masturbator

Got Chronic Pain But Love Giving Handjobs?

Kate Sloan

I remember the first time I realized my chronic pain disorder might seriously mess up my sex life. I was kneeling in front of a dominant gentleman friend, sucking his cock while he tugged at my hair, when a telltale twinge of pain began to creep up in my knees. They were, at that time, my most painful and volatile body part – and blowjobs were, at that time, my most beloved and calming sex act. I shifted around, tried putting a pillow under me, tried sitting on my ass instead, but it was a lost cause. My knees had cockblocked us both. Defeated, I finished out the encounter with a handjob.

Handjobs have long been one of my favorite things to do to a partner, so this wasn’t exactly a consolation prize, at least for me. But in recent years, pain in my hands has plagued me even more than pain in my knees. It’s a bummer to realize that the sex act I once turned to when I was in too much pain to do anything else is now sometimes off-limits to me due to pain.

Fortunately, I’ve always had partners who were very understanding about this issue. They’ve typically been fine with me cuddling up to them and kissing their neck while they jerk themselves off, or playing with their nipples while they fuck a Fleshlight. But as any handjob-giving aficionado will tell you, sometimes the joy in acts like these isn’t just about observing your partner’s pleasure, but in directly causing and controlling it. And in that regard, there was only so much I could do.

So when a company called Handy emailed me about their new product, I was intrigued. Designed by a Norwegian engineer, the Handy is an electrically-powered mechanical stroking device, much like the unfortunately-named Sybian Venus for Men – but it only costs $169, while the Venus costs a whopping $956. Okay, Handy; I’m listening.

To be fair, the two products aren’t really as comparable as I initially thought: the Venus is custom-constructed to fit your exact dick measurements, and uses different mechanics to create a sensation I have to assume is pretty different from the Handy’s. But if using a Venus is on your bucket list despite clearly not being in the cards for you financially, maybe the Handy would be a good substitute.

So what is this toy? It’s a somewhat clunky, Fleshlight-shaped mechanical cylinder attached to a fabric band which you can wrap around an included masturbation sleeve (of unknown material, though probably some kind of thermoplastic rubber/elastomer, and definitely porous – ergo, don’t share it with anyone you’re not fluid-bonded with). The band moves the sleeve up and down over the penis once it’s inserted, and you can use the 4 buttons on the Handy to control the speed of each stroke as well as the length of the stroke.

Setup is slightly annoying, as you have to keep adjusting the tightness of the band with its Velcro strap depending on how hard your dick is and how much pressure it’s craving at any given moment. But if you’re already pretty hard and aroused by the time you start using it, that might be less of an issue. Lube is also an ongoing consideration, as with just about any penile masturbation toy; the company recommends water-based only, and you may need to reapply during use, especially if your session runs long.

What I love about this toy, as a “handjob top,” is how much control it gives me. When I use my hands on a partner’s cock, I’m not just altering the speed, I’m also altering the length and location of my strokes – so I’m glad to have a toy that can approximate that, however clunkily compared to the nuance of skilled hands. The “left and right” buttons on the control unit are for speed, and the “up and down” buttons control the stroke length; everything is close together, so I barely have to move my hand or expend any muscle energy when I’m using this toy.

One small complaint is that it’s difficult to know exactly what to do during a partner’s orgasm. When using my hand, normally I would either hold still while maintaining pressure, or slow down and lengthen my stroke quite a bit for the duration of the orgasm; when post-orgasmic hypersensitivity hits, it’s easy to remove your hand quickly, but it’s trickier to do that with the Handy. You can hit a bunch of buttons to swiftly slow the toy down, but removing it from the dick in a rush is likelier to cause more discomfort than just leaving it in place would. However, this’ll only be a minor issue for most people, and some might even like it if they enjoy an overload of sensation.

Cleaning is also an annoyance, but that’s true for pretty much every stroker/masturbator. Resist the temptation to fall asleep in a post-orgasmic haze, and make sure to rinse the cum and lube out of the stroker within a few minutes after using it, or you’re in for a gunky, moldy surprise later on.

