silicone butt plug

Review: Tantus Flirt

Kate Sloan

Lately I haven’t been in the mood for anal stimulation, like, ever. My butt’s been highly resistant to poking and prodding. Which is why it’s taken me so damn long to get this review written.

Tantus sent me the Flirt months ago. I had actually requested a smaller plug, the Little Flirt, but I was nonetheless happy to see the regular-sized Flirt when it arrived in my mailbox – because it looks sexy as hell. Glossy, black, curvy, flexible. Mmm.

If you ask me (and you’re reading my blog, so I assume you’re asking me), Tantus is one of the few companies that really gets anal toys right. They don’t cause my butt pain or discomfort. They just feel good.

The Flirt is no exception. Its gently swelling curves slip inside me with minimal warm-up, even though the toy is 1.4 inches across its widest point. The curve from the head to the middle of the shaft is just delicious, and feels gooooood going in and out of my ass. Combined with clit stimulation, it’s a knockout. As with many other Tantus butt toys, the sentence that comes to mind is, “This is what anal play should always feel like.”

My only issue with the Flirt is the base. I think it’s due for a redesign. It’s roughly the same width as the widest part of the plug, so it doesn’t feel completely secure; I get the sense that I have to hold onto it or it might drift inside me (though I don’t know if this is actually possible or if it’s just a feeling I have). It’s also circular and wide, so the Flirt isn’t really “wearable” as a plug; it’s more of an active toy, to be used during fucking, than it is one to be worn inside your underwear for hours at a time. (I have other plugs for that.)

If Tantus gave the Flirt a wide, crescent moon-shaped base like their Juice plug has, it would be useable as an all-purpose butt plug. For now, I’ll only be using it for in-and-out-fucking. But it does that very, very well.

Merci, Tantus!

Review: Something Forbidden Butt Plug

Kate Sloan

I’ve tried a lot of butt plugs in my day, but the Something Forbidden is easily the worst-designed of all of them.

It’s from the official Fifty Shades of Grey collection, meaning it was co-designed by E. L. James, so really, I should’ve guessed it would suck. But I thought that the other co-designer, Lovehoney, would know better, given that they actually make and sell sex toys (including the Sqweel, which I like). But nope. This butt plug is straight-up terrible.

Let’s go through the concerns I have with it, from most horrifying to least:

First off, the base is the WORST base I have ever encountered. It’s ring-shaped, and it is made of incredibly floppy, squishy, thin silicone. I can squish the base completely flat between two fingers with minimal effort. This means that whenever I wear the plug, I am constantly terrified that the base is going to smush together and the whole toy is going to slip inside me, necessitating a mad dash to the emergency room. Not fun.

Secondly, the words “Fifty Shades of Grey” are carved into the side of the plug. Not only is that a lot of tiny text to have to scrub with an old toothbrush during the cleaning process, but also – the text is engraved on the plug itself, not the base. So you’ve got a shit ton of text that can easily become encrusted with, you guessed it, actual shit. And lube, and whatever else. And it’s not that easy to clean. Gross. Major, major design flaw.

Thirdly, there’s a big seam running all the way around the plug. This isn’t the kind of thing I usually notice on sex toys (maybe my butt just isn’t that sensitive?) but I know it drives other people nuts, so it’s worth noting.

If the Something Forbidden were overhauled and those three glaring problems were fixed, I could see it being a decent plug for the kind of audience the Fifty Shades collection is aiming for: vanilla folks who have never or seldom tried kink before (including anal play). This plug is a good size for beginners, at 1″ in diameter, and it has a nicely tapered tip that makes it easy to insert. It also plays well with my favorite lube; I didn’t find I needed to reapply, even after an hour of wear.

The plug comes with a lovely silver-grey storage bag with the words Fifty Shades of Grey printed on it. While it’s obviously not the most discreet storage solution in the world, I still appreciate it. Too many companies forget the importance of including a storage bag, especially with lint-happy silicone toys like this one.

But overall? Please, please, please, don’t buy this plug. It’s a Colossal Butt Hazard. If you want something similarly sized and shaped, but 100% more safe, I highly recommend Tantus’s Meteorite, Slim, or Little Flirt. Or you could pay $60 for the best butt plug ever and never have to worry about your butt’s needs again.

Just stay the fuck away from the Something Forbidden. I do, indeed, forbid you to put it in your butt.

Thanks so much to PinkCherry for providing me with this toy!

