5 Weeks, 5 Giveaways: Week 4 – We-Vibe Salsa + Tantus O2 Flurry
We are quickly getting down to the wire! Next week is the final giveaway, which will be a beautiful Fucking Sculptures dildo! But let’s focus on this week. The lucky winner will receive both a red We-Vibe Salsa vibe and a blue Tantus O2 Flurry, courtesy of ME. Once again these babies are in my hands and since the shipping rests on me, if you live outside the US you can enter but I’d need you to chip in for shipping via Paypal – I think the package will weigh in around 1lb9oz.
For a long time, I had my eye on the Tantus O2 Revolution. A LONG time. And then one glorious day I finally got to experience some of their O2 dildos, the Cush and the Flurry. Personally the Cush is more my speed, I quite like the girth but it’s not for everyone. The Flurry, however holds a little more universal appeal. At 1.5″ wide it’s not too big for anal play fans once you’ve had some warm-up, and it’s a great size for vaginal penetration, too. The base is super sturdy, and fits wonderfully in a harness.
Of course my favorite vibrator the SALSA. I’ve said so much about it already, so let’s hear from someone else. One of the winners of the big Salsa giveaway contacted me to let me know how utterly in love they are with their new Salsa:
Thank you again for the Salsa. It has dramatically improved my sex life. You’ve sent me a near-perfect sex toy, probably as close to the platonic ideal vibrator as I’ll ever find. The deep, rumbly vibrations are actually strong enough to get through to my Zoloft-addled nervous system and bring me to satisfying climax. The pointy tip is perfect for the focused clitoral stimulation I crave, and the hard plastic is my favorite vibrator material by far because it transmits vibrations so well and lets me apply a bit of pressure. The size is small enough that it works well for use during intercourse. You have no idea how nice it is to climax during partnered sex again! I’d given up on the idea of vibration patterns years ago: the only way I enjoyed any of the vibrators I’d owned was to set them to high and keep them there. Yet, I find myself utterly in lust with the Salsa’s wave setting; the gradual ebb and flow of power is the perfect way to get worked up before I crank the strength to medium (!) or high. In short, the Salsa is amazing and you are amazing for giving them away (and for being a great, entertaining, and informative blogger, of course).
Now that is the stuff I like to hear!! Responses like those are why I wanted to give away the Salsa and share my love for it.
How To Enter
Leave a comment below and tell me a few things:
1. You’re here because you know *something* about sex toys even if you’re not an expert and only have owned a couple. Tell me what you’ve learned from us reviewers that you wish you had known early on in your sex life or your life with sex toys.
2. Tell me why I should pick you!
If you’re outside the US, please be aware that I’ll need you to pay for shipping. Check here to see how much it’ll be to ship to you. It’s a package weighing 1 lb 9 ounces and I’ll be sending it First Class.
CONTEST IS CLOSED – WINNER WILL BE ANNOUNCED JULY 5th
1. I review sex toys now but in the beginning, I wish I’d known more about what materials sex toys are made from. We’ve ended up using some pretty dodgy ones in the past (PVC, jelly and rubber) and I worry about the effects these may have had on our bodies. If I could go back in time I’d make sure I never bought anything like that and didn’t recommend them to others either.
2. You should choose me because I *still* totally want a Salsa and I’d love a Tantus product. The Flurry looks especially awesome because it’s my favourite colour and has a flared base, which means I’ll finally have a new toy to peg Daddy with that is bodysafe!
And yes, I’ve checked the package price and it should be about $23, which I can afford (yay!).
1. When I first started using sex toys, I wish I knew more about safe materials and how to properly care for those materials. Today, I try to stay away from materials that could potentially harm my body.
2. I would love to be chosen because I have a hard time reaching orgasm (clitoral and vaginal) and I know from reviews Salsa is supposed to be very powerful. I think this would be a wonderful fit for me. As far as the Tantus Flurry goes, I love the design of this and the size is more my style versus some of the other girthy Tantus dildos.
1. I also wish I knew about the different types of materials and the variety of toys available. I find reviews incredibly helpful to help narrow down what suits me best.
2. I should win because I love trying new things!
I’ve learned two big things from sex toy reviewers that I wish I’d known back when I was starting out in sexytimes. First, I wish I’d known about what different dildo shapes are good / bad for – like a field guide! I’d been under the assumption that everything was various degrees of flesh-colored penis shapes, and my first dip into what actually exists was a little overwhelming. For example, I didn’t realize how AMAZING curved toys would be for me until I read a bunch of reviews. Just looking at the shape of a toy, as someone who barely knew how her own vagina worked, didn’t tell me much about what was going to happen when it went inside me.
