vibrator

Review: Lelo Ida

Kate Sloan

I never knew a toy could make me scream in pain until I tried the Lelo Ida.

I didn’t see it coming, and neither did my boyfriend. So we were both pretty horrified, since pain wasn’t supposed to be on the agenda that night (and vaginal pain isn’t the kind I find hot, anyway).

The Ida is an overhaul of Lelo’s previous couples’ vibes, the Tiani and Noa, meant to be worn inside the vagina alongside the penis during PIV sex. Incase you didn’t know, Lelo got into a legal tussle with We-Vibe when the latter accused the former of stealing their unique toy design, and We-Vibe won, so Lelo had to scrap everything and start from scratch.

I assumed the Ida would be like a poor man’s We-Vibe, and it is, but it’s worse than that: it’s an assault on the genitals. It’s like trying to fit a square peg into my round hole.

I think my major problem with it is that the internal portion is SO BIG. No, it’s not big by dildo standards, but when you try to shove a penis in underneath it, it digs into the vaginal wall and feels appallingly out of place. It reminds me of those occasional awkward moments when my boyfriend’s penis jams my NuvaRing into an odd position and it hurts, except the Ida is so much worse than that, because it’s firm and it’s rotating.

Yep, the internal portion rotates. I thought this would be my favorite feature, because historically I enjoy internal rotation, but actually I can barely feel it. When my boyfriend’s penis is inside me, I can’t tell if the added girth is stopping the rotation entirely or if I just can’t feel the silicone arm’s slow stroking over the wave of pain I’m experiencing. Either way, it doesn’t do a damn thing for me.

The external part of the toy doesn’t cause me pain like the internal part, but it’s still a pretty massive failure. Traditional couples’ vibes have a slim external part, made to tuck neatly between the labia so it can access the clitoris easily and directly. The Ida, instead, has a large round disc, almost as big as my palm. Ain’t no way a disc is fitting in between my labia, so it just sits on the outside of my vulva, the vibrations ever-so-slightly reaching my clit but certainly not enough to induce an orgasm. I would imagine this problem would be even worse for people with thick outer labia.

I had an orgasm from the Ida once – once – and here is what I had to do to make it happen: I had to use it by itself (no penis, no dildo), I had to turn it up to the highest setting so my clit could perceive the vibrations, and when I got close to orgasm, I had to physically press the disc against my clit to give it enough sensation. When the ordeal was over, I felt so drained and disappointed that the orgasm hardly felt worth it. And that was the best session I’ve had with my Ida.

With my partner, no amount of lube and warm-up and patience can make the Ida pleasurable or even comfortable. It just feels like I’m getting stabbed in the vaginal wall. I scream into the pillow and push my boyfriend away. He gets upset and distressed that he has hurt me. And then we give up on the Ida and have sex normally, which still kind of hurts after the Ida’s onslaught on my vagina. This happens every time we use it. I have had enough.

Did I mention that you have to pay $200 for the luxury of getting poked in the vaginal wall with a piece of rotating silicone?

There are other details I could mention in this review – the Ida has a remote, it’s waterproof, it has two high-tech motion-sensitive settings, it’s made of smooth body-safe materials – but really, none of that matters, because I cannot recommend this toy to anyone. I refuse to.

If you want a comfortable couples’ vibe to wear during PIV sex, try the Noa – it’s the only one I’ve ever liked, and it’s half the price of the Ida. If you want to have more control of your experience, try holding a long-handled or small vibe against your clit during PIV: I recommend the Eroscillator, Mia 2, or Tango.

But please, don’t get the Ida. Or if you really want the Ida experience, try putting a sharp rock in your vag next time your partner’s about to penetrate you.

This toy was sent to me for review by Lelo. Dear Lelo: I still love you, even though I hate the Ida.

Review: LoveLife Dream

Kate Sloan

Happy Valentine’s Day, cuties!

I feel bad for disliking the LoveLife Dream. It could have been so good. It has the bare structural bones of a vibrator that could do something other than suck. And yet it kind of sucks.

LoveLife is a new-ish line of toys made by OhMiBod, formerly best known for its vibrators that sync up to the music on your iPod (dear god why). It was definitely a good step for OhMiBod to move toward producing “normal” sex toys, i.e. ones without silly gimmicks. But if the rest of the toys in the line are similar to the Dream, I think the collection has missed the mark and OhMiBod should go back to the drawing board.