Review: Fun Factory Boosty

Kate Sloan

When I showed my boyfriend a photo of Fun Factory’s latest butt plug, the Boosty, he audibly shuddered. “That looks so uncomfortable!” he said. Meanwhile, I was plotting ways to get my hands on one ASAP.

Now that I’ve got one, I’m not disappointed. It might be the cutest-looking toy in my collection. It looks like ice cream, or an abstract snowman for your butt, or something. It’s a lovely shade of teal, and you can also get it in black, but why would you?

The Boosty is made of 100% silicone. It’s pretty squishy and forgiving. This, coupled with its barely-tapered tip, sometimes makes it tricky to insert. I’ve found it helpful to lube up the inside of my ass as well as the plug itself (water-based only, please!), to warm up with a smaller tapered plug first, and to go slow. Of course, that’s good advice for any plug, but the Boosty’s shape makes it more challenging to insert so it’s wise to know what you’re doing. For this reason, I wouldn’t recommend this toy to anal beginners.

It’s a great size for an intermediate plug. It measures 1 ½" in diameter at its widest point, which normally is my upper limit for anal toys, but this doesn’t feel like a stretch because the plug’s size increases gradually. If I can get the smallest bulb (about 1 ¼") to slip inside, I know that the rest will follow, because it’s a well-designed and anatomically conscious toy.

As with any slanted or curved plug, some people will prefer to wear it facing forward and some will like it better backward. The rectum naturally curves toward the back of the body, so that feels more natural and comfortable for long-term wear, but I find I don’t get any G-spot stimulation unless the plug is facing forward.

This is a plug I can happily wear for hours at a time, if I take care to re-lube every half hour. Its shape and size feel perfectly filling in my ass, and its slender but sturdy base nestles neatly between my cheeks. I don’t experience any pain or discomfort while sitting with the Boosty in, unless I shift positions abruptly and quickly. And I never, ever feel like it’s slipping out, probably because the body of the plug is so much bigger than the neck.

It’s not a flawless toy, though. There’s a seam that runs all the way around it, marring its beauty and smooth texture. I’m not particularly seam-sensitive and can’t feel this one during use, but it bugs me that a toy company would subject customers’ sensitive tissues to sharp seams. Surely there’s a better way?

The other problem with the Boosty is that it retains ass smell more than any other toy I own. I don’t know why this is, since most of my anal toys are made of pure silicone which should theoretically have all the same properties. A good scrub with hot water and soap after use doesn’t get the smell out; boiling it helps a bit, but not much. This isn’t a big deal, since I don’t spend a lot of time sniffing my sex toys, but it’s still an issue I wish this toy didn’t have.

For people who already know that they like butt plugs and can handle one of this size, the Boosty is a fantastic option. It’s whimsical, satisfying, and comfortable. This is right up there with my butt’s other love, the Pure Plug. I’m looking forward to trying out more Fun Factory anal toys in the future!

Review: Tantus Dipper

Kate Sloan

Normally, when I request a toy to review, it’s because I have some inkling that I might enjoy it. I check out its measurements, examine its features, compare it to other toys I’ve tried, and if it seems like it might work for me, I request it. But when I asked PinkCherry.ca to send me a Tantus Dipper, it wasn’t because I thought I would like it – it was because it kind of scared me, and I thought it’d be a good challenge.

The Dipper is my first textured butt plug. All the other plugs that my ass has enveloped have been smooth, easily made slick with lube. The Dipper has the same diameter as the Ryder, the biggest plug I’ve taken up the butt, but because the Dipper is covered in deep ridges, it feels even more challenging.

Like all the Tantus toys I’ve tried, the Dipper is made of 100% silicone. It’s quite dense in the body and base of the plug, so those parts have hardly any give at all, but the neck is thinner so it’s flexible. This, as I learned from the too-rigid Joe Rock, is a good quality in a plug.

Looking at the Dipper as I pulled it out of its standard plastic packaging, I thought, This is going to hurt. On Twitter, I referred to it as the Ridged Butt Plug of Doom. I braced myself for trouble.

After warming up with a smaller toy and dumping a bunch of water-based lube on the Dipper, I slowly, slowly guided it into my ass. It felt foreign and uncomfortable at first, as my butt met texture for the first time. I reached the widest point of the plug – 1 ½" – and it stretched and hurt a tiny bit, but I kept on pushing until the Dipper slid home with a satisfying pop.

I spent the next few hours doing various household activities while wearing the Dipper. I can report that it stays in place better than any other plug I’ve tried. There is no moment at which I feel like this toy is going to come out; it doesn’t even feel like it’s moving at all. It’s anchored, and that’s awesome.

The Dipper’s neck and base are very comfortable. I thought the base might feel weird, since it’s spherical, unlike the narrow rectangular plug bases I’m used to – but it nestles nicely between my cheeks and doesn’t bother me at all.

Sitting with the Dipper in is sometimes a bit tricky, because the plug’s tip is pointed and can jab my innards if I sit down the wrong way. I’d recommend that you go slowly if you want to sit or move around a lot with this plug inside you.

I love that the Dipper is small enough that I can use another toy vaginally while it’s in. This doesn’t feel as fabulous as I thought it would – maybe I’m just not a fan of anal texture? – but it’s always cool to have the option.

Tantus normally gets everything right, but the Dipper has a very noticeable seam running down each side of it, from the tip of the plug to the bottom of its base. This seems glaringly incongruent with my other Tantus toys, which are sleek and seamless (as far as I’ve been able to tell, anyway). I don’t feel the seam in use, but it’s obnoxious that it’s there. Nothing that rubs against sensitive tissues should ever have sharp seams on it.

I’m not a big fan of the ridges, to be honest. I think I would like this plug a whole lot more if it had the same shape and dimensions but was smooth. For me, the ridges do nothing but create discomfort during insertion and removal. And they’re incredibly difficult to clean. On the plus side, they do allow the toy to hang onto lube fairly well.

So who would I recommend the Tantus Dipper for? Someone whose butt loves texture. Someone who wants a plug for long-term wear and has some anal experience under hir* belt. Someone who has a fondness for sex toys that resemble BDSM torture devices (or could even be used as such). If you fall into one or two or all three of these categories, there’s a very good chance you could fall in love with the Dipper. But if your butt’s a wimp, give this one a pass and consider picking up the much tamer Ripple instead.

Thanks, PinkCherry.ca!

*Yep, I used a gender-neutral pronoun.

Review: Happy Valley Joe Rock

Kate Sloan

I’m kind of unhealthily in love with Happy Valley. Essentially the Canadian answer to Tantus, they make 100% silicone toys for butts and twats. My very first anal toy was by Happy Valley, and it has served me very well.

Despite all this, sadly, their Joe Rock plug just didn’t work out for me. In fact, I may have thrown the word “hate” around when I was tweeting about my experience with this toy. And “hate” isn’t a word I use lightly, especially in reference to sex toys.

I chose the Joe for a number of reasons: it’s Happy Valley, it comes in a bright shade of blue (my favorite), it’s a manageable 1 ¼" in girth (bigger than my beginner plug, but not as big as the bulbous Ryder), and it has a slightly tapered shape that makes it look easy to insert.

I was all too excited to receive my Joe Rock. I thought it would be “the next big thing” in my anal adventures, small enough to slip in without warm-up and wear around town, but large enough to feel filling. Let me tell you, the size of the Joe is utterly perfect for me; it’s the shape and material that my butt takes issue with.

First off, the body of the plug feels long and pointy inside me. It’s not as long as the Ryder, but because Happy Valley silicone is firmer than Tantus silicone, it feels like more of an assault on my ass. I don’t like having to be careful when I sit down so as not to bruise my innards.

Secondly, the Joe’s neck is a big issue. It looks slim and comfy in photos, but since the silicone is so firm, it doesn’t feel that way in use. My sphincter can grip it, and the plug stays in well enough, but the neck is so uncomfortable on my anal opening. Rather than noticing the delicious fullness of the plug itself, I’m constantly distracted by the feeling of the neck dangling awkwardly out of my ass.

The base is also weird. It’s a thick rectangle that certainly keeps Joe from being sucked up into my ass, but torments my buttcheeks the whole time I’m wearing it. I’m afraid to wear Joe out on the town because I know my ass will start chafing and I’ll be miserable. This is not a good plug for long-term wear.

Even for short-term use, though, this plug is insufferable. So I’m still on the hunt for my perfect plug – easy to insert without pre-stretching, maybe 1 ¼" in girth, thin neck, solid but comfy base. The medium Pure Plug looks like a good contender; I guess I’ll have to wait and find out.

I bought the Joe Rock plug with my own affiliate earnings, and was not required to review it – but hey, I did anyway!