My Night With a Sex Doll (the Tantaly Mark)!

As I strolled back home from a great comedy show last night, I had a spring in my step. I’d just shared some laughs with pals, the weather was beautiful, and I had a date with a sex doll.

This date was a long time coming. I’ve collaborated with sex doll company Tantaly on a number of reviews before, but I’ve always outsourced the testing, because the brand always wanted to highlight their most popular products: dolls with tits and a pussy. Now, don’t get me wrong, I can appreciate tits and a pussy as much as the next bisexual – but I don’t have the anatomy required to actually fuck that type of doll, which is, of course, the expected usage of a fuck-doll.

In the course of doing those Tantaly reviews, I’ve managed to hook up three penis-possessing people in my life with a free sex doll, in exchange for letting me pick their brain about the experience for my review (or in one case, the person actually wrote the review himself – you should read it, it’s hilarious!). But sex dolls are the type of product that you typically wouldn’t want or need multiples of, especially if you live in a small apartment – so none of my testers were willing to test another doll, and there wasn’t really anyone else who I’d trust enough to give this responsibility to. (It might sound odd to describe sticking your dick in something as a “responsibility,” but my reputation and income would legitimately be on the line if a tester ghosted me after receiving their doll, so I have to be choosy about them!)

All this to say: When Tantaly reached out again recently to ask about another collab, I told them that at this point, I’d only be able to review a doll if I could test it myself… which meant it would have to be a doll with a dick. And guess what? They sent me one. His name is Mark. He’s actually lying in my bed right now as I write this. He’d probably be smoking a post-coital cigarette, if not for the fact that he has no head. Let me tell you about our date night!

Specs ‘n’ stuff

I want to get the technical shit out of the way up top, because frankly it feels weird to write about this doll like it’s just another sex toy, even though it literally is. But damn, it’s eerily humanoid. I mean, I know that’s the point, but I was really thrown by how much my brain wanted to categorize the doll as a person immediately. I full-body cringed from uncanny-valley weirdness when I unboxed Mark and looked at him lying there, so lifeless and subdued – except for his perpetually raging hard-on, which arched up out of his styrofoam coffin like a phoenix rising from the ashes – and yet so lifelike. I kept saying “Excuse me, sir” as I (wo)manhandled him into different positions, the same way I sometimes catch myself saying “Please” and “Thank you” to Siri. (You can take the girl out of Canada, but…)

The Mark doll is lifelike but not exactly life-sized; even accounting for its lack of a head/arms/legs, it’s still proportionately maybe two-thirds the size of your average dude. It’s 23.5″ tall, from its cut-off neck to the bottom of its cut-off thighs. But I would say that the doll’s most impactful measurement is actually its weight, because hoo boy is this thing ever heavy (33.7 lbs). To be fair, I have a chronic illness that impacts muscle strength, and I’m also just an out-of-shape weakling, but weight is a frequent complaint about sex dolls in general, even for people with actual muscle. These dolls do require a certain amount of heft so they can stay anchored in place when you’re fucking them/riding them – and they do that very well! – but I found it challenging to move the doll around at all. In fact, after coming, I was so tired that I barely managed to shove the doll over in bed so I could fall asleep beside him (and yes, it was a bit of a jump-scare waking up next to a headless man the next morning).

The Mark comes with a storage case, which has straps to make it easier to carry around – nice touch! There’s even a zippered pocket on the outside which is very roomy – you could easily fit a Magic Wand Rechargeable, big dildo, and full-size bottle of lube in there, no problem, with room left over for condoms or cock rings or whatever else you’re bringing to the hypothetical sex doll orgy you’re apparently jetsetting to in this scenario.

Except for its metal frame structure, the entire doll is made of TPE (thermoplastic elastomer), which has some big pros and some big cons that I’ll get into below. This doll costs $400 USD or $500 CAD. In addition to its lovely dick, it also has a fuckable ass with a textured interior; the doll comes with a moisture-absorbing stick to help speed up the drying process after you wash his butt out (what a phrase!), but as mentioned, I don’t have a dick with which to penetrate this thing, so I didn’t test out its butt beyond giving it a little slap or two, ’cause, y’know, when in Rome…

Too real, man

I’d never personally unboxed a torso before. I’d seen other people unbox them, in videos and on FaceTime calls, but it’s an odd experience to actually do it yourself. I was laughing, cringing and squealing as I lifted Mark out of the little styrofoam bed he came in – because he looked and felt somehow both very real and not real at all.

