A person with less of a philosophical bent (or one less effectively medicated) might tend to see the events of the past week as cause for tears to be shed into the evening’s glass of wine, or tooth-gnashing, or hand-wringing, or fist-shaking toward the silent, pitiless heavens. But in this eleventh month of two-thousand-eleven, a time that finds me in terms of work, family, finance and fuckery almost shockingly content, I perceive this misfortune as nothing more than the barely audible whinge of the universe’s tiniest midge, ineffectually circling my head before scurrying off to try, with what I hope is the same degree of success, to make someone else’s life miserable.

My goal, once past the first stunned shock of moral outrage, is to transmogrify suffering into art; to make my own small tragedies and minor tempests into something useful — even beautiful — for myself and others. This little episode therefore becomes the impetus to perform some tasks that I should have completed months and months if not years and years ago. I will start small, with this brief group of statements to be produced when advertising dollars, website creation fees, or items for review change hands, and which by all rights I should have codified when the very first offer to be gifted with some delightful piece of sexual equipage wafted into my email box:

Want to send me something? Awesome. Here’s some information you might find useful:

Items sent to me become my property forever. I will neither return the item¹, pay for it, nor provide reimbursement in any other way.

My acceptance of a product in no way guarantees that I will write a positive review or in fact any review at all. I may write a post with many words about the product or only a few. I may include an image or not. Please understand that if I choose not to write about a product, it is probably because what I would write would be so unflattering that it is to everyone’s best interests that I say nothing at all.

Advertising on my website is pre-paid, final, and non-refundable for any reason, including but not limited to an advertiser’s perception of the amount of clicks and/or sales the ad in question generated. In no case shall my positive, negative, neutral, delayed or incomplete review affect in any way a previously negotiated advertising arrangement.

I reserve the right to publish via website, Twitter and/or Facebook part or all of emails sent to me that verge upon an abusive, ridiculous, nonsensical or illogical nature. If a missive contains multitudinous spelling and grammatical errors, crude references to sexual behavior, uninvited images of genitalia, threats to consult a Legal Counsel on retainer or to sue for Defamation of Character, please expect to see that correspondence mocked and derided electronically and (possibly) physically set aflame in my own personal backyard.

Perhaps you can extrapolate some of the events which have lead to the creation of this document?

Do you have terms and conditions for receiving toys for review purposes? What am I missing from mine? Suggestions and expressions of commiseration are welcome in the comments below.

1. Yes this has been asked of me. Yes it was gross.

======================

This post, Impetus, originally appeared on aag on Friday, November 11, 2011. Tweet This Post!

======================

because really, the last thing I want to think about while jacking off is a creepy, raspy-voiced blue-eyed child. And then they named a vibe after this:

which…ok. A hot dish of comfort food? I can kind of see that.

But then they also sell a vibe named after an interior crater in a crater on the moon, and another named after an abusive asshole knocked off by black-eyed peas, and also a bondage tie named after a snake that squeezes its prey to death.

Lelo. A bondage tie. Named after a snake. That squeezes. Its prey. TO DEATH. Why would you think this was a good idea?

And now they have created a toy with the same name¹ as one of the most unambiguously evil denizens of the Whedonverse, a character for whom my sympathy only marginally rebounded after her head was cut off with an axe:

Here, Lelo, let me make a little suggestion for you. Perhaps you should take a little time off from naming toys and just give them numbers instead, m’kay?

Actually maybe that’s not such a great idea either. Knowing their record their first three toys would be Lelo #13, Lelo #666 and Lelo #4.

Maybe just letters? Colors? Vague hand gestures?

The little matter of names aside I’m only going to say one thing about the Lyla: I appreciate a vibrator that’s like a good book — intriguing, engaging, powerful, moving, with hidden depths that become more apparent with each use. Lyla is not that book. Instead it is an untranslated Russian novel which is so complex, so convoluted, and so utterly inaccessible that you end up using it as a fucking doorstop because the very idea of dragging out the goddamn dictionary² for such a comparatively small payout is just too painful to bear.

Listen, I’m a simple woman with simple tastes. My vibrator needs to turn on, turn up, get me off, and then go away. I don’t want batteries and rechargers and fancy boxes and plastic inserts and storage bags and motherfucking stupid fucking plastic opening keys. And I most sincerely do not want a brooch. At all. Ever. Just. No.

