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.