Certainly his physique doesn’t resemble many that I’ve seen in the wild, but the texture and appearance of his skin is quite lifelike, if a bit unnaturally cold to the touch. (Just imagine you’re fucking one of the Twilight vampires, it’s fine.) One nice thing about TPE is that it can indeed feel impressively skin-like on the surface – but this TPE formulation feels oddly soft for this particular application. Truly not trying to body-shame here, only to doll-shame, but in my limited experience touching super-muscly bodies like Mark‘s, they are quite a bit firmer than this. It’s especially strange in the chest region; I’m used to being able to leverage some of my weight against someone’s chest as I ride them, but my fist sinks into Mark like memory foam, which was a tad bit unsettling mid-bang.

But overall, it was an interesting experience for me psychologically to get my hands all over this doll, objectifying him, flipping him over, touching his junk, etc. It made me really aware of how inhibited I feel when touching human partners – there’s the constant anxiety, however low-level, that I might do a bad job, hurt them somehow, or look like I don’t know what I’m doing. I didn’t have to worry about any of that with the doll, so I was able to follow my in-the-moment desires without hesitation, tweaking a nipple here, smacking some balls there, running a palm along Mark‘s rubbery six-pack, and just basically being an unabashed perv. This ultra-toned body type isn’t what I’m usually drawn to – if Tantaly ever makes a sex doll with a lanky nerd bod or a cuddly dad bod, I’m so there – but I enjoyed the way it encouraged me to foreground my desires and my “female gaze,” like a Magic Mike movie.

Does yr girl know how to shoot a cock portrait or what?

Cock ‘n’ balls

Shout-out to those of you who scrolled down to this section immediately; I see you 😉

As you might imagine, this doll’s dick is spectacular, at least visually. (My wife didn’t think so, though; she took one look at it and immediately said, “What a weird dick! And the rest of him just looks like a woman!” – which I hadn’t really considered, but I guess Mark‘s pecs, nipples, and hourglassy shape have a certain Greek-statue-esque androgyny to them that probably makes this an especially suitable doll for me, a noted bisexual…)

But let’s get down to brass tacks: cock measurements. The insertable length is slightly over 6″, while its widest circumference is 5.75″, which works out to a diameter of about 1.8″. (And yes, I reflexively apologized to him out loud as I held a tape measure to his dick.)

Tantaly has done something similar here to what companies like Vixen Creations and Tantus do with dual-density silicone: this cock has a firm core, with a squishier outer layer on top, to create a realistically boner-like feeling. But in Mark‘s case, the firm core is part of the doll’s metal frame structure, and the outer layer is the same soft TPE that the rest of the doll is made out of.

And therein lies the rub (and tug): TPE is not the right material for this dick (or for any dick, frankly). It should be made out of silicone instead (like that of the Tantaly Mark Pro doll, of which more below). TPE is porous, meaning it clings onto some amount of bacteria no matter how well you wash it. So, while I really enjoyed sucking Mark’s cock for a while (after taking a damp washcloth to it, to wipe away any bitter chemicals remaining from the production process), I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing so anymore after he’d been used a few times, because the thought of the bacteria would gross me out. I likewise wouldn’t be able to sanitize his dick if, for instance, I wanted to use it anally and then vaginally, or wanted to share it with a partner I’m not fluid-bonded with, or wanted to avoid re-infecting myself after a bout of BV. I could put a new condom on it every time, sure, but it’d be annoying to have to do that, especially with such an expensive toy.

There’s another reason I wish Mark’s dick wasn’t made of TPE: it’s too soft! Now, look, this is a body-positive blog, and I certainly don’t mean to boner-shame… but in real life, if someone is having erectile difficulties, we can just switch to activities that don’t require a hard-on. This doll has no such capacity – he has no tongue, no fingers, no purple vibrating strap-on – and so, let’s face it, his dick is what he brings to the table. As such, it surprised me that his cock is so soft and squishy that it’s actually difficult to get it inside me, in a way that reminds me of that old Rodney Dangerfield joke about “shooting pool with a rope.”

I also just… couldn’t feel his dick very strongly as I was riding it, despite its moderate size, A-spotty curve, and firm core. I wanted to feel well-and-truly fucked, but it felt more like my insides were being gently massaged – nice, sure, but not orgasmic. I ended up nudging the doll aside in bed so I could lie down and get myself off “the old-fashioned way,” i.e. with a dildo and vibe. (I have, of course, linked to the actual toys I actually used, because I know I would be curious about that if I was reading this!)

