Guest Reviews: Anal Toys for Discerning Assholes

Editor’s note: I asked my spouse Matt to review some of their favorite anal toys. Enjoy!


I’m much more deeply into anal penetration than Kate is. Some of that difference probably has to do with our anatomy – I have a prostate with lots of nerve endings there, where she does not. Plus, she has a vagina as another option for penetration, and I don’t. But I think another part of it has to do with our personal histories. I’ve been incorporating anal penetration very regularly into my masturbation and partnered sex for 10 years now, and I’ve grown to love it more with each session whereas she’s had relatively few experiences with it and only enjoyed those moderately.

At first, putting something in your butt might seem like it would be scary, painful, or just weird, but after a while many people can adjust or attune themselves to the sensations and find great pleasure in it. And I’m certainly one of those people. Today, I want to discuss three anal sex toys that should be on your radar and perhaps in your holes, and how they each fit into my sexual repertoire.

 

Aneros Helix Trident

One of the first things I ever put in my ass (after fingers) was an Aneros toy. After hearing glowing reviews of them on the now-defunct Sex is Fun podcast in the early 2000s, I knew I needed one. Aneros is a prostate pleasure-focused brand that makes interestingly shaped prostate massagers designed to stimulate your P-spot without any thrusting, instead relying on just the contractions of the anal sphincters and PC muscles. Devotees of the brand wax lyrical about the so-called “Super O” (a prostate-only, ejaculation-free orgasm) these toys can generate, and develop elaborate routines for achieving it on the company’s forums and associated subreddit.

I was happy with my original Aneros MGX Trident for years and used it frequently whenever I had an evening entirely to myself because it could make me come harder than any other toy I owned, if I was willing to put in the time – usually 45-60 minutes of focused tensing and relaxing my muscles while on my side or back. But when Aneros reached out to Kate in 2018 to see if we’d be interested in trying another one of their massagers, I jumped at the chance to see what had changed in 6 years.

Aneros sent me the Helix Trident ($55), one of their “beginner” models, which has 4” of insertable length and a tip-width of 1.06”. The toy improves on the shape, tab position, and cleanability of the MGX, and it comes in both medical-grade white plastic or black silicone as part of their Syn line ($69.95). I tested the plastic model, and like the MGX before it, it blew me away. The toy looks less like Poseidon’s trident 🔱  and more like an alien probe or some kind of unidentified intelligent lifeform. Its curves and bulbs are designed to mirror the internal anatomy of folks with prostate glands and its small tabs at the end of two curved arms both stimulate the perineum and act as a fulcrum by which the toy moves when you perform kegels.

Inserting the lubricated Trident for the first time is super easy and almost feels like there’s nothing there because it’s so light. The toy doesn’t vibrate and you’re not supposed to move it at all, so what happens once it’s in? I usually start watching or listening to porn, reading erotica, or having phone sex with a partner, and everything changes. Because the toy is so light, as my ass starts to squeeze around the toy, it begins to rub back and forth and “awaken the prostate.” After a while, without ever touching my dick or the toy with my hands, I notice intense tingling in my ass and cock, and if I ride those waves of pleasure I can usually come hands free (sometimes with ejaculation and sometimes not). I am always left feeling completely blissed out. A few times, I’ve pushed through and done this multiple times in a row before removing the toy and passing out from how good it is.

As far as downsides, the toy feels a bit cheap because of the material, and it can discolor slightly over time even when properly cleaned, and can occasionally need manual realignment during use, but those are minor nitpicks. I’d recommend an Aneros toy to anyone with a P-spot who wants to experience entirely new kinds of pleasure and stimulation, and all my friends who I’ve told to get them over the years have thanked me profusely after using them. Aneros toys are as great as they’ve ever been, and now I’m eyeing an even bigger one…

Njoy Pfun

It’s no secret that Kate and I are both huge fans of the Njoy product line. Their toys are premium stainless steel objects, and their designs feel at once inevitable, beautiful, and ingenious. The Njoy Pfun ($89.99) is no exception. It’s a lot more than “pretty fun;” it’s extremely fun to use. Kate recommend me this toy years ago as part of one of our D/s protocols, and it’s hands-down one of the best sex toy purchases I’ve ever made.