Secondly, though this isn’t a “fact,” the practical, no-shit attitude that a lot of sex toy reviewers have (you included) has been really beneficial for me! When I was trying to figure out how to masturbate (something I didn’t master until recently) I got a lot of wishy-washy “love your body, set the mood, light some candles” stuff that put me off my lunch. I really needed some detailed breakdowns of what worked for people, what didn’t, and WHY to go off of. Listening to people who approached it as a science experiment, instead of something from a romance novel, was refreshing and fun!
Why do I want these toys? For the Salsa: I have a goddamn picky clitoris. It is the bane of boyfriends everywhere (and even myself) for being too much work. It alternates between “EVERYTHING IS PAIN” and “everything is numbness.” Through process of elimination, I’ve figured out I need a lot of warmup, followed by super-strong, pinpoint vibrations – but I don’t own anything that does both tricks at once. So your and your other winners’ descriptions of this toy make it sound perfect. Want to help make my clitoral orgasms less elusive?
For the Flurry: I’ve fondled the O2 dildos before and they feel delicious, but I can’t afford one. Also, both of my partners looked at the Flurry and immediately declared “I want to fuck you silly with that.” You’ll be making three people happy. What can go wrong?
1. I wish I’d learned early on which materials are safe and which aren’t. I have a long, floppy jelly dildo that was purple when I bought it at 18. I’m now 20 and it’s totally clear. What the hell? For clarity: I haven’t used it since I started reading sex toy blogs at 19 and I only keep it around to show people.
2. You should pick me because I love your blog and because I can’t afford to go buy fun sex toys – I’m between jobs, and my last job was minimum-wage. Hopefully I’ll get hired soon, but if hopes were sex toys, I’d be swimming in silicone. I also promise that if you pick me I’ll use my lovely DSLR to take photos of it in a superhero cape battling origami dinosaurs.
1. By far and away, the thing I wish I had known from the start was to avoid awful materials. I was lucky to not react to any of my very first few sex toys way back when, but when it came time to buy my second-ever butt plug, I had the misfortune of choosing some terrible jelly Doc Johnson thing. I was so excited to finally be ready to try a bigger toy, but my new acquisition kept giving me this awful burning feeling – I thought the problem was me! I figured I was rushing it and that maybe this new plug was too big after all. I tossed it out and went back to the smaller one. Sigh. Only years later, after learning about phthalates and material safety through my online research did I realize what had been happening and try again with a better, silicone toy.
Beyond that, though, reviewers really got my passion for toys rolling. When I started working in a B&M sex shop a few years ago, and I really knew very little. And although there was some training on the basics, I still felt like I was missing out on a lot of information – lots of toys had materials listed on their boxes that my employers couldn’t explain to me (what’s the difference between cyberskin and realskin? Does sil-a-gel have any silicone in it? Why does this one say silicone but look and feel so different from this other one that also claims to be silicone?), and so I turned to the internet. Eventually I stumbled upon the sites of toy reviewers and my whole outlook on sex toys began changing. I started questioning some of the things I was being told at work: for example, the company I worked for was always pushing a certain brand of lube as the best one. Online, I was reading pretty sub-par reviews of that brand, and much better ones about a number of others. I slowly stopped parroting the lines I’d be given and started doing all my own research about the products we carried, and soon I found that I really didn’t want to be selling half the things in my shop – so many questionable materials and products with awful reviews that I couldn’t bring myself to push on unsuspecting customers. Eventually I started doing some reviews of my own, and that was the beginning of the end of my stint in that shop.
Online reviewers like yourself really had a big impact on me not only in my personal sex life, but by helping me see the awful unethical side of the industry and giving me the information I needed to start educating others. To the dismay of my employer, I was quite vocal about my findings and aggressive in teaching my coworkers what I’d learned. Making money for a shifty company was never my priority, clearly. I just wish the salesperson who sold me that awful jelly butt plug way back when had been knowledgeable and kind enough to educate me instead of just taking my money.
2. The Flurry and the Salsa are two toys I’ve been DYING to try. I was seriously excited when I saw that your giveaway was for not one but two toys that have been on the top of my list for ages. What are the chances?
I have the Cush and while I love the look of it and the feel of the silicone, I found it’s a bit big for me to use comfortably. When the Flurry came out my first thought was, “It’s PERFECT. It’s got the things I like about the Cush but with better dimensions for me!” But, I couldn’t justify spending the money on something so similar to a toy I already owned, so I never did end up buying one. Instead I just put it on all my wishlists and gazed wistfully at its product page, hah.
As for the Salsa – I’m really picky with my vibrators. I’m more of a dildo girl generally, but I do really enjoy deep, rumbly vibrations, and I know that the Salsa is all about that. I remember drooling over that whole line of vibrators when we got them in stock when I worked in the sex shop, but again, I never felt like I had the cash to blow (and I couldn’t decide between the shapes. Salsa vs. Tango? Vs. Touch? HMM.). I’m also really interested in seeing whether using the Salsa as a bullet in some of my Tantus toys could change how I feel about vibration internally. Maybe I just haven’t been using a powerful enough vibrator? I would absolutely love to find out.