All hope is not lost, however: Tantaly also makes a doll called the Mark Pro, which comes with three differently-sized removable silicone penises (!!!), making it not only more hygienic but also more versatile. The jump in price between the Mark and Mark Pro is $90 USD, which buys you three nice silicone dildos and some peace of mind, at the very least, so I’d say it’s worth it!

Regarding my own doll’s all-TPE genitals, though, one upside is that his balls look and feel very realistic, in a way that I found hot and weirdly transfixing… probably because I have often been wary of hurting partners’ balls if I touch them too zealously, so it was a fun novelty to be able to slap some balls around without fear of causing pain or permanent damage.

Sir, this is a Wendy’s

Was it good for you?

“Cowgirl” position (i.e. me on top) was the only one that seemed practical for my purposes. Mark is too heavy for me to comfortably place him on top of me in a missionary-style position, I’m not flexible enough for many other positions, and the very idea of backing up onto a doll’s dick in doggie-style is giving me pre-emptive thigh cramps just thinking about it.

Cowgirl isn’t a position I tend to favor in my sex life, because I lack the strength in my knees and hips to really accomplish the up-and-down motion that people with penises tend to prefer. But I’m much more able to sustain a smaller range of motion that, were I to do it with a human, would probably be more for my own pleasure than theirs, rubbing the head of their dick back and forth over my A-spot in short strokes and maybe grinding my clit against their pubic bone at the same time. Naturally, though, with a sex doll I was able to fully prioritize my own pleasure without having to consider what might feel best for someone else, and it was fun to experiment with different ways to ride a cock. (If PETA wants to update the “ways to skin a cat” idiom, I nominate that as a contender.)

Although it was fun to center my own pleasure in the way I rode the insensate Mark, my arousal only really kicked into gear once I started imagining he could feel pleasure, could experience desire and arousal and frenzied lust. I fantasized that the doll awoke into sentience (let’s disregard its horrifying headlessness for the purposes of this scenario) and discovered, to its surprise, that a cute gal (hi) was riding its dick, and that this was intensely pleasurable. I’ve employed similar fantasies in toy-testing sessions before, usually imagining that a dildo I’m testing has become sentient and sensate – but Mark’s humanoid torso added significantly to this fantasy for me. It was like an adult version of Pinocchio’s “I’m a real boy” moment… Peen-occhio? Is that anything?

Ultimately though, I was not able to reach orgasm with Mark, even when I used an ol’ faithful clit vibe while riding him. His dick just didn’t feel hard enough to contribute meaningfully to my pleasure – which annoyed me, because you literally had one job, dude. If Mark was a Ken doll, his job would be dick. But I’m not sure he’s a great fit for the position.

Nonetheless: Man oh man, I had so much fun testing out the Tantaly Mark. It’s definitely the most humanoid product I’ve ever reviewed in my 13+ years in this industry, and it was fascinating to observe how that affected my arousal, my fantasies, and even the way I addressed the doll in my own mind (he/it pronouns, baybee!).

I think a lot of people would really enjoy this doll, especially if they plan on making use of his ass in ways that I could not, so as to get their full money’s worth. As for me, call me shallow, but the dick was all I cared about – and it just wasn’t firm enough to give me the ramming I wanted, plus it’s made of a porous material. [sad trombone]

The Mark Pro is a really cool product, though, because it’s Mark with a dick you can detach and sanitize as needed. I haven’t felt its dick(s) myself, so I don’t know how the firmness compares to the TPE version – but if it was firmer, I think I’d have a much easier time coming all over it. And just think: If I found myself saying “Sorry” and “Excuse me” while just moving him around, I wonder what I’d say to him in the throes of an orgasm…

 

This post was sponsored, meaning I was paid to write a fair and honest review of the product. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

In Defense of Sex Dolls (Stigma Be Damned!)

Image via this post’s sponsor, Coeros, makers of cool custom sex dolls!

I’ve written quite a few articles about sex dolls and sex robots over the years, so I’ve encountered plenty of anti-sex-doll stigma while researching these products. One common argument, often made by people who are basically well-meaning, goes as follows:

“It’s fine if someone wants to own and use a sex doll, so long as it doesn’t interfere with their ability to form human relationships.”

