Action: A Book About Sex (24 page)

Vibrator preferences vary from person to person. Some aspects of a vibrator you might prioritize: speed, intensity of vibration, sound level, texture, waterproofness, length, width, and/or the availability of compatible attachments. I like earthquake-grade tremors, and I like them fast. Concentrated vibrations are like the “tight pussy” of the clitoral stimulation world: Unless a person specifically does NOT like it, it’s customarily a crowd favorite.

I look for toys that do that first and foremost, and then consider which of other criteria I’ll compromise on or account for in order to pick an accessory that fulfills my most legs-pressed-together needs. Having done research beforehand, I asked the Babeland employee about a vibrator I had heard didn’t come to play around, the Hitachi Magic Wand. She pulled out what looked like a half sonogram wand, half white microphone, except twice the size of either—it had a circular, softish head, a simple-looking black switch on its side, and a corded end. It
looked
unsexy, and as we talked about it, I had some questions: I was supposed to hitch myself to an outlet each and every time I wanted to masturbate with it?
Yes.
There’s no setting on which it’s quieter than a whole landscaping company’s fleet of lawn mowers growling in unison… meaning I would have to be discreet about when I used it?
Nah, it’s just that loud.
Oh my god, that’s the LOW setting?
Yeah, now put out your other hand and I’ll show you the higher speed.
WHOA. THIS IS GOING TO BE MY RIDE-OR-DIE FOREVER, HUH?
Yeah… yeah, it is.

The Hitachi Magic Wand is phenomenal used by myself or with any number of lovely assistants, but when it comes to using vibrators with partners, I either put this behemoth away or use it in tandem with something that can be inserted comfortably into them or me—or both. If you’re easing into this whole concept, you can choose a small vibrator, or super-controllable ones, like finger vibrators—these slip on like fingertip rings and can go into whatever orifices your hands would without them, or intensify
any
kind of touching.

ROUTINE MAINTENANCE

I like to clean my vibrator three times a month if I’m using it alone, plus after every new partner. I think this is a pretty good rule for toys that don’t involve penetration—and in those cases, I clean them nearly every time I use ’em. All-natural disinfecting wipes are good for stuff taken vaginally, but I give anything involving anal the full top-down scrub.

Check the packaging for the materials used to make your sex toy: If it’s silicone or Pyrex through and through, you can boil it submerged in a pot of water for three or so minutes, and you’re all good. Alternatively, you can even wash it in a dishwasher if it has a hot-water setting, so this can easily become a regular part of your tidying-up routine. (“To Do: Vacuum. Wash windows. Remember to load vibrator next to the dirty plates.”) If there are electrical elements, use the next method, avoiding the parts that might be damaged or could shock ya when met with cleaning solvent on them.

Toys with porous bases or elements like “jelly” (extra-squishy-feeling and pliable material) or rubber are as attracted to bacteria as you are to using them. For this reason, I typically don’t stock these myself, but if a partner likes them and wants to use them together, I ask that, if it’s an impromptu thing and we haven’t picked out a new one together, we use a toy cleaner, or, if they don’t have it, some other kind of disinfectant, since the chemicals in soaps, especially scented ones, can be absorbed into the toy and cause infections upon contact with skin.

For toys of glass, plastic, or other kinds of non-porous substances: Use a disposable cloth like a paper towel, or a clean rag, with antibacterial spray or soap and warm water, to shine up your dildo or whatever. Household tasks can be so tedious!!!

For all other materials, check the packaging—substances that are designed to verisimilarly imitate human skin, like that on anatomical reproductions or sex dolls, usually require special care.

THE REPLACEMENTS

Sometimes, toys need to be retired if they’re too far gone to rinse up in the dishwasher and return to your bed good as new. (The upside to this time of mourning and loss: Now you get to replace them with new ones!)

Any machine with an electrical flaw, or a corroded battery compartment, should be removed from your collection. TRUST ME ON THIS ONE—I learned this via sparks flying out of a vibrator and straight onto a sensitive area, and I do not recommend it. If the engine in your toy wears out, or if it starts chomping batteries like handfuls of candy underwear, bid it adieu, as it is likely on the road to faulty wiring. Visible dents or flaws in most toys are fine as long as they don’t affect its structure or how it feels on/in you.

There’s one situation in which I junk toys regardless of quality-control concerns: If I split with a long-term partner, with whom I used toys specifically together and not so much by myself, I offer them the toys or throw them away, even when I want to employ them with someone new. My Hitachi is a one-on-one thing that enjoys the occasional threesome, but any equipment purchased specifically for me and one other partner is out. I don’t want my next paramour, whenever it is that they come on the scene, to immediately feel expectations from me based on what I did with an old squeeze, and especially not in the context of our forays into non-standardized sex as they’re unfolding in real time. I don’t mean to bestow upon some stained hunks of suggestively shaped metal and rubber some kind of sacrosanct and solemn
Great Meaning
, so if you and your partner are like, “Actually, it’s fine with me that that piece has known other orifices,” go ahead and do you. Just make sure everything in your toolkit is clean.

