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Trends in the sex toy market are fun to watch, not only because they portend new pleasure possibilities but also because they tend to signal something about how our cultural beliefs on sex and gender are evolving. So when toys like the Satisfyer and Womanizer kept popping up left and right, it made me wonder: what do clitoral suction toys say about gender?

Granted, it’s technically incorrect to refer to these toys’ mechanisms as suction. They use a new mechanical method – variously referred to as “non-contact pressure wave technology,” “gentle sonic waves,” and “Pleasure Air Technology” – to gently and touchlessly stimulate the clitoris. But the effect can feel remarkably suction-like in practice, to the point that a minority of users complain these toys cause a pressure-y pain the likes of which you might notice when you crank up a clit pump too high. Most reviewers compare these toys’ sensations to oral sex – because, like a warm and willing mouth, they surround the clitoris and apply gentle, rhythmic pressure that can escalate to something like suction.

I was not initially sold on these toys; their brand of stimulation felt so soft as to be basically imperceptible at times, and they too often led me into orgasms half-ruined by the aimless, air-based tapping they administer. But after a while, my body got used to their more delicate and nuanced sensations, and I noticed that these toys, more than any others, allowed me to fantasize unimpeded about one of my favorite sex acts: cunnilingus.

You can think about getting your clit licked if you’re using a vibrator, your hand, or anything else, of course – but toys that feel vaguely like suction lend themselves especially well to this imaginative task. No human being has ever sucked on my clit as tenderly or rhythmically as these toys do, and yet their soft, rubbery nozzles hearken back to smooth lips wrapped around my bits, and their relentless “pressure waves” feel remarkably akin to a tongue rap-tap-tapping against my clit. So you can see how, when cunnilingual cravings hit, I began to reliably reach for an air-pulse toy.

The runaway success of this toy category is hard to miss if you spend any time monitoring industry trends. While Womanizer was the O.G., multiple copycat companies have leapt onboard the bandwagon and started cranking out their own versions. These toys have been profiled in Glamour, Cosmopolitan, and many more heavyweight sex-focused publications. There’s a fervor around them that I haven’t seen since the rabbit vibe or Magic Wand. My theory? These products strike a nerve because clitoral suction subverts gender norms.

I think about this a lot vis-à-vis cunnilingus, because I am somebody who gets off on being sucked off. My clitoris is average-sized, but, like most, it has a long enough shaft that it can be taken into someone’s mouth and sucked on, like a tiny cock. But despite how easy it is to do this – and the common-sense assumption that many people would enjoy having their most sensitive sexual organ surrounded and stroked by wet lips – this oral technique has been surprisingly rare in my sex life. Most of my past partners (the ones who bothered to go down on me, anyway) stuck to wet tongue flicks on the top or sides of my clit. Depending on intensity and stamina, this could sometimes get me off – but nonetheless, whenever someone momentarily slipped my clit into their mouth, I moaned much louder and clawed at them in frenzied desperation. You would think they would notice this and keep doing the thing that was obviously working, but many of them did not. Why?

I think there are two basic gender-based reasons for this phenomenon. One: Most straight dudes (and unfortunately, my past sexual partners are predominantly straight dudes) – whether consciously or not – associate phalluses with dicks, and assume that any kind of “fellation” would make them gay, or at least effeminate. And two: They assume, on some level, that I, being a cis woman, don’t want my clit to be “treated like a dick” because it’ll make me feel “like a man.” Wrong on both counts, gents.

Some important nuances in this discussion: Some people who have clits are not women, such as pre-op/non-op trans men and assigned-female-at-birth non-binary folks, and some of those people like to have their clits sucked on for gender affirmation reasons (in addition to physical pleasure reasons). On the flipside, not all women have clits (e.g. trans women and victims of clitoridectomy) and not all clit-havers even like having their clits stimulated. Nonetheless, I think clitoral suction as a whole is a powerful metaphor for how our culture thinks about sex and gender – because it’s the satisfaction of an organ often considered “female” in a way that’s usually reserved for phalluses often considered “male.”

The reason I know this is partly a sexual orientation issue is that my queer partners (of any gender) have never seemed to have a problem with sucking my clit. They tend to do it wholeheartedly and wholemouthedly upon request, even if that request is non-verbal (e.g. by gently pushing my clit forward toward their lips). It’s only the straight men who pointedly avoid it, so I have to assume their aversion has something to do with thoughts of dicks and gayness and fellatio.

I don’t entirely blame them – homophobic and transphobic cultural myths are highly prevalent and hard to ignore – but I do think that we, as a society, need to move past these myths. Sometimes we do that in big ways, like by naming and calling out toxic masculinity through media campaigns and the #MeToo movement, and other times we do it in small ways, like by confronting our feelings about sucking on a partner’s genitals during sex. Both types of societal inquiry and self-examination are important and necessary, I think.

I’m not saying the way I prefer to receive oral sex will change the world. There’s too much going on for gentle gender subversion behind closed doors to have much of an effect. But it is heartening to observe the success of clitoral “suction” toys in the sex toy market right now, because it means something is shifting. Our sexual culture is learning to prioritize clitoral pleasure at long last, after the persistence of the orgasm gap throughout basically all of human history. We’re becoming more comfortable, too, with the homologous nature of the clitoris and the penis – which I think leads us closer to a much bigger and more important realization: that everyone, regardless of gender, is human, and should be treated as such. Women are not delicate caregivers or winnable objects; men are not relentless warriors or heartless cads. Our socialization and social locations change how we behave and are treated in the world, but they do not make us fundamentally, inherently different from each other, and it’s dangerous to approach gender relations as if they do.

I always look forward to seeing what happens next in the sex toy industry, just as I always look forward to seeing what strides we’ll make in the fight for gender equality. Sometimes these two progressions intersect in the most delicious ways.

This post was sponsored by the good folks at The Hot Spot. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.