Today I’m going to go on the record about a hot take of mine: I think it’s fine to use sex dolls even if they do disincentivize you from seeking a relationship – so long as you’re okay with that. Let me explain…

 

Not everyone wants romance or sex!

Yep: asexual and aromantic people might well enjoy a sex doll even if they don’t enjoy dating/fucking actual people. My allo (non-ace/aro) readers may be wondering, “Why would someone want a sex toy, presumably to be used during masturbation, if they’re asexual?!” and the answer is that sexual attraction is different and separate from sexual behavior and sexual desires. For instance, a straight woman might jerk off to lesbian porn sometimes because it focuses primarily on clit stimulation, but that doesn’t negate her heterosexuality – or a gay man might impulsively hook up with a female friend just to ‘try it out,’ and might even have a good time, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s gay.

Asexuality is a sexual orientation characterized by a lack of sexual attraction – but many ace people still masturbate and/or have sex. And since there’s a high degree of overlap between the asexual and aromantic communities, it’s entirely plausible that some ace and/or aro people might enjoy using sex dolls and other types of sex toys. These products supply sexual pleasure without the requirement of seeking human connection that may or may not be wanted.

There are also people who don’t identify as ace or aro but are celibate for various reasons – perhaps due to trauma or mental health struggles, or perhaps just as a matter of choice – and those folks could get a lot of value out of sex dolls too. If you’ve been in nonconsensual situations before that made you feel very out of control, for instance, I can see how it could be deeply empowering to get yourself a custom sex doll – you have full control over the doll and how you engage with it, which could be less scary and triggering than sex with a human being.

 

You don’t owe the world a cookie-cutter love story!

As queer, trans, kinky, and polyamorous people already know well, the world is full of harmful myths about what constitutes a ‘healthy’ or ‘acceptable’ relationship. There are infinite different ways to structure and label our relationships – so, although you may be drowning in cultural messages to the contrary, you have no obligation to get into a monogamous, long-term romantic relationship, or any other kind of relationship, for that matter. Your life is yours to design!

As disability and anti-fatness advocates often point out, our society mandates health as a moral good, which is why so many people feel justified in shaming fat folks and disabled folks for not ‘working hard enough’ to meet a particular definition of health. This practice is harmful and wrong-headed, not only because health depends on some factors we have no choice over (like disabilities and genetics), but also because no one is morally obligated to be healthy. Health versus illness is a practical consideration, not an ethical one.

Likewise, there’s nothing intrinsically good or bad about being in a relationship, or not being in a relationship – whether temporarily, or for decades at a time! Don’t get me wrong: humans are social creatures, and if someone lacks any meaningful social connection in their life (including friendships), that’s likely not healthy for them, and I would counsel them to join local hobby/interest-based groups to meet people. But romantic and sexual connection are not requirements for a life well-lived, and don’t let anybody tell you different.

 

Ultimately, it’s just a toy

I think what people tend to forget, when they clutch their pearls about sex toys ‘replacing’ human connection, is that these products simply… don’t replace human connection. A sex doll can’t make you laugh, fascinate you in conversation, or make you feel truly loved. Even as A.I. technologies get better, I don’t foresee humanoid robots ever fully overtaking humans as our preferred sexual partners. Real people are fallible, imaginative, imperfect, and human, and that’s why it’s dynamic and exciting to connect with them. I love knowing that a partner chose to touch me in a specific way because of a combination of their own preferences and their knowledge of my preferences – and I find it tough to believe a robot could ever replicate that, in large part because robots cannot experience desire. (Fight me, philosophy majors. No, seriously, feel free to fight me about this in the comments; I’m curious to hear your take!)

If someone truly feels that all of their romantic and sexual needs (to the extent that they have them) are sated by a sex doll, I’m happy for them! We all should be so lucky as to have our needs abundantly met. And if they find, instead, that something is missing and that they want to continue seeking human connection, I’m happy for them too. The more pleasures you pursue and experience, the closer you get to building your ideal life – by which I mean, the life that is ideal for you, specifically. You’re the only one who gets to decide that.

So no, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with owning a sex doll, even if it does lead to a change in your romantic and sexual priorities. That’s your choice to make, because it’s your life to live – and if you want to live it hand-in-hand (or dick-in-vag) with a sex doll, more power to you. Just make sure, for fuck’s sake, that you clean it properly after every use.