The Pfun is a solid medical-grade stainless steel prostate massager with a polished mirror finish. It’s a very manageable 4.75” long (3.5” insertable) and its sculpted head measures 1.25” wide. It’s silky smooth once lubricated with whatever lube you like, and slides in easily with a handy looped base that can be used for thrusting or easy removal.

Unlike an Aneros, the Pfun is very heavy and holds your body heat (or the chill of an ice bath if you’re into temperature play) so the stimulation comes less from automatic movement and more from the pressure of unyielding steel. Squeezing on the Pfun feels eyes-rolling-back-in -my-head incredible. The density and solidity of the steel even makes it seem like it’s growing, inflating, or pushing back on me as I tighten around it and allow the toy to subtly stroke my prostate like some kind of skilled robot lover that’s amazing with its chrome hands.

There are so many ways to play with this toy and it excels at all of them that I’ve tried: alone with or without dick stimulation, or partnered during intercourse, oral sex, double penetration, or a kink scene. In each case, the Pfun makes everything else feel much more intense and makes my orgasm noticeably harder, longer, and stronger, leaving me panting in a puddle of cum. When I think back on the best blowjobs I’ve ever received in my life, they were all accompanied by this exact object in my ass.

The only thing this toy isn’t great for is long-term wear. Because of its shape, it’ll more easily get squeezed out as you go about your day than, say, an Njoy Pure Plug, which excels in that context. I’m fortunate to have both, and I use them each for what they’re best at.

If you’ve tried prostate stimulation, and you’re ready and able to upgrade to the best of the best, get a Pfun. You won’t regret it.

B-Vibe Rimming Plug 2

While it may not be completely original, the B-Vibe Rimming Plug 2 is my go-to vibrating butt plug. Also suggested by Kate, I’ve used this toy enough times since I got it a few years ago that I’ve had to replace the remote battery. The Rimming Plug is marketed as mimicking the sensations of analingus, and while it doesn’t exactly hit that mark for me because nothing quite feels like a wet tongue, it does feel amazing in a slightly different way.

The waterproof, magnetically-charging plug, which comes in a few different sizes and colors, has two rumbly motors – one inside the bulb that vibrates, and one inside the neck that rotates internal beads underneath the toy’s satin-textured silicone exterior. This allows the toy to stimulate both the inside of your hole and the sensitive opening at the same time! Or you can start with just one and ramp up to both, if you prefer. The sensation of the rotating beads feels like someone fingering or fucking my ass, and if I get the patterns just right, I can come from just this toy alone. While the shape doesn’t directly target the prostate, it’s more than powerful and large enough to hit the spot consistently.

The toy has a bunch of really nice touches: a well-designed and discreet travel case, an included wireless remote for partner play or to avoid reaching between your ass cheeks to adjust it, 7 really great rotation patterns and intensities, and 6 of the same for the internal vibrator.

My only gripe with this toy is that the tip shape is not tapered enough for me, which makes insertion a little uncomfortable no matter how warmed up I am and how much lube I use. But once I get past that, this toy wins me right back with how good it makes me feel. Get it for yourself or the rimming fan in your life and you won’t be disappointed. Promise I’m not just giving you lip service. 😜

Lovense Toys Are Fucking Excellent

I wrote off Lovense for the longest time. I’m not really sure why. Maybe it’s the fact that they’re not carried by any of the online sex shops I work with, or the fact that almost none of my sex toy reviewer pals have written about them, to my knowledge. They’re not mentioned very often in the circles I run in – which is odd, because in the camming world, they’re hugely popular.

In fact, doing the work I do at my dayjob in adult-industry social media, I often have to pop into camgirls’ rooms to collect URLs and relevant personal descriptors while writing tweets to promote them – and I’ve noticed that the word “Lovense” is basically used interchangeably with “remote-controlled vibrator” on some of these platforms. Like the Kleenex of sex toys, Lovense has proven themselves so wildly good at what they do that they are thought of as the category itself, not just a part of that category.