PARTNER SEX

For those who are shacking up, settling down, or just transfixed by their partners: Having a long-term love in your life is as privileged and special an experience as using the bottom half of your body as a divining rod pointed all over the ol’ singles bar. (What is a “singles bar,” guys? Is it a fantasy invention of 1970s radio?) You get to cram your affection, respect, and attraction into one sweet vessel, and be expanded (and turned on) by theirs. Sex, when you’re in love, is hot as hellfire—and when it’s not, that’s okay, too. To a point—as long as it’s not purgatory.

How
ominous
, I know! Be at peace, my besotted. A happy partnership does not transpire only if you have coruscating sex each time you get in bed. You don’t even need to be physically intimate with a partner to be contented with their company (and this extends even to long-term relationships). Finding someone who is your preternaturally ideal sexual match, and who
also
makes charming conversation with your most irritating colleagues, listens to you bemoan your parents’ myriad failings, thinks decently, and conscientiously remembers what you get on your hot dogs without having to ask twice (SWOON), is probably not something anyone should expect from a realistic coupledom. (Still, I am never going to settle for less, hee.)

This does not mean you have to hunker down for a peaceful life of quilting and clandestine masturbation. If you are part of a loving, but sexually lacking, couple: LUCKY YOU; I’m serious. It means you have the trust in place to potentially experience the heart- (and orgasm-) reactivating phenomenon of having your sexual relationship with your person ascend in quality as you pass more and more time together—instead of the other way around—as long as you make a verbal point of setting it on a new course.

Maybe in some long-term relationships, you feel or have felt like,
God, the sex was unmatched in the beginning, and now I’m more attracted to the relish all over this footlong
? (Ew, not
like that! I should have picked a different food. Maybe outside of Eros and Thanatos, Freud wasn’t a hack? Nah, wait…
[thinks about his probings of his teenage daughter]
… he totally was. Oh, did you wonder why we’re mostly not employing the work of that greasy cokeball in this book?) Whether you start out utterly compatible or not, there are going to be valleys as you make the long journey of traversing your sexual peaks. Then you get to climb out of them together by finding all-new ways to fuck each other stupid.

When I notice that a partner and I are in one of those subaltern places, it doesn’t presage the end of us. Even if I’ve been with a person many times, one of us can always opt to remodel how that goes, whether that’s by changing one element of the sex or a top-down renovation. Given the fact that it would probably be quite startling if one of you showed up in a pleather-and-cellophane catsuit one day if that wasn’t already your norm, you don’t have to make a sudden and dramatic overture if it’s forced, or that you feel wouldn’t be well-received without easing in to your ideas more subtly first. While there are plenty of bonuses to updating your wardrobe with complicated sex garments of synthetic origin (and maybe you feel that shocking your person would be just the thing), there are less dramatic ways to surprise the person you relish most.

What’s wonderful about extended hangouts with other people that hinge heavily on trust: You’re used to talking about difficult-feeling topics of all stripes (such as openhearted discussions pertaining to your lunatic upbringing and hatred of sauerkraut). What makes you think
your
person won’t be receptive to hearing out your questions and concerns—in the style of a restaurant comment card, except way more loving—about whether they’re enjoying what you do when you’re spending time together horizontally, as well? That’s how you should frame this conversation at its outset.

The feedback here,
unlike
that on a pink index card at TGI Friday’s, should be reciprocal and symbiotic, like everything else
you do together. It is entirely disingenuous-feeling to talk about your own sexual needs by saying, “I think YOU could be happier,” then strapping on your new bodysuit and insisting that they love it, so that’s not what you’re about here. You’re in a relationship, so you know how it feels to consider someone else’s mindset when you’re making decisions that affect both of you. You know that happiness comes from asking them what they need to find a level of mutual satisfaction that at least borders on “Strongly Agree.”

The benefits of hearing how your person thinks independently about the sex life you’re cohabiting are prodigious. Chief among these: You can adjust how you care for and account for them in both physical and love-based ways upon hearing them out. Also crucial: Listening to their characterization of the sex you two have before interjecting with your own analysis means that you are getting their true opinion on the matter—not one tempered by yours. You could make the case that YOU, then, are the one who won’t be proffering the truth of your heart, but that’s fake. You will go into this conversation knowing what you’re looking to express to your person—the inner honesty of what you’re looking for won’t change based on the one announced across the table from you. If you don’t fit the conversation into the framework of what YOU want, both parts of your duo have the opportunity to express their real feelings, but if you do, they might want to adjust their feelings to cater to your happiness, because they love you and want you to have nice things, whether those are accented by condoms or condiments. Well, TOO BAD, sweet and kind partner of yours!! You want the same thing for their caring ass, which means making sure they are heard in full.