 

This post contains a sponsored link. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

Using a Sex Doll With a Partner is Underrated

It’s interesting, the narratives that evolve around particular sex toys. A woman who likes big realistic dildos, for instance, will often be assumed to like big dicks too, even if that’s not the case. A man who uses an anal vibrator can easily elicit comments about how he’s probably gay, even though anyone with a lick of sense knows that butts have no sexual orientation. And similarly, if you poll the public about what type of person owns a sex doll, odds are good that they’d tell you it’s single and (involuntarily?) celibate people who own them.

It’s true that sex dolls tend to be big investments – Best Real Doll has offerings ranging from $80 to $2,199 – and one could make the argument that a person is likelier to make that type of investment if they’re highly motivated by, say, horniness or loneliness or a combination thereof. But as anyone who’s ever been in a relationship can tell you, being coupled up is not an automatic or everlasting cure for horniness or loneliness!

Not to mention – and this is what I’d really like to talk about today – using a sex doll with a partner (or with multiple partners!) can be fun as hell. Let me count the ways…

 

Scenario 1: Long-distance play

Most applicably to my own life as a person in a long-distance marriage, adult sex dolls can be wonderful toys for couples who are separated by distance, whether for the long-term or the short-term.

Masturbating for each other over FaceTime or Zoom is fun, but it doesn’t necessarily help you feel like you’re there in the room with your sweetheart, because, well… if you were, you’d probably be touching them, rather than them touching themself. Watching them use a sex doll, on the other hand? *chef’s kiss*

Seeing my partner do things like go down on their sex doll, or get on top of it and fuck it, is like seeing my own sex life with them represented from a different angle. It’s also a bit like watching amateur porn the two of us have made together, except I’m not even there. It’s great! Highly recommend!

Scenario 2: Cuckolding

Cuckold kink is having a bit of a moment in the popular consciousness right now. (There’s even a whole book about the history of cuckolding, called Insatiable Wives. The more you know!)

However, even people who fetishize being cucked (or doing the cucking) may not want to actually go through with it in real life, for various reasons. Maybe they’re worried about STIs or COVID safety; maybe they work in childcare, education or politics and are concerned about being outed if they scout for a third on the apps; maybe they just prefer to be monogamous IRL despite their profoundly non-monogamous fantasies. That’s all valid, and cuck fans in those situations deserve to be able to explore their kink nonetheless!

That’s where sex dolls come in. They pose way fewer problems than a human stranger in your bed, and they also conveniently can be stored under said bed when you’re done, which… is generally inadvisable with real-life people. (Unless they’re into that, in which case, mazel tov.)

 

Scenario 3: Voyeurism, exhibitionism and/or denial

Chastity play is a part of my dynamic with my partner, and I could see it being fun to ride a sex doll in front of them while they’re locked up, as a way of teasing them with what they can’t have.

But even if denial isn’t explicitly part of your play, it can be hot to give your partner a show. They can “look but don’t touch,” like at a strip club, or they can get involved after a while if the spirit moves them. Sex-doll three-way, anyone?

 

Have you ever used a sex doll with a partner? Is it something you’d consider?

 

This post was sponsored. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

Review: Tantaly Britney sex doll

All images courtesy of Tantaly

Well, it happened again: I was offered a sex doll to review, and had to figure out who in my life was both 1) willing to receive and test the doll and 2) reliable enough to give me useful feedback on it so I could write a review.

This is one of those weird logistical problems that people never think about when they ponder the realities of being a sex toy reviewer. See, I don’t have a dick (except for the kind you can strap on), so I’m not a member of most sex dolls’ target demographic – and while my lovely and dependable partner does have a dick, they already reviewed a sex doll for me and were disinclined to make more room in their small New York City apartment for a new member of the family. Likewise, a friend who also reviewed a sex doll for me previously was (I assumed) not up to doing so again, having given away his doll to a friend (!) for reasons I can’t quite recall but that may have had to do with moving house and not wanting to lug a 68-pound torso onto a U-Haul truck.

So this time I asked another friend, someone I knew would give the doll a fair shot and tell me his uncensored thoughts on the experience. After he’d had a few weeks to test out the toy, I took him aside in his kitchen and we chatted about the finer points of the Tantaly Britney over prosecco and beer. It was yet another delightfully weird day in my career as a sex toy reviewer, although frankly, I’ve had weirder.