1. Reviewers have taught me everything I know about sex toys. Even though I didn’t head their advice about where to shop (sigh), I’m glad I met the people I did in a community I no longer belong to. I owe the contributors so much. They taught me what materials and brands to trust as well as how to write reviews.
2. I’d like to be chosen because I’m a HUUUUGE Tantus fan. My first toy ever was a Tantus and my love affair with them just keeps blossoming. Seriously, they are like silicone wizards! I recently got the O2 Cush and I’m afraid I might have bit off more than my vagina can chew…not that my vagina has teeth, cause it totally doesn’t… Anyway, I think the Flurry might be more my speed. Speaking of speed, that’s what all the reviews about the Salsa remark on; that such a discreet toy could have such incredible speed and power. Needless to say, everyone has their eye on the Salsa!
1. Honestly, I have found you early, since you started my REAL foray into sex toys. But what I wish I had been told earlier is that sex toys can help you discover yourself in a way that makes partner sex more enjoyable. I was a bit scared of toys since I was starting to feel that I just wasn’t meant to orgasm with a partner, and the one cheap vibrator I had bought didn’t do much, so what was the point at all? I read that you only had a partner orgasm after discovering toys, which gave me hope on both accounts. And you helped me learn about different types of vibrations, different types of toys, inspiring me to give new things a shot. It’s really helpful to know that even toys that seem similar can be vastly different, so just because you have a dud doesn’t mean you should give up.
2. I would love these two to help me explore more! I have never had an orgasm except by pull-up and muscle contraction, even in the caring hands of my adagio partner (can I bribe you with a video of our first adagio? We’re so proud of it. You should watch it anyway. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7nUahIu314 ) I recently bought my first nice vibe (the Lelo Ina II) and love it, but it still doesn’t get me off, and I’ll have to save up for a while yet to get anything else. I’ve heard great things about the Salsa (from you and others!) and feel it might be that extra thing to push me over the edge. And I don’t yet have a dildo of any sort, but I’ve been really eager to try out a Tantus!
Thank you for reading, and for everything you’ve written. You’ve been a big motivator for me trying to figure myself out. It’s been fun!
I realize this is likely too late, but I’m a huge fan of your blog, and would like to share this, regardless of any prize. I hope that’s okay.
I suffer from a variety of disabling, chronic pelvic pain disorders (Vulvodynia, Clitorodynia, Pudendal Nerve Entrapment, Pelvic Floor Dysfunction, Endometriosis, IC, etc.) and have been using toys for a while now to make them much more manageable.
I stumbled across the blogging world earlier this year, partially out of curiosity, mainly out of utter desperation. I’ve spoken to many others with these conditions over the years, and we all share in the immense frustration of not being able to do anything pleasurable for fear of pain. I’ve been forced into celibacy for the past decade or so, and stuck in my room, unable to move or get out of bed.
I felt hopeless. I’d been to every specialist in the country, and no one had any answers on how to make my life, well… livable. What they did have were a million diagnoses, and the awful idea to paralyze me from the waist down, as a last resort. …NOPE.
I cried. I tried to distract myself from the reality of the situation. And then… a revelation.
I started reading rave reviews, on blogs such as yours, of the wonders of silicone. Prior to this, I’d been given hard, decidedly NOT body-safe plastic cones to use as dilators, both rectally and vaginally. Needless to say… I couldn’t use them. As someone who can’t use the bathroom without shedding a few tears, the idea of shoving cold, hard plastic into a place with mangled, damaged nerves and perpetually inflamed skin wasn’t exactly appealing.
Enter Tantus. The Silk line. Enter Vixen; the Vixskin line, in particular. Enter Vamp; their incredible soft skin options. Enter vibrators! I tend to be pretty rough on myself, so having them makes clitoral stimulation a possibility once more. (Thank the gods.) Plugs of all kinds have done some amazing things for me, and were the first step, in all of this. The Sliquid line of lubricants that I’d read so much about (Sea, Sassy) helped with the vaginal dilation. Small silicone toys + a fabulous, anti-inflammatory lube = penetration for the first time… ever. Exams have always had to be done while I was already in for invasive surgery, and out cold. The list goes on. “Finally!”, I thought.
I was elated to find that an idea I had earlier this year, combined with the wonders of silicone, worked as I thought it would: not only was I able to bypass a large amount of the pain, and get the chronically tight, spasmed muscles to calm down enough to stick anything, anywhere… but finally experience something that felt really, really nice, and did more for my health than any awkward, invasive PT treatments have in the past several years. Said PT, herself, is amazed at the difference; not just in the pelvic region, but everywhere. (Immune disorders, Fibromyalgia, etc.) I still have a long way to go, and am encountering many roadblocks, especially as of late… but this has opened up many new treatment possibilities, and I couldn’t be happier.