Stop it with the brooches, Lelo. Really.

And next time? Please give me a vibe that I can use without a degree in Advanced Vibratology.

Now please go read this much more nuanced (and much less crotchety) review by Dangerous Lilly.

1. Though a different spelling
2. In the vibe’s case, that would be the instruction manual.

======================

This post, Lelo Lyla, or Why Sex Toys Should Be Named Very, Very Carefully If At All, originally appeared on aag on Monday, October 10, 2011. Tweet This Post!

======================

Interested in doin’ a lady vamp? They’ve got you covered:

—————–

Hat tip to Epiphora, who pointed these lovelies out to me.

1. and for a while there that was pretty much all the time

======================

This post, Vampire Penis, originally appeared on aag on Thursday, September 22, 2011. Tweet This Post!

======================

Someone likes them, right? I mean “likes” in the sense that it makes them hot and *not* slightly nauseated.

Right?

More pix here, if that’s your thing.

======================

This post, Gulp, originally appeared on aag on Wednesday, September 21, 2011. Tweet This Post!

======================

Because if it is “natural”, what does that make a light-brown cock? Or a coffee-colored cock? Or one with a yellowish, or olive tone?

And. And! Who in the everlovingHoneyBadgeringfuck wrote this copy:

• It is a biological fact that the human penis when fully anchored to the human crotch imposes certain limitations upon a woman’s sexual pleasure that the silicone dildo does not. A real penis can’t be radically flipped upside down without necessitating a trip to the hospital for the man whose body it is or was attached to.
• There is also the matter of hardness: the male penis isn’t always hard when a woman wants it hard, nor for as long as she might desire. And finally, a penis is not like a car that you can trade in every couple of year.
• Even if her spouse’s penis might not be the best size and shape to fit her psyche or anatomy, a married woman is pretty well glued to it till death or divorce does them part. Fortunately a woman need not ditch the man she loves just because she prefers a fuller fitting penis. She can purchase a dildo instead. (Read the rest in context here.)

This makes me sad. It makes my skin crawl. It makes me want to gather up all of my dildos and throw them away, and I love sextoys. I fucking adore sextoys. Can you imagine what reading that pusfilled lexicographical pimplesqueeze would do to someone who is nervous about buying one?

–What were you searching for on Amazon that brought up this bit of flotsam, UrbanGypsy?

======================

This post, It is 2011, originally appeared on aag on Thursday, June 30, 2011. Tweet This Post!

======================

When Shubin was a 17-year-old high school student, his stepmother became pregnant with twins. Doctors advised her not to engage in sex throughout the high-risk pregnancy—so Shubin’s father, Steve, nosed around for an alternative form of release. When Steve couldn’t locate a realistic stand-in vagina on the market, he began drawing plans to craft his own. The Shubins “would sit around the table and talk about how we thought it should look,” Shubin remembers. “We were a pretty open family.”

What I don’t appreciate is how mind-numbingly heteronormative the rest of the article is:

Some users even upload videos of themselves giving their Fleshlights a workout. But an in-person pow-wow on the virtues of the Fleshlight is a bridge too far. “[S]ounds gay as hell,” one member wrote on the prospect of trading Fleshlight techniques with other enthusiasts at a “nudist resort.” Even Shubin can’t foresee such an event in a new masturbation-positive world. “An all-heterosexual male gathering around sex toys?” Shubin considers. “Probably not ever going to happen.”

It’s really disappointing that somewhere, anywhere in there they couldn’t mention the fact that the company makes more than just faux-ladybits. It’s not all about the vaginas, folks! I mean really, who could resist building his (or her) own personalized jack-off device that looks like a boy-bottom?¹

Wonder if Mr. Shubin didn’t mention the gay-friendly aspects of his business, or if Good wasn’t comfortable posting it.

–Read the rest of the article here, or build have a crack at making your own here.

1. Answer: Not me.

======================

This post, How To Market Plastic Vaginas When They’re Not All Vaginas, originally appeared on aag on Wednesday, June 22, 2011. Tweet This Post!