Choosing the Tantaly Britney

It might seem like it’d be exciting to receive a message saying, “Which doll would you like from this website?” but I imagine the decision can actually be somewhat daunting. Tantaly carries a wide array of dolls in varying sizes; the one my partner reviewed was a petite 14 pounds, but the more lifelike models can reach weights of nearly 70 pounds.

This time around, I asked my appointed tester why he’d chosen the Britney model, and he said, “It was the lightest, while still being the most of a person.” In other words, he wanted the realism of having a full torso-size doll, so as to more closely replicate the experience of having sex with an actual human – as opposed to just being a butt or whatever – but he didn’t want masturbation to turn into a deadlift workout. The Britney weighs in at a reasonable 28.6 pounds.

Interestingly, he also asked his partner for her opinion on which doll he should choose. I think this is brilliant, having seen – both in my own friend group and in hotbeds of online sex discourse like Reddit – the havoc that can be wreaked on a relationship if one partner buys a sex doll or another “big commitment”-type sex toy without their partner’s knowledge or approval. Your solo sex life is your own, certainly, and I’m suspicious of anyone who thinks they get to non-consensually control your masturbation habits – but at the same time, I can imagine feeling a bit blindsided and hurt if a full-size sex doll showed up on my partner’s doorstep one day and they hadn’t even asked me how I’d feel about them owning one, y’know?

Although he had already looked through the options and thought Britney seemed like the best pick, my friend showed his partner the site and asked which one she thought he should go with – and she actually liked the Britney best, too, because its breast size was more average than that of some of the cartoonishly busty models on offer. I’ve gotta say, when it comes to measures of compatibility, I can think of worse ones than “similar taste in sex dolls.”

Using the Tantaly Britney

Mr. Tester was, for the most part, quite happy with the Britney. He’d never tried a sex doll before, but had used strokers like the Tenga Flip Zero. He said that the dick sensations were pretty similar between the two, but the overall experience of using the doll felt “less clinical” and made it easier to imagine that the toy was a real person. This fantasy aspect is probably the main reason to consider getting a sex doll rather than a stroker, plus the fact that you can get on top of a sex doll and thrust into it in a way that can be hard to achieve with a stroker. (Something like a Fleshlight mount can make this easier to do with some strokers, however.)

The Britney doll has two “tunnels” – a vagina and a butt – and my friend didn’t observe much difference in sensation between the two. The main factor as to why he might pick one over the other for any given session was related to positioning: certain positions work better for one hole or the other, such as standing at the edge of a bed.

Having a squeezable pair of boobs right in front of you is also a strong selling point, and something that my friend enjoyed. I mean, I get it. Boobs are great. If you’re into them, they’re definitely a major benefit of having a doll rather than a stroker or a disembodied butt or pussy.

The main issue with the Britney – and with seemingly every sex doll – is the cleaning. All three of the people I’ve asked to review sex dolls for me have described the post-session cleaning process as “a production” – you have to wash the toy’s orifice(s) out right away, resisting the urge to bask in the pleasant afterglow of orgasm, because any jizz or lube you leave in there can eventually get moldy and ruin your very expensive sex toy. (Hot, huh?)

Smaller dolls like the Scarlett can be washed out in a sink (depending on the size of your sink, natch), but dolls with more lifelike proportions like the Britney will need to be dragged into a shower or bathtub for their ritualistic post-fuck ablutions. The physical effort of doing this, and of carefully rinsing out all the cum, can be annoying enough to deter you from using the doll as often as you otherwise might. My friend said he’d be likeliest to use this doll at times when he had at least an hour free – not because he lasts that long (he said jokingly), but because realistically that’s about how long the full process takes, from dragging the doll out of her storage spot and setting her up on the bed to washing her out and drying her off after using her.

Another problem is that these dolls are prone to leaching dye onto your sheets – but fortunately my friend had read the user manual before fucking the doll for the first time (always a good idea when you get a new sex toy of any kind!) so he was prepared for this eventuality and laid down a towel under the doll.

Final thoughts

My friend thinks the Tantaly Britney is a high-quality product for its $329.99 price point, and that if you’re in the market for a sex doll, this one is definitely worth considering. Its soft curves and pleasurable orifices make for a masturbation experience that feels much closer to partnered sex than using a stroker. Unlike some of the other pals I’ve asked to review sex dolls for me, this friend thinks he will actually use this toy on a semi-regular basis even now that the review is done, because in many ways it’s a significant step up from simpler/smaller/cheaper toys like those by Tenga.

