I get emails literally every day from sex toy companies who want me to try their latest vibrator. They’ll wax poetic about its shape, its aesthetic, its strange and innovative features; they’ll claim it’s revolutionary, a revelation; they’ll plead wide-eyed with me to name it one of my all-time favorites.
But 9 times out of 10, it won’t stand a chance – because 9 times out of 10, its motor is terrible.
It’s really wild that we’re still having this conversation in 2021, nearly 150 years after the first electric vibrator was invented, but: a vibrator’s motor is its most important feature. If your toys have a buzzy, weak motor, you can spend hundreds, thousands, or even millions of dollars on research and development for the toy’s other aspects and it won’t matter. Hell, some of my favorite vibrators ever are ugly as sin, but I don’t care because their motor is capable of giving me orgasms, unlike many, many, many others out there.
A brief primer on the notable traits of a vibrator motor, for those unacquainted:
Broadly speaking, vibrations can be ranked on a spectrum between buzzy and rumbly. Some vibrators are both simultaneously, and some feel rumbly on their lower settings and buzzier as you turn the toy up (or, less often, the other way around), but for the most part, any vibrating toy will land noticeably somewhere on that spectrum.
Buzzy vibration feels surface-level; its stimulation goes only skin-deep. It tends to both feel and sound higher-pitched than rumbly vibration. A buzzy vibrator is likelier to create the temporary desensitization/numbness many people dislike about vibrators, such that (for me at least) orgasms from buzzy vibes sometimes feel barely pleasurable, if they’re achievable at all, because the area has been so thoroughly numbed by that point. Buzziness shows up most often in cheap toys, but even some high-end vibrators are surprisingly buzzy, because – as I’ve mentioned – many companies are more concerned with aesthetics and “innovation” than with getting this most basic aspect of their toy right.
Rumbly vibration, on the other hand, feels more like fast, rhythmic thumping than buzzing, almost as if someone was tapping your skin very very very quickly. This type of vibration goes deeper into the body, stimulating buried tissues like those of the internal clit, G-spot, or prostate. It tends to cause less numbness than buzzy vibration and to preserve genital sensation for longer, often leading to deeper, stronger orgasms. It also tends to be quieter than buzzy vibration and tends to be found in more expensive toys, although there are companies (such as We-Vibe and Dame) that make rumbly toys at a more reasonable price point.
In the land of sex toy reviews, sometimes you’ll see folks proclaiming that rumbly vibes are good and buzzy vibes are bad, period, end of story. I agree that most people seem to feel this way, but I’d like to note that there are people who prefer buzzy vibrations, for various reasons (I’m not one of them so I couldn’t tell you what those reasons are). I also think that there’s sometimes a place for buzziness; I don’t usually mind if a vibe gets a bit buzzy on its highest settings, for example, because when I’m close to orgasm, sometimes it’s a little burst of buzziness that pushes me over the edge, stimulating me in a different way than rumbly vibrations can.
But in general, yes, I would say that rumbly vibrations are the superior type. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that if you’ve only tried one or two vibrators in the past and haven’t liked them, there’s a very good chance that they were too buzzy and that you’d appreciate something rumblier. (But also, some people just don’t enjoy vibration and that’s fine too.)
It shocks and disappoints me every time I turn on a new vibrator that looks luxurious and well-thought-out, and discover that it’s as buzzy as a $20 watch-battery bullet. It angers me that companies feel it’s appropriate to charge high prices for products missing the most basic component of a halfway decent vibrator: a good motor. It annoys me that companies get aggravated when I call their toys buzzy in my reviews, as if they couldn’t have put the effort in to develop a better motor in the first place. It saddens me that so many people around the world probably dismiss the category of vibrators altogether because of some bad experiences they’ve had with buzzy ones, thereby cutting themselves off from untold pleasures.
“Rumbly” has become a buzzword in the industry now, too, such that many companies brag ostentatiously about the “rumbliness” of toys that are no such thing. In my view, there are only two ways to know if a vibrator is actually buzzy or rumbly before you buy it: read multiple reviews of it by sex toy bloggers/journalists/experts who are demonstrably committed to honesty in their assessments, or go to a sex shop and feel the toy’s vibrations for yourself. Don’t trust companies’ own marketing copy, because even otherwise-good companies sometimes lie. (I can’t even begin to tell you the number of times that a vibrator billed as “whisper-quiet” has actually been loud enough to startle my roommate’s cats such that they leap off my bed and sprint into another room.)
Here is my plea to any sex toy company employees or consultants who may be reading this. Prioritize good motors above everything else in a toy’s design (other than body-safe non-porous materials and overall safety, but that’s a given). If finances dictate that you have to make a toy less flashy and impressive in order to make it actually feel good, then that’s worth doing. I don’t give a single shit how many patterns, settings, and functions your toy has if I can’t even feel my genitals while I’m using it. Start with the motor and go from there; the motor should never be an afterthought or anything other than your #1 priority.
There. Now I can step off my soapbox and go jerk off with a vibrator I can actually feel.