If this were a standard review, I would touch on the video synchronization and smartphone-control features of the Handy, and I’m sure that they would help folks whose hand pain is even more severe than mine. But for my purposes, I prefer to get as close to hands-on as I comfortably can, so physically holding the toy works better for me.

Overall, if you have pain/mobility/strength issues in your hands and would still love to be able to give handjobs (or jerk yourself off), I think the Handy is a worthy investment. The band-and-sleeve system makes it so that you could theoretically swap out the provided stroker for a different one, if there’s another texture or size you prefer. You can therefore get more variety of sensation out of this toy than many other comparable ones, especially considering the flexibility of the controls scheme. $169 is a bit steep for some people’s budgets, sure, but I’ve never seen a toy of this type and caliber sold for any less – so when fellow sore-handed people ask me how they can keep on strokin’ dicks, now I know to recommend the Handy.

 

Full disclosure: Handy didn’t pay me for this review, but they did send me the product to try (thanks!) and I do get a small kickback if you buy through my affiliate link. Want more sex toy recommendations for folks with chronic pain? I wrote this article recently for Xtra on that very subject!

Review: VixSkin Bandit + Fleshlight Go Torque Ice

Kate Sloan

As I’ve said here many times before, sex toys are not – and are not meant to be – replacements for human partners. In fact, they can enhance sex with a partner, sometimes by a lot.

I have two toys to review today which perfectly illustrate that principle. They’re both ostensibly meant to replicate human genitals in some sense, and yet – if you so desire – they can make you feel closer to your partner, rather than farther from them. Let’s talk about fake dicks and fake vaginas!

The VixSkin Bandit is a formidable silicone cock by Vixen Creations, still one of the biggest names in the realistic-dildo game. It’s perhaps best known as a favorite dildo of Erika Moen’s. Prior to Just Mindful sending me the Bandit to try, it had been over five years since I last acquired a new VixSkin toy. Between the G-spotty Mustang and its thicker cousin the Maverick, I just didn’t feel I needed another big, squishy dick in my life… but then, the more that I looked at the Bandit online, the more I thought, Maybe I do need one after all.

With its 7″ of insertable length and 1.75″ diameter, this dildo is – to quote Brendan Fraser in Bedazzled – “big… not, like, practical-joke big, but, you know.” It’s what the McElroy brothers might call a “beefy boy.” It fills me up without testing my vag’s limits, and that’s a surprisingly hard balance to strike.

It’s long enough to hit my A-spot – joy of joys! Vixen’s dual-density silicone formulation is softer than I generally prefer in an A-spot toy, so the blended orgasms it produces aren’t as intense as they might be if something firmer was rubbing against that spot, but that’s a minor quibble.

Here’s what I mean, though, when I say that this dildo can enhance partnered sex. As I’ve mentioned before, penis-in-vagina sex can give me a lot of anxieties, ranging from “Am I taking too long to come?” to “Is he getting tired?” to “Does my face look weird?” But to my chagrin, PIV still features prominently in my fantasy life. There are few things hotter to me than getting fucked deeply and thoroughly – and few things that make me come as hard. So you see my predic(k)ament. However, if and when I have a partner who’s cool with using a realistic dildo on me, I can reap many of the benefits of PIV, without nearly as many weird fears chipping away at my arousal. This is especially true if – as with my current partner – the person wielding the dildo is open to talking about it as if it were their actual cock. It’s a known fact that my boyfriend talking dirty about fucking me can get me off, no problem, and that becomes even more true when he’s slamming a silicone dick into my A-spot just right, again and again.

He enjoys fucking me with the Bandit, too, for similar reasons. Apparently when you use a dildo on someone that roughly matches your skin tone and, ideally, your cock’s dimensions, it’s easy to imagine that it is your cock. Many men have anxieties about not lasting “long enough” or staying “hard enough,” and I wish more of them would believe me when I tell them using dildos is a great way to deal with this. You can give someone exquisite pleasure with a toy – and you can also fuck them with parts of your actual body, before or after using the toy or even while you’re using it. (DP, anyone?) Not to mention, sex’s psychological and visual aspects are a big deal for many people, and you can derive a lot of those joys just as much from a dildo as you can from your dick.

