head, “Ignoring me goes poorly when I’m lonely in the morning.” I was walking around one morning making instant coffee and feeling kind of lonely, and I liked the sonic weirdness of all those internal rhymes packed close together. It had the vibe of an anxious person who’s been rehearsing her argument all night long and is now faced with the task of explaining to her avoidantly attached partner why the avoidant behavior is stressing her out. I continued to include a lot of internal rhymes throughout the rest of the song too, as well as overwrought alliteration, trying to follow the “clues” laid out for me in that first line that inspiration struck me with (this is what Dar Williams calls “listening for the Voice of the song” in her book How to Write a Song That Matters).
I set this song aside for a while after it was finished because I really didn’t like the second verse I’d written for it originally (“I’m reading all these books and I think you might be avoidant/ Also I am anxious but we knew that/ Insecure attachment always pours in like a poison/ I guess I never knew that it could do that“). But in the days that followed, I found myself humming the chorus of this song a lot, so I decided it was good enough to be worth salvaging, and rewrote the second verse. I also made some tweaks to the chorus so that there would be 3 “W” words at the starts of prominent lines (“will/ when/ wish“) because I thought that’d give it a more powerfully plaintive sound.
Song 17/52: “Dreamgirl”
Lyrics:
It’s lonely to be in love
When even your best friend doesn’t know
It’s lonely to be alone
But that’s the way it goes
You say you’re missing your ex from Texas
You say he just understood you
I can’t help wondering how good the sex was
Wish I could show you what I could do
But I can’t begin to rock your world
When I’m not even brave enough to say:
You’re my dreamgirl
You’re my dream, girl
When you say that you’re looking for love
Why am I not a contender?
I guess it’d be awkward as hell
And a forever friendship-ender
You say on Monday, you had a fun date
But by Tuesday, he’d blocked your number
I think that clown is clearly insane
I say, “Wow, damn – that’s a bummer”
I can’t protect you from the world
When I’m not even brave enough to say:
You’re my dreamgirl
You’re my dream, girl
Don’t you know I adore you
More than you could ever know?
I think there’s more to explore here
No fear
Let’s give it a go
We’ll take it slow
I can’t admit that you’re my world
I’m still not even brave enough to say:
You’re my dreamgirl
You’re my dream, girl
Songwriting diary:
I had already written a whole other song that day (which eventually turned into the following week’s song) but decided to continue. I was messing around on my midi keyboard and started improvising over top, and sang, “It’s lonely to be in love/ When nobody knows/ It’s lonely to be alone/ But that’s the way it goes.” I liked it and immediately connected it to an unrequited love plotline in the TV show I’m watching a lot these days, Superstore. So this song ended up being a mix of the perspective of a character who’s in love with his already-married friend, and my own perspective when, several years ago, I was in love with someone who only saw me as a friend and would often confuse me by using me as a sounding board for his romantic problems.
The chorus (“I can’t protect you from the world…”) also came to me while I was improvising, and I liked the idea of making it slightly different every time (“I can’t begin to rock your world,” “I can’t admit that you’re my world”) to emphasize all the different facets of unrequited love. It can bring up feelings of romantic longing, sure, but also sexual desire, competitiveness, shame, judgment (including self-judgment), and more, and I wanted to get that all in there.
Originally I had the idea that I wanted all the verses to alternate between lines that started with “I think…” and “I say…” to tell a story of unrequited love through the ways we censor our true thoughts and feelings when we know they aren’t mutual. It’s a cool concept and I might use it somewhere else, but in this song, it only ended up surviving as the part in the second verse where the love interest tells the protagonist about getting ghosted and his outward reaction is different from his internal one.
As occasionally happens, the bridge (“Don’t you know I adore you…”) popped into my head pretty much fully-formed, and I had to scramble to get it recorded before I forgot it. After finishing the song, I did a lot of lyric editing, moving stuff around so the story would progress in a way that was easier to follow. Considered changing the “Texas/ sex was” rhyme because I’ve somehow already used that in a song before, but by that time I had grown to love the lilty weirdness of the phrase “your ex from Texas” so it felt too settled to change it.
Song 18/52: “Does He Know?”
Lyrics:
You’re not in love; I see it in your eyes
You say you are – you say it, but it’s all just lies
It’s not a rough patch; it’s not the eye of the storm
I wish you had a better love to keep you warm
But it’s not my place to foster doubt
So I’ll give you space to work it all out
Chorus: Does he know you don’t love him? Is that even true?
Or have I been misreading the hell out of you?
Are you dropping hints, or are you happy at home?
‘Cause if I am wrong, I’ll leave you alone
Yes, if I am wrong, I’ll leave you alone
They say that marriage vows are meant for life
But what if then a husband isn’t nice to his wife?
They say it’s not my business, and I know that
But I’d be so much better for you – I just wanna show that
I can see close-up the pain you’re in
And if you broke up, it’d be a win-win-win
(repeat chorus)
If this is how I make my move, so be it
I know that we’d be good together, even if you don’t see it
I’ve loved you for a long, long, really long time
I’ve loved you knowing you might never ever be mine
(repeat chorus)
I don’t think I’m wrong, but what do I know?
Songwriting diary:
This was a weird one. The melody of the first few lines was the first thing that came to me, and I made a recording of myself just la-la-la-ing it. Later that day, I sat down and fleshed it out into a song based on Jonah’s perspective in the early seasons of Superstore (yes, another one – look, there’s a pandemic going on, not a lot is happening in my actual life to inspire me 😂). When I listened to the demo recording in the days after writing it, I realized that I liked the verses and bridge but the chorus wasn’t working. It had a totally different rhythm and feel than the rest of the song, and it hit my ear weird every time I heard it.
The prechorus of this song (“but it’s not my place to foster doubt…”) kept getting stuck in my head, though, so I thought the song would be worth updating with a completely new chorus. I wanted something catchy that really summed up what this character was thinking and feeling. I was tidying my room while mulling it over, and suddenly started improvising, “Does he know you don’t love him? Is that even true? Or have I been misreading the hell out of you?” It sounded like country music to me, but (as I’ve been learning from the various songwriting books I’m reading) it’s best not to judge or analyze a song you’re writing while you’re writing it, but rather to take an approach of “let’s just see what happens.” If I wasn’t doing a weekly songwriting challenge, I might have stopped at this point, because I’m not a country singer and don’t even really like that genre, but I knew I had to get a song written so I pushed on through.
I liked the alliteration of “Are you dropping hints, or are you happy at home?” so I kept that line exactly the way it came out when I first improvised it. I could hear a twangy E7 chord in my head while I was writing the latter half of the chorus, which worked well because the verses already had an E7 chord in them. It was surprisingly easy to stitch together these disparate bits of music and make them into a cohesive song.
Content note: This post contains some non-explicit, not-super-detailed descriptions of times that I was sexually creeped on by adults when I was a teen.
Things I like about this toy:
Things I don’t like about this toy: