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Review: Monster Pub Doctor Whale 2

Kate Sloan

I’ve always been pretty ambivalent about doing Kegel exercises. I know they’re good for my sexual and urinary health, but so are all the orgasms I have. I know you can do them anywhere – waiting in line, riding on a bus, etc. – but that’s also true of playing Scrabble on my phone. Like other types of exercise, Kegels are a “virtuous” activity that I mostly just find boring and annoying, even though I know I ought to do ’em more often.

Enter the Monster Pub Doctor Whale 2, a toy that actually makes Kegel exercises more fun and interesting to do. Whaaaat?!

 

What is the Doctor Whale 2?

Monster Pub sent me their original version of the Doctor Whale about four years ago. It’s a C-shaped vibrator meant to stimulate your clit and G-spot simultaneously, like the We-Vibe or the Lelo Noa, but is designed to look like a cute li’l whale. The toy is connectable to the MonsterPub app (available on iOS and Android), through which you can control its vibrations and do guided Kegel workouts.

Monster Pub seems to have made a few changes to the Doctor Whale in this latest iteration. The whale’s “tail” has been widened, so it can (theoretically) hit your clit while also stimulating your labia a bit. The Bluetooth connectivity between the toy and the app seems much-improved. I’m not sure if any other changes have been made, but those two alone make a big difference.

 

What are the Kegel workouts like?

Once the toy is inside you and connected to the app – a process that happens fairly easily and quickly by holding down the vibe’s power button for 2 seconds and pairing it through the app – you can navigate to the “Health” section of the app and begin a workout.

You will then be guided through cycles of squeezing your Kegel muscles for a few seconds and relaxing for a few seconds. The “narrator” of the workout also helps you sync up your breathing to your squeezing, so the process can become meditative and grounding, like a yoga class. There’s even a short “cooldown” at the end that reminds me of the savasana many yoga practitioners end every session with. I always feel both accomplished and chilled out when I finish a Monster Pub workout, much like I do after a great yoga sesh.

Most interestingly to me, there is a pressure sensor inside the toy that conveys live feedback to the app, showing you at any given moment how tightly you’re squeezing the toy on a scale from 0 to 199. I find this highly motivating to watch during my workouts, as I try to beat my previous record. You can view patterns in your sessions to see your muscles getting stronger over time (hey Apple, you should integrate these stats into your Health app!). The app informs me that I apparently have stronger Kegel muscles than 95% of its users, which will be a great thing to brag about if I ever go to a party again.

As I’ve noted before, there’s still a substantial language barrier problem with this app; many of the functions are hard to find because of how poorly labeled everything is, and the person doing voiceover for the guided workouts (who seems to speak English fluently) nonetheless sounds awkward speaking the badly-translated script they’ve been given. I do think the app has been slightly improved in this regard since the last time I reviewed it, but Monster Pub would benefit a lot from hiring an English-speaking translator/copywriter to make sure all the text makes sense and is comprehensible to English-speaking users.

 

But is the toy… pleasurable?

The motor of the Doctor Whale 2 is decent: not quite as strong or as rumbly as I’d prefer, but certainly moreso than the majority of vibes out there. I didn’t notice any numbness, itchiness, or irritation, the likes of which I often feel from overly-buzzy vibrations on my G-spot. The Kegel workouts are interspersed with vibration, as if to reward you with pleasure in between squeezes, and it functions well for that purpose.

That said, the clitoral arm remains an issue. Because of its width, it mostly just sits on the outside of my labia, rather than being able to make full contact with my clit. I can spread my outer labia as wide as they go and tuck the toy between them, and that’s slightly better, but I still have to physically press the arm against my clit in order to feel much of anything.

I do like the social functions of the app. You can have a partner control the vibrations of your toy from afar, or you can connect with random strangers for play via what the app calls “hit-on messages,” which can be disabled if you don’t want to get flirted with by randos. You can create your own vibration patterns, or try other people’s creations (I particularly enjoyed the inventive stylings of a user named DaddysLilSlut).

Supposedly this vibrator has a warming function, but this is the 3rd Monster Pub toy I’ve tried that has boasted that feature and I’ve never once figured out how to enable it. (You can seemingly only control the toy via the app, which is, as I’ve mentioned, pretty overloaded and at times incomprehensible.)

 

Final thoughts?

I don’t think this vibe could get me off on its own – it’s not strong enough, rumbly enough, or capable of providing enough clitoral stimulation for that – but it works a treat as a Kegel exerciser. I actually get excited about doing workouts with this toy, although often I’m turned on enough by the end of a session that I need to switch to different toys to finish the job.

At $169 for the premium version of the toy (which is the version with Kegel exercise functionality), this toy is pretty pricey for what it does. You can get the standard version for $119 but I’m not sure why you would – the Kegel capability is easily the best thing about this product. But if you want/need to do Kegels more often, and you (like me) find it difficult to motivate yourself to do so, then $169 might be worth it for you. The app can even be set up to send you daily reminders to do your exercises – thoughtfully skipping your period, should you choose to track your cycle in the MonsterPub app – so it’s like having your own Kegels-focused personal trainer, keeping you in line and cheering you on.

Get the Monster Pub Doctor Whale 2 if you need help doing your Kegels and think some pleasure and guidance would do the trick. But if that’s not your situation, there are other vibes that would be better for your purposes. They may not have a medical degree like Doctor Whale, but hey, can’t win ’em all.

 

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

Sexual Fantasies vs. Sexual Reality

Kate Sloan

Things that happen in my fantasies about giving blowjobs:

  • effortless deep-throating
  • that thick and messy type of spit
  • a constant flow of half-moaned praise
  • getting absurdly turned on

Things that can happen when you give a blowjob for real:

  • gagging
  • too much teeth
  • searing jaw pain
  • too much eye contact
  • questioning whether you ever even knew how to give a blowjob in the first place
  • getting absurdly turned on anyway

Things that happen in my fantasies about receiving oral sex:

  • deeply focused attention
  • mastery of clitoral anatomy
  • both of us moaning
  • plenty of pleasure always

Things that can happen when you receive oral sex for real:

  • dissociation
  • worries about hygiene
  • worries about taking too long
  • plenty of pleasure anyway

Things that happen in my fantasies about PIV:

  • force
  • depth
  • animalistic grunting
  • coming, always

Things that can happen when you have PIV for real:

  • erratic rhythms
  • clitoral abandonment
  • thinking about your to-do list
  • coming, occasionally

Things that happen in my fantasies about kissing:

  • profound passion
  • perfectly-timed groping
  • an explosion of figurative fireworks
  • a lot of intimacy

Things that can happen when you kiss for real:

  • overzealous tongue stuff
  • overzealous teeth stuff
  • not knowing what to do with your hands
  • nonetheless: a lot of intimacy

Things that happen in my fantasies about love:

  • permanence
  • safety
  • desperate confessions
  • the sense that it’s all you’ve ever wanted

Things that can happen when you love for real:

  • heartbreak
  • vulnerability
  • miscommunication
  • somehow, still, the sense that it’s all you’ve ever wanted

How to Discover Your New Favorite Sexy Roleplay

Kate Sloan
Photo from my Wednesday Addams photoshoot with Cadence Lee back in 2017

Ah, roleplay. For something that is literally just grown-up playtime, it sure can cause a lot of stress and confusion. Many people wonder (sometimes in my inbox) how to get started with roleplay, what their favorite roleplays mean about them, and what scenarios they should explore through roleplay.

That last question is what I’m focusing on today. Once you know you want to try “sexy improv” (as I affectionately refer to roleplay), how do you know who you want to roleplay as?! Here are some suggestions to help you brainstorm…

 

1. Examine the media that turns you on.

Do you reliably feel a little randy when you watch Gerri and Roman verbally spar in the humiliation scenes of Succession? Does your erotic imagination continually wander back to the hypnokink antics in The Jungle Book? Do you fantasize about being wanted as fervently as Joe wants his stalking victims in You? (Am I just listing my own kinks here? Who can say…)

Media is often one of the first places we encounter dynamics we’d later like to embody and act out ourselves. It’s worth paying attention to which characters, relationships, situations, and power dynamics get your motor running, so you can translate their hottest elements into a sexy scene with a partner someday.

 

2. Ponder the words you love to call people, or to be called.

If you’ve noticed your knees get weak when you call a partner “boss,” or when an authority figure calls you “young lady,” for example, that’s useful information.

If you like, try making a list of all the titles and honorifics you can think of – sir, madam, doctor, your honor, your majesty, captain, and so on. Go through the list and take a moment to imagine what it would be like to call an attractive person each title on the list, or how it would feel if an attractive person were to call you these names. Circle the ones that make your heart beat faster and file that info away for future roleplays!

 

3. Take a quiz.

The Cheztoon ‘How Kinky Are You?’ quiz, for example, can help you narrow down the kinky archetypes you’re most drawn to. Take it with a partner, share your results with one another, and discuss!

I could also see it being useful to take a silly online quiz that tells you which character from your favorite media property you’re most similar to. For instance, I just took a “What Mean Girls character are you?” quiz on Buzzfeed and it told me that I’m Janis Ian. Extremely into the idea of a Janis-and-Regina-inspired roleplay!

 

4. Ask yourself how you want to feel.

Different people are drawn to kinky roleplay for different reasons, and it’s useful to figure out your own motivations when devising new roleplay scenarios. Do you want to feel submissive? Dominant? Innocent? Powerful? Slutty? Evil? Ravaged? Indulged? Punished? Adored?

Write down all the emotions you like to feel, whether in kink or just in life, and use that list to extrapolate some roleplay situations you might enjoy.