Along similar lines… the Fleshlight Go Torque Ice is a masturbator that plays into exhibitionistic/voyeuristic desires and can make a solo act into a spectator activity. I requested it for my boyfriend because, as the “Ice” in its name denotes, it’s see-through. I’ve watched many amateur porn scenes where men jerked off into one of these things, and it always turns me on, for very simplistic reasons: I like dicks, and I like watching dicks experience pleasure and orgasm.

Granted, watching a cock through this Fleshlight isn’t like watching it through a plate glass window; it’s textured, so it visually distorts and obscures the dick to some degree. But you still get a better view than you would get if its user were using an opaque masturbator or even just their hand.

My partner reports that this toy fits his bigger-than-average cock well without feeling too tight (the same can’t be said for the Tenga 3D Spiral he previously bought and had to retire after several futile attempts to make it work). This is true in spite of the fact that the “Go” size is 7″, compared to the 9″ length of a standard Fleshlight. He likes the internal texture and says it works well for stroking, twisting, or both at once.

This toy has all the usual downsides reported by Fleshlight users, most annoyingly the need to dissemble and clean it pretty much immediately after use. You must always do this, and let it air-dry before reassembling it, unless you have a kink for getting mold on your dick. (Personally, I’d rather blow a fun guy than fungi.) My partner also notes that the plastic casing feels cheap, the “SuperSkin” material (thermoplastic elastomer) smells slightly weird, and air escaping from the toy creates an off-putting wheezing noise during use that can be distracting.

But overall, it’s a fave. He comes reliably hard using it, and says he reaches for it when he wants an orgasm that feels more like a mouth or a vag than his own lubed-up hand can approximate. That’s exactly what a masturbator aspires to achieve. Plus, in this case, letting me watch cum shoot out of my partner’s dick.

 

This post was sponsored, and Just Mindful sent me these products for my honest and unbiased reviews. Check out their masturbator collection and their realistic dildo collection for more like these! As always, all writing and opinions are my own (and, in this case, my boyfriend’s).

Guest Review: Venus for Men

Kate Sloan

Note from Kate: In over 5 years of writing this blog, I’ve never published anything from guest writers, because, frankly, I wanted this to be my space and I have super high standards. However, a friend of mine recently bought himself a Venus for Men and wanted to contribute a review, and since I know he’s a funny writer, I was excited to publish it here. Enjoy!

I’ve been looking for the perfect penis-centered toy for a long time. At age 12, I cut open a rubber ice pack, shoved it between couch cushions, and fucked the shit out of it. It may have been the most sensual seventeen seconds of my life. By age 18, I’d put my dick in dozens of household objects; it’s a miracle that I never ended up in the emergency room! As I got older, I kept searching for better toys. I tried all manner of low-quality Doc Johnson toys, pussy sleeves, the disappointing Autoblow, the classic-but-underwhelming Fleshlight, and even the futuristic Soloflesh. I got a Cobra Libre last year, and it was fun now and then, but I had always been jealous about the wealth of toys available to the vulva’d among us.

It always seemed that one small consolation of our bustling patriarchy was the plethora of techno-marvels available to your average AFAB (assigned female at birth) person. The Rabbit, the Hitachi Magic Wand, the Satisfyer, the Eroscillator, the Sybian, and every conceivable shape, size, and feel of dildos and insertables. It makes sense; the very notion of “the female orgasm” has been considered elusive or unimportant throughout history, whereas your average penis-haver can experience orgasm seemingly by accident. Of course there would be more options made with women in mind.

But anyway, back to me. A man.

I would watch porn where women seemed to be deliriously possessed by the power of their sex toys, and I had so rarely felt that way. I watched a man attach a dildo to a power tool and fuck his partner at a speed that would be humanly impossible. I wanted to experience something like that! But the more toys I bought, the more I felt like the ones made for my anatomy would never hold a candle to their vulva-targeted rivals.

There was, however, one shining star in this (ahem) Milky Way… one last hope, however far-off and improbable: The Venus For Men. In a world of cheap and disappointing dick toys, the Venus For Men – which, when I first heard about it, was called “The Venus 2000” – unabashedly touted itself as the best of the best. Sure, there were always RealDolls, but even if you shell out the money and have somewhere to hide the lifeless body in between uses, you still have to expend the energy to physically fuck a RealDoll. That’s not a penis’s equivalent to an Eroscillator, it’s an Ab Roller with boobs.

Let’s talk for a second about what the Venus For Men is and what it does. In practical terms, it’s a black box that sucks and blows. That’s all it does, it’s a box containing an actuator which simply sucks and blows. You connect the box via air hose to a cylindrical plastic dick chamber with a skin-like liner inside of it. Another hose connects to an air controller, and you operate the Venus’s speed and stroke length with wired remote control units. The unique feature of the Venus is that it changes the pressure in between the liner and the cylinder, so the user’s penis is sucked in and out of the liner, which in turns slides the perfectly form-fitting dick cylinder over the penis like some kind of magical, prehensile orifice. And, once properly positioned and calibrated, it will cling to your dick regardless of what position you’re in. It’s a sex robot without the creepy facial expressions. A subby vacuum cleaner with a hungry mouth. The pinnacle of space-age wiener tech.

And, since it’s the cream(ing) of the crop, it’s also quite expensive. The Venus retails for $956 USD, and that’s without optional attachments. Maybe some billionaires can drop that on a whim, but I’ve resigned myself to paying off student loans and keeping a tight leash on my credit card.

At least that was the case, until the money came in.

I made a good business move once that led to a huge financial windfall this year. So I paid off my loans and decided to celebrate my debt-free status by allocating a few thousand dollars as “fun money.” One lonely night, I rediscovered the Venus For Men website. This formerly unattainable item was now well within my budget. When would I get another chance like this? And, hey, they even had a 45-day money-back guarantee (though they discourage you from sending back a used dick cylinder). What did I have to lose?

By the way: One unique element of ordering a Venus is the five – FIVE – measurements you’re required to take of your penis. But after years of lackluster “one size fits all” sex toys, I went along with it. Even the inseam.

Finally, the day arrived. I carefully opened the box, took out the pieces, and I found the setup pretty simple. Within five minutes, I was lubing up the dick cylinder (officially called “the receiver”) and taking her for a spin. And WHOA wowee wow wow what a short and intense ride that first orgasm was. The way I remember it is basically like this:

0:01 Whoa, it’s really pulling my dick in there.
0:04 Wow, that feels amazing. I can see why it’s so expensive!
0:11 I wonder how fast this thing can go…
0:15 Holy shit that was amazing.

It was like a sexy wizard said “Here, let me give you a kickass BJ” and then, after a few seconds, got bored and just cast an instant-orgasm spell on me. I clocked the max speed of the Venus at around 5 strokes per second, and by “stroke” I mean a complete in-and-out suck-and-fuck of your dick. Even if blowjobs were an Olympic event, I don’t think the most performance-enhanced athlete could achieve speeds anywhere near what this baby can do. This was the deep-throat version of one of those power tool dildos. Finally, instead of wishing I had an organ as magical as a clitoris, I was ecstatic to have a dick just so I could stick it into this thing. I had found the equivalent of the magic I’d seen in so many vulva toys.

The Venus’s 12-page operating manual states, “At climax, you may ejaculate inside the receiver. We suggest it be washed before anything dries.”

Before anything dries? So the part where I usually feel sleepy and glowy now comes with the anxiety of a ticking clock?

And the cleaning process is not a simple rinse. You have to pull the pieces apart and clean them individually. You have to use a large-bristled brush that comes with the kit. You’re also encouraged to store the receiver in a dark area because excess light causes the liner to deteriorate – another ticking clock! It was annoying. I have to walk through a hallway to get from my bedroom to the bathroom, and I don’t particularly want to explain to my roommates why I’m carrying a miniature toilet brush and a fleshy beaker of cock chowder. But, then again, I blew a thousand dollars on this thing. This is the Lamborghini of sex toys, and if you get jizz in your Lamborghini, you’d better clean it before it dries. So I cleaned it. The hole that connects the cylinder to the hose needs to be plugged before each cleaning, but its cover is very annoying to get off and on, so I ended up just plugging the hole with my thumb when I cleaned it (also anxiety-causing).

The Venus brought me to orgasm six times on that first day. I would use it, clean it, dry it, remember it existed, and use it again. This may be more a matter of my addictive personality than the efficacy of the product, but I couldn’t get enough of it. Suddenly, this feeling that I had only experienced with another person was now mine to feel in a magically self-centered and entirely on-demand way.

It was past my bedtime when I finally climaxed the sixth time (basically ejaculating an invisible poof of glitter at that point). My legs shook as I shambled over to the light switch and got into bed. I laid down, still blissing out, looking forward to a sound sleep. But just as my eyelids began to droop, I realized, “Oh fuck. I have to fucking clean this thing.”

Back on with the lights. Back on with the clothes. Grabbed the now-veteran cleaning brush and the dick cylinder, skulked down the hallway like some kind of sex toy burglar, spent a few minutes cleaning it, and set the pieces to dry in a part of my room that would be hidden from light. What a production! When I jerk off before bed, I typically do a quick cleanup with whatever undies or socks are lying around and just let the sleepy feeling float me off to dreamland. Not so with the Venus. Clean it, or risk whatever happens if you don’t (it’s so expensive, I was afraid to find out)!

Another drawback is that it’s a bit loud, especially at high speeds. At max speed, it’s about as loud as a squeaky mattress with a pair of giant rabbits mating on it. Its slower speeds are quieter, but part of the fun is feeling how fast it goes. Sure, there are plenty of popular sex toys that are loud (Hitachi, anyone?) but this particular sound is mechanical and repetitive. What would my roommates even think they were listening to? Often, I would get nervous that they might walk by my bedroom door while I was using it, and the thought of it took me out of the moment.

After a few weeks of using the Venus, I started dating a new woman. I actually thought she might be “the one.” My Venus use went from daily to rarely. Sure, the sensations are more optimized than sex, but the chemistry and intimacy of sex were much more enticing than the prospect of sitting, bored, while Robocock dutifully did its job.

A few weeks into the new relationship, I realized I only had a few days left if I wanted to return the Venus. I considered it. “Maybe I could find something more constructive to do with the money,” I thought. “Maybe I’ll be with my new girlfriend forever and I won’t need this thing.” Wrong. I decided to keep it, and I’m not sure why. But it came in handy, because New GF and I broke up after a month or so. Just like in the beginning, the Venus was amazingly precise. Once again, I had that “hooooly shit” feeling when its suction drew my penis inside of it. I learned to customize the placement of the liner to make it even more intense. I could once again have as many orgasms as I felt like over the course of a horny day. In its way, after my relationship ended, the Venus was a pretty great rebound.

So, would I recommend that you buy a Venus For Men? It depends upon your priorities. It’s a damn good blowjob anytime you want and you can control various aspects of it in realtime, allowing you to literally DJ your BJ. But it’s loud, high-maintenance, and costs a thousand dollars.

That said, you don’t have to use it alone! Imagine making out with your partner while the Venus sucks you off and they use a toy on themselves? Hot, right? Or imagine if your partner was too tired for sex and your consolation prize was an immaculate suckoff. Not too shabby! And it can also function as a penis pump and a unique nipple stimulator.

Is it ethical to spend this much on a sex toy when there are starving children in the world? That’s for you to decide.

All I know is this: In 2001, I bought my first disappointing sex toy, and ever since then, I’ve wished there were a penis toy to rival the most legendary vulva toys. Sixteen years and about a thousand dollars later, I finally found it.