Day by day, second by second, time is destroying your vulva. Your labia are deflating like a sad soufflé. Your vagina is drying up. The color is draining from your genital region. Your husband is weeping. Your dinner is burning. Your life is a farce. Enter the Lowe Aurora, a sex toy providing “low-level laser treatment” for your genitals. For your “health.” Of course. More like a massive laser pointer created solely to make you feel bad about your vulva. It’s like someone thought to themselves, how can we combine crushing beauty standards and sex toys? The female genitals are subject to the passage of time like the rest of the body. The labia loses its turgidity due to reduced elasticity and the colour . . . read more

I feel bad for celebrities. You’ll never hear me say that again. But they got the Afterglow in their goodie bags at the Oscars, and this is not what a good sex toy is. Not even close. Not even in the same hemisphere. (Tegan & Sara, if you’re reading this, I will personally buy each of you a Pure Wand to make up for this travesty.) It’s a gimmick: the Afterglow stimulates with vibration and light energy. That’s as simply as I can put it. If you want to thoroughly roll your eyes, here’s a video about the “science,” but the bottom line is, light energy. As in lasers. As in immeasurable. Therein lies the scam: this is nothing more than a mediocre, overpriced rabbit vibrator invented by a . . . read more

This is not cute. This is not adorable. This is not acceptable. A teddy bear with a vibrating muzzle? Really? This is condescending, infantilizing, and damaging. This is not how we get over the stigma around sex toys. This product is WHY THERE IS A STIGMA AROUND SEX TOYS. Completely overlooking logistical issues such as how the fuck do you clean vag juice off it (the muzzle is made of thermoplastic elastomer, which is porous, and the body is covered in FUR), I am deeply offended that these people are expecting me, as a woman, to coo over this. It’s “inspired by every girl’s first fuzzy love,” because all women are the same, right, Todd? We’re all perpetual children… who now want to stick pointy bear tongues . . . read more

OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ Welcome to the sound you will long for once you hear the iGino. About one minute into using it, you will lose all sense of musical taste and long for something, anything, to cover up the sound. You’ll be overcome with the uncontrollable urge to find a beach and BURY THE FUCKER. The idea is, ostensibly, to be discreet — the thing charges via USB and comes with a cap to cover its moving nub — yet there is no travel lock, and if this went off in your bag I’m pretty sure it . . . read more

I’ve seen a ton of presumptuous sex toy marketing in my day, but I’d never seen a sex toy that so audaciously attempted to convince me of its superiority — until the Revel Body. As I unboxed it, I came upon an organza bag containing what appeared to be a cheap white slimline vibrator already loaded with batteries. A piece of cardboard explained: “compare Revel Body to the standard competitor model.” Oh. Oh really. It also came with a branded jump drive. I was hoping it would be like 1998 when I’d get a CD and put it in the computer to find sweet easter eggs. Sadly, it only contained photos, press releases, and a video in which dudes look . . . read more

The Jopen Vanity VR1 kegel balls have offended my vagina. Deeply. They are supposed to vibrate when squeezed. Oh, in my hand they do. In my hand they do. In my vagina, no matter how hard I clench, they don’t. This is an affront to my vagina and its power. Ugh, Jopen. I both hate and love you and that is just uncool. I don’t appreciate having to be nuanced. Not my specialty. It’s ironic because the VR1 balls are not nuanced at all. There is but one sensor, on the big ball in the middle on one side. So I turned the balls around. I inserted just one ball. I squeezed like my vagina’s reputation depended on it. Nothing. You can’t tell me that . . . read more

The premise alone led me to the Wake-Up Vibe. And the premise drove me away. I only tried it a handful of times, months and months ago. Enough times to realize that I actually don’t like a bulbous machine accompanying me to bed, even if it promises to wake me up with vibrations. So for a long time, I tried to pretend this toy wasn’t on my “to review” list. I was perfectly successful at that until yesterday, when Lovehoney informed me that this toy is being discontinued on their site. So I dug it out of storage and plugged it in. The screen started spitting gibberish at me — blips and bloops where numbers should form. And that’s all it would . . . read more

I think my boyfriend is going to break up with me over the LELO Ida. I can see it in his eyes. The despair. The dread. When I say, “hey, you know what we should do?” his features fall because he’s afraid I’m going to say “have sex.” But instead I say, “watch Orange Is The New Black” or “boil the potatoes for dinner” and all is forgiven. For now. Named after a long-ago-discontinued toy in LELO’s first line, Ida sounds like a cute grandmother rather than a sex toy that’s gonna rock your relationship to its core. Don’t be deceived. Marketed as a “couples’” toy, Ida has a 3″ long, 1″ wide shaft that rotates (“like the constantly-wagging finger of . . . read more

The Jimmyjane Little Chroma is a scam. Not like your friend emailing you in distress because they’re stranded in London. Not like replying to a Craigslist post about an apartment only to have the nice folks offer to mail you the key from West Africa. Not like someone making nasty things about you on Twitter. But in the simple, old school way: Jimmyjane tries to swindle you into buying the Little Chroma. And I want to intervene. No, need to intervene. I really can’t stand this shit anymore. Jimmyjane knows the importance of marketing, and they use it to make the Little Chroma look mighty tasty. It’s made of aluminum — shiny and smooth and shaped like a luxury tampon. It comes with a replaceable motor, . . . read more