It isn’t an exaggeration at all to say that toys have saved my relationship, even my life. They’ve given me my sex life back. I’m experimenting with toys, and finding new ways around things every day, that I was previously told I could never do again. It may not be easy, but it’s a possibility, now, and I couldn’t ask for more. I remember being absolutely crushed when I was told that I wasn’t allowed to have my partner’s saliva touch me (Vulvodynia sensitivity, immune disorders), that I could no longer sit or walk (Pudendal Nerve Entrapment), that touching myself was a thing that needed to be avoided at all costs, for fear of not only excruciating pain, but further nerve damage. I’ve had countless doctors recommend that I have the nerves in my lower back/spine severed, to have my clitoris removed, simply to alleviate the pain. I’m at the end of the line, as far as treatments go. The pain was, and is, getting to the point where it had to become a consideration. At the cost of losing an integral part of myself, though? I’ve always been a highly sexual person, with a genderqueer identity to boot, and I wasn’t having it. I won’t have it. Reading blogs over the past year or so, discovering all of the options out there, has been nothing short of a blessing.
Due to the above, I’m in the process of setting up a toy review blog with a medical slant, as I know that many, many women (and men, and other) out there also suffer from crippling pelvic pain and chronic conditions. I’m looking forward to sharing what I’ve found. It’s amazing what certain items, intended for another use altogether, can do. It’s my hope that it will be useful to both those using the items in a conventional manner, as well as for a medical benefit, especially where pelvic disorders are concerned.
Thank you for allowing me to share all of this. I love your blog. I found you via SheVibe, who have been nothing short of amazing in accommodating my strange requests. I’m not the average shopper, that’s for sure, but they’ve gone above and beyond to make sure that I’m comfortable and happy with every purchase I make.
Keep it up!
1. Me and my wife only started experimenting with toys just over a year ago and since then we have learn a lot and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. Safety of toys has been of the upmost importance and was one of the first things we learned and something I would make sure others knew before purchasing a toy if possible.
2. I would like to win the salsa because, as with all of your giveaways so far, everyone has given it an excellent review. The Tantus is something that both me and my wife looks interesting to try, she usually prefers vibrators to standard dildos but she would certainly like to try it. Both of these toys are high quality and we would be very happy to win them. As I said previously I love giving her a much pleasure as possible.
1. I am VERY new to the whole Toy scene. I have recently borrowed the We-vibe Salsa and OH MY was I ever “blown away!!!”
Like I said I am very new to the world of toys! My first toy was a hard plastic type vibrator, it had been given to me as a “gag gift”. When it “died” on me I just used it as a dildo. Never ventured out to buy any new toys, mostly due to a spouse who’s “Ego” couldn’t handle his wife getting off with something other then him!! Good news though he is out of the picture now. I am free to explore the fabulous world of Sex Toys!
2. I think you should choose me because I’ve read the reviews on the Tantus and it sure sounds like a Fabulous product and as for the WeVibe Salsa—well it would be nice to have one of my own!! I cannot afford to buy one for myself right now as I am going through a bitter separation. It would most definately be a Great stress reliever as well!!
What a generous offer! Hi there, I’m new to your blog, but heard about it because of the giveaway. :)
1. This is painfully simple, but I wish someone had told me that there actually were purpose-designed items out there that could satisfy me safely. I was isolated in a fairly repressed environment, but even as a young teenager I instinctively knew that using household items was dangerous. Yet I had no alternative. I tried to be as careful as I could, though, and was terrified of doing irreparable harm to myself. Now in my 20s, I only “discovered” sex toys this year and I hold an *immense* appreciation for the high safety awareness in the sex blogging/reviewing community.
2. My priority right now is to obtain a sufficient stash that I’m no longer on the verge of resorting to household items. I don’t yet own anything silicone designed for vaginal insertion, or any insertable vibrators. My dildos so far are steel and glass, and I’ve known for a while now that I need the option of something soft. I’m also craving vibrations inside me, but my only ones are clitoral. My clit goes numb but it does work…kinda. I actually paid a couple dollars to get 100 watch batteries so that I could keep one of them going. I’ve learned a trick: I can adjust the vibrations by stopping to swap out batteries in different stages of deadness. It’d be such a relief to increase or decrease with a simple touch instead!
Since you are choosing the winner, I’m obligated to inform you that the plastic surface of the Salsa could potentially cause an allergic-type reaction for me, but not necessarily. I wouldn’t know for certain unless I tried it. If it caused a reaction it’d still be loads better than my current setup; I’d just use barrier methods.
Thanks so much for the opportunity. I’ll be around!