But with great pleasure comes great responsibility, and when it comes to sex dolls, mainly that means cleaning. If you can contend with the aggravating need to wash out the doll immediately after using it – and if your living situation and physical strength are such that you can transport the doll back and forth to the bathroom or kitchen as needed without too much trouble – then you might be a good candidate to own a sex doll.

Real-life sexual partners may not require you to clean them after sex, and may not stain your sheets with their skin like a sex doll can, but there’s still something comforting and exciting about the near-realism of a doll like the Britney.

 

This post was sponsored, meaning I was paid to write a fair and honest review of this product. As always, everything I’ve written here is something I actually believe to be true.

What My Objectification Kink Taught Me About Relationships

There are many forms of “objectification play” that I’ve experimented with, and the older I get, the more I seem to enjoy this kink.

There’s the version where I’m a literal object, usually a piece of furniture like a footstool or drink-holder, performing a functional service that may not appear outwardly sexual but can feel very sexual on the inside.

There’s the version where I pretend to be a doll – either a literal, porcelain doll, or a full-grown adult who’s been transformed via hypnosis or drugs into a “human sex doll” – and then get to be “used” by my “owner.”

There’s the form of objectification that most non-kinky people are familiar with, the kind that shows up in fashion magazines and in plenty of porn, wherein I’m viewed as a sexual object without agency or personhood, just a series of willing and fuckable holes.

And there are lots more ways this kink can play out that I haven’t even tried yet.

 

As with many kinks of mine, a lot of what appeals to me about objectification is the way it helps me reclaim and subvert shitty nonconsensual experiences I’ve had in the past. All the Tinder bros who text shit like “u up?” and “ready to be my fuk machine tonight?” All the hookups who cared more about getting off than giving pleasure. All the times I thought I meant something to my date on an emotional level – even one as simple as “I like her and like having conversations with her” – but it turns out that apparently I didn’t.

The sting of these mistreatments has eased a bit after several years, but I can still bring those feelings vibrantly to mind if I focus on those memories. Because I’ve paired that type of objectification with consent and pleasure in roleplays with trusted partners, the idea of being sexually objectified in this way is no longer quite as abhorrent to me – because I know it can be done in consensual ways.

Granted, none of the people with whom I’ve play-acted objectification actually saw me as objects; that was what allowed the play-acting to indeed feel like play and not like senseless cruelty.

 

As someone who writes about sex toys professionally (including, occasionally, sex dolls), I find it oddly gratifying to pretend to be a sex toy of sorts from time to time. There’s something subversive and relaxing to me about setting aside the sexual machines I’ve been writing about all day and then getting to morph into a sexual machine myself.

See, when I’m being objectified in a deeply consensual and intentional way, my mind gets to shut off. And I value that a lot, as someone whose mind is always racing with anxiety and deadlines.

But also, in my career as a sex scribe, I’ve encountered countless people who thought that my career choice was an invitation for harassment and nonconsensual sexualization. They thought that my creative interest in topics like sexual psychology and the history of the porn industry was reason enough to see me as a walking, talking sex doll who exists to spice up their boring lives.

I understand the desire to have your life overtaken by someone interesting and magical – it’s the reason “manic pixie dream girl” stories continue to get cranked out year after year. It’s also something I’ve felt myself, during long hours of swiping on Tinder late into the night, always hoping that the next swipe would conjure a life-altering force, someone so cute and charming and kind and loving that my entire daily existence would take on a different tenor just from having them around.

But as I’ve been learning in therapy, viewing other people as potential “redeemers” or “saviors” gives your power away. It strips you of the knowledge that you have the ability to make yourself happy more readily and more profoundly than any external person can. It makes you feel dependent on people you never actually needed and maybe never even really wanted.

 

So I’ve been on both sides of the objectification equation: I’ve been objectified (a lot), and in some ways I’ve objectified other people too, seen them as heroes or saviors or props in my life story.

This is no doubt why it feels so good to me now when I play with objectification, from either side of the D/s slash. Because it shows me the difference between the consensual and nonconsensual versions of these dynamics – and even equips me with the communication tools I need to say, “No. Stop. You’re putting me in a role I didn’t consent to, and I will not stand for that.”

 

This post was sponsored. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.