If you’ve ever been in a sex shop, you probably noticed that more sex toys are aimed at women than men. Female sex toys are completely accepted in our society—in fact, they’re more than accepted. In most porn, a women either plays with a toy herself or has her partner use a toy on her.
According to a 2004 survey in Cosmo, over 50 percent of female readers said they regularly use sex toys, with most women using a sex toy while they were in a relationship. The toy was not used as a substitute for their partner; rather, it was added to sex for variety. According to the same survey, 90 percent of those sex toy users said they were honest about it with their partners.
If you haven’t noticed, there’s a huge stigma attached to men who use sex toys, like the “Flesh Light.” As a society, we see men that have and use male sex toys as weird or creepy, and that they should rather go out and “actually get laid.”
I don’t feel that way. I think toys can be a fun addition when you’re getting down to business by yourself or with a partner—whether you’re male or female.
Are these reactions caused by the idea that there is only a small amount of men who use sex toys? That may not be true. More and more men are purchasing male-targeted sex toys. But despite the rise in sales of male sex toys, there’s still a prejudice towards the men who use them.
I think a huge reason we have such a problem with male sex toys is because the way they look. Let’s be honest—they look awful. They literally look like vaginas. They don’t come in fun shapes and an array of colors like women’s sex toys do.
However, there is a new breed of male sex toys that don’t look like the traditional “Flesh Light” ones. They’re called Tenga Eggs, and they look like eggs. I got a six-pack of the eggs for my male friends to try out (I think this makes me an awesome friend). To use the egg, you unwrap it, take out the lubricant, unwrap the silicone sex toy and go to town.
All my male friends said they enjoyed it, but that nothing is as good as the real thing, and that they enjoyed that it didn’t look like a traditional male sex toy. It was small enough to hide and disposable. There’s no awkward washout like there is with a Flesh Light.
Then I asked them to try the eggs with their partners.
I wanted to see if there would be a stigma against using the male sex toys as opposed to the female ones. Only one friend said his girlfriend was weirded out by the thought of using the egg. The other three friends said their partners thought the egg was “cute” and “fun.” When they guys asked their partners if they would be willing to use a Flesh Light, none of their partners said they would.
I think if the male sex toy marketplace makes more sex toys that aren’t as obvious as a vagina, male sex toys will be more accepted. I also think that we need to be more open-minded and accepting of male sex toys. There’s nothing weird or bad about men who choose to use a toy instead of their hand. Everyone should be able to enjoy sex toys.
I think that a bunch of men– upon suggesting that women’s toys were too euphemistic for their comfort level– saying that women’s sex toys needed to change, would get nailed to the cross.
Good thing my wife was the one who insisted that I try these for myself. I was the one who was actually against it but my opinion has long changed. Being far from each other on a constant basis, we can still enjoy each other due to the latest “distant toys” the industry produces.