======================

======================

This post, The Start of Summer, originally appeared on aag on Saturday, May 28, 2011. Tweet This Post!

======================

Again.

Good thing they’re still so very affordable.

PS–Has anyone tried this for jacking off? Was it satisfying? Unsatisfying? Electrifying?

======================

This post, You Get Three Guesses And the First Two Don’t Count…, originally appeared on aag on Wednesday, May 25, 2011. Tweet This Post!

======================

Alrighty then.

(After staring at this in rapt wonderment lo these many minutes I have to say that I kind of want to try it. Too bad it’s so expensive. Or maybe it’s good that it’s so expensive, as that will keep me from getting into trouble.)

—————-

–Ultimate Asslock

======================

This post, Not Just the Asslock, But the ULTIMATE Asslock, originally appeared on aag on Wednesday, May 18, 2011. Tweet This Post!

======================

I’m not really sure what I expected Spicy Clove & Amber to smell like. Maybe cloves? Like what you put in a pot with cinnamon and water for simmering around the holidays? Unfortunately, when I pulled off the top (I think it would have tempted young Polly just as much as did the rings) and squirted a bit on my arm, what I was reminded of mostly was soap — to be specific, Irish Spring. Not that there’s anything wrong with Irish Spring soap, but is it sexy? For me, not so much, and especially not when I was expecting something else.

[I think I'd like to take that last bit back as the past three minutes have seen me staring off into space and imagining a shower that involves less "getting clean" and more "rubbing lather all over cockcuntitsandass." I'm happy to report that I now have a slightly different association with Irish Spring soap.]

Flickering Touch Massage Oil contains three different kinds of oils (apricot kernel, grape seed and jojoba) and perfume along with “gold powder,” which apparently is made of mica, titanium oxide, iron oxide and gold — in that order. In other words: Don’t imagine that you’ll be able to decant the oil, sell off the metal and retire. This product is definitely not for use as a sex lubricant, not that you’d necessarily want gold bits chipping off your hoo-ha. Or maybe you would. I’m not going to judge.

After doing some self-massage with Flickering Touch³ I peered down at my legs to see how glittery I was. The answer was none. I was none glittery. Disappointing! I took myself into full sunlight. No change. Man, that stinks. As my commitment to sparkle motion is often so very tenuous I really hoped this product would give it a boost. Boo.

How did it perform at its primary function? Eh. Meh. Really, it wasn’t awful, but neither was it fabulous. It allowed hands to glide over skin for a reasonable length of time but… Well. I think I’ve mentioned before my utter horror at being left sticky by lubes, lotions, potions and the like. Sticky: HATE. IT. And I’m sorry to say that Flickering Touch left me sticky, so sticky in fact that even though I wiped it off with a damp cloth, when I came back inside from running an errand on a warm, breezy day I found my legs dotted with bits of grit and dandelion fluff. Is this sexy? I think not.

[As I revise this, several hours have passed and still I feel sticky. People, this simply would not happen with Pjur, which disappears into the skin leaving it wondrously smooth and (most importantly) *not* sticky.]

Oddly enough, this product’s description on Lelo.com seems to be jank at the moment; it mentions Flickering Touch’s superior toy cleaning anti-microbial properties. That’s odd. Lelo does carry a toy cleaner, but this massage oil is definitely not it. Someone should look into that.

You know, if you’re really bent on having a pretty bottle to display next to your bed there are plenty of worse choices than this one. Judged solely on its merits as a massage oil, however, it leaves something to be desired. My recommendation: shop Lelo for their really superior rechargeable vibes and stick with Pjur for a sex lube that’s also the best massage oil ever.

————

Available at Lelo.com, $39.90

1. You do not remember? Whatever were you doing in fourth grade when I was reading this series again and again and again and wishing with all my heart for a door, a magical land and the smell all around me of lion mane?
2. ish
3. And by the motherfucking way, what kind of name is Flickering Touch for a massage oil? I mean I can totally see it as a name for a candle, and Lelo does have a candle with the same name. But who wants their massage to be flickering? NOT I.

======================

This post, Lelo Flickering Touch Massage Oil, originally appeared on aag on Thursday, May 12, 2011. Tweet This Post!

======================