I recently got my hands on some Lovense products because I was working on an article for the Insider about sex toys for long-distance couples (more on that soon). Here’s what all three of the Lovense toys I tried have in common:

  • Once they’re connected to the app on my phone, they stay connected for the entire duration of the session.
  • Controlling them with the Lovense Remote app is easy, fun, and (most importantly) fast. When I change a setting on the screen, it’s reflected immediately in the toy.
  • Their Bluetooth range is astonishing. The toys continued to respond pretty much instantaneously even when I was across the apartment from my phone, or in another room with the door closed.

You would think that these three qualities would be the most important ones in a Bluetooth-compatible sex toy, but actually, my experiences with We-Vibe and Lelo (among other brands) over the years have shown me that even top-tier companies can’t always get this right.

 

Let’s talk about some of the specific toys I tried:

The Lovense Lush 3 ($119) is an insertable vibrator made to stimulate the G-spot. It’s shaped to hit that spot really well, and has a wide variety of vibration intensities and patterns.

I’m not the biggest fan of G-spot vibration – it usually just feels mildly uncomfortable for me, and can only make me come in conjunction with clitoral stimulation, if at all – but the Lush still feels pretty good to me nonetheless. It’s a fun tease when my partner and I are watching porn together on the couch, and I imagine it’d work well for discreet public play once we’re able to go to restaurants and bars again. (The Lush is fairly quiet, but definitely audible in a silent room, so I wouldn’t wear it to, say, a museum.)

The Lush’s external arm, in which its powerful antenna is housed, could theoretically provide clitoral stimulation, depending on your anatomy – but for me, it just isn’t enough unless I’m physically pressing it against my clit. It’s too slim and floppy. If they fixed this issue, it’d work much much better for me and many other people – although at that point they’d basically be making a We-Vibe, which maybe they’d rather not do. In any case, the Lovense Lush 3 is a fantastic insertable vibrator for people who like a lot of G-spot sensation, and it’s the only vibe I’ve tried of its type that hasn’t had major connectivity issues.

The Lovense Max 2 ($99) is a high-tech stroker that incorporates vibration and suction-based “contractions,” both of which can be controlled using the Lovense app. The stroking itself can’t be controlled that way, and has to be done manually, but even without stroking the toy up and down at all, my partner found the other sensations it offers very satisfying. Specifically, they said that this toy feels the most like actual penetrative sex of any stroker they’ve tried (and, being married to a sex toy reviewer, they’ve tried more than their fair share!).

My one major complaint about this toy is that the internal sleeve is open-ended, so cum and lube inevitably get into the outer case, which then has to be cleaned. It’s also very loud, although that is usually par for the course with this type of toy, unfortunately. As a sometimes-voyeur, I don’t love that the exterior is opaque – I’d always prefer a clear view of the action, as with a see-through Fleshlight – but that’s really a small price to pay for the pleasure my partner gets from the Lovense Max 2.

Finally, probably my favorite of the three: The Lovense Edge 2 ($99) is a prostate vibrator that also has an external portion for stimulating the perineum at the same time. You can control each motor separately in the app.

At first my partner found that this toy kept slipping out during use, but then we learned that the toy’s angle is adjustable – so you can bend it to hit your prostate more effectively, and in the process, keep it anchored more securely inside you. I love this feature and wish more sex toys were this versatile, to account for differences in individual anatomy.

Orgasms from prostate stimulation alone are pretty rare for my partner – I think together we’d only previously achieved it via pegging – but this toy gave them one, and it wasn’t even that much work for me! I mostly just kept undulating the prostate vibration up and down in a wave-like pattern, which made them feel like I was fucking them. Their orgasm seemed super intense, and because of the toy’s app functionality, getting them off this way didn’t cause me anywhere near as much pain as thrusting a dildo for the equivalent amount of time would have. We will definitely be using the Lovense Edge 2 lots more in the future!

 

Have any of y’all tried Lovense toys? What did you think?

 

This post was not sponsored – I really do like these toys this much – but the links are affiliate links.