Interview with a Sex Toy Reviewer: Part 1

This past week I’ve been rounding up my sex toys and reorganizing everything so that when I reach for something in my hutch, 6 sex toys don’t come crashing down on the desk top. And so that I know where my favorites are. I noticed later as I tended to my virtual toybox that whoa….I’ve owned/reviewed over 115 sex toys since I started this blog. Not all of these have been reviewed at all or published here; a number are waiting for my review. Some purchases I think I’ve even forgotten about and aren’t on the list. My count isn’t including books or massage oils/lubes; I don’t review porn or condoms or lingerie, and I’ve taken several “Every sex toy sucks or I’m jaded” breaks from reviewing.

I’ve learned a lot since I started reviewing sex toys. That’s a very obvious statement, though, because I’d really only discovered sex toys a few years prior. My old collection was kinda sad. Before I started my first reviews I wrote about the sex toys I did own and what was tossed prior to the photo being snapped. I wish I’d taken a pic of everything first, then pitched, because I read the post and I’m not sure what dildo I was referring to. I also read that post and cringe at what a NOOB I was. Ah well. We all are at some point. But when I look back at the first post I did after I’d been reviewing for a little while, while I still didn’t have the experience under my belt that I do now, I can see that many things changed as newer, better sex toys arrived on my doorstep but one constant has remained: my undying love for the Njoy Pure Wand.

The most important things I’ve learned since being a reviewer:

1. Luxury sex toys, more often than not, are not worth their price tag if you don’t orgasm fairly easy. (note: this is no longer true!)

2. Silicone = Good!

3. Phthalates = Bad! Jelly = Bad!

4. Before you buy, research and read. It helps if you can get a sense of what other things the reviewer has liked & disliked to see if their opinions will be useful to you. It’s like trying to judge for yourself if that Italian restaurant would be a good place to go if the only review is from someone who hates Italian food.

5. Yes, the g-spot IS all it’s cracked up to be if you have the right tools.

My favorites used to include the Hitachi Magic Wand, and old Silver Bullet and a few others that have been retired. I quite honestly have only brought out the Hitachi 6 times in the last year and that was merely to use it as a comparison point for other reviews. I have a page up where I keep a running list of my favorite sex toys but even now I can see that the update as of 4 months ago could use another update. Current favorites include: Mystic Wand, Pure Wand of course, Black Magic bullet, e-sensual usb bullet, the Wahl original for when my body is being stubborn, Nobessence Seduction, Evolved Sweet Embrace, Vanity VR6 and the Tantus O2 Cush.

A question I’ve asked of other reviewers is “How many of the many sex toys saw much use past the review phase?” and for me that’s a difficult number to tally up. On my virtual toybox page each item is listed in the order it was reviewed, broken down by category. I look at the vibrator section, the largest, and only 8-10 of those are used these days. A few of the rechargeables might get used more often if I didn’t keep losing the chargers and finding a dead vibrator in my drawer. The first 20 things listed, I only own 5 of now  – the rest were tossed or swapped – and I’ve kept them purely for comparison reasons. However in the first 6-8 months of reviewing I’d say that most items, unless I outright hated them, were used after the review period quite a bit. Of course that was all I *had* so there’s that.

Stay tuned for short interviews with other sex toy review bloggers who will answer these same questions!