This is one of the big reasons I created this blog. I grew up in an era when we just did
not discuss this sort of thing. Even when I was trading men's magazines with my friends in high school, we never spoke of it. I think the image was that we were all reading them at home in our wing-back leather chairs, wearing a smoking jacket and puffing a pipe. Visualizing each other in the reality of it, sitting on a toilet, trying to knock one out quietly in the middle of the afternoon in the hall bathroom, was a serious woodkill. If you thought about what your friends were really doing with those magazines, you wouldn't be able to get it up for a week.
This is exactly why I'm writing this blog: it's allowing me to discuss something that would never be talked about otherwise.
Some time, in a more appropriate post, I'll go into the social part of things, but for this post I'm just going to start with this background: I'm single, I'm not seeing anyone, I don't believe in one-night-stands or casual sex or hookers. Which means there's a whole lot of masturbation going on.
Some people can hump their right hand for their entire lives and love it, but for some of us it gets dull after awhile, no matter how much you like it. My hand is great, but it's not perfect. So every so often I start looking around for something else.
I've had a small variety of things over the years (which are grist for other posts). A few were terrible; a few were forgettable; and while I never found anything that was a great replacement for Rosie Palm and her five sisters, a few were worthwhile.
One of the toys I kept, and I still have it around, is called a "pussy & anus" (P&A) toy. It's a lump of some sort of rubber that's molded from a woman's genital area. Inside there are two channels, one from the "pussy" and one from the "anus," and they merge inside. The stem of that Y makes an air hole in the far end of the P&A (you normally don't see it in photos). That makes it much easier to clean, and you don't have to fight air pockets while you're using it. If you want suction, you just plug up the hole.
Most toys you hold in your hand, like a Fleshlight, and if you want a hands-free experience, you jam it in-between sofa cushions or mattresses or tape it onto a bedpost or whatever. A P&A is designed to be used hands-free. It's too heavy to use hand-held (you can, but you have to have Popeye forearms to sustain it). The bottom of it is flat and it's heavy, so it'll stay put where you set it.
And there lies the rub. I read a lot of product reviews and I never see anyone really discuss the true logistics on these things. For instance:
I don't want to "use my imagination" with this; it doesn't do it for me. I like to be watching something on the computer or the tv. That suddenly makes things very complicated, because the computer monitor is on a desk and the tv is on a bureau, which makes for comfortable viewing if you're in a chair.
I'm not in a chair if I'm using this thing.
The bed has two problems: if you're in a missionary position, you can't see the tv no matter which way I'm facing. The bed is against the wall so I can't go cross-wise. So unless I want to set up some elaborate mirroring system, the bed is out.
I could put it on the seat of the chair and attack it from a kneeling position, but the chairs are too high. Even my computer chair, at its lowest, is just a bit too high.
I could put it on a box, but finding a box that's the right height has been difficult. Plus the P&A is heavy, so if you use a cardboard box, the box shimmies and sways and bounces in ways you don't necessarily enjoy.
I find it's best on the floor, placed on a pillow or a sofa cusion. It's a comfortable height and I can stretch out. But I need another hinge in my neck because I can't get a good view of the tv.
The last place I was at, I had a console TV that could be comfortably viewed from floor level. (Wait—I now have a light, flat panel tv instead of the old monster CrT. I could easily set it on the floor—nope. I'd have to replace the cables with much longer ones.)
Anyway, that leaves books and magazines. Since I like to flip pages a lot, it becomes awkward. It's a bit like Gomez Addams reading a magazine while standing on his head, with that fast flick of the page so he doesn't unbalance himself. I find myself worrying more about turning pages than what I'm supposed to be doing.
Then there's the temperature. In the summer there's no problem, but in the winter you have to plan ahead. You have to fill the sink with hot water and submerge the toy for while to warm it up thoroughly. A small toy warms realtively fast, but a solid P&A acts as a heat sink. So unless you're into necrophilia, sticking your johnson into a cold block of rubber sends a chill right up your spine, taking all the blood back with it. And while you're at it, you gotta warm up the lube, too. Ever been in the middle of a glorious session and then pour what feels like icewater on it? Eeeeeaaaaaaaaggggghhh
Sometimes it seems like dating is less trouble.
I'm behind in my reading. Sorry.
A friend of mine once told me this: her boyfriend lived far enough away that they could only get together on weekends. You'd think the routine would be pavlovian and she'd be ready for sex on the weekends. But instead she found herself horniest in the middle of the week and uninterested on the weekends when he was available.