First of all, every toy in this line is obnoxiously pink. I realize that pink is a top-selling color in the sex toy industry, that it’s “romantic” and “girly,” etc., but none of that can make me like the overwhelming pinkness of this collection. It feels overly gendered and a little juvenile. And despite the fact that I’m visually quite attached to heart shapes and what they represent, the hearts sprinked throughout the LoveLife line feel cloying and silly. These toys look appropriately saccharine on Valentine’s Day, maybe, but that’s it.

I was prepared to set aside my distaste for the Dream’s aesthetics if it felt good, but it couldn’t even meet me halfway on that one. It is sooooo buzzy, you guys. And buzzy just doesn’t do it for me. The vibrations stay right at the surface of my body and don’t rock my internal clitoral network. Inserted vaginally, this vibe feels almost pathetically weak to me, even turned up to the sixth and highest speed. Buzzy vibes don’t stimulate me the way I like, and they cause fast numbness for me, so I just can’t use ‘em.

There were literally times when I got bored midway through using this vibe and gave up. I didn’t just give up on using this particular toy; I gave up on the entire masturbation session. More than once. Because buzzy vibrations make me feel like all vibrations must be boring and awful like they are. (However, if I forced myself to use an über-rumbly vibe immediately afterward, I remembered why vibrations rock and all was well again.)

I will say that the Dream’s control panel is easy to use, which can’t be said for all sex toys. You press a squiggly button to turn it on and off, and plus and minus buttons to change the speed. The toy is rechargeable and comes with a USB cable so you can charge it that way, which is always convenient (for my life, anyway – you might feel differently if you share a computer with your grandmother or something). The toy’s gently sloping shape feels nice inside me, though not so nice that I’d want to use it as a dildo. It’s reasonably quiet. The silicone is soft and smooth but requires significant lubeage.

I just can’t get excited about a vibrator if its motor doesn’t thrill me, and this toy’s motor is a major letdown.

The major standout of the LoveLife line, according to some reviews I’ve read, is the Adventure, a three-pronged vibe that can stimulate the clit, vagina, and anus all at the same time. Each prong has its own motor, so it’s got to be stronger than my disappointing Dream. If you, for some ungodly reason, adore the cavity-inducing aesthetic of the LoveLife line and really want one, it seems like the Adventure is the way to go.

As for me, I’m going to file this one away under “vibrators so buzzy, they’re utterly incompatible with my genitals.”

Thanks to OhMiBod/LoveLife for the toy!

Sex Toys for Canadians

Kate Sloan

Sometimes it feels like, when you live outside of the USA, you get the short end of the stick in terms of being able to buy stuff. Imported American products are usually more expensive here in Canadaland, plus you have to pay shipping fees that are sometimes exorbitant. No thank you!

Fortunately, there are some great retailers who provide toys to us northern folk without ridiculously overcharging us or obligating us to pay staggering import duties. Here are some of my faves…

Sex Toys Canada was one of the very first retailers to send me stuff to review, so they hold a special place in my heart. (I’m also the main writer on their blog!) They’re based in Montreal, so if you live in the easterly part of Canada, orders will get to you especially fast.

They’re always having excellent sales and deals; check their homepage for any current discount codes. They also have a sale section that’s full of amazingly cheap stuff.

PinkCherry.ca is another one of my Canadian faves. They’re located in Mississauga (or thereabouts – I’m not actually sure) so if you live in Toronto or the GTA, you’ll get your order very quickly. Mine always arrive within 2 business days, which makes me really happy – (almost) instant gratification!

Check their homepage and/or subscribe to their mailing list for updates on current deals and sales. A word to the wise: they have some of the lowest prices in the biz on Njoy toys; you can get the legendary Pure Wand or my all-time favorite butt plug for lower prices than I’ve seen anywhere else. Put some steel in yo’ holes!

Sensual Intelligence is committed to only stocking toys that are body-safe and eco-friendly. Not many companies have that much integrity so I really respect them for making that choice.

They have many of the high-end, luxury sex toys that would be prohibitively expensive to ship from the U.S., like the Stronic Drei, Form 2, and Jopen Lust.

Fellow Canadians, where do you get your sex toys?

WIshlist: January 2014

Kate Sloan

My sex toy collection is well above 100 toys now, and there’s still stuff I want. Folks, the obsession is real. Here are some toys I’m lusting after at the moment…

1. Limited-edition crystallized BodyWand – I have my doubts that the rechargeable BodyWands could be as strong/good as my electric one, but this blinged-out wand massager is cute and quirky and that makes me want to overlook its potential problems in other areas. Who doesn’t want a sparkly vibrator?!