 

5. Consider costuming.

While costumes are absolutely not a requirement for roleplay, they can make scenes feel more authentic and grounded in reality. But also, you can consider which clothing items make you feel sexiest, and devise a roleplay based on those choices.

For example, I’ve always felt super cute in short pleated skirts and kneesocks, so a schoolgirl/teacher roleplay is a natural fit for me. I’ve had partners who felt most “themselves” in an elegant suit, suggesting they might enjoy playing a powerful entrepreneur in a boss/secretary roleplay or somesuch. If a black latex catsuit sounds like the hottest possible thing you could wear, maybe you’re jonesing for a Catwoman/Batman roleplay. You get the idea!

 

What methods have you used to brainstorm future roleplay scenes?

 

This post was sponsored by Cheztoon Take the Kink Quiz. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

Do Dildos Feel Better Than Dicks?

Kate Sloan

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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.)
  3. 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.

4 Unique Sex Toys I’m Extremely Curious About

Kate Sloan

CalExotics Impulse Intimate E-Stimulator Remote Dual Kegel Exerciser

I’ve been curious about the pleasure possibilities of genital electrostimulation ever since the Jopen Intensity E-stim vibrator was introduced in 2012 or so. It was a rabbit vibe that purported to rhythmically zap your Kegel muscles so as to trigger muscle contractions, which would be, in theory, pleasurable. I’ve also heard many stories and rumors over the years about electrostim’s supposed ability to trigger actual orgasms, in much the same way as “ram ejaculators” are used to collect precious semen from prized livestock. I’ve heard that this method, known as “electroejaculation,” can be used to help paraplegic or quadriplegic men ejaculate so they can have biological children, for instance, which is fascinating.

This Kegel toy isn’t doing anything that sophisticated, but it works on a similar principle. Apparently it sends out electric pulses to your pelvic muscles, making them contract and relax rhythmically and thereby promoting increased muscle tone, which can lead to stronger, longer orgasms. I’m not sure if I’ll ever be brave enough to apply electricity to my genitals, no matter how mild it may be – but this toy certainly makes it seem easy, not to mention tempting.

 

Fantasy For Her Ultimate Pleasure

I’ve tried several times, in vain, to get sex toy shops to send me this toy to review – but they’ve always chosen to send me other toys from my list instead. I think the reason is that this one is pretty expensive ($159.99) and unconventional, so it’s a risky choice to send to a reviewer. But I’m just so curious about it!

It seems like every sex toy store on the internet now sells oral sex simulators. I’ve tried many, and they achieve their goal to varying degrees of success. But this one is unique in its mechanism: it pairs a motorized “tongue” with both suction and vibration. I think – but do not know for sure – that this toy would actually feel somewhat like the kind of oral sex I tend to prefer, unlike pressure-wave toys like the Womanizer and Satisfyer, which create suction in a less direct way than this toy does.

Would it be fantastic? Would it be disappointing? I have no idea, but I’d like to find out.

 

CalExotics “Nipplettes” vibrating nipple clamps

I had to write about these for a copywriting client of mine and couldn’t stop giggling over them being called “nipplettes.” How delightfully absurd.

Despite having worked at two different adult shops that carried them, I have never actually tried vibrating nipple clamps. The clamps themselves are typically enough for me – I am a masochist, after all. But I also know that I’ve occasionally enjoyed holding a small vibrator against my nipples while warming myself up for a masturbation sesh, so I wonder if these vibrating clamps would take that relatively mild pleasure to the next level.

I imagine they’d at least be a good solution for people who love nipple stim but don’t want to have to constantly provide it for themselves during sex. Sometimes you want to do other stuff with your hands, y’know?

 

Pipedream Extreme Fuck My Cock

Okay, this one is a bit silly. And yet somehow also fascinating.

There’s a whole range of “adult novelties” marketed at cis men that are based on fantastical premises. I mean “fantastical” in the sense of “having to do with one’s fantasies.” Almost no one probably wants to actually fuck a tiny disembodied human butt attached to a big disembodied human dick, but I can see how a lot of people might want to fuck something that feels good and looks like a butt, while simultaneously being able to ogle and stroke a dick other than their own. If butts and dicks are a huge focus of your fantasies, this stroker probably seems like a literal dream come true.

Other such fantasy-based strokers I’ve seen included a vagina placed uncomfortably close to a pair of boobs, a tube with a mouth at one end and a pussy at the other, and even a vagina embedded in what appears to be a football, presumably for the benefit of horny jocks (Google it if you dare). While these types of toys often feel objectifying in a vaguely misogynist way, they certainly do tap into some people’s fantasies… sometimes resulting in creations that would give Picasso and Escher a run for their money. If the uncanny valley were an orifice, it would be this stroker.

 

This post was sponsored by IntimateNeed.com, which carries over 3,000 different products! As always, all writing and opinions are my own.