2. Eroscillator 2 Top Deluxe – My Eroscillator 2 Plus is still my all-time favorite sex toy, almost 2 years after I first reviewed it. If it ever breaks, or if I ever mysteriously come across an extra $200 that I have no other use for (ha!), you can bet I’ll snap up the more powerful version, the Top Deluxe. The original Eroscillator leaves nothing to be desired in terms of power, if you ask me (or my clit), but as a diehard Eroscillator fan, I always want more, more, more!

3. Jopen Comet II – The original Comet was a shockingly intense (non-vibrating) G-spot toy, and now Jopen’s released a sequel that vibrates, for those who like a little rumbling alongside their knee-weakening G-spot stimulation. I figure, even if I don’t like the vibrations (which I probably will), it wouldn’t hurt to have a spare Comet Wand around.

4. Liberator Throe – I can imagine few things more luxurious than owning a blanket specifically for sex. While I don’t squirt (yet?), I still think it would be wonderful to have something soft and absorbent under me during sex to catch any errant lube, sexual fluids, or menstrual blood. My bed has enough stains as is, thank you very much. (Is that TMI? …Too bad, this is a sex blog!)

5. Vibratex Mystic Wand – How do I not have this already?! Tons of people rave about it. Betty Dodson even provides each of her Bodysex workshop participants with one of these for their “erotic recess.” Reviews seem to indicate that it’s one of the few Hitachi knockoffs that doesn’t suck. I need one!

What’s on your sex toy wishlist?

Review: We-Vibe Salsa

Kate Sloan

I feel pretty “meh” about the We-Vibe proper, but their clitoral vibes are the bomb-diggity. (Is that phrase still a thing?) Previously I swooned over the flat-tipped Tango, so I knew I’d like the pointy-tipped We-Vibe Salsa. And dayum, gurl, it delivers.

The Salsa’s been discontinued (boo!) because it wasn’t selling as well as the Tango. This is sad because a) it’s awesome and b) it had color options that went beyond the typical gendered colors that the sex toy industry tends to offer. My Salsa is a sexy, deep black, but it also came in red and white.

The main thing I love about the We-Vibe clit toys, the thing that makes them indispensable and irreplaceable, is their deep, rumbly, wonderfully strong motor. I don’t think there is another clit vibe on the market that feels like this. It always feels weird and exaggerated when I say that a sex toy company is doing something that literally no one else is doing, but that’s true for these toys. They have no rivals. If you like rumbly power and don’t want to mess with something heavy like the Wahl or big like the Patchy Paul, these tiny vibes are absolutely the way to go.

I also recommend the Tango and Salsa to people all the damn time for these reasons: they’re fully waterproof, they’re quieter than the majority of vibes on the market, they’re rechargeable, and they’re small enough to carry around in your handbag or pocket.

…Not that you would necessarily want to carry them around, though – because, as I observed in my Tango review, they don’t have a locking option for travel. There is a distinct chance that your Salsa will start vibrating in your purse if you put it in there. If that’s okay with you, fine, but I know it would be an issue for me if my vibrator turned on while I was in a sociology lecture or at the movies, so my “on-the-go” vibe will continue to be my Lelo Mia 2 for the time being.

My other major quibble with the Salsa and Tango is that they only have one button, which you have to use to cycle through the 4 speeds and 4 patterns (which, by the way, are pretty good as far as patterns go, if you’re into that sort of thing). Sometimes I want to be able to move back and forth quickly between two or three particular settings, without having to cycle my way back to the beginning again.

The Salsa/Tango uses a very fickle magnetic charging system. The charger attaches to the bottom of the toy magnetically and it has to be just right or it won’t charge. (Hint: you should see a steady light on the bottom of the charger if you’ve done it properly.) This issue, combined with the fact that these vibes have a noticeably short battery life (60-90 minutes of use, depending on which settings you favor), made me mistakenly believe that my Tango’s battery had permanently died from misuse recently. Turns out I just wasn’t charging it right. So watch out for that.

The Salsa and Tango are each about 3 inches long, so there’s not a lot of space between the tip and where you’ll be holding the vibe. That means that your fingers might start to go numb if you use the toy for a while. It’s a worthwhile tradeoff, though, since the vibes’ small stature makes them ideal for using during PIV sex. You can never have too many intercourse-friendly vibrators, if you ask me.

Although the Salsa has a few annoying issues, they are worth overlooking for the totally astonishing quality of its vibrations. My whole clitoral network gets rocked by this toy, resulting in orgasms that feel deeper and happen quicker. Few toys can actually have a noticeable effect on orgasm quality, but this is one that does, so it’s worth picking up.